Post-shock disorientation has been systematically exploited to ram through elite-favoring policies

Evidence

For more than twenty years, ever since those jetliners flew into the glass and steel of the World Trade Center, I have been preoccupied with the ways that large-scale shocks scramble our collective synapses, lead to mass regression, and make humans easy prey for demagogues. In the years that it took to research and write The Shock Doctrine, my 2007 book on this topic, I delved deeply into how post-shock states of discombobulation have been opportunistically exploited in many different contexts: 9/11, the collapse of the Soviet Union, the invasion of Iraq, Hurricane Katrina, and events significantly further back in time. With the public terrified and distracted, power-hungry players were able to move in and ram through policies that benefited corporate elites without debate or consent—not unlike the brutal methods deployed by torturers who use isolation and stress to soften up and break their prisoners. As I conducted this research, tracking the attacks on political rights as well as the auctioning off of public lands and services, I always imagined myself to be immune to these shock tactics, since I knew how they worked. I was not scrambled by unprecedented events, my sight was clear during crises, and I would help others see clearly as well. Or so I thought. — Naomi Klein, Doppelganger, 17

Categorization

• XREF: This is the Shock Doctrine thesis restated; connects to other writings on disaster capitalism (e.g., Matt Taibbi’s coverage, ‘The Shock Doctrine’ itself). — connects to: As shocks multiply in modernity, mechanical substitutes replace personal defense mechanisms — Fredric Jameson, Marxism and Form, 143; Neoliberal conference networks gradually shifted elite policy thinking before crises forced action — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 444; Velocity is deliberately weaponized to outpace democratic awareness and freeze resistance — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1092 (+1 more)
• DEEPTHINKING: The closing device — ‘Or so I thought’ — is chronologically load-bearing: it’s the hinge on which the personal narrative of the introduction turns, yet the mechanism itself is established here cleanly enough to be worth returning to.