George Floyd, Criminality, and Racial Justice

 As most already know, the Chauvin trial has come to pass, and he has been found guilty of all charges against him in the death of George Floyd. 

Now, the media is feverishly asking how this verdict will change policing, and what issues in policing are to be addressed in the wake of this historic trial. 

To my mind, there are plenty of issues with policing, such as the use of force and its justification, race relations, mental health, etc., but there is the issue of what the police respond to: criminality.

There is also behaviour conditional upon encountering the police that gets people into trouble, that otherwise could have been avoided.

If you do not run from the cops, you will not get chased.

If you do not resist arrest, you will not be restrained.

If you do not commit crimes, you will not be detained.

And yet we see time and again black men, in particular, do exactly all of these things. What are cops supposed to do? Shirk their duty and let the criminal off easy? Surely not. 

In the case of Floyd, the cops were not called on him because of some fake $20 bill being shown in the attempt of a transaction. They were called to deal with theft. Floyd had ‘paid’ for his cigarettes and banana with a fake $20 bill, and when confronted by multiple store employees to return to the store and pay up, he refused. It was after repeated attempts at this that the store manager had an employee call the cops on him.

Floyd was found with his drug dealer in the car, as well as a female friend, and he swallowed some homemade drugs (speedballs, which were a mixture of meth and fentanyl) – he had done the same thing in a previous 2019 arrest. Floyd was detained and cuffed, resisted arrest, was put on the ground, and got the knee.

We all saw Chauvin with his knee on the neck and back of Floyd, and we saw Floyd go from being an active, belligerent person resisting arrest to being unresponsive. We very well could have watched Floyd die right there.

So, we’re told the issue is policing: use of force and a callous indifference to human life – perhaps even to a racist degree.

 In the Chauvin case, I think the issue is more specific than ‘policing’. The issue is ‘causation’. Did Chauvin CAUSE Floyd’s death, and was his involvement in that death criminal beyond a reasonable doubt?

The state and its witnesses argued, successively, that Floyd was killed by a ‘blood choke’ by Chauvin’s knee cutting off Floyd’s blood supply to his brain, by a ‘respiratory choke’ by Chauvin’s knee cutting off Floyd’s air supply (a totally different thing), and by positional asphyxia-induced compression of Floyd’s chest and airways (yet another different thing). 

The medical examiner who performed the autopsy stated that the cause of death was cardio-pulmonary arrest, and another medical witness who reviewed the medical records said that ‘if they had found Floyd at home, dead, then she’d conclude it was an overdose’ – both witnesses stating that Floyd’s heart was a major culprit.   

To Floyd’s heart, it had substantial blockage of his major coronary arteries.  Thus, his heart was unusually vulnerable to any further restriction in blood flow and oxygen supply, as well as abruptly increased demand for blood. Floyd also had severe hypertension, with the resultant enlarged heart, making the heart exceptionally vulnerable under stressful conditions – this is compounded by the aforementioned blockages.

Floyd was an acknowledged drug addict and user of both meth and fentanyl, as well as other drugs. In the case of cardiovascular health, meth makes one vulnerable to heart failure, especially under stressful circumstances.

In the case of fentanyl, its a reasonable inference that the amount of the drug found in Floyd’s system, three times the standard lethal limit, also contributed to Floyd’s death. 

For what it’s worth, I think that had Floyd not resisted arrest and had gotten into the squad car he likely would have died that day anyway. In fact, I think that Floyd’s drug dealer is the real culprit here – but he knows better and pled the 5th so as to not incriminate himself in 3rd degree murder charges… Curious how the state didn’t grant him immunity to testify, isn’t it? I guess it isn’t. 

 All of this, and more, is to be considered in one’s own deliberation of this case in the quiet of their own mind, and I cannot reasonably conclude that Chauvin’s conduct created a foreseeable risk of 'deadly force harm' to Floyd. After all, though we’re privileged to have all this information to mull over, Chauvin, as well as many other cops in similar situations, would be making such assessments in the total absence of Floyd’s seriously damaged physiology and toxicology.

Should cops be expected to do as such? Surely not. 

Now, yes, the police are to be held to a higher standard, but they shouldn’t be sacrificial lambs that get tossed to the wolves. Other cops, good cops, will get the message and leave the force because they have the justified feeling that when things get racially controversial, the department will not have their back. 

That said, there have been/are issues with unconditional deference to the police, and the Yak-like herding cops will do around one of their own. But there is also the problem of unjustified, dogmatic scepticism and cynicism directed towards police officers. As I stated above, there are serious issues with criminality. Floyd was a criminal. Did he deserve to die? No. But as I think, the cause of his death lies with himself and his drug dealer.

