Part 2: Pandemic Culture and the State of Knowledge
Manipulation and coercion as public health protocol
This post is part 2 of Pandemic Culture and the State of Knowledge: on censorship, self-censorship, and what we know, if we know anything at all
Please read that first!
I know that there are other important issues in the news cycle, but I feel it is still important to talk about the pandemic, as the culture created by it continues: pandemic culture isn’t over and if we don’t parse through what has transpired we will be ill-equipped to navigate the next one.
Thank you to those of you who are still here. Whether you see things differently from me, or are already on board with this perspective, I appreciate you taking the time to read these words. <3
Censorship Creates the Conditions for Tyranny
I know some would claim censorship isn’t happening, and that deplatforming is not an instance of censorship. But at a time when our information is sorted and presented by search engines and social media, then deplatforming is a form of censorship as it prevents the vast majority of people from hearing those voices. What is free speech if you are prevented from having an audience? Besides, the suppression has gone well beyond deplatforming. The derided experts aren’t represented in the mainstream media (significantly funded by governments and corporate interest), and many of them have been fired or defamed for speaking out.
If that doesn’t meet the definition of censorship, what does? The Cambridge dictionary defines censorship as: “the action of preventing part or the whole of a book, film, work of art, document, or other kind of communication from being seen or made available to the public, because it is considered to be offensive or harmful, or because it contains information that someone wishes to keep secret, often for political reasons.”
As long as censorship is allowed, it creates the conditions for tyranny, even if we agree with who is being censored (at the moment). Because as long as censorship is allowed, then those who have the power (the corporate state), shape the narrative. Now that the precedent has been set, anything might be censored, and we would have no way to know. Because obviously, an aspect of censorship is (for the most part) not being privy to the censored information. And when the narrative is controlled by those in power, we are in deep, deep trouble. And that’s the situation at hand.
You might agree with the first example: Trump? Oh yes, definitely, he should be deplatformed. Radical anti-vax conspiracy theorist? Oh yes, them too. And Joe Rogan? Well we don’t like his politics, so yes, him as well. But what about your family doctor? What about hard working nurses? What about experts in mRNA technology? What about patients experiencing side effects? What about those who question the State or the corporations growing rich (an understatement) off these tactics? What about whistleblowers? What about YOU? Once you agree to censorship, you agree to any form of censorship. Once you agree to censorship, you consent to The (technocratic, corporate) State controlling what passes for truth. And you don’t think they’ll use that to their advantage?! You think somehow disaster capitalism doesn’t apply to this situation? You think that because you care about your neighbour, that Pfizer does too?!
We agree to censorship when we assume that we know what the truth is. (This is the truth; therefore, those people spouting untruths need to be silenced). But we came to our version of truth in a climate of censorship. So why are we so confident in what we believe? (Maybe it’s simple human bias. We all tend to assume we’re right; how could we live our lives otherwise?) But this is a dangerous state of affairs: information is biased, censored, manipulated, and controlled. Our version of truth is based on that sullied information. Then we use our version of truth to insist on further censorship and state control. This is insanity! How will we ever know what’s really going on in this climate?
(Through the tireless work of independent journalists, through courageous doctors and scientists and others who aren’t afraid to share their perspective, through firsthand accounts and anecdotes, through personal experience. Through finally having enough reasons to say, finally, enough. Through all the trials and public forums that will shine a light on all that has gone on here. Through research and history and a laborious reexamination of the data. Through conversation. Through holding those at fault to account. Through the erosion of public trust in institutions more and more to the point of breakdown. There will be a reckoning. Not for a while, perhaps. But there will be.)
Manipulation and Coercion
Public Health has gone further than censoring patients and dissenting experts though. They have intentionally manipulated us. Anyone who’s paying attention can see how the media and governments have stoked division, fear, hatred, and bullying.
