Unrighteous Self-Righteousness

There's a lot of anger and righteous indignation being seen in both mainstream and social media about a lot of different societal issues. A lot of people speaking of themselves as good and of those who differ as evil.
Here are some thoughts, deliberately couched in quasi-Christian language, but applying to all, religious or otherwise.

When you take upon yourself the judgement of God, you instead become the Devil.

You must not allow yourself to judge that your cause is not merely right, but righteous. 

For in judging yourself righteous you convey upon yourself moral permission to behave in any manner, free of guilt.

How so? 

Because if I am, like God, righteous, then however I decide to behave must be righteous. It can be nothing other.

Righteousness can, by definition, do no evil.

So however bad my actions may look, you are simply unenlightened to the righteousness of them.

Whatever the consequences of my actions, my righteousness makes those actions good. 

No criticism of me is valid, no harm caused by me is undeserved or unnecessary. It is legitimate for me to decide what is the greater good. The end does indeed justify the means and being righteous, I can decide both.

Beware of thinking of yourself as righteous & morally superior, for in your conceit will lie not only your own downfall but that of many others.

Mask Studies

I’m fortunate to live near some very high-level and well-known bio-medical & scientific research establishments. This means that, either through my work or socially, I know quite a few folk who work in these places, some of them high-up the scale.

Below is a conversation I had with one such researcher a couple of days ago. This is not a verbatim account of course, but it IS an accurate summary.

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Me: So, tell me, how are research studies into things like the efficacy of wearing masks actually done?

Researcher: How do you mean?

Me: Well, to what extent do the studies try to model the real world situation with masks?

Researcher: By real world situation, you mean…?

Me: Well, there are a variety of different types of mask being worn by the public; some prevent virus particles coming in or out better than others; many are hard if not impossible to fix in place such that there aren’t any gaps; a lot of folk wear the same mask over and over; many remove their mask to cough & sneeze or to take gulps of fresh air; you have to take your mask off to eat or drink; that sort of thing.

Research: Oh, right, I understand. It would be almost impossible to replicate that accurately, so the studies don’t really take any of that into account. 

Me: That doesn’t sound great.

Researcher: Well, what would be the point?

Me: What would be the point of studying how things actually work in the real world, rather than how we want them to work in a fictional perfect world?

Researcher: I get where you’re going with this but really, there’s no point. Look, we don’t need research into whether masks are effective if you use an inferior grade mask or if you don’t wear it properly or you keep taking it off for various reasons because we already know they aren’t effective in those circumstances. Obviously they aren’t, right? How could they be? So, the research looks to see if the correct grade masks worn properly are effective.

Me: OK - but you don’t need to research that either do you? 

Researcher: Why not?

Me: Because obviously, if everyone wears a recommended grade of mask, and wears them correctly at all times, they WILL be effective.

Researcher: Right, but there needs to be properly researched studies that say this.

Me: Why?

Researcher: So that the decision makers have got bona fide studies that they can point at, to show that masks are effective in slowing the spread of the virus. 

Me: But these studies make assumptions that we know aren’t replicated by people going about their normal lives. So doesn’t that make them a bit pointless?

Researcher: [Smiles wryly and shrugs apologetically] Ours is not to reason why.

CV19 - The State of the Nation

It’s so easy, as we have done for almost 2 years now, to focus solely on Cv19. 

But we should talk just as much about all the other things that the Cv19 policy response affects, and recognise that they will be responsible for the misery and/or premature deaths of millions in the coming years.

Economic stagnation with high tax low growth due to our colossal borrowing for Cv19. Along with Climate Change taxes & higher energy bills, this will shorten some people’s lives as well as making many more miserable.

Non-Cv19 physical health - cancer, heart disease and many other illnesses not diagnosed, or diagnosed too late. This will shorten some people’s lives as well as making many more miserable.

