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Brief: The Spirituality of Vaccine & Mask Panics

Brief: The Spirituality of Vaccine & Mask Panics

FromConspirituality


Brief: The Spirituality of Vaccine & Mask Panics

FromConspirituality

ratings:
Length:
29 minutes
Released:
Apr 8, 2023
Format:
Podcast episode

Description

Why do so many inflammatory culture war issues crystallize around vaccines and masks? What is so compelling about these forms of public health and mutual aid, that they become central to the right-wing imagination? 
For some, straight-up libertarianism might be a sufficient answer: the knee-jerk allergy to being asked to do anything as a social player. And beneath that might lie conspiratorial notions of Fauci being a Red, Bill Gates monetizing polio, or George Soros controlling Congress. 
Matthew argues that even those are surface stories, covering over a trembling anxiety about the status of the body in relation to the State, and God. 
Show Notes
Rudolf Steiner on Traditional Childhood Illnesses and Vaccines
Biss, Eula. On Immunity: An Inoculation. Minneapolis: Graywolf, 2015
Released:
Apr 8, 2023
Format:
Podcast episode

Titles in the series (100)

A weekly study of converging right-wing conspiracy theories and faux-progressive wellness utopianism. At best, the conspirituality movement attacks public health efforts in times of crisis. At worst, it fronts and recruits for the fever-dream of QAnon. As the alt-right and New Age horseshoe toward each other in a blur of disinformation, clear discourse and good intentions get smothered. Charismatic influencers exploit their followers by co-opting conspiracy theories on a spectrum of intensity ranging from vaccines to child trafficking. In the process, spiritual beliefs that have nurtured creativity and meaning are transforming into memes of a quickly-globalizing paranoia. Conspirituality Podcast attempts to bring understanding to this landscape. A journalist, a cult researcher, and a philosophical skeptic discuss the stories, cognitive dissonances, and cultic dynamics tearing through the yoga, wellness, and new spirituality worlds. Mainstream outlets have noticed the problem. We crowd-source, research, analyze, and dream answers to it.