A famous phrase written by Antonio Gramsci in prison pleadings can describe well what we are living in the last two years: "The crisis lies precisely in the death of the elderly and the impossibility of birth of the new: in this interval, multiple morbid phenomena occur". Some have transformed with the word "monster" what the Italian Marxist thinker described as "morbid phenomenon" and in this LARRUN I will also use this adaptation to try to understand the elements on which the views of the "monsters" that have appeared in the public sphere since the beginning of 2020 and specifically in the sectors on the left have been elaborated. I will take into account, on the one hand, the controversies arising from measures to curb the disease caused by the virus SARS-CoV-2 and, on the other hand, the controversies over the Russian war against Ukraine in February this year.

Although there are two very different issues, common elements can be found in the public debate on them: because they are phenomena on a global scale, they have an international dimension and connections; they are debates conditioned by the mediation of current technologies; and they tend to be polarizing debates, which are structured in blurry but politically operative categories – deniers vs. officialists; Russians vs. NATO amateurs.

To try to understand these debates, I first use a concept that we have heard in recent years: populism [1]. Although the main media have frequently used this label to censor aspects and tendencies contrary to the liberal parliamentary system, beyond that media use, it is an issue that has been analyzed and debated in the field of political thought, and I believe that some of these works offer us useful keys to understanding some reactions to COVID-19 and the war in Ukraine.

On the other hand, I will focus on those who have chosen one of the extremes of those debates. Although in polarized opinion environments the clash between approaches is frequent, and although the formation of “official” or “principal” opinion can be easier to decipher, to understand how it is created, endures and – if we speak of the last two years – reinforces what is in its antipodes, I will try to explain what the concept of a cult circle (cultic milieu) that sociologist Colin Campbell put on the table.

WE VS. OTHERS: NEGATIVE POLICY

Tunisian Mohamed Bouazizi was 26 years old. She lived thanks to the soda she gained in the street with vegetables and fruits. But that day, as on other occasions, the police appeared, who had no permission to sell the streets. Not even in exchange for the police to look at him elsewhere. They flown him the vegetable cart, some beat him and got him up.

Bouazi, who knew that humiliation, had long suffered it. But that day, on December 17, 2010, it would be different. Bouaziz got a gasoline full boat and burned to the seat of the governor of Sidi Bouzid province. He died in January 2011, but the desperate decision of this young street man led to an earthquake in Tunisia: after 24 years, the government of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, driven by massive protests. Wheezing everywhere: In February 2011, Hosni Mubarak also left power after 30 years. In May of that same year, the camp of the M-15 movement began in Plaza Sol de Madrid, which caused echoes in other places in the Spanish state. Also in September 2011 are the protests started on Wall Street (New York, USA), which later materialized in the Occupy movement.

Looking at these movements eleven years ago, it can be seen that many of the characteristics of what is now often labeled "populism" were on the table. For example, they proposed political articulations beyond the traditional composition of the class society [2]. Change would respond to the form of capitalism in the twenty-first century, according to Pierre Rosanvallon [3]. The French historian speaks of a "dislocated universe": the social class created separate worlds and each one had great internal coherence; the identification between the individuals and the social groups to which they belonged was large. On the contrary, capitalism based on "innovation" exploits the specific contribution of each person, which, according to this author, not only represents a new strategy of differentiation between wage workers, but also a new way of producing value – and therefore a new form of exploitation – that seeks, above all, to mobilize singularity. If one intersects with other factors, such as the level of education and individual expectations depending on it, one can more easily understand the emergence of new ways of formulating the desires for emancipation, as well as the relative absence of a certain game of many of the agents that have historically had the mission of channeling them – leftist political parties, trade unions….

Instead of focusing on class awareness, populist phenomena have found material to mobilize the population into more transient binders. Rosanvallon talks about the "rage of not being recognized" and describes populism as "negative sovereignty that stands out on the street and at the ballot box". According to Joseba Gabilondo, this plural political phenomenon "does not respond to the dynamic of the optimistic demands of traditional national policy ("we want x, y o z"), but to a negative dynamic ("we do not want current impositions"), and it functions negatively, in what we could define as "symptom policy" following psychoanalysis" [4].

