logicp_writings/Book/Chapters/Revised Covidism.txt

Covidism

A forbidden topic for many, especially if you aren’t simply repeating the catchphrases and popular appeals to authority that became so commonplace these past few years.
Certainly, there have been many fun pet names for the recent public health phenomenon such as the Branch Covidians, drawing inspiration from the Branch Davidians and the Waco tragedy, Covidians, Quarantine Karens, and Mask Nazis. But, in general, Covidian has a nice ring to it, and makes it sound like a member of the Cult of Covid. Technically, however, there are etymological ramifications concerning the use of one suffix vs. the other.
A “Covidian” would be one who is “of” Covid; the consequence of having been in a particular milieu or locale. We might say that children who are raised in an environment where obsession over the threat of commonly transmitted disease symptoms has been the norm might be best described in this way.
Conversely, the “Covidist” would best describe the alarmist, fear-mongering initiate to the “Covid Cult” who leverages broad cognizance of this event in order to advocate for transformation of society, agreement with their critical description of reality particularly if it involves a Marxist-style hierarchical analysis and a general desire for a collectivist endpoint, which they indicate as necessary given the occurrence of a “deadly pandemic” that manifested precisely because not enough had yet been done to drive the world toward their conception of an ideal state of mankind.
A very dear one to me, for what it’s worth, as this was the first time we traversed past the line from demanding uniformity of expression and entered into uniformly providing physical access to the body. This was the first time where embodiment of the state rhetoric became a rule and where everyone could be categorized as an immediate threat. It’s where one couldn’t fully understand whether their participation was itself an expression of state rhetoric or an intelligent choice of actions based on their understanding of the environment.
For the first time, the state could dictate movement in every house, the manner in which relations of family members are to be managed, and a means by which family members could use state rhetoric, narrative, and the threat of state enforcement mechanisms to pressure, castigate, and judge the moral standing of other family members.
It gave anyone an opportunity to utterly betray their closest relatives while maintaining ample plausible deniability through the continuous publication and distribution of emergency announcements and warnings, whose message always provided key declarations which can, in and of themselves, not be proven. Thus, in whatever contentious dialogue arises, we see the following:
Those who make dialogue and question narrative identify themselves as beyond the pale.
You could simply participate by restating what has been uttered by the state and reinforce the stated goals pertaining to the statements.
Acting on Body is Acting on Mind
Relinquishing the sanctity and sovereignty of one’s body is simultaneously acting on the belief that one should relinquish one’s mind. If you can no longer make decisions and act in the best interests of your person, then perhaps you shouldn’t be making decisions about anything.
The main issue is how so many men would necessarily come to behave as though their destiny were granted.
Dialectics
The Covid era has been especially conducive to transforming people’s confidence in their capacity to understand their environment and themselves. The messaging and nudges generated cognitive associations and linguistic triggers to serve as implements to manipulate opinion and behaviour by inducing and directing emotional responses. This was done in a way that placed people in a state of mystification, whereby they weren’t so curious to understand as they were wishing to be assured that they were participating correctly and being led to the correct endpoint.
Humans were paradoxically classified as both the most precious resource and the primary threat. This was not simply that persons who were ill were the threat and the infirm were precious; no, it was that every single human was to be treated as the primary threat at all times. This is an aspect that still continues to this day in the medical industry, in private institutions, and even among a not-insignificant portion of the general public.
For the medical and pharmaceutical industry, continuing the procedures borne of the Covid era provides opportunities to validate previous behaviours, rationalize demands such as additional data collection and confirmation of compliance and induce a sense of caution and reverence among customers and patients. It allows for a higher implied status of moral standing to which other statements can be validated, such as the virtuous characteristics of the caregiver. For the more ideologically adept working in those environments, they can compel group behaviour and deem it a form of praxis in the sense of continuing a historical process toward world change.
This gives institutions ample opportunity to validate both their and the state’s mechanisms utilized to enforce standards of authority and control. Given that the institutions depend on and are affected by state funding and legislation, there is an incentive for them to record data in a manner that reinforces the state’s pronouncements. Institutions can rationalize extra demands by continuing to purvey the semblance of the threat and can, with the state, piggyback on one another’s initiatives in order to enhance their capacity to influence public perception while validating increased demands.
Furthermore, any broad threat can always be used to excuse poor circumstances, which come to be associated with the issue du jour, as it provides an endless stream of evidence. Lastly, it provides a convenient excuse to claim there is a need to restructure the organization useful for purging undesirable elements or claiming additional power. In many respects, the Covid period served as an opportunity to shift the explicit objectives of an institution toward equity, initially through decrying the projected disparate impacts of Covid itself, and then using the language of crisis to begin describing the normal state of affairs for humans per group identity.
Indeed, the issue, when championed and enforced through an authoritarian entity, becomes an extension of your other favourite cause. Then, a mystifying argument is formulated to claim they are the same issue and that your model of it, which now includes a new aspect brought in through synthesis to account for your identified contradiction, is a more intentional and appropriate means of addressing the issue.
This was visible very early on, as the summer of protest coincided with the first year of the Covid era, and both medical professionals and politicians were adopting language from Neo-Marxist activists for peer-reviewed journals normally reserved for medicine and biology. Some examples of this, over which we’ve seen an excess of communication in the past few years, might include the following:
YT-CoV2
Whether framed as a “syndemic” or as “whiteness” being a factor in public health emergencies, the Cult of Covid blurred lines by using scientific language while focusing on weaponized sociopolitical issues such as antiracism.
There are many ways of making these connections, needing only a framing of disparity to champion collectivism and the consolidation of power to a central authority. Interestingly, dialectics of health equity involving the concept of whiteness can be handled in many ways so as to induce reflexive agitation among the public.
White people are sometimes argued to be disadvantaged often by “conservatives” who don’t know how to engage the discourse correctly by claiming contradiction-defying descriptions from Critical Theorists. A common description involves juxtaposing against the “historically oppressed” moniker, leading to an implied need for “negation” of the problem variable. Critical Theorists will even apply the term “disadvantaged” to white people by claiming that, in spite of the tools of whiteness concentrating power and wealth, those who benefit are themselves a minority (like the “1%”) who have leveraged whiteness, the ignorance and unconscious racism of white people, and the internalized racism of people of colour to their advantage.
This means that, even within the framework of Critical Race Theory, white people can be both disadvantaged and the racist purveyors of hegemonic forces that drive oppression. This is a good example of argumentation built upon contradiction yet postured as reasonable. Nevertheless, it still sells the premise of the CRT mythos and Covidism simply takes it a step further by embedding it in what is assumed to be hard science and medicine. If anyone disagrees with this “reasonable” analysis, they are simply suffering from false consciousness.
If you don’t see the racism in medicine, it’s likely you are biased by the benefits it has given you things could be much worse for you, and they are much worse for at least one person who doesn’t look like you. White and “yt-adjacent” individuals benefit simply by not having to directly deal with the conflict.
There needn’t be any strong piece of evidence; the evidence is simply your lack of criticism. That you aren’t suffering in conflict means you have no reason to leave the comforting stupor of false consciousness. So long as the proletarian plight is described as a symptom of an ailment otherwise addressed by the distribution of power and wealth to entities that pursue collectivism, the rationale will be considered valid and legitimate.
Ultimately, only the promise to address all effects and thus all oppression models of the world will be considered valid. The ultimate solution is totalizing, and its system for man’s life and society is totalitarian. This is also known as holism.
Is a Marxism
Though the collectivist disposition among humans goes back to the advent of the human form, Marxism is the best specification of its essence in modern times. It formalizes the plight of human personhood against the constraints of existence, impels one to recruit others to reinforce belief in delusion, and yields a cult that insists on initiation and participation to prove one’s humanity.
Only a handful of people have said that Covidism is an instance of Marxism, and those who push back on the idea at its utterance aren’t just Covidists themselves, but even romanticizing Marxists who stood against Covid tyranny. I contend that it follows Marx’s core reasoning for man as Social Man and his explications of the means of effecting gnostic escape.
