The Universal Right to Breathe

作者：Achille Mbembé, Carolyn Shread · 发表于：Critical Inquiry · 年份：2020 · DOI：10.1086/711437 · 被引用次数：268 · 研究领域：Biomedical Ethics and Regulation、Ethics in medical practice、Patient Dignity and Privacy

Previous articleNext article FreeThe Universal Right to BreatheAchille Mbembe and Translated by Carolyn ShreadAchille Mbembe Search for more articles by this author and Translated by Carolyn Shread Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditEmailQR Code SectionsMore13 April 2020Already some people are talking about post-COVID-19.1 And why should they not? Even if, for most of us, especially those in parts of the world where health care systems have been devastated by years of organized neglect, the worst is yet to come. With no hospital beds, no respirators, no mass testing, no masks nor disinfectants nor arrangements for placing those who are infected in quarantine, unfortunately, many will not pass through the eye of the needle.1It is one thing to worry about the death of others in a distant land and quite another to suddenly become aware of one’s own putrescence, to be forced to live intimately with one’s own death, contemplating it as a real possibility. Such is, for many, the terror triggered by confinement: having to finally answer for one’s own life, to one’s own name. We must answer here and now for our life on Earth with others (including viruses) and our shared fate. Such is the injunction this pathogenic period addresses to humankind. It is pathogenic but also the catabolic period par excellence, with the decomposition of bodies, the sorting a...