Mental health deterioration in many, especially among young adults and those with no family support, forced into isolation. This will shorten some people’s lives as well as making many more miserable.

The colossal NHS back-log created by the ‘all that matters is Cv19’ policies the NHS has been allowed to adopt. This will exacerbate the usual winter struggles of the NHS and will shorten some people’s lives as well as making many more miserable.

Educational disruption for tens of millions of children. This may not shorten lives, but it reduces the life chances of the poorest children in particular, thus making their lives worse than they could have been. 

Civil liberties cast aside as if they are mere whims, not rights earned over countless generations. Who knows where this will lead but nowhere good, we can be certain of that.

Do I feel very sorry for people who have had someone close to them lose their life due to Cv19? Of course! 

Do I feel very sorry for people who have been made seriously ill by Cv19? Of course!

But I also feel very sorry for all those who have and will lose their lives or are desperately ill because their illness was demoted & treated as of less importance long after the seriousness of Cv19 was known to be far less than originally feared.

I also care about the mental health deterioration to many and the educational harm to our children.

And I also care about how easily we have allowed ourselves to be convinced of the necessity of giving up our civil liberties and freedoms.

Policy affecting 68 million people has to be based on more than panic, hype & political expediency, especially when not backed-up by the reality on the ground. 

We have an Infection Fatality Rate of well under 1%, which was the case even before the vaccines, and an average age of death ‘with Cv19’ of 82 which again was the case before the vaccines.
This average age of death, by the way, means that Cv19 has been so devastating that it has had ZERO impact on the average life expectancy in the UK. 

We have overreacted, and this disproportionate response will come back to bite us in coming years, particularly if we repeat the mistakes.
That we overreacted initially is understandable; that we are even contemplating further lockdowns & vaccine passports (& worse!), even now we know that Cv19 is nowhere near as bad as feared, is inexcusable.

It’s very simple, really. Some people think that Cv19 has been a big enough problem to justify all the collateral damage I have listed above. 

I do not.
I believe that the collateral damage from our short-sighted, Cv19 only, policy response will be far worse than Cv19 itself.

I struggle to believe that those on the side of censoring debate, only allowing carefully selected & interpreted information to be released, using propaganda techniques to instil greater fear than warranted, mandating medical treatments & restrictions, harming the economy, harming mental health & non-Cv19 physical health, disrupting children’s education, using those children to shield adults, allowing the division of society into clean and unclean, good and evil, and curtailing civil liberties, is the side history will judge favourably. 

Although of course, as Orwell realised, they will just erase, re-write & interpret the history to suit themselves if given the chance.

The question for all of us as individuals is, ‘will I continue to aid and abet them?’

Covid-deniers and Anti-Vaxxers - What are they thinking?

Over many months, I’ve been listening and discussing Cv19 with various people on social media who have not taken the vaccines & are more sceptical about Cv19 generally. Here is what I believe is an accurate synthesis of their views.

Most that don't want this vaccination aren't anti-vaccinations or even necessarily anti THIS vaccination. They have all their other vaccinations with no issue.

They just want to wait until there are 3/4 years of data before deciding whether to take this one or not. 

After all, that's the usual timescale before a new vaccination is given a licence, because new treatments that seem to work prima facie, can have longer-term side-effects that may make the cure worse than the virus. 

Remember, we are not dealing with a virus akin to the Black Death here. If we were, we would have 25 -30 million dead from it in the UK alone by now. In reality, we have around 0.5% of that figure, and that is ‘with’ Cv19, not ‘of’ Cv19.

In fact, the average age of death 'with' Cv19 is 82, which is the normal average age of death in England & Wales.
Under 55, the ‘with’ Cv19 deaths is so small as to be statistically insignificant, very sad for those people & their families though it of course is. 
And even the over 75s who catch Cv19 have a 4 in 5 chance of surviving it.

So the claim is NOT that Cv19 is a hoax, or that the vaccinations are completely useless. 