In any case, I have started to talk about populism, but not all populisms are the same. The aforementioned essay of Rosanvallon attempts to bring together the characteristics common to the political tendencies in this line, but this exercise is problematic at times. One of the main theorists who works on populism from the left, Chantal Mouff, criticized some of the contents of the book [5], among others, saying that populism (in singular) does not exist, but that populism (in plural) and precisely for this reason we have to analyze the logic of each movement that is classified under that name.

According to Mouffe, "building the political border" is the key to this issue. "Thus, populism does not appear as ideology, nor as a regime, nor as a concrete programmatic content. Everything depends on how the opposition is built, on the historical context and on the socioeconomic structures in which it develops. Understanding diverse populism requires concrete conjunctures and not being reduced, as Rosanvallon does, to expressions of the same ideology".

With this more detailed analysis, Gabilondo distinguishes two phases of populist phenomena in the book mentioned above. He defines the former as "nationalist" and says it is the clearest in his experiences in South America and southern Europe, Bolivia, Ecuador, Venezuela or Greece. Closer, in Hego Euskal Herria and in Spain it has also had strength in the years after the M-15, especially through Podemos. But borders have also become apparent. According to Gabilondo, "this way of understanding the populism of Podemos is nationalist, national-classical. The biggest mistake of nationalist populism is not to consider globalization." According to this U.S.-based Urretxuarra scholar, there is another political trend that has better understood this global dimension: authoritarian and almost fascist populism, embodied by Donald Trump better than anyone else.

And yet, both variants have common characteristics, such as the recognition and use of the role of affections in the political sphere. Populisms have brought other languages and attitudes to conventional politics. They have set other axes in public debate. Other personalities appear. Rosanvallon highlights one of its characteristic features: "The tendency to protect "controversial truths" is a key element of what could be defined as a populist personality. This is based on the tendency to have a systematic suspicion with consonantal views, denouncing them as empty products of the dominant ideology, and vice versa, they have the capacity to group negatively among those who see themselves as accusers of lies of powerful".

DIVERGENT BELIEFS AND SEEKERS OF "THE TRUTH"

This tendency to systematically question contextual views is related to the second concept I want to use in this article: the cult environment. In a study published in 1972 [6], sociologist Colin Campbell stressed that beliefs such as astrology or witchcraft were expanding in the counter-cultural areas, at a time when the influence of non-Christian religions and the loss of strength of churches to control social opinion.

Starting to analyze this phenomenon, Campbell concluded that there was a social framework that allowed developing very diverse divergent beliefs, which he called “cultic milieu”. This social environment paved the way for heterodox beliefs to be produced and perpetuated more generally than the duration of a given belief. "Therefore, although cults are, by definition, largely transitory phenomena, the cult environment is a constant social trait," according to Campbell.

He says that this cult environment combines seemingly unrelated conceptions of the world -- spiritualism, occultism, alternative remedies -- versus socially dominant approaches. Campbell spoke of the common awareness of the deviation that its participants feel, and of finding their views rather than justifying them, in the face of the mockery or hostility that open society makes to those who have it. He also suggested the influence that the tradition of mysticism could have on it, since, unlike the Judaeo-Christian religions, mystical tradition insists that the only ideal of unity with God can be achieved by multiple paths. The cult environment assumed this tolerant approach and led it beyond the realm of religious beliefs, incorporating divergent perspectives in broader areas.

The figure of the "seeker" is another key element to understand the cult environment. In the view of people in this profile, the "truth" is a precious asset and its discovery requires hard work, so the idea of "search" acquires centrality, posing antagonism with most members of society who do not seek the "truth".

But, according to Campbell, the most interesting questions about the cult environment do not refer to its internal anatomy: you have to look at its relationship with society, and its orthodox culture, to get to the important issues. How do you get such an environment to survive the constant underestimations of major social institutions? Through which channel are new cultural elements introduced in the area? What situation makes it easier for "deviated" cultural approaches to become acceptable or dominant alternative perspectives?