Bourgeois property as the cause of human estrangement still remains, but it broadens to all factors affecting disparate conditions of health. All risk serves as a concrete example, making previous warnings of grave consequences for group behaviour appear remarkably prescient, with media and academics stating that “Covid” was a horrible, once-in-a-lifetime ordeal yet only a taste of the horrors to come.
The modern degrowth movement, like those who follow the thought lineage from the Club of Rome and swoon at the words of Kohei Saito, speaks of how Marx’s analysis touches the environment in terms of the use of land and the metabolic rift resulting from the utilization of resources in commoditized form. Conversely, cost and value of use are supplanted by a reified and contrived format, leading to loss of understanding and ignorance that risk catastrophe.
Perverted resource values have led, according to them, not just to in-arable land but to a scourge of demonic creations responding to the mayhem of end-stage capitalism.
Early Observations
From the outset of the Covid era, even immediately following its official commencement, a scope of authoritarianism began not only to be applied but widely accepted with such remarkable ease that it was hard to grasp. Moral claims were made as though much was readily comprehensible or at least as though all would be understood by the authorities in time. Very little regard was given to the possible implications concerning law, rights, and the precedent that would be set for our future. In spite of the rhetoric being disseminated, it was impossible to know how deadly or dangerous the threat was, though it should have been possible to suspect the net detriment of increasing authoritarianism as a society.
Our vulnerability toward the unquestioning adoption of the changes was built on an assumption not simply of survival because of the supposed infectious risk but of the implications for survival from the standpoint of social salience. That is, perhaps the threat was high and, even if we were against the advanced progression of society toward a more authoritarian formulation, we would need to adjust to that, as there was a real possibility that we would come to require access to medical care in order to survive an illness. Many viewed the illness as inevitably the worst one to be experienced. For others, if the threat were overstated, we were living through a transformation of society and standards of governance that would affect all aspects of life.
If we hoped not to be excluded from society particularly after seeing how far the state would be willing to take an event that, as controversial as it is to say, was unremarkable in the eyes of a significant portion of the population then we would have to find some limited manner of acting out obedience just to figure out the extent of the subversion and to understand what risks and benefits we would need to worry about in the future.
It seemed clear, based on the rhetoric being disseminated, that the new standard for the acceptability of harm so long as the threat was defined and focused upon by the state and presented as “scientific” and rigorous was aligned with a theory of zero harm. This is not to say they proceeded while incurring minimal harm. Quite the contrary: unrealistic and impossible aims arguably increased or maximized harm. But the aim was to work toward a degree to which persons were subjected to zero risk concerning the threat in focus.
This was evident almost immediately, as no consideration was given to whether we would trade away long-term resilience throughout society in exchange for the theoretical reduction of risk for this one threat. This early hint indicated a desire for transcendence toward a standard of “harmless life” made possible through state intervention and conformity.
There were immense social pressures still continuing to this day in some form to be awakened to knowledge of the acceptable level of exposure to risk. You were either part of this new evolution of society or part of the group that had wrought this menace upon humanity.
Also surprising to some was the messaging proclaiming a desire, heightened risk against, and opportunity to champion equity. Present in some early research papers on “Long Covid,” even within the first year of the era, rhetoric predicted easier times ahead if we gave up rights in the immediate term. This rhetoric included the priming of reactionary dispositions classically associated with the “Far Right,” which were quickly adopted, expressed, and repeated by the “Progressive Left.”
Dialectic Examples
Though it may not have been obvious to many readers of this book, at least at the times being indicated or pointed to in this deconstruction and reflection, there were strategies and rhetorical conflicts beginning quite early on from which the employment of the dialectic can be logically deduced.
Dialectic of Human Adaptation
The dialectic of human adaptation particularly in the sense of immunological adaptation, though not strictly limited to it posits that our ability to adapt no longer functions, both at the level of immunological response to infectious agents like a coronavirus and at a higher level in the way our behaviour has led to our current circumstances and the introduction of this specific infectious pathogen.
On the topic of the virus itself, we cannot adapt to it because undertaking the process of adaptation is both too costly and a non-starter, and because our reaction intended as the adaptation is so deleterious and toxic from head to toe that the very act of adapting, in the way we are meant to, becomes synonymous with our destruction. This has been expressed in various ways, often with a good measure of ambiguity whether the adaptation itself is insufficient, incorrectly coordinated and resulting in a harmful permutation of immunological state, or simply that the expected reaction to the live virus in the wild is, though part of the adaptation, too strong of a stimulus.
Though there is infinite depth to explore in order to consolidate the details, semantics, and surrounding factors in understanding immunological adaptation, the very premise is to take the concept of human adaptation and declare it both incorrect and correct because it serves as the basis for understanding how adaptation should occur. Extending from this, the dialectic proposes that any immunological solution put forward by corporations in coordination with the state and its public health apparatus is not a substitute for human adaptation, but is instead the very adaptation itself understood, leveraged, and conveniently (and safely) provided to people who may choose to use it. In this framing, human adaptation is both insufficient and precisely what is being offered different yet the same, depending on the context in which it is discussed.
In a sense, the state must seize the means of production of immunological adaptation so that it yields conditions making human existence palatable, admissible, and sufficient for flourishing. When rhetoric supporting this also invokes reified oppressed identities that would be asymmetrically affected by the strategy, it reveals a dialectic demanding the seizing of the means of immunological production for the liberation of the proletarian class understood innately by those whose consciousness aligns with the current historical moment in our species’ development.
The other aspect of seizing the means of immunological adaptation is that, in tandem with the “completion of man,” we will finally bring about the conditions in which man’s body does what it “ought” to do where this ought is defined as an existence free from oppression, consistent with Marx’s ontology of Man.
These ideas became so embedded among academics and medical professionals that many began to claim even a single infection of one cell in a human body by a virus is unhealthy and detrimental as though there could be a perfect state of net-zero viral infection, even at the cellular level. This position frames our continuous exposure to pathogenic particles a constant reality as unnatural and something to be solved. Such a view ignores the complexities of biological life, ecology, and evolution, and prompts questions about whether we might be “better off” living in a vacuum rather than being exposed to natural environments with the hope that adaptation could prepare our systems for unknown threats in the future.
Dialectic of Personal and Public Health
There is no personal health without public health. There is no public health until each individual’s personal health is expressed in concordance with theory; we must pursue the theory that public health can coordinate the perfect conditions for personal health. The desire for “natural immunity” is a form of blasphemy in that it functions as a contradiction to completing the sanitized and immunologically perfected human being as a public and social being.
A telling example of how public health progresses through conformity lies in the case of masking. There were ample pre-existing, high-quality studies to draw from at the outset of the Covid era, but debating the costs and benefits quickly became forbidden. From that point on, it was only acceptable to refer to masking as a helpful intervention. As time went on, what remained of scientific debate focused and culminated in many relevant voices who had promoted masking concluding that cloth and surgical masks might be useless and even harmful yet insisting that the “holy grail” of quality masks still feasible for daily use, the N95, was effective and should be worn.
There was, of course, a meta-analysis of RCTs on masking published by Cochrane that should have put the issue to rest. This was largely ignored, vilified, and refuted on the basis of a discrepancy between statements from the authors and the editor after publication, in response to massive criticism from pro-masking professionals and activists.
That aside, even if we assume the critics were correct in maintaining that N95s are a necessary intervention to be used by all who can, one would still observe even in mask-enforced environments with “Mask Nazis” present that people are accepted into the environment with any mask at all: N95s, surgical, cotton, sport polyester/spandex. It is likely one could get away with even more absurd arrangements, such as undergarments over the mouth. You would also find that professionals and activists are, in most cases, no more likely to protest “chin diapers” so long as there is participation in the ritual.
Georg Lukács might offer some insight into how collectivists feel about the errors of proletarians: belief in the validity of pursuing health as an individual is a form of false consciousness much like a Marxist views false consciousness as excusing the material conditions of bourgeois society. Covidism consistently asserts that those who do not conform to the new collective vision of society are doing so because of ideology, invoked through labels like “Far-Right fitness culture,” “toxic masculinity,” and capitalism.
