The fact that we are able to do this is in itself a privilege we often take for granted. In the meantime it was folly to grieve, or to think.” This is an impulse that I think many have shared while in quarantine: remain indoors and let the world sort itself out. The external world could take care of itself. Poe explains that within the secure abbey, “the courtiers might bid defiance to contagion. It is not just the upper echelons of society that are shielded from the coronavirus. Morgan." This advocacy for the interests of the wealthy and powerful in a time of crisis is a prime example of what philosopher Achille Mbembe called necropolitics: “the ultimate expression of sovereignty resides, to a large degree, in the power and capacity to dictate who may live and who must die.” It's bad for the people that are unemployed. Several politicians have advocated for sacrificing elderly lives in the name of protecting the economy, Russian oligarchs are buying ventilators for personal use while they are in short supply elsewhere and Jamie Dimon, the CEO of J.P Morgan Chase declared in a radio interview: “I don't look at recessions as a bad thing. Just as the “happy and dauntless” Prospero shut himself away “when his dominions were half depopulated” to surround himself with “hale and light-hearted” friends, we have seen those who already live in luxury dismissing the lives of those less fortunate in favor of their personal health and comfort, even claiming their privilege as a point of pride and positivity during a time of unmitigated crisis.
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