Theory without a reality check can make the world unlivable. This is because theorists can build beautiful models that hide grave errors, intentionally or not, and there is no means by which their mistakes are revealed until you test them against the real world. You never want them in charge of the whole project.
One might suppose it would be top headlines that the man who crafted the Covid response for the world was merely using this as the lever to reverse 12,000 years of human history. Indeed in that sense, “going medieval” is a mere step in a long road back. Forget the Constitution. Forget the Enlightenment. Forget even the golden age of the Roman Empire. Fauci wants to take us back long before there are any actual historical records: a conjectural Rousseauian state of nature where we lived by foraging for food around us and nothing more.
The veil of myth that surrounds the great trauma of our lives needs rending at some point. Perhaps it starts just this way: with truth-telling fables in the guise of comedy that fall flat on shocked audiences who prefer to keep up the illusion that all of this happened in the name of public health.
More than people right now are willing to admit, civil society as we knew it collapsed over these three years. A massive purge has taken place within all the commanding heights. This will affect career choices, political alliances, philosophical commitments, and the structure of society for decades to come. he rebuilding and reconstruction that must take place is going to rely – perhaps as it always has – on a small minority who see both the problem and the solution.
The lockdowns did not improve health outcomes. They did devastate economic outcomes. And economics is part of health which in turn is a reflection of the quality of life. The same results pertain however we shuffle the data: adjusting by age, adjusting by population, adjusting by population density. The conclusion is completely undeniable. Lockdowns were a disaster and they achieved nothing in terms of their stated purpose.
We could all look back and observe that March 2020 marked the beginning of the end of the great Progressive experiment in public education. Something else is emerging now. This is not a story that any responsible person would have scripted but the end result, and despite all the carnage along the way, might be a better overall system for the next generation of students, parents, and teachers.
From legend and literature, this is how things usually are presented, not with one inviting temptation to go along but rather with three chances to comply, each with assurance that all will be well if we just give up our recalcitrant desire to think and act for ourselves. At each stage, every one of us faces enormous pressure, and not just from government but also from family, friends, and coworkers.
We have solid historical and contemporary proof that eugenic ambitions are capable of sweeping up the most elite intellectuals and policy circles. The dream of curating the population by force to make it more fit is a historical reality and not nearly as discredited as people tend to believe. It can always make a return in new guise, with new language, and new excuses.
The further we move away from health care as essentially a doctor/patient relationship, with freedom of choice on all sides, and the more we allow central plans to replace on-the-ground clinical wisdom, the less it looks like quality health care and the less it contributes to public health. The Soviets already tried this path. It did not work. Health-care by modeling and data targeting: we tried it over the last three years with horrible results.
Government power to manage infectious disease is not necessary. It is not likely to be effective, either. And when it is not effective, the tendency is to overreact in the opposite direction, clamping down and abusing, exactly as we’ve seen with the war on terror and China’s response to this virus, which might be as serious as seasonal flu outbreaks. Still, people assume that government is doing its job, government fails, and then government gets more power and does awful things with it.
The peoples of the Mayan and Aztec empires were surrounded by monuments to the greatness of their leaders and their faith, and they celebrated both. We too look back in awe at what they built despite what we know: their social systems were bloody and barbaric in ways we cannot imagine now. And yet when we study their histories in our own times, with the appropriate amount of humility, we face a similar problematic disorientation.
If some website offered a deal to users – you post pics of lunch, cats, and flowers, and we give you ads – and it worked, fine. That’s normal terms of use. That’s not what is going on. Via explicit and implicit pressure, combined with irresponsible management, Facebook turned over its entire business model to government to deploy on behalf of regime interests. The customers and stockholders were the victims.
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