Marxists seek to subject all ideology to critique, uncovering the internal contradictions in an ideology and exposing the social interests expressed by it. As seen before, the collectivist worldview and that of those congruent with it simply employ reason to make sense of the world, and those not agreeing with their observations, analyses, objectives, and prescriptions are seen as succumbing to ideology.
No Health Except Communism
Through the lens of Critical Praxis, the concept of health transforms into a state of affairs void of oppression. The epitome of this health is a condition of equity wherein no social tension exists a vision reinforced by declarations such as “racism is a public health emergency.”
This redefinition produces several consequences. One is that inclusivity championing those whose bodies are superficially defined by collectivist mythologies becomes the model by which an environment’s health is evaluated. Since the theory generates the very categories it asserts as descriptive of reality, the apparatus of Public Health gains full license to enforce its ideal prescriptions for all humans.
Another consequence, as a corollary to the demotion of individual health, is the framing of improved fitness when pursued as an individual endeavor as the outward expression of Fascist ideology. This was evident in the failure of public health officials to encourage the public to improve physical health, their further failure to acknowledge that fitness levels affect outcomes with any respiratory disease, and the persistent association made in mainstream media between the political right and “fitness culture” during key moments of the Covid era (such as [this article]).
Dialectic of the Natural
Public health advocates largely wanted to have it both ways: denying that natural immunity exists while simultaneously asserting that immunization works precisely because of the body’s natural capacity to adapt immunologically. A “controlled” exposure to the precise stimulus, they argued, yields a natural adaptation that maximizes benefit both for oneself and for the community.
Those of a collectivist mindset ran far too long with the notion that natural immunity was not only undesirable but that those who experienced a real infection would not acquire immunity at all. This position was propped up with a variety of proposed mechanisms such as the ratio of non-specific antibodies after infection, binding affinity, mutation rates in the spike protein’s receptor-binding domain, glycan shielding, conformational flexibility, inflammatory marker imbalances, inadequate germinal center formation, suppression of interferon signaling, and so on. It is remarkable that so many reached this conclusion without grappling with the obvious: the vast majority clears the infection, and long-term immunity is not solely dependent on IgG antibodies.
By now it has long been clear that people do recover from infection. While debates continue over whether one form of immunological adaptation is superior, most partially sensible medical professionals and scientists have conceded that natural immunity exists and is often robust. Yet we should still analyze the blurring of concepts that gaslit the entire world: people were told they could not benefit from natural immunity, while simultaneously being told that the design of the jabs and one’s ability to respond to them was premised on the very capacity for natural immunity. Public health rhetoric often stressed that there was nothing “artificial” about the jabs or one’s reaction to them and that they were, in fact, safer and more natural than previous vaccine designs, which included metal-based adjuvants and biological particulates.
Collectivist advocates also claimed there was nothing natural about being infected by a virus as though such events were not constantly occurring and were not an integral part of our ecological reality and evolutionary mechanism. The adaptation gained through exposure via the barriers and systems evolution designed for us was framed as unnatural, while the presentation of antigens through mechanisms that could never occur outside human industrial intervention was somehow more natural or at least less unnatural.
The effect of this reframing has been to distort expectations about safety under completely normal circumstances such as being outdoors on a clear day with clean air and no one ill nearby. Instead of touching grass, enjoying the sun, and whistling a tune, many spent such moments tasting their own mucus and saliva as they continuously rebreathed bodily fluids aerosolized within the ever-moistening mask they wore far beyond its intended purpose. This practice not only fostered a state of anonymous self-representation to others and even to oneself but also reinforced the idea that every environment is a potential health hazard. To gaze out at the world while believing you cannot be recognized, and that every space is a threat to your well-being, has somehow been recast as a “natural” way of being.
The Dialectic of Togetherness
An especially treacherous synthesis, one whose effects remain today was the idea that we had to be apart in order to be together. If we endured separation when it was “necessary,” we could, in theory, come together on a higher level than before. By setting aside selfishness and choosing separation, we were told we could transcend the shortcomings that contribute to the atomization of man and society, demonstrating our capacity and willingness to achieve unity in a way that preserves and prolongs the lives of others. Thus, instead of remaining separate and atomized, we could paradoxically “come together” by prioritizing the health of all people as a whole.
Through a process of becoming physically separate yet consciously aligned, we were promised a new understanding and appreciation for how precious it is to be together while each person contributed to transforming the conditions that would make togetherness possible again. And of course, absence makes the heart grow fonder.
By staying apart, we signaled care for one another’s well-being and showed that we understood the “historical process” of achieving what is necessary for the benefit of others. The pandemic, framed as a challenge for us as a species, became a proving ground for our ability to erect the hope of an “improved” form of togetherness. Our separation was cast as proof of authenticity to ourselves and to each other a step toward the great vision of humanity. In this narrative, physical separation was not the negation of togetherness, but its essence, shielding us from the selfish desires that keep us disconnected.
By quelling our immediate wants and recognizing that everyone’s success, including our own, was potentiated through the greater collective, we were said to set an example of empathy, embodying it in our very actions and to become symbiotically compatible and resilient against the dangers of the world. What looked like an individual sacrifice was reframed as a blessing to each of us.
Conversely, seeing one another during “high-risk” periods was painted as harmful and selfish. Choosing to risk one another’s health through contact when it was “not yet safe” meant ignoring the situation’s dangers and pretending to enjoy each other’s company while, in fact, fostering cognitive dissonance. This disrupted the “flow” of togetherness and supposedly precluded us from having the fulfilling interactions we truly needed. Being together when it was framed as harmful reinforced selfishness, increased isolation, and dulled sympathy for the “real” needs of others.
After undergoing this great intellectual, physical, and even spiritual challenge, we were promised transcendence, overcoming the dullness, callousness, and self-destructive tendencies of our technologically preoccupied lives. We would, it was said, finally overcome the atomization that had long plagued us.
Our History Coming Together
The idea that we are not truly together unless we are apart can be interpreted in many ways. Ultimately, the demand is that we show our love for those we claim to care about by demonstrating a higher form of togetherness. This is a politically mediated sensibility, upheld by rhetoric that presumes to know what is good for “the public,” “society,” and “humanity.”
In this framework, having preferred social bonds whether with one’s nuclear family or close friends and prioritizing them (in any way that could be construed as detrimental to public health) is not seen as expressing togetherness or genuine care. Rather, it is cast as upholding reactionary ideology, acting on irrational fears, and serving as a puppet for those who believe they can maintain their societal advantages by resisting the public health perspective and its prioritization of collective well-being.
From the standpoint of Critical Praxis, this separation-and-reunion narrative is inherently “historical.” Even to the uninitiated, it can be presented as historical simply because it is preceded by events and understood as informing the future. More specifically, our supposed shared transformation through courage and desire is framed as historically informed by those who are “prescient” at the cusp of change. These moments of change, once politically symbolic, become embedded in the structure of reality such that their content and determining factors are accounted for in the logic of historical progress.
This logic explains why so many self-proclaimed non-believers, academics, and elites are ultimately compatible with the idea that something must be eliminated or reduced to a superficial, aesthetic consolidation of social ritual. They tolerate phenomena that are otherwise unnecessary or destructive. There is no pragmatic reason for angry youth to destroy cities or deface monuments of historical significance often choosing targets poorly yet elites and intellectuals find it amusing and mostly harmless by default, reframing it as “necessary” when their commitment to revolution becomes more explicit.
If they intuit the imminence of change without believing it can be constructed from the current state of things, then the present order must be released from and reordered. If the existing structure does not permit this because of undesirable phenomena that “pollute” it then a practice of purification becomes necessary. This purification only makes sense, in their view, as a process of destruction and replacement.
To produce evidence of “historical progress,” the aesthetic of the current zeitgeist especially in conflict is treated as a fundamental aspect of humanity’s progression, even if it violates prior principles. It becomes a new, essential principle, superseding the principle it contradicts. Any resulting disruption of logic, presentation of hypocrisy, or incoherence can be dismissed as the “incomplete procedure” of intellectual refinement wherein the very act of negating the problematic aspect is taken as refinement in action.
