A Ramble on Peter Singer, the Seatbelt Analogy for Vaccine Mandates, and HIV

Peter Singer has written an article wherein he defends the commonly used 'Seat Belt' analogy for compulsory vaccinations against COVID-19. 

The analogy is as follows: vaccines are said to be like seat belts since both are extremely effective ways of gaining protection against serious injuries and death, for oneself and others. Additionally, given the contagiousness of most vaccine-preventable diseases, catching an infectious disease is not only equivalent to being victim of a car accident, but to being victim of a car accident in such a way as to become a lethal threat to others.

Singer states, ‘[e]ach time we get into a car, the chance that we will be involved in an accident serious enough to cause injury, if we are not wearing a seat belt, is very small... The same reason justifies making vaccination against COVID-19 compulsory: otherwise, too many people make decisions that they later regret.’

Car accidents occur whether or not seat belts are worn, and these accidents are products of driving cars: which we allow. 

The seat belt doesn’t prevent accidents and collisions from occurring – they prevent serious injury or death to the wearer. Just like the vaccines - as we're told. 

If one is speeding down the road and hits a pedestrian at a cross walk, the seat belt played no role in preventing that accident. It only prevents injury to the wearer. Ditto for instances of multiple vehicles colliding. 

Singer also states that '[t]he oddity, here, is that laws requiring us to wear seat belts really are quite straightforwardly infringing on freedom, whereas laws requiring people to be vaccinated if they are going to be in places where they could infect other people are restricting one kind of freedom in order to protect the freedom of others to go about their business safely.' 

I think that the real oddity is saying that vaccinated people need other people to be vaccinated in order to protect the former from a disease that their vaccination is supposed to protect them from. To link this back to the seat belt analogy: how does you wearing your seat belt protect me from injury?

By taking the vaccine, one has engaged in a preventative measure to protect one's self from infection - or at least serious illness/death. Requiring that others take that same preventative measure to protect others, when those others have already taken the preventative measure to protect themselves seems bizarre and belies the confidence that we're supposed to have towards these vaccines. (Which have been shown to rapidly decrease in efficacy over the course of several months). 

So, perhaps the seat belt analogy is more accurately constructed like this: we're all driving our cars (living life) which is dangerous. We have the protective feature of the seat belt (vaccines) that we can/should use. In fact, it should be mandatory to wear that seat belt (get vaccinated) in order to drive our car (live life freely).  

This, however, is different from the original analogy, and builds coercion into the analogy instead of self-interest and altruism. 

Singer acknowledges this, stating that such laws violate John Stuart Mill’s famous principle that 'the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others.' Thus, coercing others for their own good is morally unjustified. 

This concern is quickly handwaved away by Singer. 

While he agrees that such a principle is good for protecting homosexuals from laws seeking to criminalise their 'victimless acts', for example, people are just less rational today than back in Mill's time, and so we need a little paternalism.

To speak to Singer's victimless homosexuals: whereas roughly 38,000 people die from car crashes in the US annually, approximately 35,000 people get infected with HIV each year, as well. 

Some may contest that the comparison between HIV and COVID-19 is a mistaken since HIV is no longer the death sentence it was at the beginning of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Some may say that such a comparison is also bigoted as it compares a vulnerable and marginalised community with a deadly viral scourge – even tangentially, this comparison amounts to a dog-whistle harkening back to some of the darkest days of homophobia.

Well, argumentum ad misericordiam is a fallacy, and Dr. Anthony Fauci, who had been at the helm of the HIV/AIDs response as well as the current COVID-19 response, has made such a comparison – and so I feel free to use it.

The problem for Fauci, however, is that such a comparison highlights the fact that we’ve not learnt important lessons from that crisis – and it is the contrasting elements found in this comparison that make it more instructive.

To begin: HIV, unlike COVID-19, is incredibly lethal (without lifelong and expensive treatment) and was primarily spread by younger people without symptoms. Despite this, officials didn’t attempt to quarantine people who were known to be infected, nor did they lockdown communities and activities that were known hotspots for transmission (gay bath houses, gay bars, etc.).

One may retort by saying that the lack of a serious response was due to a) the lack of any real understanding of the virus at the time, and b) that since it mainly impacted the stigmatised group that was ‘gay men’, there was little incentive to more swiftly. These reactions are knee-jerks that have little to no basis in the history of the medical response.

The HIV crisis was treated as a medical problem to be solved, not as death-dealing society-smothering menace that needed sacrifices of liberties and freedoms, and large-scale coercion even though HIV is far more dangerous and has killed far more people, especially young people, than COVID-19 ever will.