It’s that the severity of Cv19 is exaggerated, and demonstrably so; that the efficacy of the vaccinations is exaggerated (you can still both catch & transmit it AND need boosters every 6 months) & with long-term consequences unknown; and that, because of these exaggerations, it is perfectly reasonable to want to wait for the normal long-term data on efficacy and side-effects to come in before taking the vaccination, particularly for the majority at almost no risk.

Moreover, the exaggeration of the Cv19 risk has caused policies to be brought in which cause far more societal damage, both short and long-term, than the virus itself. 

Just think of all the money we don’t have that’s been borrowed resulting in inflation and much higher tax levels; all the cancer and other non-Cv19 diagnoses and treatments missed with the consequent backlog of many millions of cases putting pressure on the NHS, the very thing we were supposed NOT to be doing; the mental health toll with, for example, an almost 50% increase in mental health referrals in the 15-19 year old population; the disruption to an entire generation’s education which always affects the poorest most; and the various civil liberties given-up with some at least, unlikely to be returned.

With a compliant media (both mainstream & social), we have been propagandised into believing that the Cv19 risk is magnitudes greater than it really is; that the vaccines are more useful than they really are, (particularly for the under 65s); and that the restrictive rules brought-in were far more necessary and useful than they really were. 

We have spent a colossal amount of money in the wrong way and far too many seem very happy to demonise anyone who asks perfectly reasonable and, frankly, obvious questions, as either stupid or evil or both. 

But Covid-deniers or anti-vaxxers, the vast majority of these people are not.

Covid 19: Thesis and Anti-Thesis

This is an attempt to explain why CV19 policies (and it applies to many other things), has become so tribal. There are broadly two camps, those that accept the mainstream line on Cv19 and those who don’t accept it. The former support the CV19 Thesis and the latter are Anti-thesis.

Covid 19 Thesis:

CV19 is believed to be a serious threat to public health many magnitudes greater than even a bad flu.

Promoted by the mainstream media; the main social media channels; most Governments; most opposition parties; global bodies e.g. WHO; large pharmaceutical companies

Those who differ in their opinion are characterised by those who promote the thesis as Covid-deniers; anti-vaxxers; conspiracy theorists and even by some as potential murderers (granny-killers).

The condensed view of the Covid 19 thesis believers is that lockdowns both work and are required; masks work and need to be mandated; vaccines are safe and should be mandated across most/all age ranges to protect both themselves & others; and vaccine passports should be mandated so that things can open-up faster and pressure people into getting vaccinated. In summary, heavy societal controls and restrictions are needed as CV19 is more dangerous than any downsides the restrictions bring.

CV19 Anti-thesis

CV19 is not sufficiently serious to warrant the level of response seen. It is barely more serious than a bad flu season and badly affects only the very elderly (average age of CV19 death is 82) or those with specific long-term conditions that make them generally more vulnerable to any and all viruses.

This idea is not promoted by any large mainstream or social media organisations but there are many individual scientists, doctors and others who can be found on social media who believe that the response to CV19 has been exaggerated, inappropriate & ultimately counter-productive. The differing approaches across the world with no correlation between cases/hospitalisations/death outcomes and the levels of restrictions or vaccinations imposed is cited as evidence.

Those who differ in their opinion to CV19 anti-thesis believers are characterised as Government shills; unthinking sheep; fear-mongers and selfish dictatorship enablers.

The condensed view of the Covid 19 anti-thesis believers is that lockdowns are not needed and don’t work; masks have so little efficacy as not to be worth wearing; vaccine passports are simply a way to divide society with no proven benefit; in the near future we can expect to see a scapegoating of the unvaccinated and that we are on the precipice of a slippery slope that leads to increasingly draconian biopolitical control measures, the grip of which is unlikely to release, even when the pandemic is over.

In summary, more societal damage (across the economy, non-CV19 health, mental health, education and civil liberties) is done by heavy restrictions than by Cv19 itself.