This is a remarkably low bar for supposed intellectual achievement. Any shame, dissatisfaction, or vulnerability encountered as a result is quickly replaced by the moral virtue one assumes in the wake of “sanitization” and abolishment.
A centrally acknowledged and socially endorsed process of sanitization is, by its nature, difficult to reject. Doing so inevitably incurs the accusation that one is rejecting morality, cleanliness, and higher intellectual expression. For these reasons, academics and political elites almost always err on the side of the prevailing political initiative, rarely showing genuine skepticism toward new propositions.
The Dialectic of Consent
This is perhaps one of the most egregious manipulations ever inflicted on human beings, for it attempts to redefine at the root the ethics and morality surrounding one’s right to bodily privacy and autonomy.
The very concept of consent, and thus the sanctity and sovereignty of one’s personhood, is destabilized by the presumption that the default state of reality is one to which one cannot consent. This recalls the notion of thrownness mentioned earlier: we are cast into a world already shaped, and perhaps corrupted, by forces beyond our control.
In this framing, one cannot consent to the unknown that is, to nature as it currently exists because it is not “correct nature.” It has been altered, degraded, or tampered with through the selfish needs of man. As such, the state of reality cannot be truly known until science has “completed its task”: the historical process of perfecting both man and world, which Marx described as ultimately being one and the same. In this view, man does not yet express his true nature; he will only do so once history’s process of specification is complete.
Under this logic, you are “given a choice” to join an appropriately sanctioned, institutionally supported effort to design a fully specified adaptation to the problem one that you supposedly modulate by your very existence. You are told you have been granted consent through knowledge: the knowledge that you may receive “the best option available,” tailored not only to your own needs but to those of the collective.
Here, the dialectic hinges on two moves: the default state of nature to which one cannot consent, and the carefully constructed, intentional solution to which one can. Any hesitation, reluctance, or refusal is reframed as an act of denying others’ consent.
Further, the state claims to protect the very process of knowledge production and by extension, your ability to consent from “contamination” by dangerous, misleading elements. The act of “contaminating” knowledge is itself likened to a viral threat, operating on multiple levels of complexity. Infectious disease, you are told, is so intricate, so beyond the grasp of ordinary discourse, that you could not possibly consent in an informed way without institutional mediation. The state steps in to “fix” the process of dialogue, thereby preserving the possibility of consent by eliminating all alternatives to its version of truth.
Of course, this is hocus-pocus dialectical sleight of hand, in which your capacity for consent is not merely overlooked, but actively supplanted and destroyed through a specious and sophistic aufheben. The censorship, corrupt incentives, and threats to professionals via totalizing entryism ensure that even information crafted to align with institutional narratives is itself corrupted making it impossible, in any meaningful sense, to give informed consent to anything presented at face value.
Eco-Socialist Spin on Consent
Many in the previous generation who once championed a green “revolution” framed within a Neo-Liberal formulation continue to see themselves as environmentalists and scientists, grounded in a naïve realism inherited from the tradition of naturalism. For the Eco-Socialist, the task is to “undo” the mistakes of an overzealous industrial capitalism, one that ravenously pursued elite status through the profit motive.
In their view, the noble, pristine state of the natural environment was corrupted by the selfish inclinations of their less green and less educated neighbors. Thus, their conception of conditions to which one can consent is shaped by a moralized narrative: just as they explain any non-ideal weather event as an “extreme” condition brought about by the fall of man, so too can pathogens be reframed in this same moral register.
Under this logic, any and all common infections regardless of whether they cause severe illness, remain undetected, or present no greater danger than an ordinary seasonal respiratory virus are cast as symptoms of environmental corruption. To consent to them is framed not as a matter of personal choice or resilience, but as complicity in the ongoing degradation of the planet.
Dialectic of Fascism
To recall the nature of the dialectic especially in its modern usage it is worth revisiting a line from Critical theorists Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno:
If in our speculation the object in question is deemed to not adequately befit what it was believed to be, then it must transform through being placed against its opposite until the realization of their similarity redefines them.
In the case of Fascism, the concept is being redefined simultaneously by the state and by activists engaged in collectivist projects. This redefinition occurs through the labeling of things antithetical to Fascism such as freedom and liberty as Fascism itself.
Historically, Fascism was laid out most explicitly by Giovanni Gentile and Benito Mussolini in The Doctrine of Fascism. There, it is clear that the acts and aspirations of individuals toward freedom and liberty are fundamentally opposed to Fascism. Yet, in the present, statists and collectivists have inverted this definition, labeling those aspirations Fascist while promising a future of “freedom” attainable only through submission to the state.
In this new configuration, resistance to the state is now “Fascism,” while actual Fascism is reframed as the pathway to liberation achieved through the merger of public and private power into an increasingly authoritarian superstate. Those benefiting from the empowered structure brand themselves as liberatory, equitable, and progressive; those who criticize them for consolidating this power are smeared as Fascists.
During the Covid era, this inversion was made explicit in the treatment of the Freedom Convoy. Protesters advocating for dialogue, bodily autonomy, and basic civil liberties were accused of destroying freedom portrayed as patriarchal, supremacist, and even as biological threats, spreading pestilence through their “unclean” bodies. Media outlets amplified unsubstantiated claims from state-aligned witnesses, including the now-infamous allegation that truckers defecated on city streets.
Meanwhile, a government that refused all communication with the protesters deployed militarized police on horseback, armed with batons and rifles, to forcibly disperse them yet insisted this was the opposite of Fascism. By contrast, those asking for an authentic exchange of ideas were deemed the epitome of Fascism for daring to step outside the rigid constraints of state-directed conformity.
The irony reached its peak when logistical decisions by authorities such as forcing trucks to concentrate along Ottawa’s busiest downtown streets rather than allowing them to disperse to less obstructive areas like the canal or Confederation Park maximized public inconvenience, only to have that inconvenience blamed squarely on the protesters themselves.
Thus, in this dialectical inversion, the state becomes the magnanimous defender of freedom, and dissenters become the tyrants. The helmets and batons of “liberation” fall with righteous force upon the unwashed masses justice, courtesy of our benevolent and charitable government.
Freedom
Freedumb for the Freedumbers
No matter how clear it seems that humans have a natural disposition easily drawn toward authoritarianism, I’m still taken aback by those who actively work to reduce liberty. How did we arrive at the point where people openly mock their fellow citizens for advocating on their own behalf?
This is not mockery born from a search for truth, nor from an honest attempt at dialogue. It is mockery as a weapon used to extinguish the process of discovery in favour of a comfortable, structurally-imposed certainty. It is the jeer of the jailer disguised as the laughter of the liberated.
Unfreedom
There has been ample narrative-supplied fodder for dialectical attacks on freedom through proclaiming that those who advocate for freedom are destroying it by chasing selfish inclinations. But it goes a step further in saying that they are the tip of the spear, so to speak.
Firstly, some of the more ridiculous points that have been repeatedly disseminated have claimed that the advocacy of the Freedom Convoy, and those who support them, is a demand to impose constraints on the public. This is elaborated to include banning vaccination, closing hospitals, dissolving a functional government, banning face masks, and banning medicine.
Next are claims that their actions are centered around disrupting social services, making routes unnavigable, and exhausting and breaking the supply chain. There is something to be said for the breaking of supply chains, but not in the sense of them destroying those chains themselves. Rather, it was in going on strike because of the conditions that were being imposed on them through a central authority. This is classic worker advocacy and, given that all of their critics are generally in favour of unions—often to the point of romanticism—it is predictably perturbing to see that the socialists who love unions oppose them when they advocate for liberty and personal choice.
Lastly, there was endless rhetoric promoting the idea that the truckers were captured and controlled by Russians, Russian intelligence, or any villainous country or organization that had managed to place its tendrils in the minds of these pitchfork-wielding degenerates who somehow learned to drive a truck without crashing. These are insane conspiracy theories, of course, because regardless of whether there are international interests wishing to disrupt the affairs of other societies, that is an evergreen problem which latches onto every opportunity for conflict, including this one. Regardless of whether this is a real problem, it is not being treated in a serious manner if it is supposed that only certain people are influenced, and if it explains the motives for the participants while disregarding the possibility that some players may have honest and authentic inclinations which may not yet be properly understood.
