Pandemics, Authoritarian Populism, and Science Fiction

Medicine, Military, and Morality in American Film

Jeremiah Morelock

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN:
  9780367720575
• eBook ISBN:
  9781000353778
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Literature

With a focus on I Am Legend and Day of the Dead—two series of film remakes of popular science fiction stories—this book addresses the social origins of the recent surge in authoritarian and populist social movements. Exploring the ways in which the themes of tribalism, confidence in medical science, and confidence in military violence changed over the years in the process of re-telling these stories in popular culture, the author identifies the shift towards a narrowing of moral scope, an embrace of military violence and a distrust of medical science with three elements of authoritarian populism: tribalism, distrust of rational elites and their institutions, and willingness for violent coercion. An engaging study of popular culture that sheds light on contemporary political attitudes, Pandemics, Authoritarian Populism, and Science Fiction will appeal to scholars of sociology, social theory, and cultural studies with interests in critical theory, film studies, and science fiction.

Part I

Chapter 1

Politics and pandemics intertwined

What is authoritarian populism?

Stuart Hall birthed “authoritarian populism” as a specific term in his work of the late 1970s (Hall, et al. 2013). Hall’s notion was rather situated in space and time, as a diagnosis of Britain’s move toward Thatcherism. He characterized this sort of movement as a combination of fervent nationalism in rhetoric with neoliberalism in politics. Hall’s concept is thus pretty broad, and the term “authoritarian populism” has endured into the present day, such as in recent analyses of Trumpism and other far-right phenomena in the United States (Norris and Inglehart 2019; Kellner 2016).

The definition I use here of “authoritarian populism” is arguably wider than Hall’s original term, although Hall’s notion is certainly consonant with it. When I speak of authoritarian populism in this book, I mean it in the more intuitive sense that a person unfamiliar with Hall’s work is more likely to interpret the term. I simply refer to movements that are simultaneously authoritarian and populist. One might imagine a Venn diagram of authoritarianism, populism, and their intersection. Yet the terms “authoritarianism” and “populism” are still very slippery in their meanings. To be more explicit about the meaning I am using here, I offer the following brief working definition of authoritarian populism:

In the pages that follow, to be “authoritarian” is to seek social homogeneity through coercion. “Populism” is defining a section of the population as truly and rightfully “the people” and aligning with this section against a different group identified as elites. Together, “authoritarian populism” refers to the pitting of “the people” against “elites” in order to have the power to drive out, wipe out, or otherwise dominate Others who are not “the people.” Generally, this involves social movements fueled by prejudice and led by charismatic leaders that seek to increase governmental force to combat difference.

(Morelock 2018, xiv)

While neither authoritarianism nor populism is specific to right vis-à-vis left politics, authoritarian populism is generally more explicit on the Right (Morelock and Narita 2018, 2019). Correspondingly, in this study I am interested first and foremost in American far-right authoritarian populism, which is generally associated with Trumpism, the Alt-Right and contemporary white nationalism. So, when I refer to “authoritarian populism” here, it is intended to broadly signify those movements.

Being a broad grouping of tendencies and phenomena, the term “authoritarian populism” needs to be broken down more in order to address it effectively—otherwise it stays on very general and vague terms. There are many ways to break up and analyse such an “object,”¹ and any one way of analysing it is probably incomplete. For purposes of some degree of analytic clarity, in this study I break up “authoritarian populism” according to three “elements.” These are not the only ways to break it up and analyse it, but they do have background in the literature and they are the ones I chose to organize my study so as to be able to address—even if only partially—the broad phenomena of authoritarian populism. I introduce the elements below.

Three elements of authoritarian populism

Tribalism

There is in-group/out-group alignment and antagonism. In the terms of Nazi political theorist Carl Schmitt (2005), this is the “friend-enemy” distinction. This can occur on a variety of axes, including race/ethnicity, political belief, religion, class, gender, age, and so on. For purposes of parsimony, in this study I frame tribalism in terms of racial and political difference, and I am particularly interested in how these divisions can operate in tandem. Popular political alignments in the United States today tend to run along racial lines, with the Alt-Right touting white nationalism, and the Left touting #BlackLivesMatter. At least in this country, tribalism along racial and political lines frequently appears like one axis of division. This is not to say that the political Right are all white and the political Left are all people of colour. Rather, more of the non-white vote typically goes to the Democrats, and the majority of Republican voters are overwhelmingly white. This became especially marked in the 2016 election, when white racial anxieties contributed greatly to Trump’s victory.

Distrust of rational elites and their institutions

This is the most complicated of the three elements I am outlining here. Those people who are identified as “elites” can in principle vary in a complex society. Populist political movements will predictably identify the political establishment, at minimum. But it tends to go far beyond just this. Authoritarian populist movements typically involve a claim to directness and authenticity that the entrenched establishment lacks. The rhetoric of the movement often speaks to casting off the shackles of modern rationality as it is deployed to manage the population (“regular people”) by specialists and technocrats. “The people” seek to bring society back to earlier times, when their “way of life” was not under threat by the constant impingements of “experts” who use their stocks of knowledge as a claim to the right to overturn traditional culture in favour of the rule of them and their cadre. The authoritarian populist leader is typically a “great little man,” exhibiting traits of a strong leader as well as a down-to-earth “regular person.”

