25 Apr 20
Nothing gives a frisson of satisfaction like delivering a statement of moral certitude. “Racism is evil,” “Stigmatizing language is hurtful,” “Safety first,” and “We must save every life we can – from Covid-19.”
The last statement is the dominant moral certitude of the day, and is obviously silly. We can’t disregard all the deaths that are caused by the extreme measures that were undertaken for the sake of this certitude, as if these other deaths were mundane, less meaningful, less important. So important it is to uphold this certitude that a person who dies with Covid-19 is deemed to have died from it by the health care system. Co-morbidities don’t count. We’ll readily destroy our economy for the sake of this certitude.
One problem with moral certitudes is that they tend to justify totalitarian measures, since nothing that upholds the certitude can itself be wrong.
Hence, when people protest at Queen’s Park the loss of their civil rights and jobs, Premier Ford is moved to accuse them of being “selfish, irresponsible, reckless, yahoos, lawbreakers, putting themselves and others in jeopardy, and they should be better than that.” Imagine being called selfish for asserting your civil rights and for protesting the loss of your job, but that’s what moral certitude can do.
We know that sunlight, warm air, and a breeze will quickly disperse and kill the coronavirus, so young and healthy people protesting in the open air in daylight means that, as a matter of fact, they weren’t reckless, irresponsible, or putting themselves and others in jeopardy. But with moral certitude, matters of facts don’t matter.
The pandemic of fear wafting around the coronavirus created the moral certitude that “we must save every life we can – from Covid-19,” and this in turn has released a thrilling inner totalitarian in a lot of people. This can’t end soon enough.
Meanwhile, eat your vegetables – or else!
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