ABSTRACT
Social distancing, vaccination mandates, lockdowns, curfews, and QR codes, for two years, these words and expressions became part of most people’s daily reality. Such a vocabulary was the result of people’s fear of catching the COVID-19 virus. This chapter identifies the origins of ‘biopolitics’ that tends to reduce human beings solely to their biological dimension. Being deprived of the capacity to identify with anything higher than themselves has certainly contributed to the decline of common bonds and people’s willingness to adjust their actions in accordance with what called as responsible citizenship, but it has also been argued that it left individuals unable to project themselves beyond their mere rights, with the most important being their right to life. Liberalism’s self-definition as an ideology that primarily favours the full expression of people’s freedom has, unsurprisingly, led Western states to adopt policies aimed at preventing individuals from falling victim to discrimination that limits their genuine capacity to empirically enjoy equal rights.
