An entire nation under house arrest. We may not face the same punishments (yet), but our liberties are no longer much greater than those of a resident in Pyongyang.
I have written a letter to my MP (Julie Marson) and received no response. I have searched the internet for evidence of her opinions on the emergency powers act and have found only uncritical, unthinking support. There are some brave dissenters in parliament, who have at least placed some checks on the government, and who have managed to remove at least one egregious aspect of the bill (the possible enforced cremation of the dead), but it is not much, and Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson must be feeling mightily powerful right now.
Other countries have not found it necessary to respond with such self-destructive madness. Japan, which is in some ways as England was, did not initiate a lockdown. They took sensible measures and precautions, but have kept most work and travel and public events operating. Despite having COVID-19 in the country for months, their incidence rate remains less than a thousand. Are they simply a more decent people, not as selfish, filthy and uncivilised as we have become, more likely to take sensible precautions, to be considerate of others? Does that explain it, or is it that the disease may not be the Big One it has been presented to us as. Both are probably true.
I have written a letter to my MP (Julie Marson) and received no response. I have searched the internet for evidence of her opinions on the emergency powers act and have found only uncritical, unthinking support. There are some brave dissenters in parliament, who have at least placed some checks on the government, and who have managed to remove at least one egregious aspect of the bill (the possible enforced cremation of the dead), but it is not much, and Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson must be feeling mightily powerful right now.
Other countries have not found it necessary to respond with such self-destructive madness. Japan, which is in some ways as England was, did not initiate a lockdown. They took sensible measures and precautions, but have kept most work and travel and public events operating. Despite having COVID-19 in the country for months, their incidence rate remains less than a thousand. Are they simply a more decent people, not as selfish, filthy and uncivilised as we have become, more likely to take sensible precautions, to be considerate of others? Does that explain it, or is it that the disease may not be the Big One it has been presented to us as. Both are probably true.
I hear you say, but what about the experts? I do not necessarily think we should 'follow the experts', a fairly empty phrase. For one thing, experts are not a homogeneous group. And for another, just as in the mass of mankind, the minority of experts may be more right than the majority. We have had spectacular errors in medical science before: lobotomies, pathologising of homosexuality, eugenics, thalidomide. Economic experts are usually more wrong than they are right, and produce forecasts which are about as unreliable as a trabant. The recent UK Supreme Court decision showed that judges, for all their learning, may show little understanding of, or cannot be counted on to uphold, the constitution of this country. And social science expertise is often useless. There is no psychological opinion that was not better and more truthfully expressed by Samuel Johnson, no sociological study as insightful as the great novels. And does anyone who studied women's studies or media studies actually have a deeper understanding of the female sex or the role of the media? In both cases, their education has probably misguided them as to the truth. And let us not get started on military experts, responsible for so many blunders and idiotic ventures.
To be ruled by experts is a mad system -- no successful country has ever tried it. Rule by an aristocracy, rule by a monarch -- even rule by the demos is preferable to rule by experts.
Now, we should pay much closer attention to the advice of medical experts, and consider it much more seriously, than that of most of the experts listed above, but they are not infallible, and their expertise is not beyond the reach of a curious and sceptical mind. Even those of us essentially ignorant in matters of medicine can at least look at the COVID-19 statistics in various countries and ask sensible questions. Why does Germany have such a low death rate from the virus? Why Italy such a high rate? Why is South Korea so low? From where should we draw our conclusions? Are these people dying of COVID-19, or did they have the virus but die of something else? How many healthy people have died from the disease? When you start to look into it one starts to suspect it is bad, but not let-us-shut-down-everything-and-hope-for-the-best bad. A 3% death rate seems too high as an estimate. Germany's death rate is only 0.3%. South Korea has done extensive testing and records a death rate of 0.7%. Italy's death rate (9%) does not like the rule. Maybe they are only testing the most severe cases, as I've seen suggested, and their culture of living with elderly relatives, though otherwise noble, will doubtless have made them more vulnerable than others to this virus.
Let us not, then, let experts think for us. Be informed by them, but not ruled by them. And do not be so quick to follow expert 'consensus', or to identify apparent homogeneity among experts (which is usually only apparent). Do not let opinions become commandments. An expert is not an expert is most things, and sometimes not even in those things peripheral to his studies. Especially when he enters the realm of social and governmental policy, we all have a duty to be informed by his advice, but also to question it. This is not like trutherism -- a comparison I have heard made -- which is a denial of something that happened and is clearly and accessibly documented. Rather, this is a questioning of something that has not and may not yet happen, of forecasts and measurements which are abstract -- and which are not one mere incident but a collection of thousands of incidents from which only partial and uncertain conclusions can be made.