Can we find a way forward?

Both of the above perspectives have some validity.
However, in anything but the most simplistic of situations, extreme views are ALWAYS wrong to one extent or another because they attempt to simplify the complex in a way that misses crucial factors.

We all have lives to lead which take up a lot of our energy, both physical and mental. It’s a form of self-preservation to simplify things down so that we can integrate them into our lives with minimal effort. We want to reach a situation, and quickly, wherein we have decided what ‘the answer’ is, so that we can stop having to think about it.
Our natural reaction to anyone suggesting that our answer may be wring is usually to push-back and double-down. Any thinking we do tends to be simply justifying to ourselves why it’s ok to carry on believing as we already do.

Put simply, and for various psychological reasons, we hate having to change our minds, especially on important issues.

Now clearly, this is less than ideal in terms of being open-minded and being less susceptible to propaganda. But as long as we know and acknowledge that’s what we do, so that when serious complex issues arise, we are consciously aware of our over-simplified biases, we at least have a chance of discussing things open-mindedly, rather than taking the easy but divisive route of simply seeing anyone with a differing opinion as either stupid or evil.

Neither the thesis or anti-thesis view of Cv19, when held tribally and uncritically, is right, and we do ourselves no favours in the long-run by closed-mindedly choosing a side and refusing to consider reasonable questions and concerns from the ‘other’ side.

We need to be able to synthesise a reasonable way through this which doesn’t throw the baby out with the bathwater or end in one side feeling totally victorious and the other totally defeated. Becoming either a tyrant or a slave are not good options.

The problem is that there is no arena for a sensible, good-faith discussion.

It could be done by the mainstream or social media, but these organisations have nailed their colours to the mast and are actively censoring views and individuals that don’t agree with their chosen position.
Governments could do it but again, they don’t want to be seen as uncertain or vacillating, so they also tend to nail their colours to one mast or another.
Global quangos like the WHO or the UN could do it but sadly, they are so riven with internal & geo-politics and vested interests that it doesn’t happen there either.

So it is left to small independent thinkers like Jonathan Haidt or the you tube channel Rebel Wisdom, to try and bring some reasonable thinking into difficult areas.
All any individual can do is support these reasonable thinkers and do what we can on social media in our small way. We can also try to introduce other perspectives into conversations.

What is the kind of thinking we need to move forward collegiately?
Well in simple terms it means not insisting upon winning; not insisting on being right; being aware of the danger of all of our thinking being merely rationalising why it’s ok to go on believing what we already do without asking often obvious questions and genuinely trying to see the other point of view.
It requires, ‘yes, and..’ or ‘true but only partially’ or ‘ok, but what if…’ or ‘ok but perhaps we could consider this as well…’

Politically, it comes down to how we want to organise our society.
Do we want: 1. as much genuine democracy as possible? This requires high levels of openness and public discussion and involvement;
2. Occasional democracy interspersed by a virtual dictatorship? Where the elected Government gets to do basically whatever it likes until the next election;
Or 3. no democracy at all? Accepting that a ruling class know what’s best and the rest of us happily just do as we’re told – something foreseen by Aldous Huxley.

What we must have is genuine open and honest debates on vital societal issues. Otherwise, we will find that those with power and influence change our society without us having any meaningful say.

As well as books and you tube interviews by Jonathan Haidt and the Rebel Wisdom channel, I would suggest certain books to read. They are all available on kindle for well under £10 (actual books more expensive). They explain how we think and how easily we can be influenced:

Influence by Cialdini
Think Fast, Think Slow by Kahneman
Mistakes were made but not by me by Tarvis et al

Pragmatism must win over emotion

The 'we have to show our humanity by taking all these refugees' people don't seem to have thought through the practicalities.
It's all about the 'moral signal' that they want to give.