The far-Right (and others) often point to the University as a bastion of liberal elitism and political correctness (Harris 2010; Shapiro 2010; Kors and Silverglate 1999; Lukianoff 2014). College students, college professors, and college graduates are all by this reasoning part of the American educated elite, at least to some degree. The vitriol is especially directed toward the humanities, which—unable to boast of a non-academic job skill set or career track—are only used to further human understanding. Learning for learning’s sake is pure intellectualism, and the language of the academy (“academese” or “jargon”) is a mark of separation from the culture of “the people.” Traces of this way of thinking extend beyond the far-Right. Consider the adage “those who can’t do, teach,” or the term “academic” when it is used to disparage a complex logical argument as removed from reality and hence discreditable.

While in the University the humanities are most decried in such terms, the “scientific community”—a circuit that intersects with the University but is not confined to it—is also often targeted. The grounds are typically religious or political, and again have to do with an alleged elite group of educated liberals pushing their own agendas and rendering conservatives oppressed. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Trump severed ties between the United States and the WHO, held political rallies with no social distancing measures enforced, and ignored the analyses and warnings of top scientists at every turn. Many of the Right rejected wearing masks in public, viewing the act as one of defiance against an oppressive medico-technocratic liberal elite. In connection with the intertwining of racial and political alignments mentioned above, note that the sickness and death of COVID-19 in the US fall disproportionately on communities of colour. One should be careful in deciding exactly what this means, but at the very least, the pattern persists—for the Left to wear masks and follow social distancing protocol simultaneously positions them as listening to scientific experts and caring about the well-being of racial minorities. The most consistent religious dividing line is the debate about teaching creation vs. evolution in schools. Here, science is on one side, and religion (Christianity) is on the other. The science behind evolution is not only discredited by the far-Right, it is also taken to be a threat to Christianity. Climate change is another area where science and scientists are decried outright as liberal elites who are pushing a liberal agenda (Otto 2016).

The rejection of the scientific community extends into a rejection of Western medicine, which of course is rooted in science. Christian Scientists, for instance, believe that illness is caused by unhealthy thinking, and that prayer and right thinking will cure illness instead of scientific medicine (Schoepflin 2003). Some evangelicals also advise against Western medical practices, and suggest turning to Jesus instead (LaMotte 2018). A more aggressive rejection comes in the form of religious objections to abortion and reproductive technologies such as IVF (Sallam and Sallam 2016). Religious objections also extend into stem cell research and the prospect of human cloning (Evans 2002). Sometimes backed with religious fervour, many people are avoiding and protesting vaccinations (Dubé, Vivion, and MacDonald 2015).

To authoritarian populists, science is not all bad. Again, it is not scientific knowledge per se that is the problem; it is elite scientists and scientific intellectuals who allegedly try to use their elite status and esoteric knowledge to control “the people” and destroy traditional ways of life. In this sense, scientific advances can be very useful if they do not make waves in the traditional culture, and are not promoted by “elites” as tools for steering society. In this way, technicians who use technologies for practical ends may be celebrated. For example, carpenters who uses power tools are not classified as scientific elites, nor are they shamed or shunned for using electrical equipment. To take another example—and this leads to the next “element”—advancements in military technology are not railed against, as they do not impinge on the rhythms, customs, and values of everyday life. They are simply more effective ways of killing, and most of their deployment happens toward Others. Military personnel who use the advanced equipment for killing, are not considered part of the controlling “elite,” and the military is not decried as an elite institution.

Willingness for violent coercion

Finally, the acceptance or even romanticizing of coercion and violence as political tools is an important element. The Trump presidential campaign carried with it a couple of refrains that pointed in this direction, namely “lock her up” and “build that wall” (Kellner 2016). The shootings at abortion clinics point more violently in this direction (Franklin and Ginsburg 2019). Or consider the famous pick-up truck driver who intentionally ran into left-wing protestors at the 2017 Unite the Right rally, followed in 2020 with numerous instances of people running their cars into #BlackLivesMatter protestors. The acceptance (even if ostensibly in irony at times) of Nazi imagery is another case (Hartzell 2018). The right-wing general stance against gun control can also be considered a hint in this direction (Berlet 1995), while the public display of firearms by right-wing protestors during the COVID-19 pandemic is a clear sign. The fact that American popular culture is often so enamoured with guns is another indication, and the frequency with which shootings in schools and other public places have started to happen only further suggests this (Kellner 2015).

Metaphor

As cognitive linguist George Lakoff has shown, everyday language and cognition are infused with metaphor, whether we are consciously thinking metaphorically or not (Lakoff and Johnson 1980; Lakoff 2014). Even when we do not “mean” the connotations attached to our words, even if they remain invisible and unarticulated, even unconscious, they are still tapped. While the typical use of the term “metaphor” is to refer to one thing standing for another thing in a unidirectional relationship, scholars from a variety of disciplines are turning to the notion that “bidirectionality” is a staple of metaphorical cognition, rather than being exceptional (Goodblatt and Glocksohn 2017). When object A and object B are brought into metaphorical relation, they typically both become coloured with or framed by the other. And these metaphors can be powerful influences on our politics and other values. With this understanding, it is easy to see how disease narratives and Othering could be so entangled in one another, how Others could be described as “parasites” or “cancers” and how illnesses of public concern so often have “War” declared on them in popular and political parlance.

There are different types of metaphor. There is a more direct, denotative type, such as “A is like a B.” Then there is the more metonymic type which can be more indirect and connotative. For instance, when somebody says, “give it a little elbow grease,” this refers to muscular force, not literal “elbow grease” (whatever that would be). This type is more like association due to proximity or attribution, while metaphor taps more into direct comparison of shared traits. “Synecdoche” is like metonymy and has to do with associations of parts and wholes, in either direction. Basically, if A...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Introduction
• PART I
• PART 2
• Index