The Obsolescence of Human Rights - The Alt-Right, the Pandemic and Science as an Emerging Political Cleavage

This book explores how the alt-right has appropriated human rights rhetoric – once rooted in progressive ideals – to resist public health measures during the COVID-19 pandemic. Phrases like “My body, my choice” have been retooled to challenge vaccination and state intervention. The author interrogates the historical and ideological malleability of human rights, revealing how their universalist claims are often compromised by exclusionary and reactionary forces. Central to this analysis is the pandemic’s role in exposing science as an emerging political cleavage. Through the lens of political mistrust, pseudoscience, conspiracy thinking, and neoliberal crisis, the book examines the conditions that gave rise to right-wing human rights discourse – and asks whether the concept of rights can still hold emancipatory promise in an era of ecological breakdown and rising technopolitical conflicts.