Yes. Thank you so much for this. I don't have many eloquent words to express my thoughts right now, but am thankful for your words so clearly and rationally laid out in this post. I feel very similarly to you on the topics you discussed.
Very nice piece. Your discomfort in questioning what has become a religion, or at least a cult, for Democrats is poignant, but you persist in that questioning, which takes courage.
People who get all their news from the New York Times, the Bezos Post, the Guardian, National Propaganda Radio, MSN, NBC, etc. are propagandized. How they can call a news source that said Saddam Hussein had aluminum tubes that could be used only for nuclear missiles reliable is beyond me.
How people can call a news source, such as NPR or Democracy Now!, reliable when they refused to criticize Obama for doing what they had excoriated Dubya for is beyond me. Yet they do, every day, and you've clearly seen it for yourself.
Censorship is always a tool of a repressive, undemocratic, and usually scared ruling class. I thought it wrong to deplatform Alex Jones and then Donald Trump, because I feared that was only the beginning, and my fears have proven well-justified.
Now they're going after a comedian with a podcast, Joe Rogan, for interviewing people who have views that go against the prevailing liberal Covid narrative. I hope Spotify stands firm, because somebody has to stand up to this dangerous bullshit.
My wife and I both thought the school closures were a tragic mistake for children at the time, and have been proven right once again. Distance learning is not nearly as good as in-person learning, and anyone who says otherwise either has a vested monetary interest in online learning or doesn't know jack shit about children. Even in 2020, it was known that Covid didn't make kids very sick, and that they didn't spread it all that much, either.
It is now no more than a common cold, as predicted by tens of thousands of censored immunologists and epidemiologists worldwide back in 2020. To require mandatory vaccinations of anyone for such a predominantly mild disease, especially children when there is evidence the vaccines can cause myocarditis, is reprehensible. IMHO, of course.
I believe the whole Covid crisis is an example of disaster capitalism, as defined by Naomi Klein, at its finest. A very few people got super-rich. Tens of millions lost their livelihoods so larger corporations could increase their profits. That happened. There is no doubt.
We've been lied to from the beginning. It's not your fault if you can't convince people who want to go on believing the lies for whatever reasons.
You mention the show by the Tedeschi Trucks Band. A kind of new normalcy and reconnection appeared there. Live music before a live audience is one of the best vehicles for regenerating “cultural energy.” I think most people, here in the late era of the pandemic, aren’t averse to that kind of event, and are prepared to declare victory over the inhibiting fear of Covid, probably through the existential step of getting fully vaccinated (plus maybe a booster), which does greatly reduce the risk of contracting a life-threatening case. I think the “sense of freedom, creativity, and dynamism” that you mention will make a comeback for a lot of people – that hasn’t been permanently lost.
If I understand you correctly, Carol, science and certain liberal media narratives have combined in a kind of “party line,” which is difficult for dissenters to challenge. You mention self-censorship, and that is a toxin to mental health, truth-seeking, and honest liberalism. (It’s also unjust when people who have really done nothing wrong have to live in fear.) I don’t think science is to blame for these problems. Science has an epistemological authority, which certain elements in the media appropriate and extend in ways never intended by scientists. The media’s handling of science, which is sometimes simply incompetent and sometimes intenionally manipulates people, can result in all kinds of misinterpretations and misapplications of findings which compromise that stock in trade. The legitimate authority – the mantle of science – is undoubtedly a prize to the managers of information silos.
I think few people would deny the anthropocentric realities of the pandemic: that it has caused, for many of the world’s people, physical suffering, death, or grief. The “fake pandemic” faction is really a fringe, and distinguishable from people who oppose some or all of the policies that have the ostensible purpose of curbing the spread of Covid, and which also shape reality. If a subjective value mediates an objective reality, that can move people emotionally; that can cut through: “Who cares?” Of course, subjective values can be “worked up” by a liberal apparatus, by a Trumpist one, or by any number of agents which operate on-line. So If people are angry about school closures, or if people are angry about your critique of school closures, science didn’t bring that about.