Fear of Freedom
Freedom is not an easy proposition especially for those who have never had to fight for it or felt the unmistakable, tangible denial of their own. The mind relies on its sensory apparatus to form a viable field of vision and a proposition for action. This is a process of simplifying complexity so that both body and environment become actionable.
It is a matter of wading through the bizarre complexity of being, aligning one’s focal point with the potential for action whether that means shaping the world or conforming to its contours and levers. This is the interface between self and world, the means by which one proceeds in survival. Without this capacity, one becomes overwhelmed by complexity to the point of the grotesque and overbearing.
True freedom carries the threat of chaos. Yet, given human nature our ability to act, to choose, to focus ourselves toward a point of intent it remains our natural inclination. When freedom is sufficiently denied, it is rare to find a human who will not react with valiance and courage. It is wired into us.
Why? Because freedom is in service of truth. The possibility of truth being sought and apprehended is the universal grounding thrust of human existence and the only reasonable orienting factor for freedom. Freedom derives from this thrust; without it, freedom is reduced to arbitrary pandemonium. Recognizing human freedom to pursue truth is essential to rational living.
Many fall into the comforting simplicity of believing that there is a prescribed protocol for all actions and environments, and that by adhering to an external authority they merge with it gaining certain assurances and benefits they might otherwise miss. This authority often becomes the symbolic Father Figure or God, offering comfort and stability, even if only superficial and immediate.
For those particularly prone to negative emotion, this pull toward external authority is even stronger. Deciphering reality and acting on one’s own behalf can be deeply distressing especially when every messaging apparatus insists you panic and remain on edge.
Exclusion: Punished for Freedom
The threat of exclusion rears its ugly head as a point of origin, offering self-justification for violence and power. It is difficult for anyone to find the motivation to hold the entity most associated with exclusion to account when doing so will only heighten that threat. That some acquiesce to such an entity more easily than others is hardly surprising, and such a factor plays strongly in the magnitude of the threat.
It is often safest to remain invisible or even cowardly and to assume such a stance is to place one’s hope and faith in being spared from any possible tyrannical effects.
One quickly intuits, and finds evidence through peers, that other members of the shared social environment claim allegiance to the centralized source of power. If one appears to fall out of line with the currently represented code of that power, one risks ridicule and vilification. It even becomes complicated to learn what other people truly think especially once their thoughts seem incongruent with the social fabric extending from and surrounding that authority.
The state has already told you what people believe and why. If, for instance, you were to agree with some of those forbidden views, you would risk incurring cognitive dissonance, complicating your life and that of your loved ones. Others may even pretend to hold the expected sensibilities just to maintain social cohesion and their own momentum toward personal goals and expectations.
For many, it feels safest to remain in the protective bubble of conformity.
Real Freedom: The State
In music, particularly in jazz improvisation, it is said that you need some structure in order to liberate yourself. This might be as simple as knowing the “shells” of a harmonic progression, generally the 3rd and 7th tones relative to the root, in order to carry the tonality. With the movement of these voices outlining how the music unfolds, there are no limits to the ideas one can develop as the mind, fingers, and entire body dance to the heart’s delight.
Similarly, with guardrails from the state to help you navigate the tempest of an angry planet, you can find your place to express yourself, choose an identity, perform a role, and entertain yourself. Without that structure, you are left flailing with no discernible direction. Structure offers a path forward away from the crippling stupor of depression that arises when one is disabled in a sea of chaos.
Freedom to Choose
One of the more revealing features of this dialectic is the insistence by those most deeply absorbed into the cult that there is no such thing as force, violence, or coercion unless it involves physically holding someone down and penetrating them with a needle. Anything short of that, they claim, is simply “freedom”: freedom from coercion, freedom of choice, and freedom of autonomy.
This comes from the very same people who insist that failing to pronounce a word exactly as prescribed constitutes “literal violence” tantamount to participating in “genocide” against an entire class. Yet they will tell you that forcing someone out of employment, subjecting them to the relentless messaging of a corporatized state, watching every professional domain and branch of pop culture vilify them, exiling them from their family, denying them medical care, restricting access to goods and services, confining them to their homes, and publicly wishing them a slow suffocating death, none of this is coercion. No, they say, this is simply “informed consent” at work, an easy and rational choice made with a clear mind.
Advocates of bodily autonomy were told state-sanctioned coercion was just a figment of their imagination because “no law” forced anyone to be injected. But even setting aside the widespread requirement to show proof of vaccination for public access, some jurisdictions openly enforced lockdowns on only the unvaccinated, Austria being a glaring example. Austria also attempted to impose fines of up to €3,600 on anyone refusing the vaccine, while Greece targeted the elderly, docking noncompliant pensioners’ incomes. These measures were lauded by public health advocates, politicians, and other loyal initiates of the Totalitarian fear cult as “progressive” and “enlightened.”
The rhetoric was reinforced at the highest levels. Canadian Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos, for example, publicly stated that provinces “could make vaccination mandatory” a polite way of saying, you’re lucky we aren’t pointing a gun at your loved one’s head while we strap you down for your shot. Could anyone honestly believe that those who denied coercion existed would oppose a state-sanctioned escalation to full physical compulsion? Short of a handful of dissenters, the vast majority would likely welcome it, as it would require no sacrifice from them while proving their loyalty to the cause.
Such encroachments are rationalized with unwritten, unspoken “social contracts,” often by people who equate misused language with mass murder, coin terms like cultural genocide to equate minor offenses with enslavement and slaughter, and insist that every human being is entitled to every conceivable resource or desire. Yet when confronted with a nonconformist, their compassion vanishes. The “other” becomes subhuman deserving of nothing, not even the chance to survive.
Few modern citizens grow their own food or possess self-sustaining means of survival. Threatening someone’s livelihood for refusing a medical treatment is not a neutral policy, it jeopardizes survival, undermines health, risks starvation, diminishes productivity, and stunts children’s development. Restricting access to the infrastructure of society does not “protect” the public; it entrenches a class hierarchy aligned with the very systems of oppression collectivist activists claim to oppose. The coercive measures meant to combat “vaccine hesitancy” in fact promote the loss of health, vitality, and years of life for those who dissent and to deny this as dehumanizing coercion is to pave the way for a fully totalitarian future.
Conformity as Resistance
This dialectical juxtaposition plays a central role in the gradual transformation of society into a totalitarian state a development I argue is the natural consequence of systems sustaining themselves over time. As these systems grow in size, they inevitably function to interpret and influence their own behavior. This is not the same as claiming that totalitarianism is purely the result of conscious design by those in advantageous positions though such intentional efforts surely occur. Rather, large-scale societal shifts are often the byproduct of complex systemic phenomena, whose full consequences neither we nor our peers can truly measure.
Any mechanism that reduces entropy and reinforces existing behavior, even temporarily, will diminish insubordination and nonconformity. This, in turn, produces increasingly totalizing patterns within the system’s scope, whether or not the actors involved are fully aware of it. We have, for instance, seen the words resist and resistance co-opted, inverted, and repurposed to serve the aims of those who advocate collectivism and embed themselves within state structures, steering discourse and policy toward their preferred outcomes.
In this inversion, those most committed to conformity become the first to brand dissenters as “enemies of the people.” Resistance, in their framing, is not standing against centralized control it is embracing it. They present themselves as defenders of progress, championing greater state censorship, tighter enforcement of social norms, expanded economic controls, and a proliferation of regulations that erode liberty and personal autonomy. In their worldview, the true enemy is freedom itself, along with any human longing for it.
Thus, actual resistance is recast as a dangerous “ideology,” frequently equated with fascism or the far right labels that, in certain populist narratives, have come to symbolize little more than a desire for individual freedom, or even the now politically loaded term capitalism.