That said, even though I think the issues involving Floyd’s death are specific and complicated, there are also more expansive moral issues ‘we’ – and let’s be honest, its ‘white people’ – must face.

We’re expected to soberly assess these situations and disown the bad guys, even ‘our own’ guys. We’re told not to be tribal and to engage in our higher ideals of justice, while also being told that the imposition of those standards is a continuation of the legacies of white supremacy. 

I have no problem assessing the facts and deliberating on the guilt/innocence of the parties involved, but it smacks of foul play when we are also told not to speak honestly about the criminality of the parties involved if they happen to be ‘racialised’, ‘marginalised’, ‘BIPOC’, etc. Last time I checked, such people are humans and are therefore moral agents, and they should be scrutinised as such. Unless we want to have different standards for these groups…  And we’re seeing this already begin to play out in the cases of Sergeant Pentland, Officer Nicholas Reardon, as well as others. 

It's this lopsided distortion of justice, presumption of innocence, and reasonable doubt that I fear will be promoted by this trial, and its message will play itself out in the lives of citizens across racial lines. 

Social Distancing, Modernity, and the Culture War

Leave it to the lefties at Canadian Dimension to keep serving up these piping hot takes.

In a recent article, Yavar Hameed, a human rights lawyer and sessional lecturer at Carleton University’s Department of Law and Legal Studies, offers a critique of social distancing: cautioning us to be aware of its insidious intellectual history, and its dis-empowering effects in the present day. 

He starts off by stating that the logic of social distancing is 'compelling' because it is based in science, promoted by trusted public health experts, and the advice is simple: isolation deters the the spread of the virus and it is temporary. 

However, there is a lurking danger in the concept of social distancing which serves to alienate people in an already atomized world. Pushing people into echo-chambers of their own solipsism is merely an extension of the way that many people live in both real and virtual worlds. In this sense, we are already socially distant—the more pressing concern is understanding the broader impacts of forced spatial distancing, especially upon society’s most vulnerable.

This is certainly a problem that we have in modernity: though we are told how 'connected' we are via technology, we are more isolated than ever before. The data are in on rising feelings of loneliness, lack of fulfillment, dissolving social cohesion and community, and general unhappiness. People really have a sense that things are not going well. 

Hameed, then, immediately springboards off of 'social distancing' and atomisation to a disucssion of the sociological concept of 'social distance'. He states:

While it should not be confused with the public health measures we are seeing today, “social distance” is a term whose intellectual roots lie in the discipline of urban sociology... [and the] theory of “urban ecology”... Extrapolated from plant biology, it argued that the “competition and equilibrium observed between plants provided a sufficient model for the interaction of social groups” in urban spaces... [and] rationalized physical separation based on personal preference for racial similarity (and related social activities) and an antipathy towards miscegenation...  In this sense, “social distance” animated the creation of physical architecture and the spaces of urban living predicated on race, or the separation of certain individuals from socially devalued groups.

In its origin, therefore, there is something insidious and deeply troubling about the concept of “social distance” and its implications for the material and ideological maintenance of human networks and the rights, responsibilities, and protections they offer.

Hameed also stresses that instead of using the term 'social distancing' we should move to use 'spatial distancing' in order to understand that distance between us in space, ought not translate to the distance between us in social connection. 

Where to  begin... 

One cannot preface their statement with 'while X should not be confused with Y' and then go on to confuse X with Y. 

This whole thing is based on a big fat equivocation between 'social distance' - the amount of differential preference and 'intimacy' social groups have with other social groups - and 'social distancing' - the physical act of remaining 2 meters away from other people.

I can understand the move to emphasise 'spatial distancing' instead of 'social distancing'; but c'mon: one cannot spatially distance themselves from others unless they're socially proximal. This point is fairly big brained rhetoric for us knuckledraggers who need to understand the difference between geographic distance and emotional distance. I jest: everyone knows about the phenomenon wherein a relationship one person becomes 'distant' - that doesn't mean that the person is farther away from you all the way over there, it means that they're aloof or emotionally disconnected. One of the main concerns that people have about social distancing is how they'll maintain the connections with people they love, or the more vulnerable. People aren't likely to feel more reassured about their predicament or feel inclined to do more outreach because of this rhetorical tip of the hat. 