The divisive tactics are not accidental. This study, conducted in July and September of 2020 compared different messaging tactics to see how they would influence vaccine uptake. They found that intention to vaccinate was significantly increased when the vaccine was framed as something important to do, not just for oneself, but for one’s community, but it was even further increased when the pro-social message was combined with potential guilt or embarrassment, such as “Imagine how guilty you will feel if you choose not to get vaccinated and spread COVID-19 to someone you care about,” “Imagine how embarrassed and ashamed you will be if you choose not to get vaccinated and spread COVID-19 to someone you care about,” and “Not getting vaccinated will show people that you are probably the sort of person who doesn’t understand how infection spreads and who ignores or are confused about science.” Please note, this study has nothing to do with conveying information. It’s specifically about what messaging increases uptake of vaccine, regardless of the truth.
Not only do I think it’s simply wrong to encourage people to bully their neighbours (for how else would you describe messaging that encourages us to use guilt, fear, and embarrassment to coerce one another), I also seriously doubt that it contributes to better health. This fixation on vaccine uptake to the exclusion of every other aspect of health is nonsensical. It’s obvious that health will be negatively impacted by division and antagonism and intentional social coercion. We don’t need studies to tell us that a supportive social network is an essential component of good health, and that when people are bullied or ostracized from their communities, their health will be negatively impacted.
We don’t need studies. But there are studies. A recent study published in BMJ Global Health in May of 2022 concludes: “ mandatory vaccine policies are scientifically questionable and are likely to cause more societal harm than good. Restricting people’s access to work, education, public transport and social life based on COVID-19 vaccination status impinges on human rights, promotes stigma and social polarisation, and adversely affects health and well-being. Current policies may lead to a widening of health and economic inequalities, detrimental long-term impacts on trust in government and scientific institutions, and reduce the uptake of future public health measures, including COVID-19 vaccines as well as routine immunisations.” The study is worth reading in full. It’s one of the most coherent, nuanced, and level-headed things I’ve read on Covid.
The vaccines may contribute to better health for an individual. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that higher vaccine uptake in the population translates to better population health–especially if you introduce new variables like social divisiveness. There are other externalities as well: Dr. Vinay Prasad makes the important point that it’s essential to consider the social impact of various mandates: vaccine mandates, for instance, actually function to further marginalize already marginal populations.
He points out that given the extent to which vaccine hesitancy is racialized, if we truly care about redressing systemic racism, we need to recognize just how systemically racist vaccine mandates are: significantly more black people than other groups, for instance, will be pushed further into poverty for losing their livelihoods due to their decision not to vaccinate.
He also insists we must seriously consider the generational harm done to children due to school closures. Education is known to be one of the biggest indicators of economic success as well as health. So closing schools in the interest of immediate health goals are likely to have devastating consequences for an entire generation in the long run (not to mention the more immediate impacts on mental health, for example).
Public Health and Population Control
When I talk about this with people in my life who I love and respect, who support the mainstream position, some of them make the argument that censorship and coercion are necessary in order to promote uptake of the injections and other measures. Among those who are aware that censorship is rampant and who still side with the mainstream, this seems to be the logic.
I think this is the position of most well-meaning public health officials. I think the logic is: the primary intention is to control the spread of Covid, and the vaccine and other measures are our tools to do that so our job is to get people to comply with the measures. If there is an open debate, people may not make the best decision. So in the interest of public health, we should direct the narrative. We should suppress any information that might lead to vaccine-hesitancy–even if that information is true.
I do not think that doctors are evil. I think that most people have good intentions. But we have to ask ourselves if paternalism is a fundamental principle on which we want to structure our society. Do we want to live in a world where governments and agencies require doctors to keep important information from us and mandate what we do with our bodies, for the supposed sake of public health?
While I think paternalistic governance is deeply misguided, counterproductive, and undemocratic, I don’t want to get into that more deeply here. In this context, I simply want to point out what a significant departure this is from the world we lived in just a few short years ago. For one, this approach makes informed consent, the gold standard of medical care, literally impossible.