What began as a Marxist critique of the working class accused of failing to unleash its latent revolutionary energy has metastasized into a sweeping hyperbole. Meanwhile, the very institutions that originated such critiques have positioned themselves at the most central, dominant points in society. From these seats of power, they now portray the least powerful individuals as privileged champions of fascism, guilty solely for refusing to demand ever-greater centralization of authority or worse, for daring to resist it.
Linguistically Supplanted
In the (ab)use of language, we now see concepts of freedom resynthesized so that every term once associated with liberty becomes redefined as liberation through an unrelenting totalitarian structure. Those who benefit from the expansion of centralized authority now present themselves as liberatory and equitable. In their framing, they alone offer the path toward a future freedom, one that cannot yet exist except as a promise, a vision entrusted to the supreme “God entity” of the Hegelian State.
Under this schema, anyone who challenges these reformulated ideals or questions the state’s authority itself is branded a product of fascism. This includes resistance to the merging of public and private power, opposition to the nationalization of the social sphere, and dissent against the state’s consolidation of all social articulation under its control.
Dialectic of Victimhood
During the COVID era, a new narrative emerged: those hesitant to take vaccines, opposed to mask mandates and social distancing, or resistant to travel restrictions, curfews, and vaccine passports were framed as adherents of a “victimhood ideology” built on paranoia and privilege. In this view, such people were not exercising discernment, they were suffering from false consciousness, subverted by shadowy actors like Russia, and clinging to outdated ways because they already enjoyed more advantages than most.
From this perspective, those resisting mandates occupied the role of oppressor. Their insistence on free choice, coupled with claims of victimization, was seen as a cynical ideological weapon, one wielded even against measures supposedly in their own best interest.
In contrast, the true victims, according to this logic, were those aligned with central authority, those working to complete the system of “pristine life” free from disease, poverty, and racism. In their eyes, progress was being blocked by the nonconformists, the uncooperative, and the “selfish” who refused to be resilient or make small sacrifices for the greater good. Resisters were cast as paranoid, delusional, and unwilling to see that benefiting others could ever benefit themselves.
At root, it was claimed, these dissenters feared any improvement for others because it might diminish their relative status, their comparative advantage over the marginalized.
The irony is stark: imagine aligning yourself entirely with authority, obeying every directive, vilifying dissenters, joking about their deaths, and declaring them less than human. Imagine comparing them to the Nazis, figures so reviled in Western cultural memory as to be beyond the pale of humanity and still seeing yourself as the one wronged. Picture demanding the elimination of those you deem “lesser,” while enjoying the full bounty of civilization, science, and technology, yet believing you have been uniquely exploited and exposed to the unwanted hardships of life.
Dialectic of Family
It is in our nature to want a reliable source of familial loyalty, a place where, even in the face of risk or social exclusion, we can expect a willingness to stand by one another. This is especially true of the nuclear family. Whatever disagreements or shortcomings arise, the family retains the greatest potential for empathy, patience, understanding, and an almost intuitive symbiosis. Part of this is respect for shared genetic antecedents; part is the simple fact that families share biological, developmental, and experiential ties that shape survival and well-being.
This symbiosis encompasses more than emotional support. It includes developmental influence through shared genetics, nurturing, and learning, as well as the immune system’s maturation through early-life exposures. While this is an oversimplification, familial life can also be harmful; it remains true that the family, particularly in early childhood, forms the most impactful environment for physical, cognitive, and social development. Theories familiar even outside academic circles, Attachment Theory, Ecological Systems Theory, and Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, affirm this foundational role.
The bond begins with mother and child, extending even into immunology. A mother’s immune system, shaped by a lifetime of exposures, becomes a source of adaptive advantage for the child not only through the well-known transmission of antibodies in breast milk but also through countless micro-exposures: discarded DNA fragments, nucleosides, and other particles found in exosomes transmitted via skin contact, breath, sweat, and even waste. These encounters are the raw material of immune differentiation, much like the principle behind vaccination.
That breast milk “provides antibodies” is widely known, perhaps because it fits neatly into public-health messaging and marketing expectations especially in contexts where pregnant women are encouraged to generate antibodies via pharmaceutical intervention. Yet this common knowledge raises a question: if exposure is a natural and necessary part of immune development, why the obsessive focus on avoiding a single category of pathogen particles at the expense of all others?
This cannot be explained by public health messaging alone. When parents submit their children to novel biomedical interventions often beyond their own comprehension, they are not only conforming to social expectations but also participating in something resembling a rite of passage. The child’s initiation into “the next stage” of society comes with symbolic meaning: the parent offers up the child to be marked as belonging to the new order. More controversially, this can be understood as a form of sacrifice a willingness to risk some harm, however small the probability, so as to be seen as doing the right thing.
This act communicates a worldview to both child and community: we trust the system more than we trust ourselves. In the COVID era, this meant aligning with state priorities, even when doing so implied acceptance of a more restricted future. The resulting comfort being recognized as obedient and cooperative comes at a cost. It deepens dependency on the very structures that dictate the boundaries of freedom.
Beyond the Child
Public health agencies, services, and departments, such as Public Health Ottawa, encouraged citizens to report on one another by providing instructions to report when someone was observed violating public health orders, such as insufficient social distancing, failure to wear a mask, failure to stay out of public parks, failure to close a non-essential business, failure to enforce proof of vaccination, and so on. The effect of living under these policies and related incidents is complex, meaningful, and impossible to ever truly understand, but we can speculate on what the effect of living under these policies does to family relations.
Modest disagreement, or even the prospect of utilizing open discussion among family members to better understand their circumstances, is complicated by the awareness that said members may report their fellow neighbours and, indeed, even their own family members should they believe someone has failed to adhere to policies ordered by public health mandates. This may be compounded by an existing unwillingness to discuss matters in appreciable detail and by the threat of enforcement by authorities, which itself becomes a perceived source of truth. This is damaging for discussions that are not themselves a violation of any set of public health orders, regardless of the legitimacy of such orders as a whole, and it is likely that there is an incentive for state authorities and their public health agencies to eliminate discussions among the citizenry that might lead to the doubting and challenging of state decrees or determinations.
The “dance of the mask” alone could be the subject of a thousand books without fully elucidating it in its entirety. The manner in which its use can defy the stated logic of its operator—concerning the details of its application, the declared rationale, and the particular motivations, egotistical paralogy, and semantics of mythology—can be validated or rejected through the evidence of one’s choice to wear the mask. It is a toxic affair made all the more complicated when the state suggests, or even orders, that it be worn in the private domiciles of citizens.
It is not conclusively knowable whether there is a greater positive effect on health through familial integration and open communication versus the simple imposition of state-enforced public health decrees. However, it stands to reason that one has been foundational in our evolution and development as a species, and that there is ample research indicating that the health of one’s familial bonds has an impact on one’s overall health.
Allowing the means to moralize and make declarations about the shape and limits of another’s ethics, intelligence, and knowledge—predicated on authoritative positions that are not intended for deliberation, particularly because the state has declared a great threat to humanity, the vulnerable, and survival—means that members of a family can eliminate the work of making reasonable determinations about those closest to them. Having such a forceful fallback available in the face of declining quality of open communication between family members can accelerate the rate of that decline.
Whenever examining stories of totalitarianism—whether fictitious, as found in 1984, or in the real-life retelling of events by escapees of North Korea, or in the scholarly accounts of documented events from Soviet Russia and Communist China—one phenomenon that demonstrates the devastating degree to which cult mentality can take over the mind of those aligned with the state is that of family betrayal. Perhaps most disconcerting is the degree to which these betrayals may occur insidiously, as incremental developments. That is, they are not always conscious acts of betrayal but rather the slow adoption of state-approved beliefs, which one is continuously prompted to signal alignment with through professional and recreational environments. This can supplant familial loyalty as the first-order set of socially relevant principles by which one is expected to be well-versed.
Though this is always playing out to varying degrees, the manner is unsurprisingly predictable.
Familial Negation
The most effective form of imposition is not open argument but silent exclusion: the quiet removal of a belief from the realm of the admissible. It is not necessary to refute the logic of a dissenting view; it is enough to declare that the rationale behind it is unfit for consideration.
