Bobbitt (the fellow I first learned about the erosion of the nation-state from) theorized that the newly neutered national governments will try to legitimize their power by demonstrating that they can protect us from global threats (terrorism, cyber warfare, pandemics, etc.). As always, he was too optimistic. 

As we can see, the newly neutered national governments are legitimizing themselves by offering material for our Facebook and Twitter activities. Hey, who can blame them? It’s surely easier to fire off incendiary tweets than to fight viruses or terrorism.

9 responses to “Where Bobbitt Was Wrong”

  1. Alex the Physicist Avatar
    Alex the Physicist

    Every time you say “neutered” in a post about a guy named “Bobbitt”, I think about John Wayne Bobbitt, the guy who became famous when his wife cut his penis off in 1993.

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    1. Clarissa Avatar

      Wow, I think this must be something Freudian on my part. Good catch. 🙂

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      1. Fie upon this quiet life Avatar
        Fie upon this quiet life

        LOL! I couldn’t even read the content of the post once I saw Bobbitt and neutered in the same paragraph!! hahaha. I’ll go back and try to read it with more maturity now. 🙂

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        1. cliff arroyo Avatar

          I think it’s a meta statement: She’s demonstrating a political point by showing just how easily her usually brilliant readers are distracted away from a serious topic by thoughts of a 24 year old sex scandal….

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          1. Clarissa Avatar

            I really love this reading and fully support it instead of my own.

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        2. Clarissa Avatar

          Seriously, it’s got to be Freudian. I can’t explain it otherwise.

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    2. cliff arroyo Avatar

      She’s originally from Ecuador, it would have been tooooo perfect if she was from Quito…

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  2. el Avatar
    el

    I was glad to read this post since Bobbitt’s idea has always seemed somewhat unbelievable to me. For instance, I could never understand how a government may protect well against terrorism, if the country’s borders are open to anybody, like in today’s Europe.

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    1. Clarissa Avatar

      This has nothing whatsoever to do with physical borders in the world of liquid communication practices.

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A conservative literary critic and college professor