Human societies naturally divide into groups or tribes. Human tribes rely on a shared pride of belonging and a sense of otherness toward non-members. This provides their members with a cause or meaning, such as jointly building a better life, and a feeling of superiority or victimhood based on comparison with, denigration of and exclusion of outsiders. A sense of shared superiority or victimhood builds comradeship, which most humans naturally seek.
Superiority, victimhood, and the denigration of others seem intertwined in modern society, and probably always were. They rely on prejudice. Prejudice that ‘our’ side is morally superior to those others, who in turn are best described as stupid and prejudiced themselves against what we hold to be right. Their position in the hierarchy of power does not matter so much as their otherness – they can be our servants or our enslavers, but they are morally inferior.
We express their moral inferiority in terms like racist, something-phobic, something-denier, anti-something, far-something, or ’extremist’. The extremist is someone who disagrees with a rational, correct position held by our tribe. It is, of course, hard to see the splinter in your own eye when the logs in those of others seem so blindingly obvious.
Early in the Covid outbreak, it became increasingly apparent that my tribe, a moderate, compassionate grouping somewhat ‘Left-of-centre’ and always ready to proclaim support for human rights and equality, had a problem with fascism. It was not that it disliked fascism, though its members proclaimed loudly that they did; rather they seemed disconcertingly comfortable in encompassing it.
Being wealthy, college-educated and more progressive than others, they were very clear that marching up and down in jackboots was a bad look. This for them was fascism, and they had seen the black and white newsreels and the raised fists that proved it. But beyond that, it rapidly became clear that they could not actually distinguish fascism from a vase of roses. They saw something commendable in keeping in check those unable to embrace their superior point of view, considering the exclusion of dissenting views a virtue. Best that I explain.
When People Face a Trial
A bunch of wealthy corporate authoritarians and the politicians who had dinners with them decreed that emergency rule was the preferred form of governance. All my progressive friends fell in line. The ‘greater good’ was a cause worth fighting for, and progressivism meant siding with the corporate masters who were, obviously, working for the same. Freedom was a luxury in a ‘global pandemic’ and only deplorables and the ‘far-Right’ believed in ‘freedumb’ now. There was, after all, a global emergency to deal with, and wiser people could see this.
Becoming an outcast of a tribe is not fun, especially when you are then considered to be allied with an enemy, an enemy inferior in morality and intelligence. It was at first depressing watching fellow admirers of Nelson Mandela now admiring home detention on a governor’s orders.
But refuge can be found among fellow refuseniks; a strange collection of those who, mistakenly or not, put truth over compliance – unwilling to comply with stupidity for appearance’s sake. People who would not put on a mask to walk 10 feet from restaurant door to a table, because signalling conformity with authority as a virtue in itself (fascism) was not an acceptable life choice. People who asked questions when those sponsored by a drugmaker told them to be injected. These were people who simply believed that each person had a right to make his own decisions concerning his body and health; bodily autonomy that went beyond correcting a misfortune to include suffering for the principle.
The Politics of Keeping the Right People on Top
My experience of this was in King County, Washington State, USA, a centre of world progressivism. King County’s population is overwhelmingly descended from European and Asian migrants. It is home to the wealthiest suburb in America, and some of the wealthiest individuals. A relatively small population descended from those forcibly brought to America as slaves is concentrated in its lower-income neighborhoods. The county and city governments compensate for this by further emphasising morphological differences between people. Frequent references to skin pigmentation, ethnic history and income defined community events, providing the more fortunate with an ability to feel, and project, virtue.
There are reasons for this ethnic-economic divide. The end of U.S. slavery did not include land reparations, but it did include continued discrimination. As a result, a large and readily identifiable segment of the population remains generally poorer. This is reinforced by an education system dependent on local land taxes, ensuring that wealthy kids in Greater Seattle retained far better opportunities than their less-wealthy counterparts. Coupled with the cost of a college education, this system ensures continued disparity, to the advantage of the wealthy (or progressive) class.
COVID-19 brought two and a half years of emergency powers, with rule by decree, whether legal or not, forcing the closure of small businesses and their replacement by a delivery system benefiting their larger corporate rivals. A move from in-person offices (supporting janitors and food stalls) to work online did the same. Online schooling compounded the advantage of kids with their own screens in their own bedrooms, further reinforcing this advantageous post-slavery inequality.
While low-income people became even lower-income, King County’s progressive class had a really good pandemic whilst magnanimously reminding the unemployed that ‘we are all in this together’.
