![]() That’s prompted some businesses to run machinery even as their plants remain empty, the people said.” At least three cities there have given local factories targets to hit for power consumption because they’re using the data to show a resurgence in production, according to people familiar with the matter. This phenomenon is playing out in Zhejiang province, an industrial hub on the east coast, in the form of electricity usage. “The pressure to get China back to work after the coronavirus shutdown is resurrecting an old temptation: doctoring data so it shows senior officials what they want to see. ![]() One example was the fear of bringing bad news to those in power (and to the public) that outweighed actual results – this was the reason why those who first reported on a new virus were arrested, and there are reports that a similar phenomenon is occurring now the epidemic is waning. Although it seems that the strong approach to the crisis by the Chinese state has worked – or at least worked much better than what is now occurring in Italy, the old authoritarian logic of Communists in power also clearly demonstrated its limitations. When I suggested that the coronavirus epidemic may give a new boost of life to Communism, my claim was, as expected, ridiculed. ![]() So what would be an appropriate reaction to the coronavirus epidemic? What should we learn and what should we do to confront it seriously? Just think how ridiculous is the notion that having enough toilet paper would matter in the midst of a deadly epidemic. When we react in panic, we do not take the threat seriously – we, on the contrary, trivialize it. What this contrast tells us is that panic is not a proper way to confront a real threat. Although we were convinced of the truth of these dire predictions, we somehow didn’t take them seriously and were reluctant to act and engage in serious preparations – the only place we dealt with them was in apocalyptic movies like Contagion. In the last couple of years, after the SARS and Ebola epidemics, we were told again and again that a new much stronger epidemic was just a matter of time, that the question was not IF but WHEN. The strange counterpart of this kind of ongoing excessive fear is the absence of panic when it would have been fully justified. Is something similar not going on in the UK and California today? It is not even necessary to believe that some others take the rumor seriously – it is enough to presuppose that some others believe that there are people who take the rumor seriously – the effect is the same, namely the real lack of toilet paper in the stores. However, an average consumer reasoned in the following way: I know there is enough toilet paper and the rumor is false, but what if some people take this rumor seriously and, in a panic, start to buy excessive reserves of toilet paper, causing an actual shortage? So I better buy reserves myself. The authorities promptly issued assurances that there was enough toilet paper for normal consumption, and, surprisingly, this was not only true but people mostly even believed it was true. All of a sudden, a rumor started to circulate that there was not enough toilet paper was available. The fact that, in the UK, due to the coronavirus panic, even the toilet paper rolls disappeared from the stores reminds me of a weird incident with toilet paper from my youth in Socialist Yugoslavia. We all took such assurances as a clear sign that they were themselves panicking. The situation resembles one I remember from my youth in a Communist country when government officials regularly assured the public there was no reason to panic. Our media endlessly repeat the formula “No panic!” and then we get all the data that cannot but trigger panic. Wells sit next to Hegel and Marx in these pages), Žižek provides a concise and provocative snapshot of the crisis as it widens, engulfing us all. ![]() Written with his customary brio and love of analogies in popular culture (Quentin Tarantino and H.G. And when, according to Žižek, a new form of communism may be the only way of averting a descent into global barbarism. When toilet paper becomes a commodity as precious as diamonds. When governments renowned for ruthless cuts in public spending can suddenly conjure up trillions. We live in a moment when the greatest act of love is to stay distant from the object of your affection. As an unprecedented global pandemic sweeps the planet, who better than the supercharged Slovenian philosopher, Slavoj Žižek to uncover its deeper meanings, marvel at its mind-boggling paradoxes, and speculate on the profundity of its consequences, all in a manner that will have you sweating profusely and gasping for breath?
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