And the change in people isn't likely to happen because nothing is really changing. It is a trick. What's happened is that they've taken the current phenomenon of 'social distancing' and poisoned the well by linking it to an over-simplified eva luation of the concept of 'social distance', which they've deemed racist. Having sufficiently tainted 'social distancing' in the minds of readers, they offer an alternative to 'social distancing' called 'spatial distancing' in a shallow attempt to implant the notion that though we have to remain physically distant, we can yet remain emotionally and socially connected. This helps to make them out to be the good guys in relation to the status quo that they've constructed via their cherry-picking. 

I also agree with the concern about further atomisation, but calling out a concept (social distance) in order to bring attention to another practice (social distancing) seems like a cheap analogy. We've already been told, again and again, that 'racism' and 'xenophobia' are 'viruses' spreading alongside this Coronavirus - this analogy is but more of the same. If it helps you raise you consciousness, then fine. But one should also be sharp enough to realise the bullshit... because there is bullshit to come. 

Hameed goes on to quote from queer liberation and anti-capitalist activist, Gary Kinsman, stating that '[s]pace is not a neutral zone; it is the battleground for ideological contests and the enforcement of normative patterns which dispossess rather than foster community.' I agree, somewhat. Space isn't as neutral as one would like: public space isn't just public. Try sleeping outside in a park and you'll see the regulatory forces come out. Try having a demonstration against Drag Queen Story Hour - we've seen snipers atop buildings in the US keeping an eye on such things. 

And that's why I detest the Left: they control the spaces for discourse, analysis, intellectual formation, rebellion, and finally, developing alternative ways of living, as well as the acceptable range of discussion - and they refuse to believe that they do. Gary Kinsman, after all, is founder of 'Gays and Lesbians Against the Right Everywhere', as well as the 'Lesbian and Gay Pride Day Committee of Toronto'. So, if you are on the Right, anywhere; Kinsman and his gaggle of gender deviants will be against you. And that gets me thinking a little about their motivations... It appears to be as much 'for' as it is 'against'.

Do you recall when 'Pride' was just 'Pride day'? Now we have Pride Month wherein corporations and governments don the technicolour rainbow to bedazzle onlookers with their inclusion and 'commitment' to equality, and yet, the LGBT folks still claim victim-status and harangue those who aren't sufficiently on board - even going as far as descending upon small rural towns with their Pride marches. I find it somewhat predatory and imposing. 

But I digress, somewhat. 

What I mean to get at is that the Left is equivocating, again by calling the imperatives for 'social distancing' just another part of the 'ideological spatial war of dispossession'. That's not what is happening. 

Social distancing is being recommended because it is an easy, cheap, achievable first-line-of-defence against a contagious viral spread. It is NOT being recommended in order to dispossess people and to atomise people - though these could be after-effects, and it is up to us to make sure that doesn't happen. After all, if we disagree with some government approach or other, we cannot gather, demonstrate, protest, march, and the like. We can't even gather in groups to discuss productive alternatives and figure out ways to help people in need - but that is baked into the nature of the crisis. So, unless this author wishes to deny that there is, indeed, a crisis afoot, and that the crisis isn't adequately addressed via social distancing, this criticism of social distancing, with its insidious intellectual history and dis-empowering effects, seems to be about something else... and what that 'something else' is happens to be what the Left wants for itself: control of and access to 'space' into to engage in the 'ideological spatial war of dispossession'. They think that social distancing is being used in an ideological war because that's what they're doing, or wish to do, and they are trying to fashion the social distancing phenomenon into another ideological lens in the prism for people to view the world through. Hence the appeal to the intellectual history of 'social distance', the link made between social distance and social distancing, and the final quick and easy shift from social distance to spatial distance.

They have no problem dispossessing people. They have no problem doxxing their enemies, going after their jobs, threatening their lives and families, and harassing them online and in-person. The Left wants control. They have no problem 'dispossessing' those they oppose, and freeing up those with whom they align, and Coronavirus is being utilised for all sorts of seemingly incompatible desires. For instance, the Left is calling for the release of prisoners because they're more likely to catch the virus whilst in prison, and yet they also advocate for the continued entry and assistance for immigrants and asylum seekers. How do these compute with the moves to contain the spread of the virus? I suppose the migrants are to be released, too.

There are many groups that are taking advantage of this pandemic, and it is important, however, to see who is acting as a conduit for the power that brought us here.

There are those who are willing become martyrs for the GDP; there are those who argue for a return the neo-liberal status quo whilst footing the blame solely on China; there are also those who continue to espouse the enforcement of PC diktats; and there are the technocrats who are attempting to justify a shift towards socialism because of China's apparent success at dealing with the virus, meanwhile law enforcement drones are soaring through the skies to identify and fine citizens walking in the countryside.

