Friday 22nd of March 10.00-12:00 At HUM.G.211
On the 22nd of March, DIGSUM’s guest PhD student Pasko Kisic Merino, Karlstad University, will be giving a seminar on Anxiety as Ideology: Longtermism, Pro-Natalism, and the Normalisation of the Far-Right’s “Great Replacement” in the Mythos of Silicon Valley as part of the seminar series at the Department of Sociology.
Abstract
In this article, we examine how the interplay between three civilisational ideologies – strong longtermism, pro-natalism, and “the great replacement” – has permeated Silicon Valley’s manufacturing of ontological (in)security over the fantasmatic notion of “human progress”. “Strong longtermism” is an extreme form of utilitarianism that provides the temporal element of this discourse. It argues that given numerous existential threats to humankind, collective endeavours and decisions should be entirely dedicated to maximising of the well-being of far-future generations, even to detriment of contemporary societies. Stemming from the ethics of “effective altruism”, strong longtermism also argues that to ensure optimal future-proof outcomes, society as a whole should be dedicated to the causes and discourses of the higher-achieving “elites”. “Pro-natalism” complements strong longtermism on a gender dimension: that the (white, wealthy, western) elites who “possess” the know-how of human progress and are entrusted with the far-future should reproduce as much as possible to ensure the most “optimal” continuity of humankind under their genetic line. Gradually, these anxiety-infused ideologies coalesce in that of the far-right’s “Great Replacement”: that non-Western, non-Whites are quickly replacing White people and culture within and beyond their borders. This triple-pronged anxiety-based ethics – articulating time, gender, and insecurity – operationalises the co-constitution of the processes of far-right normalisation and the advancement of techno-libertarianism. We argue that the advancement of this ontological-securitising ideology – surrendering authority and trust to “post-political” subjects like Elon Musk – operates in parallel to the ontological insecuritisation of Western identities and culture. Under this “Ideology of Anxiety”, human progress and belongingness are discursively fixed to an increasingly normalised techno-libertarian ethics of political commodification which dislocates the Lacanian imaginary other as unethical, political, and atemporal.
Pasko Kisic Merino is a PhD student at the Department of Political Science, Karlstad University, Sweden. He holds degrees in Political Science and Global Studies, and the former Editorial Manager for the journal Political Psychology. His previous work includes research on the psycho-political features of far-right movements and actors, as well as on social media massification and radicalisation processes. His current research focuses on the relationship between far-right discourses, social media technologies and politics, artificial intelligence, and the consequences of the entertainment culture in contemporary politics. His PhD research is funded by the Wallenberg AI, Autonomous Systems and Software Program – Humanities and Society (WASP-HS).
For more information about the event, see [here].