Thread by @RageSheen

POW camps in the Korean war explain a lot about the total capitulation to Covid today. Nearly 40% of US prisoners died, the highest death rate in US military history. But the camps were only weakly fortified, prisoners had adequate food and water and were usually not tortured. /1

In fact prisoners were often rewarded with sweets and cigarettes. Nobody tried to escape, despite the absence of barbed wire or often even armed guards. But prisoners would often sit in their huts with a blanket over their heads, and just die. /2

After liberation, very few prisoners even wanted to do the basic act of calling family at home. And there was little camaraderie amongst survivors. The overwhelming culture of the camps and in survivors was one of hopelessness. That hopelessness was deliberately engineered. /3

For example, prisoners were observed interacting, and the small number among them (about 5%) who other prisoners looked up to, the socially popular leaders of the group, were then removed and killed. The Koreans also targeted the rewards (sweets and cigarettes) to those who…/4

…informed on other prisoners. Snitches. Also encouraged was extreme self criticism amongst prisoners, of the wrongs they had done and the good they hadn’t done. Confession, to erode self respect and personal worth. There were a variety of other techniques used to undermine…/5

…self-worth, and to sever any collective ties between prisoners and to their loved ones and country back home. (Some summarised here: 302aw.afrc.af.mil/News/Commentar…)

The relevance to Covid? Twitter for example is awash with the same feeling of hopelessness, every day. /6

Focused not just on the authorities who are doing nothing to lead a fight against the virus, but also against fellow members of the public who are perceived (often rightly) to be doing nothing to fight the disaster either. The core message for me is one I tweet about a lot. /7

That all of society functions by social rules, not political rules. What we call the economy, and capitalism, and power, are really all just manifestations of some basic underlying social dynamics. Conformity is the glue that holds all societies together, of any belief system. /8

Conformity is not the universal negative libertarians would have us believe either. To emulate others is a great way to learn and build upon progress in human affairs. The evil here comes from how conformity is led, because as the Korean camps show, it’s what that 5% do…/9

…that drives what everybody else does. Not because the 95% are sheep, but because nobody can do everything. We all ‘follow the lead’ in everything we do, there’s always a hierarchy of expertise and value that we draw upon, whether it’s playing guitar, cooking or voting. /10

The total Covid capitulation was and is led. Just as inaction on climate change is led. And for both, just like those US POWs, the majority of us feel hopeless, like there’s nothing that could be done, and we even turn on the public more generally, shocked at their apparent…/11

…stupidity. It’s all part of eroding the social dynamics that might lead to resistance to what’s going on. Government-friendly Covid experts are given the sweets and cigarettes (media attention, plum postings in advisory bodies etc.), to snitch on the rest of us. /12

To police the acceptable beliefs. Constant ‘freedom’ narratives saturate all media, but it’s not freedom from Covid or even from government, it’s freedom to conform to something once libertarian politics has removed as many of the hierarchies of basic social life as possible. /13

Clearing the jungle of complex, sophisticated due process of democratic society, with its overlapping hierarchies of expertise, and replacing it with a handful of simple rallying slogans. ‘Live with the virus’. ‘Just like the flu’. Removing that 5% that guide in every tiny…/14

…part of life, in everything we do, and replacing them with these rallying slogans. If you feel helpless and hopeless right now, it’s because that was always the plan. So that you’d hopefully then grasp the first slogan that came along, to ease these feelings. /15

The politics of hopelessness, or neoliberalism or libertarianism, whatever you want to call it, is entirely about taking control of that 5% space, so that social conformity will then do the rest for it. Telling everybody they’ll be free if they get infected, because then…/16

…not only can you avoid doing any public health work at all, but people will actually celebrate that absence as freedom. Millions die, and people do nothing, because conformity has been used to weaponise helplessness. 17/17