The most damning thing for our establishments - from news media to government officials - will have to be the decisions they made from January to mid-March, and they must all be held to account, and heads must roll. It is not only their fundamental lack of leadership, but this lack of leadership has been married to allegiances to corrosive and unsustainable ideas for the shaping of our societies.

Again, there are many groups trying to gain from this pandemic - and many of them are stuck trying to get their paradigms up and running, again, and those would lead back to this sort of situation. Folks are taking the opportunities they can, and are trying not to let a good crisis go to waste. 

But of course they side with their own, and fight against their enemies: such is the nature of  a war. 

Yes. 

So get used to the idea that you are in one.

Changing Priorities - Cultivating Virtue

'Delaying the peak'

'Flattening the curve'

More like: 'Managing the decline.'

---

It is interesting to see the lines that our various governments are taking these days in this pandemic.

In the UK and Canada, there are newly-crafted laws against mis-gendering trans and non-binary people. The laws were happily used, and people were prosecuted and convicted.

Before the outbreak, the government with its bureaucrats were happy to police private lives of its citizens: developing task forces to target 'mean tweets', to fund and implement studies on bigotry and x,y,z-phobia, to 'call-out' men who didn't call themselves 'feminists', to push diversity quotas, and punish those who strayed from or contravened the new orthodoxy.

Now, in the turbulence of the Coronavirus, we're being told to 'lean on each other', 'not panic', 'be prepared to lose loved ones' - to engage in a stoicism and reasoned deliberation that has been all but bred out of us, and mobilise towards a common cause to act in the favour of the common good.

How, exactly, are we to mobilise ourselves? Around what, exactly, shall we rally? Well, we are in quarantine or self-isolation so that puts a damper on things... We cannot physically meet to rally, or protest, but more the point I want to make: what reason do we have to do anything outside of self-interest and the immediate interests of our families and loved ones? What is the guiding ethos outside of survival?

Our 'leaders' are attempting to cheer-lead for a social fabric that no longer exists, and which, in fact, has been slowly unraveled for decades by their very blithe insistence on 'progress'.

What they've called the 'expansion of the moral sphere' is nothing but the expansion of licence to those who are vain and narcissistic enough to demand it, and back it up under the threat of censure by intolerant human rights legislation.

Culture, patriotism, national identity and character, peoplehood, family - it has all been deconstructed, devalued, and pinned on top with a Pride flag. (To be clear: each of these terms should have as [*] next them reading: 'white cis male' - and I mean this in the technical critical race theory sense.)

But given the mobilisation that has occurred, I wonder if this time is not appropriately paralleled to World War II - not the frontlines, but the homefront.

I know that WWII gets invoked a lot in order to prop up the seriousness of whatever cause one wants to promote, but with the rationing of obvious scarcity, national mobilisation around sacrifice, the odd camaraderie and fellowship that people seem to develop when life expectancy for everyone is cut to a possible 4-6 months... It seems to make things richer, deeper, and people become more grateful.

The analogy is far from perfect: we cannot mobilise production and community nearly as well as in WWII - its baked into the very nature of this crisis that we are to remain in isolation, and I don't want to get sanguine or pollyanna-ish about this: I'm not hopeful for a large communal turn away from the vices that led us here, and towards the virtues that will help build a new future.

In every age, people have thought that they're living in particularly gloomy times. I hear that. One mustn't get too doomy. But this time we find ourselves in is unique, and a sufficient amount of doomy thinking should prompt productive thinking.

The imposition of limits can inspire the imagination: like haikus or one-stroke paintings impressive beauty can be expressed within constraints. And in the past, the sword has been a traditional cure for decadence, and perhaps pestilence, though tragic, unseen, and uninvited, can be as well.

This isn't hope for the light-bulbs to flicker on in the heads of our leaders, and for there to be a serious discussion about the re-orientation of society, globalism, manufacturing and production, supply chains, and global finance. It is not a hope for someone to come down from the mountain with revelations on life.

It is hope that in this trying time, people on the ground will come to terms with that has been lost, damaged, and hidden from sight by censures, demagogues, and post-modern moralists.

People hate each other less when they need each other more and share confidence, and building shared confidence occurs with honesty: radical honesty about objectives, costs, fears, and hopes; as well as shedding the pretenses of our age, hyper-individualism and neo-liberalism, that have been propagated for decades.