With that in mind, let's us this comparison between HIV and COVID to assess the seat belt analogy. 

If we wanted to be consistent in our imposition of seat belts and vaccines, shouldn't we also impose restrictions on those groups that are most impacted with HIV?  

A possible response could be: since HIV transmission is tightly correlated with certain activities, and since COVID-19 is far more easily transmitted via airborne particles and droplets in public spaces, it makes little sense to compare the two. Since COVID-19 is more easily transmitted, measures to restrict its transmission will inherently impact more aspects of people's lives. That's just the nature of dealing with a very contagious communicable disease. 

An opposing case can be made: HIV, by virtue of having such a restrained means of transmission, can be more easily targeted, and we should thus impose restrictions. After all, the costs both to lives and livelihoods of HIV are far from negligible - even when considering the significant advances in medical interventions to prolong life. 

Additionally, the economic burden of HIV in the United States in the era of highly active anti-retroviral therapy is no small matter. These estimated total cost of HIV is substantial at $52.8 billion per year - with productivity losses accounting for $44.8 billion, and direct medical costs equaling $8.0 billion. Car crash deaths and injuries cost $70 billion in medical and lost work costs, all in. 

These numbers pale in comparison to the whopping $16 trillion COVID-19 has been estimated to cost the USA, but surely we shouldn't only be looking at the dollars to determine the value of a course of action, right? 

In fact, instead of trying to impose restrictions of activity that spreads HIV, we're seeing an apparent loosening of restrictions. For example, the state of California had recently passed a law (Bill 329) that it makes it no longer a felony for people who are HIV-positive to have unprotected sex and not disclose their status to their sexual/romantic partner. Instead, such behaviour is a misdemeanour with options for civil suits. In Canada, the ban on gay men from donating blood is likely to be lifted, too. Instead of banning gay men from donating blood, such men are eligible to give blood if it has been more than three months since their last sexual contact with a man. 

Canadian Blood Services’ goal is to stop asking men if they’ve had sex with another man and instead focus on high-risk sexual behaviour among all donors.  Instead, all potential donors would be asked if that have had sex with new/multiple sexual partners. If  they answer in the affirmative, they would then be asked if they had anal sex. 

This all seems to be rather circumlocutory since the causal links between homosexual activity and HIV are strong enough and concerning enough for blood donations that even the pro-LGBT folks can't deny it or override it. They can only get this half-measure stuff, and its clear that there is a thin line being walked between appealing LGBT interests and doing basic due diligence to protect public heath. 

And so, what we have here is the conflict between values, costs, and benefits. 

In the case of vehicle travel, we allow the danger, injury, and deaths caused by automobiles – and yet car crashes are the leading cause of death for people under 50 years of age, and the leading cause of death for children 5-29 years old. Overall, about 1.4 million people die every year from car crashes. The data goes on. 

But car crashes are not even close to the top of heap, when it comes to mortality in our context. 

Whereas roughly 38,000 people die from car crashes in the US annually, about 385,000 people died of COVID-19 in 2020. That is a stark difference that should be taken into account, but next to heart diseases (690,000 deaths) and cancers (599,000 deaths) COVID-19 is the third leading cause of death in the US. 

Despite these numbers we don't seem to wish a top-down authoritarian state that seeks to impose health standards and medical treatment to curb deaths from heart disease do we? Nor should we want to.

So perhaps the matter isn't with numbers of deaths, per se, but the frequency of the deaths. After all, we've seen health care systems grind to a halt due to over-crowding of in-patients and lack of staff due to infection and/or burn-out. 

But wouldn't it be a good idea to promote healthy living in the citizenry? Isn't comparing COVID-19 to heart disease more accurate than to driving a car? After all, severe COVID-19 illnesses were linked to other underlying health problems such as hypertension, diabetes, and obesity. Coincidently, these conditions are also linked to heart disease. 

Now, these are tough questions. But the over-arching point, here, is that we, as a society, allow/endure certain costs in order to preserve certain values, and this fact has been lost in this conversation about COVID-19 because the discourse has been overrun with medical authoritarians who a trying to keep their system stable.

It's time to wrap this up. 

This seat belt analogy isn't great. 

Is it paternalistic? Yes. Is it an acceptable amount of paternalism? Debatably. 

What we have seen over the past year, here, with vaccine mandates and other COVID-19 related restrictions is hardly the paternalistic nudge, it is more like an abusive relationship. In fact, the discourse round vaccines has created strong antagonisms between the pro-vaccine/anti-vaccine clubs. 

