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<h1 class="css-1z36ek">In Praise of the Prophylactic</h1>
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<div class="css-7kp13n">By</div>
<div class="css-8rl9b7">cultureandcommunication.org</div>
<div class="css-zskk6u">3 min</div>
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<p><em>Prophylaxis is on everyone's mind these days. Oh what a
reversal from only a few months ago, when the decades long march
of promiscuous ontologies seemed unstoppable. Are freedom and
mobility unquestionable virtues? Should everything touch
everything else? Until recently the answer was an
unmitigated YES. The Spinozians spoke of flat ontologies. The
network scientists devised rhizomatic mesh networks. Artists
were obsessed with interactivity and social engagement. The
social scientists were writing on mobility and mixing. It seems
that anything, at any time, and for any reason, could
conceivably interact with anything else. But today the scene has
reversed, and prophylaxis is the order of the day. The masks
worn by Pussy Riot or Anonymous are an eerie foreshadowing of
N95 protective gear. Édouard Glissant's notion of "opacity" is
popular in theoretical circles. Even in digital systems,
scientists speak approvingly of "obfuscation," and proprietary
platforms have superseded open protocols. In my last book I
framed this in terms of promiscuous ontologies and prophylactic
ontologies, with Deleuze being the archetype of the promiscuous
and Laruelle the prophylactic. I'm excerpting a footnote here
that discusses the liberal nature of the promiscuous, as opposed
to the radical nature of the prophylactic.</em></p>
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