The article published 50 years ago proposed a series of hypotheses, for example, that the cult environment is an important agency for "foreign" components to stay in a new culture. And for those who defend the hegemonic vision that functions as a "negative reference group", against which it is easier to reinforce adherence to dominant paradigms. In addition, according to Campbell, the cult environment gains strength based on two variables: the increase of contact with foreign cultural elements and the disintegration of the original dominant culture. Another hypothesis of the sociologist is that worship movements should be understood as a response to situations of psychological deficit.

Reading some of these hypotheses allows us to understand other discourses that have denied the existence of COVID-19. Those who have spread foreign conspiracy theories in the Basque Country have quickly become a “negative reference group”, according to the cases of the Vida or Independiente platform. And all this at a time marked by the lack, on the one hand by the measures of social distance, understood as the “situation of psychic deficit” referred to by Campbell, but, on the other, as we shall see later, by a vacuum left by the political cultures of the left of Euskal Herria.

I believe that Campbell raised an issue that had anticipated many debates over the last two years: "The shift from the religious base to a science-based culture does not eliminate the problem of the need to maintain a dominant orthodoxy in the face of the continuous threats of heterodoxy. In this sense, the main question becomes to what extent science is effective as an agency of cultural control? ".

The answer of the British sociologist to this question recalled the repressive capacity of the church: "Because it is in question whether science as an organization can be compared with churches in their eagerness or ability to suppress heterodox visions of all society. To some extent it could be argued that the ethos of science is essentially democratic and that the authoritarian measures used by the church in the past are not within its reach. In addition, unlike the church, it lacks authority to deal with the beliefs of non-scientists. Therefore, although in the scientific community it can adopt measures to enforce orthodoxy, for example, effectively rejecting the "sorcerer," this consensus can also end up paying the price of increasing the problem of heresy throughout society."

Seeking coherence in an untold world

These components already existed. Mistrust of institutions dealing with public affairs is not new, nor is it new to question other social institutions, such as the media, or to look for different stories that most of society admits to. There were polarized debates. Also the groups that rejected the main scientific perspectives. Keeping the topic repeated, we could say that the pandemic has reinforced the tendencies that were intubated. But it's not just that. Or maybe all of that, but at the same time: The populist approaches of "us vs. others" have crossed the road with the "truth seekers" of the areas of worship. The political border has been built with these materials and some "monsters" have appeared that we did not expect: people willing to question all the information perceived as "official" and willing to privilege any alternative approach [7].

The word monster comes from the Latin monstrom, which in turn derives from the verb moneo, which we can translate as "warning" or "announcement". Let us therefore try to see what they are sending us warnings.

In late February, a Telegram channel spreading conspiracy theories about COVID-19 made a photograph of Vladimir Putin. Along with the photograph, an ironic text in which the Russian president has been nominated for the Nobel Prize in Medicine for having rescued the world of coronavirus in 48 hours. In the next message they wrote that the COVID-19 vaccine "has gotten into the body" to most of the population "has come to us with another entertainment." According to this reading, the war in Ukraine would be a step towards making the proponents of this plan "with impunity" after the spread of vaccines around the world.

"The conspiratorial visions of the world try to restore coherence in a world that seems undecipherable and full of threats," says Rosanvallón. And it doesn't matter much that the explanations given for this are as incredible as those mentioned in the previous paragraph. As Campbell says, "although the explanatory capacity of a system is weaker than that of orthodox science, it is possible to prefer it because it is understood more easily, it is more accessible or more complete."

In recent years the imaginaries related to hidden powers have been disseminated quite generously and from their hand, in many debates that take place on social networks there is talk more about possible intentions than about concrete actions. Suspicion dominates the universe of monsters appearing in the public sphere. And "spills for confirmation" [8] have become the bread of every day.