This is already being seen in small instances: there are the videos of young people partying on Spring Break, or people going to pubs and bars, or other gatherings. The majority of the public looks on in shock, dismay or disgust at how such people can be so reckless and selfish, and how such disregard for one's communal duties to protect others is being flaunted.

Moving forward, though, we on the ground will have to do more than criticise. We have to be productive and present positive goals and values, and cultivate the possibilities for them to be exercised.

People should be open and honest about abilities, skills and talents. Differences have to be recognised and acknowledged - a tough one, in our age, will be complementarity between men and women. This should be acknowledged in order to create coherence in families, couples, and groups. There has to be the cultivation of the reliable person: the nurturing mother, the providing father. There isn't time for chatter about what we've come to know as 'equality', 'equity', 'diversity' and 'inclusion'. Those are distractions that people can toy with when times are comfortable - what has such chatter done to keep us out of this situation? It is a time to focus on cultivating autonomy, freedom, and dignity. 

Self-reliance and self-sufficiency, even in small things, will be important. From growing plants and herbs, to learning to pickle (lacto-ferment!) vegetables to extend shelf-life. These can be easily done in a home during isolation.

Make beef jerky - or liver jerky: it is tasty, nutritious, and is very cheap. Try buying offal - cook up a beef heart. You won't believe it isn't steak. And if you cannot cook: for God's sake, now is the time to learn. Same goes for tools - buy some, borrow some, and learn to use them.

People who can be counted on to care for others who need help will have to step up and create others like them. This can simple like grabbing groceries for an elder or a friend in need. Who knows what will happen come Spring time, but possible repairs to homes may need to be done, and the person who needs help may be a friend, family member, or neighbour who has been laid off work and cannot afford to pay a contractor. Laying a helping hand can make a big difference, if you have the skills and resources. Finally, just sharing information one has with a curious friend and family member can go a long way in spreading information for skill acquisition in a time of quarantine and isolation.

Families will have to be valued more. There is security in a family, as well as love, care and belonging. (Of course, not every family is loving, and some families are broken, etc., but families shouldn't be like that. If you don't have a salvageable family, then there are going to be other issues to deal with. I'm no doctor, and the spread of this virus is fairly clandestine with its long incubation period and asymptomatic spread, so take this with caution: is the virus worse than living with your broken family? Do you have another safe place you can go? Talk to the folks there. Wait a bit to check for symptoms, and then, if you all feel certain enough, go there.)

Contacting family and friends during this time will be important - not only are you checking in on them to see if they are OK or if they need help, but people will know who to rely upon, and who is more or less extraneous.

Start up a book club with family and/or friends.

Pick a book you all enjoy, or pick something new. What comes to my mind are books like The Road, I am Legend, and Jaws, or perhaps something less morose like The Count of Monte Cristo, Swiss Family Robinson, Time Machine, or Old Yeller.

Try picking one of the Classics - one of those books by old dead white men that the academy has tried to throw out of their curricula: Plato, Aristotle, Conrad, Melville, Chaucer, Milton, Wordsworth, Homer, Cicero, Dante, Ovid, Dickens, Tolstoy, and so on are ripe pickings. 

Like the underground educational networks in Eastern Europe under communism - building shrines in the catacombs to venerate the memory of their culture - one can cultivate deep interest and perhaps devotion to the timelessness of things.

Though many people are isolated and/or have lost their jobs and have claimed unemployment, there are those who are still working and yet are doing double-duty as workers and parents, or as care-givers to the elderly, or those who are sick, themselves. Making time can be difficult - but the difficulty is the constant, here, and how one deals with it will illustrate one's commitment or desire to making the best of this situation.

I'm not trying to get all high-minded about this: reading a good book and chatting about it can really pass the time, and sadly most people will just binge-watch whatever NetFlix throws their way.

If reading books is too cumbersome then try a film - a good one. But when the comics become dull, when the irony ceases to elicit a smirk, and when the formulae become predictable there is always the option to turn to things more rich, sincere, and illuminating. These are stable in an unstable world. 

Replacement - Conspiracy, Reality.

In the West: 

1) Native birth rates are below replacement;

2) Life expectancy is increasing;

3) People are getting older; thus:

4) The native young of the country is decreasing as a proportion of the population - or in other words, the population is 'aging'.

5)We need to import other young people to work, get taxed, and contribute to pensions, and;

6) The majority of these people being imported happen to be of a different race and culture than the native population.

[Edit. We'll have to see what changes given the Coronavirus outbreak]

This is replacement.

