#auspol #COVID19 the longer a pandemic goes on, the less it becomes about science. In fact it's never really…
#auspol #COVID19 the longer a pandemic goes on, the less it becomes about science. In fact it's never really about science. A pandemic is a social phenomenon, driven by patterns of interaction between people. 1/
Science can help understand these patterns and treat the sick, but the patterns themselves are produced by everybody, including scientists. There's no vantage point on the patterns, society is a percolation of social transactions including every single person. 2/
There is a science as well of social interaction. But it isn't a vantage point either, just part of the percolating mix. Politics is broader, but again, is not a vantage point. There are no vantage points. 3/
As a pandemic continues, every attempt to construct or claim a vantage point upon it gradually collapses. It exposes underlying assumptions and beliefs. Scientist's own political views come more to the fore, with the pathogen overflowing all discipline boundaries. 4/
Political boundaries eventually collapse as well, and the military is often brought in as a last-ditch attempt to create that illusive vantage point. It doesn't work. 5/
Ultimately the battle becomes (and always was) a 2-horse race. The pathogen, and the public. The public includes all expertise and political leadership. The crowd. Only the crowd defeats a pandemic, an uncontrollable mixture with, again, no possible vantage point. 6/
Pandemics reboot society. All of it. They're the on/off switch. No matter what we think, or feel, the outcome is not one we or anybody can personally control. All hierarchies eventually dissolve. We can laughably try to re-start 'normal' life mid-pandemic. Traffic lights, etc. 7/
None of that will work. Our hubris will have waves of optimism, smashed by new waves of death. As with Tolstoy's characters in War and Peace, we can only each hope that the percolating mixture doesn't consume us individually. And resist all the vantage point bullies. end/