Rosanvallon talks about the problems of "confrontation between truth and lie" at the center of the debate, because that divides society in a line and then "facts and arguments tend to disappear after an order of beliefs that organizes reasoning, making even the minimum rational exchange difficult". But since 2020 there have been ongoing debates focusing on truth/lies. The environment has facilitated the sense of social insecurity in the country's confinements and the social distance measures that have been varying according to the circumstances. And when it seemed that we were about to emerge from that dynamic, the war in Ukraine has begun. Unpredictable events – a virus that we did not know, a war with global implications – improvisation of authorities, confusing information – which were and which were not valid data to follow the evolution of the pandemic, who were the perpetrators of war crimes – a lot of propaganda and citizens without reliable criteria on a daily basis.

Faced with a constantly redefined world, partial truths are not enough for monsters. Against this information that seems contradictory, they need absolute truth and are willing to seek it. And in a society connected to the network, who is willing to look for can find almost everything, even share it with others. To add to this the new communication habits derived from the differentiated maintenance measures: digital tools have been the only way to relate in some moments with others. All the practical elements were on the table to expand the different theories. And on this occasion they have overcome the cult environments described by Campbell.

The British sociologist realized the paradox that the weakening of major religions in the processes of secularization helped to reach the "hardest variations" of beliefs. In parallel, it could be said, on the one hand, that the digital transformation that has provided us with information does not have to be a better informed society, but a society that seeks a more partial and "compact" view of the facts, because now the public has the opportunity to see on the screen only what they want to see in the face of the limited possibilities offered by the traditional communication system. The monster does not believe in how reality is told on television and in the main media, but nevertheless, the narrative built against this main message assumes it without nuances, because for him it is not to have a broader perspective of reality, but to have tools by hand to maintain the positions he has taken in the situations that have been raised in dichotomous terms.

On the other hand, following the parallels of the paradox mentioned by Campbell, it has been found that the creation of situations that the political and economic powers did not expect does not have to assume a movement that questions the narrative of the capitalist system, not at least on a significant scale, but that the majority of society was still linked to the story of these instances of power, or, in the case of the monsters, with a choice that was no more. And, by the way, placing itself in the place of the “public enemy” that functions as the pillar of the story.

DESIRE TO RECOVER LOST ESSENCES

This has occurred in the Basque Country in a specific context: to the cracks of the official narratives must be added the disillusion that has occurred in some sectors of the Left in recent years and the mistrust in the parties. In the case of the Abertzale left, the philosopher Andoni Olariaga explained this attitude as a consequence of the dismantling of the emotional identities generated by the martial strategy of the years: "When someone breaks his world in front of his eyes, he tells him in vain that pragmatism is needed. This mythical view has led people to struggle, not pragmatism. This mystified approach has created a monster and current debates are not intellectual debates, but emotional debates. Hence the lack of general illusion" [9]. In the case of Podemos - Ahal Dugu, despite being a party with less political tradition, the internal conflicts it has had since its birth in 2014 to the present day and the contradictions that have aroused the entry into coalition with the PSOE in the Spanish Government have led to the hope of "other policies" that the party announced at the beginning. Therefore, given the impotence caused by the pandemic and the war in Ukraine, when the need arose to articulate pessimistic policies that said "we do not want this", these agents were in some eyes across the line of antagonism. There was a vacuum. And with the void, the fear – horror vacui – of him. The lack of something that could channel concern therefore explains the appearance of monsters.

In the case of COVID-19, this has been quite clear in the communiqués of the Vida platform, which has linked anti-pandemic measures with some myths that historically independence nationalism has used and that in recent years it has a certain rejection. On 24 June 2021, for example, with the adoption of the CAPV's "Anti-Pandemic Law", this group initiated an opinion article sent to the media as follows: "St. John's day of this year, June 24, 2021, will unfortunately go down in history but not for good. We will not remember as the day we won in Roncesvalles, as on August 15 of 778. Quite the opposite. Today is going to be one of the biggest cuts of rights that we want to apply to the Basques, and in Noáin we lost our kingdom as that June 30, 1521, or we remember it as that July 21, 1876 that took away the excerpts" [10].

