Just a quick observation from the field, and some reflections. In the English Midlands, yesterday, I was in a clinic, the kind that has a lot of practitioners such as physiotherapists renting treatment rooms and sharing the cost of a receptionist.
I chatted with someone who worked there as I was waiting for someone having treatment. The person was definitely in the white middle class bracket. I was interested to hear her view of current affairs. She was pro vaccination and lots of hygienic habits such as insisting on people using sanitising alcohol gels. From her perspective it was people like her who take things seriously and do the right thing, she mentioned getting vaccinated in this. No apparent doubt about safety or effectiveness although she had covid about six weeks ago, not badly and has recovered well. I also overheard her talking to someone else about whether enough people bother to do covid tests now they have to pay for these themselves. The problem from her perspective is ignorant people who don't do what they are supposed to. Also, she thinks complaining is good. She thinks you should let it all out, it does more harm to bottle it up.
So I am relating this because it felt like excellent food for meditation. I'm interested in how we can have a public conversation that is constructive and allows people to consider the problems and compile policies which might be helpful. I was interested hearing that the motivation is the uprightness, the sense of social responsibility. This is the motive that was hammered hardest around here during the vaxx push -- "get vaccinated to protect grandma!". It led me to wonder if that sense of responsibility could be a ground for unity. It might smart a bit and cause discomfort in such a conversation if I begin to admit that for me, being responsible means examining scientific and medical claims myself, and thinking about whether the marketing and advertising makes sense. That we have a responsibility to protect the vulnerable by taking action against fraudulent claims and irresponsible marketing. But that kind of line of reasoning at least has some solid ground in common with the person I spoke to yesterday, whose motivation is doing the right thing and taking responsibility in public health matters. There is a common place we could potentially begin a conversation from.
I suppose I am belatedly catching up with that handout that was going around in the vaxx push, it was for nurses to address 'hesitant' patients, a kind of 'if they say this, reply with this' briefing. I don't seem to have saved a copy, I don't know if someone else has one or can find it and link. In all of the examples listed, about ten maybe? There were replies to patients that picked up the motivation of the patient and supplied the line that was most likely to produce compliance with injection. I suppose these were produced by the marketing arm of the jab companies, or public health gurus. I was going to say produced by people with no sense of ethics but I think it's more than that. I think the public health gurus were acting on the surmise of the national defence people who were afraid that this was the doomsday virus and were desperate enough to believe anything might help. I think a lot of what happened as many commentators have already said was based on acting from the hymn sheet of previously rehearsed biological warfare drills. They were convincing because the commentators who were slightly informed were scared of what was happening and genuinely believed that the only hope was to get everyone vaccinated to increase chances of survival. I remember talking to a civil servant about my worries about the nudging stuff being used to engineer compliance and her response was that the state is always engineering choices and why not? But to me, I want that to be a matter of public discussion. In what circumstances do we really think it's appropriate to patronise and compel people? perhaps I just lack whatever it is that makes people politicians.
I want to encourage a culture of truth telling, accountability, and appropriate legal processes, amongst a political class who actually have some scientific education rather than being composed of all the ones who stopped studying science as soon as they could -- age sixteen in the main stream of British education. I think it's really unfortunate that in those decisions it wasn't considered that the claims of the pharmaceutical companies are highly unreliable and somehow the possible costs of the adverse effects of the jabs got completely forgotten about. But I think this probably fell into the blind spot of decades where the only people who suffer adverse consequences from routine medications become heretics and crazy people who have to be denigrated and ignored.
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branchandroot
field note
Date: 2023-03-29 07:17 am (UTC)I chatted with someone who worked there as I was waiting for someone having treatment. The person was definitely in the white middle class bracket. I was interested to hear her view of current affairs. She was pro vaccination and lots of hygienic habits such as insisting on people using sanitising alcohol gels. From her perspective it was people like her who take things seriously and do the right thing, she mentioned getting vaccinated in this. No apparent doubt about safety or effectiveness although she had covid about six weeks ago, not badly and has recovered well. I also overheard her talking to someone else about whether enough people bother to do covid tests now they have to pay for these themselves. The problem from her perspective is ignorant people who don't do what they are supposed to. Also, she thinks complaining is good. She thinks you should let it all out, it does more harm to bottle it up.
So I am relating this because it felt like excellent food for meditation. I'm interested in how we can have a public conversation that is constructive and allows people to consider the problems and compile policies which might be helpful. I was interested hearing that the motivation is the uprightness, the sense of social responsibility. This is the motive that was hammered hardest around here during the vaxx push -- "get vaccinated to protect grandma!". It led me to wonder if that sense of responsibility could be a ground for unity. It might smart a bit and cause discomfort in such a conversation if I begin to admit that for me, being responsible means examining scientific and medical claims myself, and thinking about whether the marketing and advertising makes sense. That we have a responsibility to protect the vulnerable by taking action against fraudulent claims and irresponsible marketing. But that kind of line of reasoning at least has some solid ground in common with the person I spoke to yesterday, whose motivation is doing the right thing and taking responsibility in public health matters. There is a common place we could potentially begin a conversation from.
I suppose I am belatedly catching up with that handout that was going around in the vaxx push, it was for nurses to address 'hesitant' patients, a kind of 'if they say this, reply with this' briefing. I don't seem to have saved a copy, I don't know if someone else has one or can find it and link. In all of the examples listed, about ten maybe? There were replies to patients that picked up the motivation of the patient and supplied the line that was most likely to produce compliance with injection. I suppose these were produced by the marketing arm of the jab companies, or public health gurus. I was going to say produced by people with no sense of ethics but I think it's more than that. I think the public health gurus were acting on the surmise of the national defence people who were afraid that this was the doomsday virus and were desperate enough to believe anything might help. I think a lot of what happened as many commentators have already said was based on acting from the hymn sheet of previously rehearsed biological warfare drills. They were convincing because the commentators who were slightly informed were scared of what was happening and genuinely believed that the only hope was to get everyone vaccinated to increase chances of survival. I remember talking to a civil servant about my worries about the nudging stuff being used to engineer compliance and her response was that the state is always engineering choices and why not? But to me, I want that to be a matter of public discussion. In what circumstances do we really think it's appropriate to patronise and compel people? perhaps I just lack whatever it is that makes people politicians.
I want to encourage a culture of truth telling, accountability, and appropriate legal processes, amongst a political class who actually have some scientific education rather than being composed of all the ones who stopped studying science as soon as they could -- age sixteen in the main stream of British education. I think it's really unfortunate that in those decisions it wasn't considered that the claims of the pharmaceutical companies are highly unreliable and somehow the possible costs of the adverse effects of the jabs got completely forgotten about. But I think this probably fell into the blind spot of decades where the only people who suffer adverse consequences from routine medications become heretics and crazy people who have to be denigrated and ignored.
Amber Oracular Piglet