There are differences in attitudes towards the unvaccinated in the realm of healthcare, with doctors and ethicists sayings that unvaccinated people should be triaged to the back of the line when it comes to receiving treatment. Would the same statement apply to those who didn't wear a seat belt? 

Overall, the analogy is shallow in its comparison, and inconsistent in its application. It doesn't accurately map onto the facts of the pandemic and is only being used as a thought-terminating cliché to engender compliance in the population and normalise increasingly coercive measures. 

The analogy argues that people should be coerced into getting vaccines because of the benefit that'll accrue to third parties - particularly the vulnerable - like seat belts. The problem with this analogy is that seat belts do not protect third parties: the seat belt only protects the wearer, and it protects them no matter what others do, too. 

With vaccines, the protection accrued to the vulnerable is only achieved if people, collectively, get vaccinated; and if the vaccine provides the requisite level of prolonged protection (which they don't). So, whilst the seat belt only requires individual action, the vaccines require collective action. If the collective cannot be convinced, then it'll be compelled. 

This, in turn, increases already simmering distrust in the citizenry which exasperates efforts to address the pandemic's impacts on public health and its institutions. 

All of these are ingredients for a bad recipe which should be given the adherence it has garnered. 

A Big Israel

So, Zelensky is saying that Ukraine will become a 'big Israel': 

'Ukraine will definitely not be what we wanted it to be from the beginning. It is impossible. Absolutely liberal, European – it will not be like that... We will become a ‘big Israel’ with its own face. We will not be surprised if we have representatives of the Armed Forces or the National Guard in cinemas, supermarkets, and people with weapons. I am confident that the question of security will be the issue number one for the next 10 years. I am sure of it.'

On its face, it appears that Zelensky is stating that Ukrainians will just have to live with the threat of ongoing Russian aggression: be it covert or overt, coordinated or stochastic. But if he's making comparisons to Israel, then how does Israel manage its security? And what does this mean for Ukraine?

Does this mean that Ukraine will be a US outpost that will receive massive funding from the US? Will its security be propped up by the US? Will it continue to assault its Russian minority as Israel assaults the Palestinians? (In short, will Ukraine just continue doing what it did, but with more explicit US aid?)

Perhaps it will, perhaps it won't. This may be a rhetorical flourish: by equating Ukraine with Israel (Jews), he's equating Russia with anti-Semites (Nazis), this further condemns Russia with the old 'Nazi' ad hominem. 

But if he is serious in that Ukraine is to be another, larger Israel - then we are likely to have more trouble on our hands. 

 

Biology or Sin? An Summary and Condemnation of the Sad State of the Discourses Concerning Racial Differences

When we look out at our society, we observe manifest differences between races in intellectual, physical, and socio-economic performance. (These differences can be derived from results in standardised tests, occupational success, poverty, family cohesion, crime and violence, among others). 

Why do we observe manifest differences between races in intellectual, physical, and socio-economic performance, and in particular, between whites and their non-white counterparts? There are four (4) main explanations for why:

1. Genetics (G)

2. Culture (C)

3. Systematic Racism (SR)

4. Mix of the above (M)

This is a hard question, and the progressive offers SR as the only explanation. In fact, if one gestures at any other explanation, then one will become persona non grata in most social circles. The state of play is thus:

If one entertains G, then one is deemed a racist. However, if one also entertains M, then one, by extension, is also entertaining G and is still open to charges of racism. 

If one argues for C, then one is arguing that some cultures are worse than others (which is effectively racist), and if one is trying to consider the circumstances that lead to differences in C, one either ends up at G (which is racist) or SR. 

So, G and M are out of bounds of acceptability, and C is reduced to SR. 

Biology is excluded, as is culture. All we're left with is white sin.

This seems to be an illegitimate response to inquiry. Indeed, there is barely any inquiry at all. 

Furthermore, there is no reason to suspect that 'acceptability' is co-extensive with the truth of such empirical states of affairs. The world has no obligation to be acceptable to us - though we are obliged to make it so. If one doesn't find something acceptable, then one needn't accept it. That said, there are better and worse ways of going about this: some require adaptation, some require outright rejection. But in each case, one must confront the truth.

And it is this part that I think drives this controversy: this isn't about inquiry. This is about justice - of some sort. The normative constraints that have been imposed upon this debate have shut down legitimate avenues of inquiry in the service of a larger goal of social justice, from the outset. 

Given that so much blame is being heaped on the backs of white people, they, as defendants in their case have the right to participate in this process, and to obtain and present exculpatory evidence. If SR is the only answer, and is the others are being a priori kept off the table, then the defendants are being denied justice since the only option they have is their own sinfulness.