Apart from the problems posed by the reconstruction of the national history of the Basque Country in this way [11], it is noteworthy that such ideas are fully merged with a feature of the global populisms of the second wave to which Joseba Gabilondo refers: neonationalism. According to Gabilondo, this neonationalism is fundamentalist, since "the attack of an external enemy configures the loss or absence of sovereignty and, therefore, nationality. However, unlike religious fundamentalisms, neonationalism does not address an absolute positive basis (religion...), but a ‘essence’ that is already being lost: an ethnic country that is no longer sovereign and no longer limited and is disappearing or threatened”. Not only that. According to Gabilondo, neonationalisms not only look for external enemies but also find them inside [12]. This would explain why the monsters considered "globalism" contributors to some representatives of the leftist parties in the Basque Country, both in the pandemic and in the war in Ukraine.

ENJOY THE SYMPTOMS

It is also interesting to analyze the complex process of desire that generate deficiencies as pointed out in the previous section. Gabilondo uses Jacques Lacan's "main indicator" to explain how political fantasies work: "Our lack, and the desire that generates this lack, is indirectly generated by what other subjects have, and that gives fantasy its solid and insurmountable structure: our desire always assumes that someone knows and enjoys more than we do." Lacan described "subjects who know they assume" those who take the place of the "other".

In times of great instability, the emergence of theories that say that the powerful "know" how the future is going to be and that the mask has to be removed from that "truth" corresponds perfectly to the Lacan reading. "The slave knows many things, but knows better than nothing what the owner wants, and the owner himself, as usual, does not know what he wants because if he would not own. And that's why it works [...]. Indeed, the fact that all knowledge has moved to the owner's place does not clarify the problem, but makes it a bit darker, that is, the truth" (Lacan, 2007; cited by Gabilondo, 2017. Translation: Imanol Galfarsoro).

Monsters "know" what the "Other" wants to do with the object of their desire. They see themselves as a subordinate slave, and they need that subject who is under control to be able to fight it in a particular way: hysterical. "As defined by Lacan, hysteria [13] is a discourse of resistance that challenges the symbolic order, the law and the principal indicator, which requires a response to the principal indicator or the supposedly known subject (the physician) about his "disease" or concern, but which in turn escapes the response of the principal indicator (physician, psychoanalyst), as it is not a question of obtaining an answer (diagnosis and scientific and political power). In short, the hysteria lies beyond the competence of the dominant indicator in power".

In this sense, it can be argued that those who have denied the existence of COVID-19 basically mean that the main indicator – political that directs health measures, scientific that talks about the situation of the pandemic, etc. – is neutered. Ignorance. It has no answer to the situation. And because their presence embodies bone, it has no political power. In fact, the debates that have been put on the table by the so-called "deniers" demand a political response that the authorities and scientists do not give them. Following what Gabilondo says about the appearance of hysteria, this sector has configured the political opposition "in an irrational but sweetening way", "being pessimistic, presenting itself as "sick", but enjoying the knowledge of the castration of the principal indicator".

When this form of opposition appears based on the joy of the symptom, debates become very complicated. For example, someone can point out the weaknesses of a conspiracy theory from the position of the subject assuming that rational arguments are the curative treatment of the "disease" of the monster. But the "patient," a monster who has believed and spread these theories, will respond by strengthening his attitude, because basically he means to the main indicator that he knows nothing. The more he tries to convince the monster, the more ignorant the person will be for the monster, who is the source of his joy. Debates are also two-way dynamic, in which the defender of rational arguments bases his political joy on being a subject he knows. The monster breaks his fantasy and thereby gets a double pleasure. This dynamic can summarize most of the Twitter debates between "weeping" and "officialists" on pandemic.

ANTIGLOBAL LEADER

What happens when someone can effectively perform this primary indicator role? According to Gabilondo, Donald Trump's success in the 2016 elections is due to his becoming "the main exponent of a policy desired by a (white) majority of American society." Trump based his speech on opposition to global elites. Although it seems contradictory, it works politically: Trump himself is part of these elites, "as he has also acknowledged, knows how the economy and neoliberal governments act, and therefore, because of their wealth, has become a subject who knows how to overcome and resolve this system, that is, who knows how to enjoy the system and enjoy more than the Americans."