In time, the Governor added vaccine mandates to sort the wheat from the chaff. That the descendants of slaves and other low-income people were overrepresented amongst those refusing was apparently lost on the masked warriors engaged in anti-fascist rhetoric or painting rainbows on pedestrian crossings. They didn’t need jackboots. And neither, in reality, did the same progressive class of 90 years earlier. All that is required is a sense of superiority and a greater good.
Both Mussolini and Hitler arose from the Left, both were considered progressive, and both had strong support from the health establishment, the wealthy, the Economist and the New York Times. We need to face this and understand why someone a few thousand years ago wrote that there is nothing new under the sun. Having always considered myself ‘Left’ (still do) but thinking fascism stinks, recent years have felt a bit like waking up and finding your village had moved on without you, but you really didn’t want to follow.
Not All Farce is Funny
Fascism is always accompanied by insanity because it requires the negation of truth. So for all its unpleasantness, it can be quite funny watching the lengths to which adherents go once they agree to give up their minds. Try walking the mountain paths high in the Cascades forests and encountering grown masked adults in fresh air, or hiding behind trees in fear of unmasked people. Or watch some heroic defender of society walking down a mountain path poking others with a four-foot stick to keep them at least six feet distanced.
Listen to a father screaming at his children to have ‘situational awareness’ in a playground because unmasked kids were coming too close, or watch council workers dutifully gravelling a skate park and cordoning off slides to stop children playing. Then recall that this was orchestrated by people who actually paid their own money for the college education that unravelled their common sense. However, while funny as individual incidents, such stupidity stinks when on a mass scale. And mass child abuse to assuage the insecurities of adults stinks even more.
Migration
After two years of living with obvious tyranny and orchestrated impoverishment of the less well-off in the name of the local ultra-wealthy, we left with some regrets for leaving a strong minority standing against the tide that we had the privilege to get to know. We migrated a couple of thousand miles southeast through some of the most spectacular, diverse and beautiful country on earth seeking a new tribe, to southeast Texas. A long enough drive to understand that, in the midst of this shallow and dismissive era, the beauty of God’s earth is still paramount.
Rural Texas is populated by people that the Progressive folks of the Northwest call rednecks and racists. We found ourselves in a very ethnically diverse town. It does not hold marches calling for inclusivity, plant meaningful billboards in the front lawn yards stating ‘Science is real’, and ‘Love is love’, or seek to find differences to divide us. It is tribal, but this seems more connected with the locale, rather than education, money or skin color. It is also particularly distinguished by a shared desire to ignore those who dictate. This is its most distinguishing feature, and what used to be called ‘“’enlightenment’.
Circuses still have their place rather than orchestrated ‘celebrations of diversity’, and (fully inclusive) county fairs and rodeos take precedence over Pride marches. People express an independent spirit without denigrating others, and delivery drivers actually stop on a doorstep to chat. Most importantly, people seem less willing to live a lie. Time will tell whether this persists when pressure is increased.
Facing a Future
There seems a growing dichotomy between Americans who consider themselves superior and righteous in imposing their views on others and those who accept that all should primarily control their own lives. History tells us that this dichotomy is not new. It also tells us where each direction leads. One positive arising from the Covid mess was to throw this in greater contrast, laying bare how devoid of truth and reason some dominant narratives are.
We have entered a time when the values we once thought fundamental to our societies are widely derided, as are those who hold them. We see this in the media mouthpieces of those who seek power for its own sake.
The dominant tribe in much of America, and much of the Western world, is a band of supplicants to their cause. They wish to censor, restrict, control and mandate because they have chosen a path of compliance and resent those who did not. There is nothing new in this, in historic terms, and the response is similarly established. Choosing humanity over rhetoric is the best way to prepare for whatever comes next.
Dr. David Bell is a clinical and public health physician with a PhD in population health and background in internal medicine, modelling and epidemiology of infectious disease. Previously, he was Director of the Global Health Technologies at Intellectual Ventures Global Good Fund in the USA, Programme Head for Malaria and Acute Febrile Disease at FIND in Geneva, and coordinating malaria diagnostics strategy with the World Health Organisation. He is a Senior Scholar at the Brownstone Institute, where this article first appeared.
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Good article, although I still think the author finds it hard to cut himself loose from the past. The fact he always felt good to be part of the ‘centre left’ is also strange. What good has any left wing Government done anywhere?