The point isn't that there is the white race being replaced by a particular race, but rather that white-majority nations in Europe and North America are having their native white populations dwindle as a proportion of the population as the foreign-born population increases due to immigration and birthrates.

It needn't be done intentionally by a cabal of elites conniving to erase the white race from the world, but regardless of intention the proportion of white people is decreasing as a percentage of the population of their countries whilst the proportion of non-white people in increasing as a percentage of the population, and the increasing non-white population is occurring, in part, due to the policies and incentives set up by leaders and decision-makers. So, there are people in charge, and they are making decisions, so there is at least some weak claim to 'intentionality'.

There are also some complicated issues about WHY native birthrates are so low. Reasons range from education, to abortion, to unstable economic conditions, to fear of climate change, to materialism and consumerism, the cost of raising children, as well as the promotion and acceptance of 'non-traditional' families, as well as changing gender norms and expectations. These all serve as explanations of (1) and (5), additionally, some of these are used simultaneously as achievements of a progressive society.  There is little to no discussion of pro-natal policies, and what to do about low birth rates. 

But what are we supposed to believe? Points (1-5) are consistently stated in the news and other media, and (6) is touted as an achievement by our leaders and elites: 'diversity is our strength', after all. Coupled with media and corporate campaigns that target and dilute the native populations national identity, character, and history whilst bolstering the prominence of the non-native; one cannot help but smell something is rotten. 

I won't believe bullshit. And I don't like being told to believe conflicting things without explanation.

When facing the evidence one is told: a) replacement isn’t happening, but when pressed, one is told b) it is happening, it is good, and you are a bigot if you think otherwise; or even c) it would be good if it did happen, oh, and you are still a bigot if you think otherwise.

This approach won't work. 

Instead of talking about the issue seriously, and addressing concerns honestly, the discourse around replacement reads like a series of A/B tests wherein media figures, politicians and pundits throw out shallow, poorly thought-out denialism, or even insults to dismiss critics. 

When someone asks about replacement or expresses a concern about it, they're told that there is no evidence for it and that one should ignore claims saying its happening. When stats are used to back up the claims about replacement, they're then told that such reasoning is conspiratorial, or, finally, that is its racist. I reckon that doubling-down on the reality of replacement will become more common amongst certain circles of people in the media.

Now, one can ask, 'why are you concerned in the first place?' But that's not my point, here. That is another issue, and I'll be happy to get into it later. The point, here, is modest: replacement isn't a conspiracy theory, one needn't be a hateful bigot to think it is happening, and there are arguments to show that replacement is happening.

If one reads the six (6) points, and agrees that they're true, then one agrees that replacement is happening.

Corona-chan, Globalism, and Living

Why didn't we just close the borders and stop air travel, Dad?

Our thought-leaders and politicians have come out to tell us of the real problems with Coronavirus: racism, xenophobia, nationalism, and borders. Pretty much anything that challenges the neo-liberal, cosmopolitan orthodoxy.

French President Emmanuel Macron has stated that: 

"Two pitfalls must be avoided, one is the nationalist withdrawal because this virus has no passport."

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau stated that: 

Closing Canada's borders and restricting travel is a knee-jerk reaction that will not slow the spread of the Coronavirus. 

(If closing borders in March in response to an viral outbreak that started in January is a 'knee-jerk' reaction, then that is the slowest knee-jerk I've seen. [Oh,and now his wife has tested positive for the virus after coming back from the UK]. I guess if you let your wife get Coronoavirus, you win.)

Steven Pinker says: 

"The Coronavirus Pandemic is one of many reasons neo-nationalism is destructive & ultimately futile. Viruses (like greenhouse gases, cybercriminals, dark money, terrorists, pirates, & technology) don’t care about lines on a map."

Richard Dawkins chimes in: 

"Nasty FOREIGN virus. Lock it up! Lock it up! Keep America safe. No FOREIGNERS from Europe allowed. Except Brits of course. They’re not really foreign. They speak English. Don’t they? I think they do, I went to London, I met the Queen, they love me there."

It's almost like they're getting out there to fend off an anticipated reaction... 

First, they must know that they're viciously equivocating fears of foreigners with fears of the virus - particularily Pinker and Dawkins. Its not the case that people who want their nations' borders shored up and inter-national travel restricted because they just don't like those dirty foreigners. They don't want travel to and fro because foreigners are people and people carry the virus. 

The cute quips about viruses not caring about borders is so obviously stupid, that it sounds like a joke. 

