Part 1: Pandemic Culture and the State of Knowledge
On censorship, self-censorship, and what we know, if we know anything at all
By the logic of the attention economy, we’ve moved on from Covid. Right? Even if the virus still circulates. In everyday conversation, it feels rude to bring it up. There’s this unspoken weight that threatens to drop should we dare. We’re all exhausted. Isn’t it time to move on?
And yet, there are some aspects of society, culture, and politics that have been so utterly transformed in the course of the past two years. It seems important to take heed of where we’ve landed so that we might collect ourselves in the face of what’s to come.
In the name of recovering a political life that has been all but sundered, I want to talk about knowledge, truth, and power. How do we, as a society, know what we know, if we know anything at all?
Mainstream Misinformation
There have already been multiple cases in which what was deemed misinformation by the mainstream is now considered either factual or at least plausible by the mainstream itself. The lab leak theory is the quintessential case in which the mainstream dismissed the theory as conspiracy, and waged a brutal campaign against anyone who suggested it, only to come around to it a year later.
And of course, by then, most of us had moved on. But how would the conversation have been differently shaped if from the beginning Covid was understood to possibly originate in a lab, and more, that the lab may well have been working on gain of function and dual use research which are euphemisms for biological warfare. Why is weaponizing viruses even allowed? Just to be really clear here: gain of function in this context means intentionally making viruses more virulent and deadly. It’s still an open question as to whether such research led to the pandemic, but it’s an important one.
Why are countries like the US funding such research? Wouldn’t the world be a safer place if such research were banned? Wouldn’t the health of populations benefit from preventing the potential accidental release of weaponized viruses?! Why isn’t this even a conversation? Has anyone else noticed that the individual bears the entire weight of protecting the health of others, and the state and corporations and militaries bear none? Despite that in this case (and many others) the militarized corporate state may actually be responsible?
I actually think this is at the heart of what we are witnessing: the way the situation has been framed exemplifies neoliberal logic that insists on individualism, competition, and separation, and seeks incessantly to push blame and responsibility onto individuals and away from the true culprits: mega corporations, corrupt governments, and the billionaire class (not so much particular individuals but a societal structure that makes mass corruption possible). In its current form, neoliberalism has taken up typical leftist narratives, and as such might present itself as aligned with the left despite that leftists have long been critical of neoliberalism.
The Hunter Biden laptop scandal, while not about the pandemic, also reveals the extent to which mainstream sources are willing to go to manipulate the narrative. While the original story was likely exaggerated and biased, and an attempt to undermine Biden before the election, instead of saying that, and clarifying which aspects were true and which were not (instead of actual journalism), the story was written off as Russian disinformation, or as “aiding” Russian disinformation, which is now known to be simply not true. One might even dare say that to call the story Russian disinformation was itself disinformation.
It’s entirely possible that Biden wouldn’t have won the election if this story were accurately reported. We all know Trump was likely involved in election fraud. But that doesn’t mean democrats are innocent. And to think that any means necessary are required to keep Trump out of office, is to spur on the backlash against corruption that many Trump-supporters see themselves as part of. To think elections should be manipulated to keep Trump out of office only clears the way for election fraud in the future. (I think there is a theme here around liberals so terrified about the rise of the alt-right that they are willing to go along with censorship, fraud, authoritarianism and any means necessary, essentially becoming what they most fear. But this is perhaps a conversation for another day.)
So, we know that what is claimed to be misinformation is not always that, and that the labeling of certain information as “misinformation” has, at least in several instances, been misinformation itself. (And this of course leaves open the question: how many instances are there like this that we don’t yet know about? There are many, noted by derided thinkers daring to stray from “the narrative,” but I used these examples because they are acknowledged by the mainstream). For the moment, let’s set aside the question as to whether those instances were intentional or not. I hope that we can at least agree that the mainstream narrative doesn’t always get it right. That is not to say that there is a coherent counter narrative. But it’s to complicate this simplistic divide between the mainstream “informed” position and the alternative “misinformed” position.
Censoring Science
From the very beginning of the pandemic, doctors and scientists who questioned the mainstream position were censored, bullied, often fired, and publicly defamed. For sharing their expert view. But science doesn’t work that way. There is literally no way that we can possibly understand Covid with any objectivity, since from the beginning, any expert who strayed from the corporate-state-sanctioned stance was deplatformed and actively defamed.
Most of these doctors are not anti-vax. They aren’t making extreme claims. They are sharing their expertise, with evidence to back it up. Many of them have been silenced and harrassed for making modest claims, such as, for example, the doctors who wrote The Great Barrington Declaration, who proposed evidence-based alternative response measures to widespread lockdowns. Maybe there are good reasons it wouldn’t have worked but that conversation was never had. Instead of reasoning with these experts who presented an alternative view, they were fired, bullied, defamed, and deplatformed.
And now, more than two years on, there is evidence to suggest that the approach recommended in the Declaration would not have utterly failed as “The Science” had claimed. While Sweden’s comparatively lax response to Covid has been met with criticism (in particular for not better protecting the elderly—which was recommended in the Barrington Declaration), not mandating widespread lockdowns did not prove to be deadly. Sweden never shut down schools and never had mass lockdowns. Yet their excess mortality was no worse than other European countries that did employ such measures.
The professional call for alternative measures was far from fringe, despite the message we get from the media. The Declaration has been signed by more than 46,000 health practitioners, and more than 15,000 medical and public health scientists. That is more than 60,000 experts! Not one or two misguided doctors. Not a handful of uninformed science deniers. Experts.