Additionally, if the parameters of the debate are being artificially restrained, as shown above, then we're not engaging truth-seeking. 

Well, the problem here is that justice cannot be executed without truth. 

The UN General Assembly Vote Against Russia, and the Shifting Barometer of Power

The UN General Assembly voted to denounce Russia over its Ukraine invasion in early March 2022. 

The resolution, which reprimanded Russia and demanded that it cease its aggression and withdraw its forces, was supported by 141 of the assembly's 193 members. (The votes are shown below).

Media reports in the West asserted that the world had rallied to condemn Russian thuggery with this historic vote.

This, I think, is over-egging the pudding. 

While it is true that most of the world's nations voted to condemn Russia, the nations that voted against and/or abstained from voting make most of the world's population: 4.46 billion people - as well as roughly 25% of the world's GDP. 

* Source: worldometers.info/gdp/gdp-by-country/ 

(Nations with $0 GDP were unknown)

What are we to glean from this?

First these votes are non-binding, and second, these votes like this aren't historic at all. In fact, these voting outcomes are often seen at the UN, but instead are directed at Israel and its aggression towards the Palestinians. (Voting shown below).

If 'the world' is united against Russia, as per the UN vote, then so too is 'the world' united against Israel. 

But it isn't, because 'the world' isn't represented by the UN: the global liberal order, helmed by the US, is. As such, the vote doesn't matter in any tangible sense. Its symbolic.

In fact, such appeals to the world to amplify the moral righteousness of a cause are often manipulative instances of argumentum ad populum since, as gestured above, everything's made up and the votes don't matter. They are expressions of national interests couched by geo-political considerations.

Now, this isn't to say that the votes do not correspond to legitimate feelings and grievances. 

The point is that the institution wherein these votes are cast and context in which that institution is embedded is controlled and directed by powerful parties with their own interests. 

The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must - and the global liberal order will only request adherence to rights, be they civil or fundamental, insofar as its in its interest to do so. 

This UN vote, instead of showing global unity, illustrates that there are not insignificant amounts of dissent on this war. 

Around the world, Leftists frequently blame NATO provocations while condemning Russia, and many on the Right do, as well. However, in the US, Canada and other NATO countries, the narrative is that 'the world' is united: even as the world's largest countries reject what the West is selling.

There is a world filled with illiberal peoples with illiberal governments, and the West thinks that it needs to spread liberalism and democracy around the globe in order to protect liberalism and democracy at home. After all we, too, have illiberal people in our midst and they can get support from illiberal peoples abroad – or so it is feared. (Just recall the boogeyman of Trump-Russia collusion, or the Freedom Convoy-Russia donation nonsense).

We can bowl over Iraq, Libya and Yemen, but we can't bowl over Russia or China.

Given how our elites have integrated China into our economies, they must be more accommodating to China’s illiberalism, and since China is allied with Russia, as is India, that is a not-insignificant bloc on the global stage. So, the shift is there, and our abilities or readiness or willingness to tamp it down is less potent than before. (Though the crackdowns at home are becoming more severe).

What is on display here is the shifting of the barometer of world power away from the Western post-war consensus - even if slightly. The unipolar world order is being shaken up, and 21st century thinking - based on liberalism, economics, rights and cosmopolitanism - is being confronted by 19th century thinking - based on nation, history, destiny, shame and honour. 

Only time will tell how this crisis in Ukraine will end up. 

It could end up like Syria or Afghanistan - wherein Ukraine is sacrificed in order to 'bleed Putin' by having the US arm the Ukrainian equivalent of 'insurgents' (ie. civilians and paramilitary) - however, unlike Syria and Afghanistan, Ukraine is more important for geo-political and economic reasons; let alone its ties to the West and the global liberal order. 

But no matter where it goes, the world will be different because of it. 

We best learn how to confront it. 

 

Doves and Hawks

Canada is a nation of doves that has had no idea of how to deal with hawks. In fact, most have been conditioned to not acknowledge the very real existence of hawkish peoples.  

To elaborate: there is a classic game theory model that positions two groups (hawks and doves) against each other. The hawks will fight and the doves retreat from the fight. The hawks always fight and if two hawks meet, there will always be a fight. If there is a fight, the loser picks up the costs of the fight and the winner gets the benefits. Since doves flee fights, they never get the benefit of the fight but also never incur the costs. However, if a dove meets another dove, then they both benefit since there is not fight. 