The conflict that you describe over school closures illustrates one of the moral dilemmas brought down on humanity by the pandemic. I think, in that case, that your friends were probably operating at a moral level, as you were. The moral case for school closures has to do with saving fellows, especially children, from a terrible disease and possible death. That is a primordial motive, and naturally moves a lot of people. There are a number of possible critiques of this rationale. One is that the strong live and the weak die, in terms of the human body’s response to physiological issues, even allowing for social mediation, and there’s no point in people intervening in this supposed law of evolution. Another is that Covid is not that big a deal in terms of the death toll, especially for children, so this particular draconian measure isn’t appropriate. Another is that school closures won’t have much actual effect on curbing the pandemic. Another is yours, Carol, which is that there would be “tremendous negative consequences” from these closures, and those outweigh the marginal risk to people of continuing in-person learning.
In the end, school closings were inevitable not because of a liberal narrative or because of science, but because teachers are organized and collectively use power. If school authorities had attempted to maintain in-person learning, there would have been teachers’ strikes. One element of the power is to okay remote learning. Gutentag, and those who’ve joined him in advocacy for the children who have been set back by the resort to that, aren’t well-organized and just don’t have the muscle to counter the teachers’ unions. So the teachers managed to get themselves off the front lines, although the statistical risk of serious cases of Covid for that cohort was probably quite small in comparison to healthcare workers and public safety personnel. I think teachers’ unions are generally complicit in the disastrous outcomes experienced by many children through remote learning.
Thank you again for helping some of us back from the prevailing polarized craziness of Life in the Time of Covid. By coincidence, I just came across a recent article/YouTube video by a vaccinated Canadian psychiatrist (Norman Doidge) that helped me understand much of what has gone off the rails over the last two years. It is long but very illuminating and, I think, well worth the effort.
The video is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UfEkp_TFvY0&t=342s . Please don't be put off because the video is introduced by Jordan Peterson. You can skip the first five minutes to get right to Doidge's reading of his article. Peterson reports that people on both the right and left have found the article helpful.
I am disturbed by all this as well. It does unfortunately take courage to speak about what is happening. Thanks for articulating this so carefully.
Yes. Thank you so much for this. I don't have many eloquent words to express my thoughts right now, but am thankful for your words so clearly and rationally laid out in this post. I feel very similarly to you on the topics you discussed.
Very nice piece. Your discomfort in questioning what has become a religion, or at least a cult, for Democrats is poignant, but you persist in that questioning, which takes courage.
People who get all their news from the New York Times, the Bezos Post, the Guardian, National Propaganda Radio, MSN, NBC, etc. are propagandized. How they can call a news source that said Saddam Hussein had aluminum tubes that could be used only for nuclear missiles reliable is beyond me.
How people can call a news source, such as NPR or Democracy Now!, reliable when they refused to criticize Obama for doing what they had excoriated Dubya for is beyond me. Yet they do, every day, and you've clearly seen it for yourself.
Censorship is always a tool of a repressive, undemocratic, and usually scared ruling class. I thought it wrong to deplatform Alex Jones and then Donald Trump, because I feared that was only the beginning, and my fears have proven well-justified.
Now they're going after a comedian with a podcast, Joe Rogan, for interviewing people who have views that go against the prevailing liberal Covid narrative. I hope Spotify stands firm, because somebody has to stand up to this dangerous bullshit.
My wife and I both thought the school closures were a tragic mistake for children at the time, and have been proven right once again. Distance learning is not nearly as good as in-person learning, and anyone who says otherwise either has a vested monetary interest in online learning or doesn't know jack shit about children. Even in 2020, it was known that Covid didn't make kids very sick, and that they didn't spread it all that much, either.
It is now no more than a common cold, as predicted by tens of thousands of censored immunologists and epidemiologists worldwide back in 2020. To require mandatory vaccinations of anyone for such a predominantly mild disease, especially children when there is evidence the vaccines can cause myocarditis, is reprehensible. IMHO, of course.
I believe the whole Covid crisis is an example of disaster capitalism, as defined by Naomi Klein, at its finest. A very few people got super-rich. Tens of millions lost their livelihoods so larger corporations could increase their profits. That happened. There is no doubt.
