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The Pharmacotic War on Terrorism

Cure or Poison for the US Body Politic?

California State University, Long Beach

The Greek words `pharmakon' and `pharmakos' allude to the complex relations between political violence and the health or disorder of the body politic. This article explores analogies of war as disease and contagion, and contrasts these with metaphors of war as politically healthy and medicinal - as in Randolph Bourne's notion of war as `the health of the state'. It then applies these to the unfolding US `War on Terrorism' through the concept of `pharmacotic war', by way of examining the disturbing political implications of both unfolding US military actions abroad and the scapegoating of internal `enemies' within the United States. The article then critiques various strategies for interrupting the momentum towards a catastrophic `clash of civilizations' between the US and the Islamic world, and proposes a strategy of broadly based, grassroots political mobilization for opposing this trend.

Key Words: clash of civilizations • pharmacotic war • religious war • scapegoating • war on terrorism

Theory, Culture & Society, Vol. 19, No. 4, 161-186 (2002)
DOI: 10.1177/0263276402019004012


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