Canadians, thinking that they're doves, often choose to settle for the 'benefit'. However, these convoy protests are but an example of that dynamic shifting when doves go on the offensive and the hawks getting defensive. 

The hawks, also, have gotten used to dealing with doves and so are now resorting to some hitherto unused weaponry. 

I have no idea how this will end, but it should at least show the doves that they are ruled by potential hawks.

The Escalation of the De-escalation Continues

Trudeau has returned safe and sound to the House of Commons to whimper about the Freedom Convoy in Ottawa. 

Standing in the House, he stated that the protesters are 'trying to blockade our economy, our democracy and our fellow citizens' daily lives' and that '[i]t has to stop'.

The claims of a 'blockaded democracy' sounds bizarre at first, and it requires a few twists and turns before one can grasp what Trudeau and others mean. 

In short, Trudeau and his ilk are trying to characterise these protests as 'anti-democratic' because the protesters are anti-vaccine mandates and, apparently, the 2020 election was about vaccine mandates. So, since Canadians voted for parties that proposed/supported vaccine-mandates - though all parties except the People's Party of Canada (PPC) supported vaccine mandates in some fashion - and these protesters are anti-vax mandates, then the protesters are anti-democracy. In making this claim, Trudeau is trying to fashion the Freedom Convoy into his own coveted January 6th protest. 

This argument is ridiculous on its face.

 

First, political activism - of whatever stripe - isn't held captive by election results. After all, the election is a competition between competing political kinships with different views on matters of statecraft, provision, and ethics. Those differences precede the election as well as succeed it. Elections settle no such issues; they only conclude a formality. 

Second, Trudeau's claim that the 2021 election gave a green light to vaccine mandates is murkier than he'd like to admit. 

The top four concerns are the cost of living (13.5%), increasing funding for health care (11.5%), post-pandemic economic recovery (10.9%), and managing the pandemic (10.1%). Of those four issues, the top three are economic and fiscal. 

Additionally, election results do not provide a clear window into the national soul. People can vote strategically, compromise, take a lesser-of-two-evils approach, etc., and so there is never a truly transparent revelation of the minds of the electorate on any deep issue. 

Given that Trudeau only received 33% of the vote, there is hardly evidence that he and his approach to COVID management and vaccine mandates is beyond reproach.

So, no one in the Freedom Convoy protest is blockading democracy. In fact, if anyone has been guilty of 'blockading democracy' it'd be Trudeau back in 2015 when he ran on platform with an emphasis on electoral reform, only to strap the promise entirely once in power because his party benefits from the current electoral system.

Despite these humbling facts, and despite praising the importance of dialogue, Trudeau has stood strong in his refusal to engage with the convoy outside of condemnation. 

Not to be outdone, NDP leader, Jagmeet Singh, has stated that 'the protest is no longer peaceful' and '[t]he situation has reached a crisis point. And in times of crisis, it is important for federal leaders to show leadership, to urge de-escalation and to work together to find solutions'.

Here is a solution, you smarty-pants: talk to the protesters.

But we know why the left politicians won't speak to the protesters: i) the government has been backed into a corner regarding their COVID orthodoxy, and ii) the protesters are white (both is the laymen's sense of having been descended from Europeans, and the technical critical race theory sense of being beneficiaries of system of social oppression that got its start in 17th century Anglo-American colonies).

To (i): the government must save face and will not allow its narrative to be challenged - that'd create an obvious crisis of legitimacy. 

To (ii): the government and media have already painted the convoy as 'fringe' and 'unacceptable' for holing 'white supremacist views'. So, to engage with the convoy in any substantive sense would be to give in to white supremacy. 

Both of these issues, however, could backfire. For (i): refusal to engage will cause people to get more entrenched, thus increasing the already existing crisis of legitimacy. If protesters are removed by force, that display will also signal a crisis of legitimacy. The government is in a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't scenario that they've created. For (ii): the claims of 'white supremacy' are false and overblown. People can see this and the lies create dissonance. 

The dishonesty runs deep.

What we're seeing is a gradual unfurling of the contradictions of Justin Trudeau's government and ideals, and as he gets pushed more he reacts more - this dynamic extends to the state, at large.

These convoy protesters have gone from being a fringe group with unacceptable views to a hostile occupying force that is threatening Canada's democracy. Such claims are to be taken advantage of and as the policing responses begin to intensify - whether they be municipal or corporate - I reckon that the tools developed and methods used will be threats to democracy as well as the dignity and autonomy of Canadians. 