It’s ironic that a favoured tactic for shaming question-askers has been to deride them for thinking they can become scientists overnight. “Trust the experts,” we’ve been told, over and over again. Well, exactly. If we are to truly “trust the experts” then we would also have to trust the experts who have been silenced. For “trusting the experts” can’t possibly mean trusting only the experts who have been approved by the regime.
It’s one thing to deplatform people who spread lies and dangerous misinformation. But there is no way to justify silencing experts speaking on their topic of expertise. Expertise–and science–are the result of the interactions between people with different perspectives. Knowledge is inherently a social process, a point made by especially feminist philosophers of science. It requires conversation, dialogue, debate, and argument. So if from the very early days of exploring a particular topic (Covid) you reject the perspective of any expert who doesn’t hold the sanctioned perspective, you literally create the conditions in which knowledge is not even possible.
Some people might argue that, yes, knowledge requires conversation, but those conversations happen behind closed doors, at conferences and so on. It’s not for the public to observe the production of knowledge. But we’re talking about experts who have been fired, or shunned, or harassed by colleagues. That’s not a climate in which academic conversation can take place, let alone scholarship, or research. This isn’t just about the public sphere. It’s taking place in academic departments and hospitals and clinics and agencies.
A very small fraction of doctors and scientists who have been suppressed, fired, defamed: Dr. Luc Montagnier, Dr. Sukarit Bhakdi, Dr. Sunetra Gupta, Dr. Peter McCullough, Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, Dr. John Ioannidis, Dr. Tess Lawrie, Dr. Paul Marik, Dr. Robert Malone, Dr. Vladimir Zelenko, Dr. Li-Meng Yan, Dr. Martin Kulldorff, Dr. John Campbell, Dr. Pierre Kory. And there are many others.
I’m not saying I agree with every expert who has been silenced. It’s not for me to agree or disagree! I’m not an expert. My point is that we, the non-experts, cannot possibly know what is true, because the way in which experts arrive at knowledge has been destroyed.
If the media has largely abdicated its responsibility under the pressure of conflicting interest; if experts are prevented from openly discussing their topics of expertise; if professionals with particular views are exiled and made to operate only with other exiles outside the community gates; then can we hope for the necessary balancing influence that conversation, dialogue, and multiple perspectives generates? Can we hope for knowledge, even if imperfect, at all?
Self-Censorship and the Silent Experts
The punishment faced by those who strayed from the narrative was so great that, as one of the Great Barrington signatories, Stanford doctor Jay Bhattacharia has said, most doctors who questioned the mainstream position were too scared to say so publicly. Not only censorship, but self-censorship has significantly impacted our access to accurate information.
I suspect self-censorship is especially significant for dissenters on the left who risk losing not only their careers, but also their communities. Because the (liberal) left has been especially vicious in its attacks against anyone who strays from the narrative, and because the narrative has employed left-leaning tropes from the beginning, people on the left especially have been scared into submission. Self-described one-time “darling of the left,” Naiomi Wolf speaks about being shunned for her views on Covid, as well as the many professionals who have privately confessed to her that they agree but are too afraid to say anything:
“In the DMs, people whom I know socially or professionally — people from journalism, from politics, from medicine, from science (most of them upper-middle-class ‘men in suits’) — say something like: “Naomi, I really respect your actions right now. I totally agree with what you are saying. But of course I can’t say anything publicly because [fill in the nonsensical, craven reason].”
The nonsensical and craven reason that follows this shameful message is typically something along the lines of, “My boss will get mad at me” or “My professional peers will have a problem with my speaking up.” It’s never even, “I have bills to pay.””
And just imagine the impact of self-censorship for those who do have to worry about paying their bills!
I certainly don’t agree with everything Naiomi Wolf has ever said, nor do I resonate with her particular brand of feminism. I’m sharing this only because I think it matters a great deal that many who have been publicly shamed have shared that they have colleagues who privately agree with them but who are too afraid to say so publicly.
I’m no expert but I can certainly testify to the paralyzing effects of self-censorship. I started writing this blog post months ago! But despite being generally rather outspoken, the thought of losing even more community, friends, and clients has made hitting “publish” extremely difficult.
Given the inordinately high cost of dissenting from the official narrative, not only have many people–professionals especially–remained silent, but in fact we have no way to know how many people hold any particular view. Dr. Vinay Prasad makes the point that we can’t even be confident that the majority of experts hold what appears to be the majority perspective.
Knowledge has always been skewed by power, something the left should be well aware of. And yet, rather than working to include more diverse voices, to decolonize, to minimize conflict of interest and the detrimental force of profit at any cost, and to make knowledge work better for The People, we have slid backwards over the past two years. We have slid more deeply into a hardened hierarchical perspective in which knowledge is dictated from the top down, as proclamation without justification, in which dissenting voices are silenced, in which compliance is rewarded, and asking questions is punished. And this epistemic context has shaped not only our institutions, but our culture.
But we make culture, and we can remake it. Through loosening the hold that authority has on our minds and hearts. Through listening to more voices. Through sharing with one another. Through meeting with one another. Through the intellectual labour of thinking and feeling and reading and studying and conversing and writing. Through art. Through healing. Through love, and solidarity. And through a return to celebration and congregation and all that is so very human and that makes life worth living.
Many interesting points. About Hunter Biden: would we have been happier, if Trump had won a second term? If we choose "pragmatic ethics", where is the dividing line?