Conspiracy Theories, Racial Liberalism and Fantasies of Freedom

Bibliographic Data

ID12248166
AuthorsLucas Gillespie (0000-0002-4785-1334, The University of Melbourne, corresponding author), Sahar Ghumkhor (0000-0002-7838-3086, The University of Melbourne)
Year2024
Volume36
Issue1
Pages23-40
Publication date2024-06-28
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueLaw and Critique (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0957-8536 • E-ISSN: 1572-8617
PublisherSpringer Science+Business Media (PUBLISHER • DE)
DOI10.1007/s10978-024-09393-6
OpenAlexW4400133305
LanguageEN
Citations received5
References cited37

This article provides a reading of the Truckers’ Freedom Convoy, which emerged in response to Covid-19 related public health measures in 2022. It argues the movement invites an interrogation of the affective structures of modern liberal subjectivity. We first map the social and political configurations of the movement, highlighting its links with white supremacist conspiracy theories, such as QAnon and Great Replacement Theory. We argue these conspiracies were used to frame Covid-19 countermeasures as the continuation of a perceived trend toward the deliberate but surreptitious erosion of freedom qua white freedom. To this end, the notion the pandemic was really a ‘ plan demic’ is informative. For adherents of this view, Covid-19 and its freedom-inhibiting countermeasures were merely deliberate steps towards an already occurring conspiracy. Referencing psychoanalytic theory, the article examines how racial liberalism structured the racist fantasies that drove the freedom movement’s attempts to safeguard freedom by flaunting Covid-19 restrictions. We argue the movement provided its members with a pathway towards jouissance that allowed fear to be performatively refused in the name of freedom. This, we argue, allowed members to embody their imagined status as exalted subjects of the white nation

Classical liberalism · Epistemology · Liberalism · Political philosophy · Political science · Politics · Psychoanalysis · Psychoanalytic theory · Sociology · Subjectivity · White (mutation · Hannah Arendt's Political Philosophy · Law · Philosophy · Psychoanalysis, Philosophy, and Politics · Psychology · Psychology of Moral and Emotional Judgment

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