Currently in Ottawa, the police of starving the protesters of fuel and arresting people who are donating fuel and food to the protesters. They're reasoning being that such donations are abetting unlawful activity. Additionally, the Ottawa mayor has admitted to intervening in the protest's donation campaign to have it shut down: this could have Charter violation concerns. 

It is likely that segregation will be created, and not just for the unvaccinated. If you have non-liberal politics; if you are sufficiently right-wing, or if you happen to agree with some group that does, then you'll be denied access to financial systems, websites, physical spaces, and even charities. 

Recent revelations discovered that the Canadian government has been spying on 33 million Canadian mobile devices in order to gauge the effectiveness of public lockdown measures. The Canadian military has also engaged in propaganda and public dis-information campaigns during the COVID pandemic, and also gathering information on Canadian online activity - all without formal approval, apparently. 

These are all parts of the escalating de-escalation: the attempts to keep the public manageable. 

We could be going down a dark path, indeed.

Canada's 'Freedom Convoy', Holocaust Imagery, and the Long 20th Century

On January 29th, 2022, a protest convoy of long-haul truckers and their supporters converged on Ottawa, Canada to display their rejection of a vaccine mandate imposed upon truckers crossing the US-Canada border into Canada. 

The protest had picked up steam in the preceding weeks and tens of thousands of people from around Canada and the world rallied in support of the cause and to reject the ever-expanding medical authoritarianism that has metastasized during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

As predicted, the media and left-wing politicians denounced or attempted to minimise the convoy and related protests. Some even suggested that the Russians were involved in the convoy, whilst spokesmen for the Canadian Anti-Hate Network (CAHN), including its chair, Bernie Farber, stated that the movement had been hijacked by neo-Nazis and that swastikas were being flown at the protest.

Now, I can only find evidence of one swastika being flown by one person who was also flying a 'F*ck Trudeau' flag, and the reaction is somewhat telling.

You see, despite the apparent presence of this one flag, most news reports make  vague comments about 'symbols of hate' which included everything from a single Confederate flag to signs displaying swastikas, as well as yellow stars, and a sign that read ‘Assassin Trudeau’ with the letters S in 'assassin' are replaced with the SS runes of the Schutzstaffel (elite guards of the Third Reich). Though the media is making hay out of the instances it can, they do not seem to be taking full advantage of this apparent bias-confirming instance: there was no attempt to interview the flag flier, and the photos of him were from a great distance from the much larger crowd. Perhaps the flying of a Nazi flag was too good to be true. After all, there are a few possibilities here: the man flying the swastika was either a) a sincere symapthiser with the NSDAP and national socialist principles, b) a troll, c) an undercover agent, or d) just a guy comparing Trudeau to Hitler. One's answer here will likely depend on one's political priors, but the reality of a) seems unlikely.

Though it is useful to look at the facts on the ground, there are broader philosophical questions about the nature of symbolism, interpretation and meaning.

We can guess, with a fair degree of accuracy, how the aforementioned imagery will be interpreted by people like Bernie Farber: he is the son of a Holocaust survivor, after all. But Farber isn't alone: most Canadians are highly sensitised to such imagery, the history it evokes, and the suffering that is associated with it. As such, those symbols are not taken lightly. But if the symbols are so controversial, why do people feel like they can use them? What message is being sent by the use of such symbols?

The COVID-19 pandemic has seen its fair share of protests, and in some cases Nazi imagery has been used to demonise the subject of the protest in question. 

Across the US in 2020-2021, Jonathan Greenblatt of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) reported that anti-lockdown protesters used Nazi imagery to analogise their own governments' policies. In Michigan, protesters likened their governor Gretchen Whitmer to Adolf Hitler - often with her image vandalised with the iconic 'Hitler-stache' and coupled with swastikas. Similar instances were seen in New Mexico, Ohio, Alaska, and other states wherein people wore 'yellow stars' and made Anne Frank references.

Even before the pandemic, however, Nazi imagery has been used in Hong Kong by pro-democracy protesters to liken the Chinese government to the Nazis and pro-Palestinian protests have used swastika bedecked Israeli flags, too.

That people use these symbols is one thing, but why? It is because of its political cache. 

Nazis represent threats to the open society, and their symbols are used to tarnish people and groups who are deemed to be such threats - either real or imagined. The Left does this to the Right, and the Right does this to the Left. 

