Il neoliberismo vuole la pandemia? Giorgio Agamben, Byung-Chul Han e la crisi sanitaria

Faced with the current pandemic situation, many thinkers examined not only the relationship between the political dimension and the present health emergency, and the related social and economic transformations, but also and above all the changes in the construction of identity and the self-perception that it has determined and will continue to determine. Giorgio Agamben and Byung-Chul Han, although starting from different analyses (disciplinary society / performance society), agree on the return and on the tightening of devices that limit personal freedoms. The provocative question from which we are starting is whether neoliberalism really wants a pandemic. The answer is particularly complex and is divided into three passages: the first part, in fact, is critically confronted with Agamben’s reflection; the second part starts from the analysis of Byung-Chul Han’s thought, highlighting its strengths and weaknesses; in the last part, the fallout from the point of view of identity processes is discussed above all through a critical analysis of the paradigms of resilience and victimization.