Tuesday, October 30, 2012  Coda on Premediation and Preemption
In the final paragraph of yesterday’s blog post on the
premediation of Hurricane (now post-tropical cyclone turned
post-tropical storm) Sandy, I wrote:    “The premediation of
Sandy does not work to preempt damage; there is no possibility
that the damage is going to be prevented or displaced.  Rather
premediation works to prepare people affectively for what might
be coming and to multiply the virtual forms in which the damage
might emerge, what kind of event Sandy will turn out to have
been.  Premediation helps to bring Sandy into being not to
prevent it.  Most importantly the premediation of Sandy does not
exist outside of the event as something distinct from it but
rather is immanent to the event; premediation is part and parcel
of Sandy itself.”  I wanted to return to the relation between
premediation and preemption to expand on and clarify this
paragraph.  For on the face of it the claim that the
premediation of Sandy does not preempt damage