The point here isn't to go down the laundry list of grievances and tally up the numbers to see which side is worse at name-calling. You see, calling your political opponents 'Nazis' or 'fascists' is just what political opponents do in the Anglosphere. The point is to acknowledge that the Right lacks cultural dominance and thus cannot use symbols in the way that the Left can. Furthermore, the Right is viewed to be forever on the 'wrong side of history' and as the embodiment of the very thing those symbols are said to attack. That is why the flying of a Nazi flag/making Holocaust references at a protest against COVID tyranny is immediately viewed by the Left as an endorsement of Nazism and not as a symbol of condemnation of said tyranny. 

What people who use such symbols have done is detect a narrative weapon that gets wielded against the opponents of the ‘open society’. They view phenomenon X as a threat to the open society, and thus think that they can wield the symbols in the service of their own cause. But since the Right is deemed by the Left to be prima facie 'anti-open society', and the Left is in power, any right-wing use of Nazi/Holocaust imagery, even in an accusatory fashion, will invite immediate condemnation. The whole thing backfires. Its like they're characters in a sci-fi film who try to use the alien technology against the aliens - they just don't know how its used. 

The Left can condemn Trump's handling of the US-Mexico border as neo-fascist and compared the detainment of minors to 'concentration camps', only to receive moralistic praise for doing so - even by Holocaust survivors themselves. But when the Right claims that there are 'COVID concentration camps', they're called conspiracy theorists exploiting the Holocaust. 

(Ditto for using the term 'racist'. For more, please check out this earlier post on the meaning of racism in the West.) 

Right-wing protesters who use yellow stars, swastikas, concentration camp references, etc. are charged with exploiting or co-opting the memory of the Holocaust - whether by people like Bernie Farber and CAHN, or Jonathan Greenblatt of the ADL or the Auschwitz Memorial Museum. But what does that mean? Does that imagery belong to any one group in particular? It is true that Jews suffered greatly during the Holocaust and that millions of them died, but it is also true that roughly 70 million people died. Some estimates reckon that about 3% of the world's population perished in World War II - 50 million during the war and 20 million afterwards from war-related famine and disease. Many Canadians and Americans - at least of European descent - know people who fought and/or died during World War II, and so many people feel a connection to that grand conflagration. They feel as though they’ve inherited some of the memory of that period as well as internalised its lessons – and so they think they can use the symbols.

We're told that the Allies fought the Nazis, and the Nazis were killing Jews. Therefore, the Allies fought to save the Jews. This, of course, is an inaccurate and simplistic account, but its a very popular one. Which is why World War II is associated heavily with the Holocaust, and so people use symbols associated with each as part of a larger overarching narrative of good-versus-evil. 

Despite this, folks like Farber and Greenblatt say that using the imagery ‘is insulting to the memory of all those who were persecuted and murdered’. I don’t see how this is the case. To my understanding, these protesters are finding common cause in the suffering of the Jews of Europe during the Holocaust by drawing comparisons to that suffering and their own lives (even if it is misguided). The Farbers and Greenblatts of the world instead see cynical people who are willing to weaponise history for political gain. (They’d never do that, right?)

But I don’t see how Farber and Greenblatt can have it both ways: they want robust Holocaust education that educates all people about the consequences of bigotry and hatred and to critically reflect upon and internalise the lessons of the Holocaust. But they don’t want people to utilise Holocaust imagery for their own purposes. So which is it? Is the Holocaust and World War II, in general, a rich and tragic trove of informative analogies through which we could understand our time and caution us against slipping into barbarism? Or is it just a dogma to be genuflected towards?

Its neither. 

Its a weapon. And you don’t get to use it.

Now, to be clear there are the facts that make up what the Holocaust ‘is’ (I’m not talking about those), and there are the symbols and tropes that the Holocaust ‘represents’. When we talk about ‘the Holocaust’, we are often not just relaying facts – many people, in fact, are thin on the facts. Instead, we are talking about the grander meta-narrative that the Holocaust signifies, and that meta-narrative has largely replaced the history. This partly explains the incongruence between persistent 'Holocaust education' and actual knowledge of its history. And what does the Holocaust signify? Well, the answer is a boring, ‘it depends’.

Like all societal symbols – whether from monuments to myths – the Holocaust represents or expresses certain dominant ideas that are intended to be passed on from generation to generation. As such, individuals in society will often internalise the dominant ideas in the construction their own identity, and this process brings into existence an individual's 'subjectivity': how one experiences one's self in the larger scheme of society and its rules, stories, history, and destiny. This can give one a sense of superiority as one sees one's self as connected to the dominant culture and its ideas, or one can feel alienated from it.

