Public health action was shut down through a deliberate campaign of highly organised hysteria. ‘Grave…
Public health action was shut down through a deliberate campaign of highly organised hysteria. ‘Grave concerns’.
By the same people who call hysteria every attempt to do the opposite.
A few notes about the use of hysteria. /1 https://t.co/AKzlWYhNbF
The extremely fast and effective attempts to shut down all public health action for Covid should have led those rightly appalled by it to think about strategy.
Because those who do it talk out both sides of their mouths. Hysteria on their part, about public health measures. /2
And then affected calm, rational authority when rapidly shutting down any counter-attempt to raise alarm.
Telling everybody to ‘calm down’, mocking others as hysterical. They should know, it’s their business model. It’s why within minutes they will respond on SM. /3
To any perceived narrative that may cause alarm at the ‘do nothing’ public health we’re currently living. That has to be shut down at all costs.
This is basic tabloid media strategy too. Create huge alarm, then offer soothing framings to shift action in the way desired. /4
It’s all there on the record. Certain individuals and groups deliberately targeted public health action as old as humanity, by creating hysteria around its possible impacts.
This had quick effect, shutting that action down. They use this strategy all the time. /5
And appear in public with calm assurance, when it’s challenged, labelling others as mentally unhinged and hysterical. Same strategy.
I often get asked what might turn all of this around. And often say - catastrophe. /6
Literally, physical catastrophe, as history shows, is all that creates lasting change. But catastrophising (the verb), using alarm, may also get us some way down the path of repair.
It’s what the bad actors are already doing, every day, while affecting calm rationality. /7
In the case of Covid and climate change, you don’t even need to make stuff up. The outcomes are already catastrophic. So as I’ve argued here a few times, focus on those catastrophic outcomes.
Particularly individual cases. That’s what tabloids do. /8
They know the individual is also the universal, that this is what resonates. Every time I post an example of somebody’s life being ruined by Covid, the minimisers come out in force.
They know that’s what bites. They’ll accuse you of making it up. They fear it. /9
Politicians today are weak populists, any sense of a bad thing going viral makes them terrified. It’s how a tiny group of whining anti-lockdown/anti-vax people, egged on by activist groups on SM, got so much traction in our Covid response. Politicians now won’t touch Covid. /10
Too afraid of triggering more targeted hysteria, from the minimisers.
So make them afraid of ‘hysteria’ over what Covid is doing to our society. Something that is actually real, unlike the libertarian fairy tales.
Be tabloid. And proud.
/end