Hierarchies of Heroism: Captain Tom, Spitfires, and the Limits of Militarized Vicarious Resilience during the COVID-19 Pandemic
Hierarchies of Heroism: Captain Tom, Spitfires, and the Limits of Militarized Vicarious Resilience during the COVID-19 Pandemic
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英雄主义的等级制度：汤姆上尉、喷火式战斗机以及 COVID-19 大流行期间军事化替代弹性的局限性
DOI：
10.1093/isagsq/ksac026
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发表时间：
2022
期刊：
影响因子：
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通讯作者：
Browning C
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Browning C
在全球范围内，COVID-19大流行已经看到“英雄”的标签被分配给范围扩大的意想不到的人物，从护理人员到超市送货司机，他们因他们的无私而受到称赞。然而，在英国，没有人受到已故船长汤姆摩尔爵士所经历的公众尊敬的程度，他因在他100岁生日时完成了一次赞助的花园散步而闻名，为国民健康服务慈善机构筹集了3890万英镑。在全球卫生紧急情况的背景下，一位年迈的退伍军人的共鸣是什么？在这篇文章中，我们发展了“替代弹性”和“替代军国主义”的概念，以解释为什么“汤姆船长”抓住了英国公众的想象力。虽然替代认同的对象通常是由他们的上级机构区分，我们认为，汤姆船长的情况是有趣的，因为它不是摩尔的机构，但他的象征主义，使他成为替代认同的目标。具体来说，他的军事象征主义促进了对英国神话般的战时历史的替代认同，旨在缓解大流行病产生的本体论焦虑，并提高国家的复原力。然而，更广泛的军事化大流行病应对措施也重申了性别化和种族化的军事英雄主义，而此时英雄的类别正在扩大到平民职业。最后，我们注意到替代性军国主义在应对本体论不安全感方面的局限性，包括其产生代际不足焦虑的倾向及其节奏/情节特征，最后评论流行性主体性的未来轨迹。
Across the world, the COVID-19 pandemic has seen the label of “hero” assigned to an expanded range of unexpected figures, from carers to supermarket delivery drivers, lauded for their selflessness. In Britain, however, none received the levels of public veneration experienced by the late Captain Sir Tom Moore, who became famous for completing a sponsored walk of his garden for his 100th birthday, raising £38.9 million for National Health Service charities. What can account for the resonance of an elderly war veteran in the context of a global health emergency? Contributing to nascent international relations scholarship on vicarious identity, ontological security, and militarism, in this article we develop the concepts “vicarious resilience” and “vicarious militarism” to explain why “Captain Tom” captured the British public imagination. While objects of vicarious identification are typically distinguished by their superior agency, we argue that the case of Captain Tom is interesting because it was not Moore's agency but hissymbolismthat made him a target for vicarious identification. Specifically, his military symbolism facilitated vicarious identification with Britain's mythologized wartime past aimed at assuaging ontological anxieties generated by the pandemic and boosting national resilience. However, the broader militarized pandemic response also reasserted gendered and racialized military heroism at a moment when the category of hero was being extended to civilian occupations. Finally, we note the limits of vicarious militarism in responding to ontological insecurity, including its tendency to generate anxieties of intergenerational insufficiency and its rhythmic/episodic character, concluding by commenting on the future trajectory of pandemic subjectivities.