To be ruled by experts is a mad system -- no successful country has ever tried it. Rule by an aristocracy, rule by a monarch -- even rule by the demos is preferable to rule by experts.
Now, we should pay much closer attention to the advice of medical experts, and consider it much more seriously, than that of most of the experts listed above, but they are not infallible, and their expertise is not beyond the reach of a curious and sceptical mind. Even those of us essentially ignorant in matters of medicine can at least look at the COVID-19 statistics in various countries and ask sensible questions. Why does Germany have such a low death rate from the virus? Why Italy such a high rate? Why is South Korea so low? From where should we draw our conclusions? Are these people dying of COVID-19, or did they have the virus but die of something else? How many healthy people have died from the disease? When you start to look into it one starts to suspect it is bad, but not let-us-shut-down-everything-and-hope-for-the-best bad. A 3% death rate seems too high as an estimate. Germany's death rate is only 0.3%. South Korea has done extensive testing and records a death rate of 0.7%. Italy's death rate (9%) does not like the rule. Maybe they are only testing the most severe cases, as I've seen suggested, and their culture of living with elderly relatives, though otherwise noble, will doubtless have made them more vulnerable than others to this virus.
Let us not, then, let experts think for us. Be informed by them, but not ruled by them. And do not be so quick to follow expert 'consensus', or to identify apparent homogeneity among experts (which is usually only apparent). Do not let opinions become commandments. An expert is not an expert is most things, and sometimes not even in those things peripheral to his studies. Especially when he enters the realm of social and governmental policy, we all have a duty to be informed by his advice, but also to question it. This is not like trutherism -- a comparison I have heard made -- which is a denial of something that happened and is clearly and accessibly documented. Rather, this is a questioning of something that has not and may not yet happen, of forecasts and measurements which are abstract -- and which are not one mere incident but a collection of thousands of incidents from which only partial and uncertain conclusions can be made.
As a result of our actions, we face grave societal damage. We see the fragilitities of our economy and moreover the fragilitities of a global system. To cope, we have loaded ourselves with an economic burden which we will have to pay for at some point in the future. How on earth are we going to it? Thousands of mortgage payments postponed, potentially millions of workers not producing anything yet getting paid 80% of their salaries, while the pound falls in value and the economy almost comes to a halt. We could be sacrificing our economic future. Ruin could await us. We don't have the strong social, communal and religious institutions to cope with such an outcome.
What's worse, the traditions of this country no longer have any hold. Who, except for a few eccentrics, even know what habeas corpus is anymore? Who knows of the 1689 Bill of Rights? Who knows anything about Peel's police? I am now finally resigned to the fact that I do not live in a free country. A country that does not know its past cannot be free, even one whose past was so glorious that the long deformed shadows can still be seen in its sunset years. But the sun is finally setting. Those of us aware of what has been lost will have to try to carve a small corner of this island for ourselves. We will never have much wealth, though we will have another kind of wealth, for we will know the value of things that do not come with price tags. We may face many dangers and many attempts against out liberty, but we may still be able to hold onto a tiny portion of this world and live a life in the sun; free, meaningful, dutiful, beautiful, contented, not vulnerable to the madnesses of this society. And what madness we see before us! The entire country, having lost all sense of proportion, and preferring the draconian extremes of China to the more effective moderation of Japan, shut itself down over a virus which does not kill the young (and seldom the healthy it would seem), and whose fatality rate is likely well below 1% -- and even then, so many deaths are 'with COVID-19' but we do not in fact know whether the virus was the cause.
It really is quite extraordinary. We have now seen men of action, authoritarian government, militarised police, enforced morality, government-provided social security on the most astonishing scale (greater than even I, not unsympathetic to socialist economics, support), and I worry that we may like it. As society around us collapses thanks to our reaction to this crisis, will we finally forget liberty and cling to the protecting bosom of the modern state? We have not quite established tyranny, but we have set a precedent which it could easily use to establish itself.
It really is quite extraordinary. We have now seen men of action, authoritarian government, militarised police, enforced morality, government-provided social security on the most astonishing scale (greater than even I, not unsympathetic to socialist economics, support), and I worry that we may like it. As society around us collapses thanks to our reaction to this crisis, will we finally forget liberty and cling to the protecting bosom of the modern state? We have not quite established tyranny, but we have set a precedent which it could easily use to establish itself.
No comments:
Post a Comment