Let us bring this idea to the attitude of some monsters in the context of the war in Ukraine to try to understand why the Russian authorities are constantly resorting to reading the war. The most transparent explanation would be that for years EE.UU, NATO and its satellites have assumed the role of the global police, have launched wars anywhere and at any time, which has led to thousands of deaths, injuries, tortured, raped and refugees; they have condemned the peoples of the world to misery; that behind all that destruction there have been obvious economic interests in the West; and yet they have looked at another. On the other hand, when Russia has attacked Ukraine, they all start to scare and show a rather hypocritical attitude. Whatever is a little critical of our authorities, I would share the denunciation of this hypocrisy, at least the one that writes these lines coincides. But we also have to ask whether some of the positions we have seen since 24 February indicate something else. Because, taking into account the issue of the political vacuum that we mentioned earlier, some monsters have been able to find in the war in Ukraine a major indicator that enjoys the object of their desire: Vladimir Putin.

Inside the left is a sector that has lived the history of the world since the disappearance of the Soviet Union as an infinite sequence of failures. The neoliberal model led by EE.UU. It has progressed without obstacles in the last three decades, and the movements that have wanted to oppose it – alterglobalism, protests against the Iraq war, experiences in different countries of South America, movements that occupied places in the last decade… – have not formulated projects that question this hegemony. Specifically in the Basque Country, the new political cycle that began from 2011 has accentuated the feeling of this lack of alternatives. The monsters who have another "historic project" as the object of their political desire may have discovered in Russian non-liberal capitalism and Putin's forcefulness a successor that can play the role of principal indicator. In short, for pessimistic populist policies, the important thing is not the proposal, but the denial. And in this field, many of the changes that Putin has driven in Russia since 1999 are negative of the US and EU photography, which has been committed to anatemical issues for the Western authority in the field of energy or in international alliances. Let us not say in the military sphere: In the Syrian delegation war, for example, he supported Baxar al-Assad against the Syrian National Coalition, which was in the fins of the USA, the EU, the UK and other Western powers. And with the war in Ukraine this image of the anti-Western and anti-globalist leader has been further strengthened [14].

In this framework of monsters, Putin, as the main indicator, is not problematic despite being an authoritarian capitalist leader. In contrast, it could be argued that precisely because of these characteristics it is the main valid indicator. Following the line of what Gabilondo said about Trump, as a guide to an economic and military power plays the role of every subject of members from some sectors on the left, as a leader with enough agency to deal with the U.S.'s power. Along with them, many other representatives and political movements claiming to want to overcome capitalism seem powerless and losers. And the fact of emphasizing the negative aspects of the Russian political system against this vision, or denouncing that the war in Ukraine is an imperialist act, does not work as a treatment. On the contrary, it makes those who use these arguments appear in the eyes of the monsters as a castrated person.

UPCOMING MONSTERS

We are increasingly discussing political issues according to the positions that define closed categories. These categories usually have more than a purely descriptive function: the term that defines the group is the one that receives the sentence on it [15]. In the absence of another word, I used the "monster" to refer to the fuzzy subject I've studied in this LARRUN, and I hope readers didn't see one of those "definitions I judge" in that word. According to the encyclopedic dictionary Harluxet, the monster is a "living being outside the laws of nature." The monsters we have mentioned here have indeed acted outside the laws of political nature that we knew and I found it a good word to talk about their exceptionality.

Someone will think that people who somehow coincide with the attitudes described in this article are insufficient to realize a reflection that covers so much space. But qualitatively, it seems to me that those I have defined as "monsters" are significant, because in the two topics mentioned, at least in some social sectors, they have been able to shift the focus of the debate. And although it is becoming more and more difficult to imagine what will happen in the future, because I believe that in the face of the crisis of the socio-political model we knew, it will not be unusual for public opinion to see more similar monsters – as Gabilondo points out in her book, the emergence of populisms is directly related to the development of neoliberalism and post-democratic societies that this has brought, and it does not seem that our world will take another direction.