We've been lied to from the beginning. It's not your fault if you can't convince people who want to go on believing the lies for whatever reasons.
You mention the show by the Tedeschi Trucks Band. A kind of new normalcy and reconnection appeared there. Live music before a live audience is one of the best vehicles for regenerating “cultural energy.” I think most people, here in the late era of the pandemic, aren’t averse to that kind of event, and are prepared to declare victory over the inhibiting fear of Covid, probably through the existential step of getting fully vaccinated (plus maybe a booster), which does greatly reduce the risk of contracting a life-threatening case. I think the “sense of freedom, creativity, and dynamism” that you mention will make a comeback for a lot of people – that hasn’t been permanently lost.
If I understand you correctly, Carol, science and certain liberal media narratives have combined in a kind of “party line,” which is difficult for dissenters to challenge. You mention self-censorship, and that is a toxin to mental health, truth-seeking, and honest liberalism. (It’s also unjust when people who have really done nothing wrong have to live in fear.) I don’t think science is to blame for these problems. Science has an epistemological authority, which certain elements in the media appropriate and extend in ways never intended by scientists. The media’s handling of science, which is sometimes simply incompetent and sometimes intenionally manipulates people, can result in all kinds of misinterpretations and misapplications of findings which compromise that stock in trade. The legitimate authority – the mantle of science – is undoubtedly a prize to the managers of information silos.
I think few people would deny the anthropocentric realities of the pandemic: that it has caused, for many of the world’s people, physical suffering, death, or grief. The “fake pandemic” faction is really a fringe, and distinguishable from people who oppose some or all of the policies that have the ostensible purpose of curbing the spread of Covid, and which also shape reality. If a subjective value mediates an objective reality, that can move people emotionally; that can cut through: “Who cares?” Of course, subjective values can be “worked up” by a liberal apparatus, by a Trumpist one, or by any number of agents which operate on-line. So If people are angry about school closures, or if people are angry about your critique of school closures, science didn’t bring that about.
The conflict that you describe over school closures illustrates one of the moral dilemmas brought down on humanity by the pandemic. I think, in that case, that your friends were probably operating at a moral level, as you were. The moral case for school closures has to do with saving fellows, especially children, from a terrible disease and possible death. That is a primordial motive, and naturally moves a lot of people. There are a number of possible critiques of this rationale. One is that the strong live and the weak die, in terms of the human body’s response to physiological issues, even allowing for social mediation, and there’s no point in people intervening in this supposed law of evolution. Another is that Covid is not that big a deal in terms of the death toll, especially for children, so this particular draconian measure isn’t appropriate. Another is that school closures won’t have much actual effect on curbing the pandemic. Another is yours, Carol, which is that there would be “tremendous negative consequences” from these closures, and those outweigh the marginal risk to people of continuing in-person learning.
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db427.htm#Key_finding
In the end, school closings were inevitable not because of a liberal narrative or because of science, but because teachers are organized and collectively use power. If school authorities had attempted to maintain in-person learning, there would have been teachers’ strikes. One element of the power is to okay remote learning. Gutentag, and those who’ve joined him in advocacy for the children who have been set back by the resort to that, aren’t well-organized and just don’t have the muscle to counter the teachers’ unions. So the teachers managed to get themselves off the front lines, although the statistical risk of serious cases of Covid for that cohort was probably quite small in comparison to healthcare workers and public safety personnel. I think teachers’ unions are generally complicit in the disastrous outcomes experienced by many children through remote learning.
Thank you again for helping some of us back from the prevailing polarized craziness of Life in the Time of Covid. By coincidence, I just came across a recent article/YouTube video by a vaccinated Canadian psychiatrist (Norman Doidge) that helped me understand much of what has gone off the rails over the last two years. It is long but very illuminating and, I think, well worth the effort.
The article is here: https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/science/articles/needle-points-vaccinations-chapter-one .
The video is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UfEkp_TFvY0&t=342s . Please don't be put off because the video is introduced by Jordan Peterson. You can skip the first five minutes to get right to Doidge's reading of his article. Peterson reports that people on both the right and left have found the article helpful.