Glad he made it to Texas and found sanity. Hopefully he will never vote Dumb again.
Finally did the author mix up log and splinter in 3rd para?
It is a start. You (we) can’t expect everything in one step. Nobody can cast off long-held views overnight.
Peter Hitchens would agree!
Come on you smug Rightists.. Whilst it is true that relatively less on the Right have fallen for the Virtuous Covid Hoax than the naive Leftists, that still doesn’t include most of the Conservative Party!
This is far more than shallow point scoring between Left and Right, this is about seeing through a scam/hoax, as promoted by the Establishment. Some of us can see it, but sadly most not.
Like the author, I would have regarded myself as Centrist or possibly slightly Leftist in terms of economy, but we can likewise see horse faeces for what it is!
Orwell observed that the real divide is not between Left and Right, but between authoritarians and libertarians.
Yes but most of today’s conservative party are not right of centre. It was Tories that gave us Net Zero after all in 2019. It is Tories who speak of things like “Social Justice”. It is Tories that have allowed people to roam about with knives and gangs of people with rucksacks to walk into stores and fill up. It is Tories who have allowed 750,000 people to enter the country with 100,000 of them just arriving uninvited. All these people will have to live somewhere and presumably that will be in a house, but where are all these houses? So no we don’t have a conservative party now, we have Labour and we have Labour Lite.
Which just shows the absurdity of the whole left-right paradigm when not discussing France circa 1790.
The laughably misnamed ‘Conservative’ Party is dominated by Blue Blairites (if you don;t believe me, look at the tax rates & observe what happened to Truss when she dared suggest a meaningful change of approach). People will be shocked when the soon-to-be-in-power Red Blairites just dial all the idiocy of the last 14 years up to 11, resulting in more of the same but faster.
I found solace with Left Lockdown Sceptics that now call themselves Real Left.
https://real-left.com/
Off topic but the DS boffins have fixed notifications
I’ve encouraged them to give those features a plug as I feel they enhance the experience, but if they don’t I’ll post about it tomorrow
Good article by Dr Bell. I hadn’t been a “lefty” since my youth but I realised my London “liberal” tribe abandoned me over Trump and Brexit so by the time “Covid” came I was not surprised.
Both David & Bell arose from The America™ and their total cluelessness of European history of the first half of the 20th century is only shadowed by their apparently indomitable desire to keep making stupid remarks about it both David & Bell from The America™ certainly believe to be profound.
As I’m not in the mute of trying to explain this history to boneheads again, what about a question instead: Is the reason that you always write fascism when you mean totalitarianism that the idea that Stalin really wasn’t a nice guy offends your communist sympathies?
David, you should ask these “superior” specimens whether they believe that epidemics grow exponentially. If they say yes you can tell them that are bad at both “Math” and basic literature reviews.
It certainly has been very interesting – if not very pleasant – seeing ill-liberalism take centre stage in the attitudes of quite intelligent friends and acquaintances. It suddenly became a real clear dividing line, though no doubt it was always there under the surface, in less ‘clarifying’ times.
Excellent article.
Comparing far-left and far-right (the actual far-right, not someone who thinks Bearded Bill perhaps shouldn’t be donning a frock, slapping on the makeup, and reading stories to schoolchildren) is like comparing a red apple to a green apple – peel away the skin and what you’ll find beneath is always an apple. Communism is bold, brash totalitarianism, fascism is quiet, shy totalitarianism. The green and red skins of your totalitarian apple. The reason why so many more on the left succumbed is, quite simply, because so many more on the left – particularly the modern left, which is now the party of the middle-class ‘educated’ – consider themselves superior. And if you ‘know’ you’re superior then you have a duty to control the inferior – for their own good of course. Superior opinion isn’t opinion, it’s fact. Fact, because all superior people hold the same opinion, and all superior people can’t be wrong. And, because it’s fact, any inferior people holding a contradictory opinion must be forced in line. Because, fact.
The last few years has laid bare how many people enjoy the idea of total authority; either enforcing it or being subjected to it. The biggest social experiment in history and the results are not only bloody depressing, but a clear window into what comes next. We, on this site, are in a minority. Buckle down the hatches.
Thank you for this article.
Overnight, the British Establishment turned into Tyrants and the vast majority of the population demonstrated that they are gullible idiots who have no common-sense, ability or willingness to think or take responsibility for themselves.
It was the most depressing revelation of my life.
Yes, but I believe even Texas is covering the place in thousands of turbines. I suppose no one is perfect.