Hence the concern. COVID-19 and the Ukrainian wars have emerged new creatures looking for an unofficial story, but the responses found in both cases hardly suggest a possibility of collective emancipation, and a tendency to lend it to the fortified opposition. In any case, considering everything explained in this article, pride would be considerable if it were supposed to enter the role of the subject, indicating where these emancipation routes may be. The truth is, I don't know. And therefore, I also consider myself a monster defined by pessimism: one of the objectives of this work has been to point out what can change things, what will not change them. In the absence of a magic formula to get us out of confusing controversies, another objective of this article has been to highlight the existence and importance of these debates as a symptom, as well as to give some keys to trying to understand how these discussions work, so that when we start talking to the monsters that will come we can do it with other attitudes.

FOOTNOTES:

[1][1] Although in this introduction I have given the word singular, there are those who propose to name it in plural, as we shall see later, thinking that it fits better with the nature of the concept.

[2] [2] For example, the Occupy movement popularized the slogan "We are 99%", which wanted to articulate an antagonism between that percentage of the population and the 1% that owns most wealth.

[3] [3] Rosanvallon, Pierre. Le siècle du populisme. Paris, Éditions du Seuil (2020).

[4] [4] Gabilondo, Joseba. Populism. Global sovereignty and Basque independence. Tafalla, Txalaparta (2017).

[5] [5] Mouffe, Chantal. May 2020. 'Ce que Pierre Rosanvallon ne pas'. Le Monde Diplomatique www.monde-diplomatique.fr/2020/05/MOUFFE/61778

[6] [6] Campbell, Colin. "The Cult, the Cultic Milieu and Secularization." A Sociological Yearbook of Religion in Britain (1972).

[7] [7] It should be made clear by chance that by this I do not mean that anyone should be considered as one of those “monsters” for questioning the decisions taken by our authorities on the management of COVID-19, or for seeking other information besides the Western media version in the war in Ukraine. These critical attitudes are also tempted to be at the centre of the debate, not me. But both in the COVID-19 crisis and in the Ukrainian war there are people who have systematically rejected any “official” information and have systematically opted for another version, which has often exceeded the limits of rationality. And I think this trend is indicative of more complex phenomena than criticity.

[8][8] This concept invented by psychologist Peter Wason describes a trend: that people bet on information that affirms or reinforces their beliefs or values, avoiding information that can cause adverse effects.

[9] [9] Hill, Subai. 24 April 2016. "On the Abertzale left are people who have run out of the world." LIGHT www.argia.eus/argia-astekaria/2504/andoni-olariaga-filosofoa.

[10] [10] Platform Life. 24 June 2021. "Foral Pass to the Covid-19 Act of the Basque Parliament." LIGHT. www.argia.eus/albistea/foru-pasea-eusko-legebiltzarraren-covid-legeari

[11] [11] On this subject, it is worth reading the book of imaginary Santi Leoné Euskal Herri (Elkar, 2008).

[12] [12] Without going any further, the article of the abovementioned Life platform ended with the following words: "To conclude, the politicians, especially those in the Basque Autonomous Community, will be clearly told that they have betrayed the people. They do not deserve to be representatives of this people. Let's face it. And we're not going to accept this legal garbage, because our ancestors are with us, because we're never going to give up the Gernika Tree and the rights it represents."

[13] [13] Regarding the use of this word it is important to bring a nuance that Gabilondo does to: "Here we do not use "hysteria" in a pejorative and despicable sense of the street. Hysteria, since the 19th century, has a concrete biopolitical history in which we place as a political term, following the criticism of feminism". The reader will find more information about this specific meaning from page 128 of the book Populismoaz.

[14] [14] With a paradox, yes: the antagonism situated in the globalist/anti-globalist dichotomy, the left and right tendencies appear mixed in both areas.

[15] [15] Judith Butler explains this process in detail in Frames of War’s chapter 4 “Non-thinking in the Name of the Normative” (Verso, 2009).