Also, Pinker's neologism 'neo-nationalism' is also dumb. Nationalism, first of all, is more of a default setting for national and international understanding than Pinker's globalism, so there isn't anything really 'neo-' about it. The very fact that Pinker and others feel like they have to 'in before' nationalistic approaches or motivations to the viral containment shows that nationalism is baked into people's assessments. 

It is also an opportunistic word that he can use to cast aspersions at his political and social opponents whilst also attempting to turn his own ideological framework of 'globalism' into the default setting. It is the language of global capital, finance, industry, complex global supply chains, and technocracy. It is the language of our age's orthodoxy. 

Oh, and it sound a little like 'neo-nazi'. So, he can slide in nazi insults while he pontificates.

Now, these are difficult times with tough decisions. Closing borders means serious economic impacts, and serious economic impacts can exasperate medical issues as goods, services, and money become increasingly unavailable. But easy travel and porous borders brought the virus to our shores in the first place. 

I wouldn't argue for a full, air-tight travel ban - though situations will differ - but platitudes and moral hand-wringing won't work. In fact, they could just reinforce the opposition to globalisation - so, in some sense, the Pinkers and Macrons of the world are welcome to spout their talking points. 

I don't know how much entropy Coronavirus will throw into the system. Inertia is a powerful force. But this pandemic, like climate change, will require tough decisions and strong, honest, clear leadership: traits that are sorely lacking in our litter of leaders. 

I do think that globalism will be undermined. 

People will have to be locked out. Mobility will have to be reduced. Supply chains will have to be truncated. Costs and advantages will have to be reassessed. Time horizons for planning with have to be lengthened. Medical and military priorities will have to be realigned. But those are challenges for our nation's leaders. Us, here on the ground, have to exercise caution and become more self-sufficient - re-discover old knowledge and reduce external needs. Learn to make and preserve foods; fish, trap or hunt. Get healthier and stay that way. Reduce reliance on global supply chains; get local. Increase production, not consumption - if you need something, try making it yourself. Keep friends and family close, and stay in touch. Communication with loved ones is important in unstable times, and you should all have each other's backs. Stay mentally engaged and stable, and try to enjoy the life you are trying to create. There are many things out of our control, but those things that we do control should be fashioned out of intent, and deliberation. 

This isn't just the calm before the storm. This could be the beginning of an age. And we're in it for the long haul. 

I'll leave this ramble with a quote by CS Lewis:

"In one way we think a great deal too much of the atomic bomb. “How are we to live in an atomic age?” I am tempted to reply: “Why, as you would have lived in the sixteenth century when the plague visited London almost every year, or as you would have lived in a Viking age when raiders from Scandinavia might land and cut your throat any night; or indeed, as you are already living in an age of cancer, an age of syphilis, an age of paralysis, an age of air raids, an age of railway accidents, an age of motor accidents.”

 In other words, do not let us begin by exaggerating the novelty of our situation. Believe me, dear sir or madam, you and all whom you love were already sentenced to death before the atomic bomb was invented: and quite a high percentage of us were going to die in unpleasant ways. We had, indeed, one very great advantage over our ancestors—anesthetics; but we have that still. It is perfectly ridiculous to go about whimpering and drawing long faces because the scientists have added one more chance of painful and premature death to a world which already bristled with such chances and in which death itself was not a chance at all, but a certainty.

This is the first point to be made: and the first action to be taken is to pull ourselves together. If we are all going to be destroyed by an atomic bomb, let that bomb when it comes find us doing sensible and human things—praying, working, teaching, reading, listening to music, bathing the children, playing tennis, chatting to our friends over a pint and a game of darts—not huddled together like frightened sheep and thinking about bombs. They may break our bodies (a microbe can do that) but they need not dominate our minds."

— “On Living in an Atomic Age” (1948)

DQSH

The other day, I learnt that Drag Queen Story Hour (DQSH) has come to my city. It is a capitol city, but a modest one.

Aside from the overt, in-your-face spectacle of a male drag-queen dressed as a female caricature reading stories often about drag queens or LGBT issues to very young children in a public library, there is also the churning cognitive dissonance.

For some reason we are expected to believe: a) that we live in an over-sexualised culture, and b) that there is nothing sexual about Drag Queen Story Hour.

We are told: DQSH is innocent. It is performative art. It is no different than having clowns.

The natural response is: OK, so why not have clowns?

The reply is: because children are encouraged to have positive queer role-models in their lives.

So, this isn't like clowns, at all. Clowns are merely for entertainment, not role-modelling; and certainly not for the formation of personal identity (sexual, gender or otherwise). Additionally, if there is any sexuality, at all, involved in these events, those who promote should be forced to reckon with that and choke on any defense they utter.