The protocol of informed consent derived from the Nuremberg trials investigating medical crimes against humanity perpetrated in the second world war. Informed consent requires that every patient must be fully informed as to both the potential risks as well as the benefits of any medication. Without such information, consent isn’t truly consent, for people don’t understand what they are consenting to.
Isn’t it significant that as a globe we have, without so much as a public conversation, dropped the ethical standards that were meant to prevent crimes against humanity?
Ulterior Motives
The generous interpretation of events is to suppose that the censorship, lies, and manipulation are well-meaning (if narrow-minded, undemocratic, and likely ineffective) attempts to protect public health. But could there be other motives?
I believe that ultimately public health policy around Covid needs to be understood in the context of the colonial project that seeks further and further encroachment into our lives, minds, and bodies, and ultimately works to reify global inequality (see for example, On the Coloniality of Public Health). But for the moment, we can look to more concrete and specific motives.
While there may well be other motives tied to implementing new systems of surveillance and control, the profit motive is sufficient to account for regulatory capture by pharmaceutical companies. The Covid vaccines are set to be one of the most profitable industries that has ever existed on Earth. Ever. That alone should be enough for us to question the narrative, insist on public dialogue, transparency, and accountability.
Profit provides a possible motive for why any doctor (like Pierre Kory, for instance) who dared to actually treat patients (or who dared to even discuss treatment) were so aggressively shut down and defamed (emergency use authorization of the vaccines legally required that no alternative treatments were available. If Covid can be treated with cheap, already available medicines, not only would the vaccine not have been as necessary, but emergency use authorization would not have been granted).
Profit also provides a potential motive for why doctors and patients discussing side-effects and vaccine injury have been suppressed. If the public is aware that there are risks associated, they may be less likely to take the vaccine, which of course would harm profit. Or worse, if serious investigation of side-effects were allowed, the vaccines might be found to be too risky to warrant widespread use, a possibility that pharmaceutical companies likely want to avoid.
It’s the oldest story in the book, isn’t it? Pharmaceutical companies have been caught many, many times for hiding important information about the risks of medicines in the name of increased profits. Some of the same companies that are making billions off these inoculations have been responsible in the past for knowingly harming people’s health in the name of profit. That does not necessarily mean they are doing so in this case. But it does mean that we have every right to ask questions, and it would be naive to trust them without any transparency or accountability.
Thankfully, a court order is forcing Pfizer to release the data that it intended to keep hidden (despite that quite obviously the data should have been publicly available to begin with–in the future, we value transparency). At 55 000 pages released per month, we should have all the information by the end of the summer, rather than 2097 which is what Pfizer was pushing for (!). Plenty of people are wading through all this extensive documentation, and there are plenty of preliminary findings. But I think it will take many months if not years before professional communities have the time necessary to truly parse and process what has transpired.
A Return to Life
I truly believe that our future is one of institutional transparency, radical equality, and diversity in every respect. I think this surge in backwards governance tactics like paternalism, authoritarianism, censorship, and manipulation are actually indicative of their failings. As we transition to a new order, the age-old tactics of control and exploitation are rearing their heads in an attempt to keep a grip on humanity. But humanity can’t be suppressed–for when we are, the radical shoots of love and liberty and joy and solidarity sprout up wherever they can with ever more vigor.
Through experiencing firsthand in more surreal and real ways the outcome of overreaches of power, humanity is galvanizing. Quietly, we shake off the shackles of our past. Slowly we return to social and political life, again, as if for the first time, altogether differently.
It’s a tragedy that sometimes it has to get worse before it gets better. But I have such a deep faith that soon enough, if not already, it will be plain as day to the vast majority of us that freedom is sacred, and that joy and congregation and community are the stuff of life, and that nothing but bare life (Agamben), as measured by biometrics, at the cost of the social and political and spiritual, is no life at all.