Most are comfortably off financially and believe that questions asking where we will get all the houses, hospitals, doctors, nurses, social-workers, teachers, jobs, etc to cope with an ever increasing population on our tiny over-crowded island, are somehow irrelevant or trivial or just an excuse for nastiness.

Whether this is moral naivety or wilful bad-faith and whether conscious or otherwise, who knows? But as long as I feel that I’m a ‘nice moral person', that’s all that seems to matter.
Sod the genuine practical social issues that large influxes of new people bring, or the poor already living here upon whom the extra costs and adverse consequences of rapid major societal change always falls hardest.

On this refugee issue, you either believe that we should prioritise helping the needy people of the UK, of whom there are plenty, or you believe in prioritising people from other parts of the world.
It’s pretty much as simple as that.

What we don’t have is the luxury of doing both, whether from a financial, skilled labour or geographical space viewpoint.
We will just end up doing both badly, which is indeed what we are doing.

You don’t have to give other people whatever they want to be a good decent person.
You don't need to take on guilt about things that you personally have had nothing to do with to be a good decent person.
You don’t have to take the problems of the world onto your own shoulders to be a good decent person.
Sort your own life, family and country out, then in your spare time, perhaps.....

One day we will realise that, for a host of reasons, life cannot be made totally fair for all people; which brings us back to the question, ‘do we focus on our own people in need, on our own poor, or those from other countries?’

It’s not a case of not caring, or not being a nice person.
It’s being practical & realistic about what is possible and about how much we can do, without destroying what we’ve already got; as opposed to being a self-righteous emotion-driven utopian idealist.

The thing with self-righteous utopian idealists is that it costs them very little to pontificate on social media or walk down a street waving a placard and shouting slogans, while potentially costing everyone else an awful lot if their ill-thought-through impractical emotional blackmail wins out.

Selfishness: some thoughts

Humans are innately selfish. It is a built-in part of our evolutionary survival instinct.
Whether individuals plough their own furrow or cooperate within some form of group, it's because they judge it to be in their own personal interest to do so.
If we can acknowledge this, we would, both on an individual and societal level, make better decisions by being more sceptical of authority.

“Oh, but I know people who often do things for others with no benefit to themselves. I even do things like that myself”, you may say.
I understand what you mean, of course. And on a small-scale personal level, it can happen.
But I would gently point out that even then, whether hoping for a favour in return in the future, or even just the glow of self-righteousness you get from performing the act can be construed as, if not outright selfishness, then gaining some form of benefit.

Certainly, when you move away from small interpersonal interactions, the idea that something may be bad for us personally but best for the majority in society is one we understand in concept but can rarely bring ourselves to act out.
Rather, we spend a lot of mental effort rationalising why what is bad for us personally is bad for wider society and what is good for us personally is good for wider society.
Life is just so much easier that way, isn’t it?

No-one champions, let alone votes for, a system or a societal change which they believe will make their own life materially or meaningfully worse. And I use these words deliberately.

We are sometimes prepared to live with minor inconvenience to 'do the right thing'; to appear, both to ourselves and others, as virtuous, but nothing major, nothing meaningful, nothing material.

For example, people who are comfortably off financially may be prepared to advocate for a rise in tax rates such that they too would have a bit less disposable income.
However, if the tax increases being suggested were of a magnitude that meant they would struggle to maintain their current lifestyle, their support for the idea would disappear faster than water in a sieve.

If someone is advocating for something, it is either because they believe they already do, or will in the future, directly benefit from it - or, at the very least, that there will be no meaningful downside for them or their immediate family.

The consequences of our views for other folk are either something we can claim credit for if good, or unfortunate but necessary collateral damage, if bad.
But the primary driver is always ‘what’s in it for me?’
It might be money, it might be fame, it may be praise, it may be future benefits. But one way or another, we only do it if we believe that in some way, we benefit personally.

Our belief may prove to be wrong of course; but cultivating wisdom is a different and much more difficult discussion.