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This essay critically analyses the positions taken by Habermas on the coronavirus and Gaza as symptoms of a broader drift in liberal culture. The coronavirus has revealed the extent to which neoliberal systems are steeped in a logic of perpetual emergency. Its management has also exposed how scientism and the instrumentalization of fear tied to the body make it possible to dismiss rules and critical objections. Habermas does not focus on the individual assertion of the right to health as an absolute right but rather grounds his argument in the very foundation of order as such, deriving a justification for the suspension of certain constitutional guarantees in the name of a presumed bond of solidarity. Salus presupposes salus rei publicae. Yet it is impossible to justify a priori the health exception, which suspends those rights, while simultaneously upholding the primacy of the rule of law—unless one argues that only one form of salus is valid, that of health, which would allow for the elimination of decisionism and a retreat into a pure state of emergency, as an apolitical objectivity. But can we truly assume that health as salus is inherently incontrovertible? Adopting this perspective would mean entrusting the decision on the emergency to medical science—effectively, to the institutions that administer it. This technocratic approach is incompatible with a democratic discourse theory. Furthermore, the essay highlights the double standard at work in the justificatory attitude toward the Israeli government’s policies in Gaza, from which even Habermas has not been exempt. This logic is tied to an increasing trend of discrimination and demonization, signalling a veritable eclipse of critical thinking.