A family member initiated into the state-aligned collectivist mindset need not defend a specific doctrine. Their loyalty is not to an idea but to an authority. This frees them from the burden of reasoning and binds them to a single test of virtue alignment with central power, even at the expense of the family.
It is generous to call such state-approved “thought” philosophy. More often, it is nothing of the sort. Philosophy, in its true form, seeks coherence, challenges itself, and traces consequences. These official belief-sets, by contrast, are engineered not as self-sustaining systems of thought but as instruments of control. Their role is to grant the state plausible deniability: to pretend ignorance of the contradictions, injustices, and dangers embedded in its own commands, while maintaining a citizenry conditioned to obey without examination.
State Enforcement
Once a person’s beliefs are dismissed or their rationale deemed inadmissible the next stage is to present a list of “acceptable” options. This is the affordance trap: the offering of a pre-selected range to create the illusion of freedom, when in reality the choice only serves to steer away from, and obscure, more legitimate possibilities.
These sanctioned options are often presented before independent thoughts can form, shaping the very field of consideration. If a person manages to articulate an unsanctioned thought, the response is not engagement but withdrawal: the conversation is terminated, often under the pretext that harm or offense has been “identified” and logged by the initiated party.
This is thought termination in service of ideological purity. Approved beliefs must be taken whole without dissection, without clarification, without critique. Only by satisfying this condition can the initiated maintain what now passes for “acceptable” family bonding.
The inevitable result is atomization: the breaking of the individual away from the last social structure most resistant to such fragmentation. Society may have been fractured already, but this process carries the fracture line directly into the home, splintering it in real time.
Delegation of Reason
With the pre-approved resources of polite society guaranteeing vetted, non-controversial argumentation on matters of heavy moral weight and strong disagreement, the state-enforcer no longer needs to undertake the task of articulating their position in real time. The authoritative nature of the source provides endless means of making assertions while maintaining plausible deniability in the face of pesky, conflicting semantics.
During the Covid era, this meant that one’s previous conduct which may at the time have been considered threatening according to the very rhetoric of that period could be dismissed out of hand when contradicted by new information. The dismissal rested simply on the claim that “recommendations have changed” and that the source of those recommendations deserved respect. Once agreement with the source is established, any nuanced understanding becomes an intellectual luxury one that extends only from having already proclaimed agreement.
Supplanted
When the denial of counter-rationale is grounded in the claim that available domains of knowledge are defined by identity, the consequent proposition is that there now exists a set of pre-approved identities that serve as the foundation for persons capable of making non-harmful utterances. If these identities are not represented within the environment of an enclave of shared heredity (the traditional family), they will be supplanted at least from the perspective of the initiates by persons presenting identities from other domains.
In all cases, those who have accepted the initiate language and pledged loyalty to entities outside the family increasingly value other sources of communion and socialization as a way to mediate the threat of atomization and exclusion. Such sources often include professional circles, friendships beyond the family, and in many cases celebrities. Almost without exception, these initiates are deeply engaged in pop culture and regularly attend popular events, treating them as rituals for psychological and spiritual fulfillment.
Drive Towards Infection-Free Environments
One of the consequences of priming fear toward the threat of infection both before Covid, through Hollywood productions like Contagion, and during the early phases of the Covid era was the emergence of rhetoric that presupposed any amount of infection by any pathogen was something humanity should strive to eliminate entirely. The implication was that this particular pathogen harbored such an inexplicable degree of harm that it was time to consider eradicating even incidental, nominal, and minuscule infections that presented no obvious or acute symptoms.
Though some voices, including those in academia, explicitly framed viral infection in this way, the “zero-Covid” movement likely amplified and portrayed as larger than it truly was by social media campaigns, public health advocacy, and private interest groups grew to sizeable proportions. In effect, it was the logical conclusion of rhetoric crafted to maximize fear and secure unquestioned uptake of the primary treatment sought by state governments across the globe (the one that starts with “V”). The narrative left little room for viewing coronaviruses or any virus in any way other than as threats to be eliminated completely.
Vaccination was consistently described as rendering humans the “final endpoint” for the coronavirus, incapable of further transmission. This aligned neatly with the original public health justifications, which centered on protecting “the vulnerable” from any risk of infection. All demands for force and coercion rested on the premise that the only way to create a safe environment for the vulnerable was to ensure that every individual in that environment had received “full immunization.” The fear rhetoric maintained its intensity regardless of changes in the viral profile over time even as variants like Omicron emerged. If discussion about viral evolution excluded the concept of diminishing virulence over time, then it followed that all viral infection was to be avoided and, if possible, neutralized by whatever technological means humanity could devise.
While the vision of a society completely free of infection might carry, at some level, admirable qualities, the pursuit of such an absolute outcome lies far outside a reasonable conception of reality. Worse, it is an outcome whose net effect on our species cannot be reliably known yet is more likely to be negative, perhaps even catastrophic.
I would suggest that the underlying motivations here echo some of humanity’s darker proclivities ones that have already manifested in some of the more extreme and cautionary chapters of recorded history.
Survival Instincts
To be fair, most people tapped into some form of survival instinct early in the Covid era often right around the time of the official announcements, when the fearful discourse was still fresh and unfamiliar. This gives us a reasonable base from which empathy can operate. Still, the fact remains that many who feared for their lives and health early on eventually overcame that fear and in many cases, deliberately put themselves in situations they believed to be higher risk, if only on principle. For them, the greater threat lay not in the virus itself, but in how compliance with certain measures could contribute to the development of an increasingly totalitarian society.
Some of these individuals even accepted the prevailing narrative about the virus’s danger being influenced by constant messaging from authorities, entertainment, workplaces, and friends yet still refused to wear a mask or avoid in-person contact. Their actions were less about denying the risk and more about resisting the conformity unfolding around them.
It’s also worth noting that some of the most ardent Covid loyalists seemed to frame personal harm as validation of their worldview and mission. For example, parallels can be seen between individuals who sacrifice health and well-being in service of certain ideological causes (e.g., Queer praxis) and those whose Covid compliance bordered on ritualistic self-denial. In these cases, “survival instinct” is the wrong framing entirely. The fear of death may still be present, but it operates alongside cognitive patterns that paradoxically encourage behaviors undermining one’s own longevity. Thus, while survival instinct may play a role, it is not a sufficient explanation for the desire for a fully infection-free society.

Contamination
The fear of contamination and the corresponding spike in disgust sensitivity was palpable among the most zealous proponents of strict measures, many of whom clung to the hope of a perfect, infection-free endpoint. A notable feature of this mindset was the unquestioned willingness to follow authority, combined with an eagerness to report and “snitch” on strangers, friends, colleagues, and even family members. This behavior was not only tolerated but explicitly encouraged through public health announcements, 311 tip lines, and statements from politicians and health officers.
Given the growing atomization of society over recent years, it should not surprise us how quickly such surveillance habits took root. The threat of infection had the power to override people’s self-professed moral boundaries not only in the heat of extraordinary circumstances but also in reshaping what they considered acceptable for society in general. This shift led to widespread support for dehumanization, exclusion of dissenters, and the erection of authoritarian policies that would be difficult to overturn and would remain as dangerous precedents for future crises.
We saw this firsthand in the inflammatory language targeting the unvaccinated, vaccine-hesitant, and unmasked portrayed as “unclean vectors of disease,” “unevolved,” and “deeply immoral.” Comparisons to vermin were common, echoing Nazi-era rhetoric where such imagery was a central feature of state propaganda.
Some social psychologists identified what they saw as a paradox: those identifying as politically right-leaning appeared less concerned about infection risk, contradicting assumptions about disgust sensitivity as a fixed, universally predictable human trait. This either suggested that disgust sensitivity was less influential than previously believed, or that it was being overridden by other political or cultural factors.
