Society ⋆ Page 52 of 62 ⋆ Brownstone Institute

How Public Opinion Ended Covid, and Started the Next Thing

Jeffrey A. Tucker / March 14, 2022 / Philosophy, Public Health, Society / 7 minute read

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These results point to one conclusion: between one-half and two-thirds of the public believe that the pandemic response was an enormous flop, and that their own liberties are far less secure now than they were before. Further, none of it worked to achieve that goal. That is a devastating indictment on the biggest expansion of government power and control in our lifetimes, one that happened not only in the US but almost everywhere in the world.

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War Was Always the Wrong Metaphor

Steve Templeton / March 14, 2022 / Policy, Public Health, Society / 11 minute read

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With two full years of hindsight, it’s clear that lockdowns were a disaster and that mandated measures caused more harm than benefit, yet this has not prevented leaders from declaring victory, crediting their own brave and resolute leadership for saving millions of lives and routing the viral enemy. However, SARS-CoV-2 isn’t a real enemy—it doesn’t have an intention other than to exist and spread, and it won’t agree to an armistice. Instead, we will have to live with the virus forever in an endemic state, and skip the victory parades.

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What Happens When Cases Rise?

Vinay Prasad / March 11, 2022 / Policy, Public Health, Society / 4 minute read

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Covid-19 cases will eventually rise. I don’t know when, but we are extremely vulnerable to an ill-formed and schizophrenic response. As we near midterm elections, politicians will be more volatile, and seek to control news that is seen as a threat to political fortunes. That’s the territory for bad decision making.

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Freedom Is Our Birthright, Not Dependent On Medical Status

David Bell / March 10, 2022 / Policy, Society, Vaccines / 8 minute read

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On occasion the majority may need to swallow a risk for a time. Sometimes respecting the freedom of others will seem to cost us, but codifying human rights, and insisting on process, legalism, and law gives wisdom time to overcome fear. It is the insurance that keeps the members of a free society free.

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Drs. Walensky and Offit: It’s All in Good Fun

Thomas Harrington / March 10, 2022 / Policy, Society, Vaccines / 9 minute read

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Did you ever think of the cruelty bordering on sadism of forcing millions of people who, thanks to natural immunity posed no infectious threat to anyone, were having to choose between taking a medication that can do them little good and might do them considerable harm, and losing their livelihood?

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What Can the Stanford Prison Experiment Tell Us about Life in the Pandemic Era?

Daniel Nuccio / March 9, 2022 / Philosophy, Policy, Psychology, Society / 11 minute read

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Given the world in which we have been living for the past two years, despite the numerous flaws critics have found in both Zimbardo’s work, it would seem that both he and other members of social psychology’s golden age can still tell us a lot about how social roles, oppressive environments and powerful authorities can alter the psyches and actions of normal people in pathological ways.

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Why Did Politicians Choose Economic Contraction Over Virus Mitigation?

John Tamny / March 9, 2022 / Policy, Society, Vaccines / 5 minute read

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Poverty has always been mankind’s most brutal killer, while prosperity that’s produced the resources necessary for cures has been death’s greatest foe. Politicians chose economic contraction as a virus-mitigation strategy. Historians will marvel…

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Time for Honesty about Diminishment and Death

Thomas Harrington / March 8, 2022 / Philosophy, Society / 7 minute read

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The elderly were once seen as a precious resource, providing us all with much-needed wisdom and emotional ballast as we navigated life difficulties. Now, however, we lock them and their encroaching decrepitude away so that they do not impinge upon our frenzied, self-directed pep talks about the importance of staying forever young and highly productive.

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The Moral Cruelty of the Pandemic Response

Laura Dodsworth / March 5, 2022 / Media, Philosophy, Psychology, Society, Vaccines / 15 minute read

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Beyond empathy, to combat a psychic epidemic we need meaning in our lives. Not an ersatz top-down solidarity, dreamt up by technocratic communications experts, but genuine, socially meaningful relationships, purpose and values. Lockdowns and restrictions squashed exactly what we need to flourish as human beings in order to counteract a psychic epidemic. For the good of the collective, we must recapture meaning and values as individuals.

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Digital Brownshirts and Their Masters

David Souto Alcalde,

Thomas Harrington / March 3, 2022 / Media, Policy, Society / 11 minute read

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Digital Brownshirts are just the most visible and forward-leaning elements of a much broader effort to install the logic of the algorithm—a providential and vertically-imposed concept of truth that vitiates traditional fact-finding and admits neither human intelligence nor scientific debate—as a cornerstone of our human interactions and cognitive processes.

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Mardi Gras Saves the World

Jeffrey A. Tucker / March 2, 2022 / Law, Public Health, Society / 11 minute read

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Consider that the powers and plans to do this still exist. They can do it again. Mardi Gras can be canceled again. You can be locked in your home. Your church, business, gym, and favorite watering hole can be closed. They have promised as much. This is what needs to change.

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A Child’s Life In a World on Mute

Megan Mansell / March 2, 2022 / Masks, Policy, Society / 7 minute read

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For the duration of Noah’s educational experience, caregivers have put themselves first, with his needs utterly disregarded, the permanence of their impact on his life and his long-term ability to communicate cruelly displaced by the safety theater imposed by his school system.

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