Viral modernity? Epidemics, infodemics, and the ‘bioinformational’ paradigm

Postdigital Research in the Time of Covid-19

“…Covid-19 is an organic virus which has caused various sorts of organic and nonorganic viral behaviours in all spheres of (human) biology, culture, and society. The interplay of these behaviours can be approached through the lens of Michael Peters' viral modernity, which is 'a concept that is based upon the nature of viruses, the ancient and critical role they play in evolution and culture, and the basic application to understanding the role of information and forms of bioinformation in the social world' (Peters et al 2020). Viral diseases have always been intrinsic to human existence.…”

“…Every age has its own viral modernity, and the Covid-19 pandemic is merely the first global exercise of viral modernity in our 'hard to define; messy; unpredictable; digital and analog; technological and non-technological; biological and informational' postdigital reality (Jandrić et al 2018: 895). These days, we can speak of viral education (exemplified in a current global switch to online education), viral post-truth (exemplified in a global Covid-19 infodemic), viral open science (exemplified in exponential growth of open science and associated publications) (see Peters et al 2020), and so on. Writing these words from home isolation in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, it is hard not to overstate the viral nature of, and viral perspective to, our postdigital reality.…”

“…Economists advise us to prepare the new recession (Elliott 2020). Sociologists see worldwide border closures as an anti-globalization experiment (Peters et al 2020), and philosophers go back to questions pertaining to human nature. Worldwide governments are responding in radically different ways-the government of Montenegro has closed down the whole country before it registered the first patient within its borders (World Health Organization 2020b), while the UK has opted for a laissez faire approach which is hoped to result in herd immunity (Dunn and Kahn 2020).…”

A viral theory of post-truth

“…In our recent article, we defined viral modernity as 'a concept that is based upon the nature of viruses, the ancient and critical role they play in evolution and culture, and the basic application to understanding the role of information and forms of bioinformation in the social world' (Peters et al, 2020). This concept, which 'draws a close association between viral biology on the one hand and information science on the other', is 'an illustration and prime example of [contemporary] bioinformationalism' (Peters et al, 2020). Every age has its own viral modernity.…”

“…As Peters (2020b) points out with unwavering verve, Foucault's hermeneutics of the self and the ancient practice of parrhesia, of speaking the truth, which was derived from Nietzsche's Hellenistic and Roman Stoic philosophical therapeia, addresses the important concept of 'care of the self' as a critical philosophy traceable to Kant, a project which embraces a much wider view of subjectivity than Wittgenstein. Foucault and Wittgenstein, according to Peters (2020), "established antiphilosophy itself as a coherent counter-narrative or counter-tradition, a shadow boxer that seeks to achieve a form of positive nihilism that destroys the liberal Enlightenment tradition as a simple accumulation of inherited 'truths' that represent the major moves in the game of philosophy as such truth are asserted, argued for, opposed, accepted and fought for within the language of metaphysics to determine its legitimacy, its transcendence and its authority." And Peters (2020c) also reminds us that Wittgenstein's 'socialist' conception of a multiplicity of language-games "owes something to the social turn, social epistemology and, at one stage, to his fascination with Russia after the Communist Revolution when he thought at one stage he wanted to live in Moscow."…”