I contend that this supports the idea that the traditional left–right political axis is an inadequate framework for understanding the underlying psychological dynamics. A more coherent axis would measure entropy tolerance which in political terms could be framed as order vs. chaos or authority vs. liberty. Our modern associations between political parties and these traits are largely cultural overlays, not reflections of an enduring psychological truth. In practice, individuals with conservative personality characteristics can and do align with superficially left-leaning politics if those politics promise strong authoritarian governance.
Moral Purity
Alongside the fixation on contamination and the classification of people into “clean” and “unclean” was a parallel obsession with moral purity a concept deeply intertwined with the rhetoric of public officials during the Covid era. The language of policy was often framed not simply as a matter of health, but as a moral imperative, and many adopted it with a quasi-religious fervor.
From the way decrees were issued, and the devotion with which they were followed, it was evident that compliance had become an end in itself. The level of actual threat was almost irrelevant; what mattered was that the central authority had issued the directive. In this moral framework, the stated rationale for any measure regardless of its proven efficacy was always sufficient, because the measure was presumed to serve a “higher purpose.”
If one accepts the premise that there will always be a portion of the population too vulnerable to adapt to the shifting hazards of life, then the logic follows: barriers, mandates, and infection-prevention devices should always be in place. This is reinforced by the doctrine-oft repeated during the pandemic that “there is no private health without public health.” The promise was simple: your personal health could only be secured through a public health apparatus powerful enough to shape the environment for everyone. Even if perfection was impossible, the pursuit of this goal became a moral obligation.
What this mindset neglects is the broader complexity of human resilience. It ignores that healthy individuals can act as natural “sinks” for pathogens, distributing safer viral fragments that help build immunity within the community. It overlooks the fact that isolation, reduced activity, and lack of exposure to everyday microbial life degrade vitality over time. And it sidesteps the collateral harm caused by prolonged restrictions whether through deepening the frailty of the already infirm, or destroying livelihoods that are inextricably linked to health and well-being.
These omissions reveal not only a widespread ignorance of the issue’s complexity, but also a selective bias among those who do know better. Once a belief in immediate personal risk takes root, it can override broader considerations, leading individuals to support measures that may erode the long-term health of society so long as they believe their own risk is being reduced, or that the measures are backed by the authority to which they have pledged alignment.
As the mind becomes more fixated on infection, it naturally gravitates toward a desire for control, order, and uniformity at the expense of freedom, spontaneity, and openness. This echoes what we’ve already discussed regarding infection risk as a driver toward authoritarian preferences. The phenomenon is often mislabeled as a drift toward the “far right,” but it is more accurately described as a shift toward totalitarianism, irrespective of traditional left–right boundaries.
Control
Wherever a lever exists by which authoritarian tools can be used to compel, coerce, or manipulate, those with a disposition toward power will eventually reach for it. The Covid era provided such a lever in abundance. For individuals who gravitate toward roles in administration, enforcement, or oversight especially when “public safety” is invoked this was a moment to act.
We saw it in overbearing and immersive abundance during the pandemic: leaders speaking in rigid, inflexible terms about “new standards” that carried obvious consequences for freedom and liberty. They sustained this posture for months and years, often without the slightest public expression of concern for the long-term erosion of human autonomy. Many continue in this mode even now.
This tendency is closely tied to a political orientation in which the concept of liberty is reframed through a collectivist lens. In this worldview, freedom is not the universal baseline of human life but a conditional reward granted only once society has advanced toward certain objectives, as defined by those in authority. The “social contract” here is not something negotiated between individuals and the state; it is assumed, imposed, and justified as part of an inevitable march toward an improved world as they perceive it.
When freedom is redefined in this way no longer an inherent right, but something contingent on meeting prescribed goals the ground is laid for tyranny. Introduce the element of disease threat, even purely as rhetoric, and the pace of that transition accelerates dramatically. Fear magnifies compliance, and compliance fuels the consolidation of control.
Inducing Pathology
The Covid era gave nearly everyone an opening to exert control over their peers within workplaces, communities, friendships, partnerships, families, and almost any environment where disagreement could arise. The subject was inescapable, embedded into daily life and every social interaction. This dynamic was amplified by traditional propaganda, social media algorithms, and an academic sphere already steeped in the moral absolutism of Social Justice Ideology.
When a mission is framed as protecting “the greater good,” with the alleged power to prevent the destruction of life and society itself, and when it is intertwined with every imaginable social issue, it becomes a universal justification for compelling collective action. The formula was simple: invoke the authority of science, keep the discussion at a conveniently low resolution, and label all dissent as “anti-science.”
Even worse was how easily individuals could find validation from toxic, like-minded communities during a time of heightened isolation both physical and psychological. With tensions already high, those inclined toward control, moral grandstanding, or hostility toward dissent were now given license to act. And because their outbursts aligned with sanctioned narratives, they were spared the criticism that similar behavior would have attracted in the past.
The result: people stayed isolated longer, grew stranger in their habits, and lowered their expectations for freedom, open dialogue, and even simple shared public space. When the state itself provides cover for the manipulation of foundational concepts like liberty recasting them as contingent rewards for achieving sanitation and conformity, the outcome is predictable. We do not merely tolerate pathological behavior; we initiate it, reward it, habituate it, and ultimately exacerbate it.
Perfectionism
For many parents, it was easier not to dwell on whether there was risk involved for their children especially when the intervention was being recommended, advocated, and demanded by official channels. The difficult calculus of weighing potential ramifications could be avoided by outsourcing the decision to the collective. After all, if all children were being subjected to the same measure, surely that implied safety. And if, by chance, it were not safe, then the harm would at least be shared equally transforming personal tragedy into a noble communal sacrifice, one that could be reframed as contributing to the collective strength and knowledge of society. In this worldview, perfection is always just around the corner, and, if it ever arrives, it will surely be a product of state guidance and oversight.
Historically-Oppressed Virus
Vacation
Back in 2022, after having been locked down for longer than one could remember and having gone through a period of undulating, tyrannical policies including vaccine passports, masking, destruction of businesses and the economy, curfews, and restrictions on travel, including movement between cities and provinces, we were finally ready to take a vacation. Perhaps a year earlier, we had even considered that, should we ever find ourselves able to take a vacation from Canada—and given that the recent actions of the Canadian government were met with a combination of glee, manic enthusiasm, apathy, and hopeless withdrawal by the Canadian citizenry—it might possibly be the last vacation we would be able to legally take.
At this time, however, it was Christmas of 2022, and the echoing effects of the Canadian Freedom Convoy had made us more hopeful about the possibility of changing the tone and culture of the West, making the steady march towards totalitarianism less feasible, at least for the immediate future.
We made our way to the Dominican Republic with our child, and without having to be hassled over proof of vaccination at the Canadian airport, we were finally able to enjoy some family time in the sun. It was wonderful for health, vitality, and priming ourselves for a more inspiring future outlook.
As usual, I found the resort gym on the day we arrived, as I quite like training in new gyms, enjoying better recovery, and maintaining a level of activity to help mitigate some of the delicious alimentary endeavours the resort might offer.
At the gym, I saw another similarly aged man training with a respectable degree of effort, and we pleasantly introduced ourselves. He was a professor of oncology at a university in the United States, and we had plenty of health- and medicine-related topics to discuss while attempting to maintain the pace of our workouts. I was quite impressed with how open-minded he was about cancer research and the degree to which metabolism may play a role in certain cancers. We delved into other related subjects, in close proximity to one another as we aerosolized our bodily fluids, came into contact with the same surfaces of the same equipment, and introduced one another’s immune systems to artifacts of the other’s recent environments.
Before long, however, he began lamenting the crazy right-wing nutcases in America, likely assuming I too despised the non-academic, non-intellectual, and non-professional classes, along with their support of Donald Trump who, as a political figure that was not adequately championing the cause of addressing climate change (per the professor’s perspective), had played a hand in causing the pandemic. Yes, it was his opinion—though he might have said it was an undeniable fact—that climate change had made the conditions of the world so unnatural that a freakish and defiled monstrosity of nature had manifested itself in the form of a coronavirus of unprecedented capacity to menace humanity, almost as a vengeful act of Gaia, and hurled itself at us in order to make us pay for our collective misdeeds.