Given that the Holocaust is so engrained in our society it is no mystery why its symbolism is used in social and political discourses.  It also isn’t a mystery that the use of Holocaust imagery is controlled and relegated to certain groups. As stated before, the Right isn’t in power, the Left is, and the Holocaust is used to express certain dominant ideas. Since those dominant ideas are at odds with how the Right is viewed, or even at odds with what the Right wants, the symbolism is denied to it.

This shows one of the conceits of the discourse surrounding the Holocaust: generally speaking, the Holocaust is supposed to represent the depths of human depravity – Man’s inhumanity to Man. It represents the horrors of authoritarian politics predicated on the unjustified hierarchisation of human groups and the resulting dehumanisation. However, one can see how this general description is at odds with how the Holocaust functions – one glaring example is found in the International Holocaust Remembrance Association’s (IHRA) Working Definition of Anti-Semitism. (Feel free to check out a previous post on this definition and its problems).

In this definition, there are eleven (11) examples of what the IHRA sees as anti-Semitic. While some examples are uncontroversial – being instances of violence, vandalism, and abuse – there are some debateable examples.

First, there is Example 8 which is ‘applying double standards by requiring of [the State of Israel] a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation.’ There is also Example 10: ‘drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis’.

These two examples clash in an obvious way: if Israel is to be held to the same standards of any other nation (as per Example: 8), and, if like any other nation, Israel could fall into fascism and/or racism, a la Nazi Germany, then why is it anti-Semitic when such comparisons are applied to Israel? Surely other democratic nations are held to standards that proscribe racism, genocide, targeting of civilians, expanding territory through war, and the like – and so Israel should be held to such standards and criticised for transgressing them when it does. If not, as it seems the IHRA definition contends, then the IHRA is allowing the Jewish State of Israel to be an unjustified exemption from the principles it proports to be subject to.

These are but a couple examples of the use and abuse of the Holocaust and its power.

It is something that is universal in that is universally imposes guilt, but it can only ever be used exclusively in the service of some favoured group or other. We're supposed to see it as a window into the darkness of our hearts, but we cannot use it as a lens to view our own victimisation.

This dead end is evidence that the new approach is in order. We should really ditch the use of such symbols since they are not only inaccurate for representing our time, but the use of such symbols by us provides nothing but opportunities for abuse by our political and cultural opponents.

We are not in the 20^th century anymore and being corralled its ambitions, pretensions, and symbols hampers our ability to think clearly about our current state and the future. (Sure, we can and ought to still learn from history – I’m not suggesting that we ditch anything and everything prior to 2000AD. I’m saying that we can find ourselves uncritically accepting narratives, symbols, and assumptions that hamstring political action and messaging.)

Trudeau isn't like Hitler: Trudeau is a worker bee for neo-liberal techno-capital and global homogenisation. He is a destructive force in his own way, but a pro-LGBT, cosmopolitan feminist and anti-White egalitarian isn't Hitler, Stalin, or any other of the dictatorial leaders of the 20th century. He is a spokesman for a whole new system of totalitarianism that we’ll have to grapple with.

The protesters are right point out the authoritarianism of our elites, but they are confused on the history and are wrong to think that their opponents will listen.  They are not only using inaccurate imagery, but they’re also using imagery that is denied to them. They don't know how the system is tilted and in whose favour it operates. 

 We need to get out of the 20th century.  

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Like the Freedom Convoy, this post started with a more directed message and has unfurled into something more general. I think that this shows the interconnected nature of the authoritarianism we are currently beginning to experience. We are seeing how medical science interlocks with politics, how the media and Big Tech come together to confine the messages, and how new orthodoxies are being formed around an elite of people who, until two years ago, no one knew and no one cared about. Big Pharma is valourised by those who once demonised it. Impositions of medical procedures against the will of millions is now touted as a valid price to pay for 'normalcy'. Mass surveillance of personal medical data is seen to be totally reasonable. Rights being contingent on the policies of public health officials is acceptable. Keeping children away from their peers, and masking them up or even injecting them with vaccines that have been shown to present no net benefit to them is seen as virtuous. And people are complaining about 'divisive and hateful rhetoric'? 

For heaven's sake: Justin Trudeau was lecturing us on how to 'get back to the things we love' and the benefits of vaccination whilst he, thrice vaxxed, is again infected with COVID-19, and isolating as a result. He is lecturing us on hate and division despite the fact that he excused the dozens of church burnings and vandalisms across Canada in response to a still-yet-to-be-verified 'mass grave' of indigenous children. He is decrying the 'desecration of monuments' despite minimising or even supporting the actual public destruction of monuments to ancestral heroes, as well. 

There are myriad issues here, and resistance to one often leads to resistance of others.