Such defenses of DQSH result in cognitive dissonance and often there is ad homimem that falls upon those who criticise it. When opponents point out the obvious sexualised nature of these events, they are told that there is nothing sexual about it, and that, in fact, it is the opponent of DQSH who is sexualising DQSH. None of these are healthy reactions, and both are the consequence of a desperate attempt to maintain ideological stability.

There is the visceral concern people have towards child sexual abuse - and there have been some cases of known and convicted abusers finding their way into DQSH events. These pose practical issues that have to be brought to the forefront of any DQSH proposal.

There is also another concern, and perhaps one that is more amenable to DQSH's supporters: by celebrating queerness/transgenderism/non-binary as valid gender/sexual identities, libraries, schools and the parents involved are promoting a body/mind disconnect which may very well bring about the dysphoric states that they should be trying to prevent.

Gaslighting and Cultural Dysphoria

In early February, Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) posted the video ad, below:

It asks at the outset: 'What it Truly Scandinavian?' The answer: 'Absolutely nothing'. 

What follows is a montage of stereotypically Scandinavian-looking people being told by a disembodied woman's voice as well as various people of colour that numerous stereotypical Scandinavian things aren't 'Scandinavian' at all. From Swedish meatballs and windmills, to bicycles and democracy: none of these are 'truly Scandinavian', but what is are the people from around the world who immigrate to Scandinavia.

There is a lot more than could be said about this video as it is chock-full of all sorts of interesting choices that betray its purpose, but that is another set of issues.

What is interesting is the logic of this message.

To my mind, it is asking the viewer to hold two conflicting notions in your mind at the same time.

1) The things that come to Scandinavia from other countries are not Scandinavian, but also:

2) The people who come to Scandinavia from other countries are Scandinavian.

In fact, there is a bit more to (2): not only are those who come to Scandinavia from other countries just as Scandinavian as native-born Scandinavians, these foreigners, in fact, are what make Scandinavia 'Scandinavian'. As the video states, 'In a way, Scandinavia was brought 'here''. 

I smell a double-standard, perhaps a provocation, and such things introduce all sorts of problems. 

What are we to say about India or Nigeria, Morocco or Turkey? They were colonised (several times in some cases), and have been stamped with that past. 

How does this standard work for left-wing causes? For instance, what claim do the indigenous peoples of North America have to their traditional lands and lifeways under this rubric? What right to they have to conserve their identity and traditions? They're just behind the times, and need to get with the program. Finally: is any country truly itself?

No. This is only meant to be applied uni-directionally: towards Western nations. 

This isn't even the first video of this kind this year: just after the UK withdrew from the EU via the Brexit withdrawal agreement, the BBC had a video in its children's TV series, 'Horrible Histories', that argued that 'British Things' aren't really British. It used the same logic as the SAS ad. 

What is the purpose of such videos? 

I suppose one is supposed to take solace in the ad’s message: we are all one human family that has exchanged artifacts and practices that, indeed, demonstrate our interconnected and shared humanity. 

But is one really to buy into this when, in fact, one’s own heritage is being diminished? I see this ad as an example of gas-lighting: its a psychological manipulation that is meant to sow the seeds of doubt in a targeted group, making its members question their own memory, perception, or judgment, often evoking in them cognitive dissonance and other changes such as low self-esteem. (We even see evidence of this in some of the portrayals of folks in the ad.)

What the message really is, is that there is no national identity outside of the country’s immigration policy. Nothing to separate one from an other, and no conflicts outside of the competitive networks of brand loyalties. 

I think that we should reject this wholeheartedly. National identity and its meaning shouldn't be left, or even given to the dictates and whims of capital or government. It is retained via old and inherited sentiments of belonging and tradition, and cultivated through consideration and practice with others who share in it. It is not imported, bought, or signed into existence on a piece of paper. It is isn't universal or borderless. There are particularities, there are sides. It is personal, rooted, and deeply normative.

We are attached to particular things because we need to belong to something… We can’t belong to something abstract. We do not keep the cathedrals just because they’re beautiful, but also because they are part of our past. We want the past to be present among us. We don’t want to be cut off from it. We rejoice in our contact with the culture of our past.  We value our particular past in the respectful way that we value any past culture, but [also] in a more personal way. We want to be part of [the] 'partnership…between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born'. (G.A Cohen, A Truth in conservatism: Rescuing conservatism from the Conservatives)

We ought to celebrate and cultivate our national identities, and repudiate the frauds.