This country is lucky to have thought leaders like Tucker Carlson and internet sports blogger Dave Portnoy leading us through this unprecedented global pandemic. Dave and Tucker spent valuable air time on Fox News suggesting people should no longer trust Dr. Fauci because he is “on different sides depending on the day”. Portnoy’s hard-hitting expose (I mean schoolyard Youtube rant) stems from the doctor’s comments that we “can’t stay locked down for such a considerable period of time [or risk] irreparable damage and have unintended consequences including consequences for health.” Thanks to passionate and dedicated journalists like Tucker and Dave, they were finally able to expose the hypocrisy of Dr. Fauci and convince millions to dismiss the dangerous and inconsistent advice of this expert virologist?
Or maybe, stick with me here, these two seemingly opposing views of Dr. Fauci are not mutually exclusive. Maybe Tucker and Dave have ulterior motives for manufacturing this false choice? Maybe intelligent human beings are capable of considering multiple, sometimes even conflicting, viewpoints while trying to solve complex problems? Maybe the ability to ingest new information and change your course is actually a good thing for our leaders to possess? The real issue seems to be this intelligent approach to problem-solving is not consistent with the media’s desire to reduce important topics into digestible soundbites so it can be consumed by an ignorant population between commercials for eczema pills and purple mattresses. Let’s be real, there just isn’t enough time to properly educate people on the nuances of epidemiology before Ice-T comes on to sell us a used car warranty for our hooptie.
The real purpose of the 24-hour news cycle is to manufacture drama so you stick around until the advertisements come on. The easiest way to do this is to make everything a black or white choice. Then they leverage things like false equivalency, the Dunning-Kruger effect, and other cognitive biases to get you to believe there are no other alternatives. Even better if they can convince you the “other” person is wrong so they can fling mud at someone else, which is way more dramatic and fun to watch. But no issue worth discussing has an easy “this or that” solution, let alone one that can be effectively explored in a 2-minute news segment. All I know is things are not as dire as CNN is making it out to be, nor are they as rosy as Fox News believes them to be. The truth is squishy, frustrating, and sometimes even inconvenient.
Let’s consider a very simple question that should have a straight forward answer. Where are you from? Well, I was born in Michigan, so that was easy. However, I have lived most of my adult life in Virginia, so that is probably a better answer. With that said, I spent some quality quarantine time digging into my family tree and learned many of my ancestors are from Sweden, so maybe that makes more sense. But, if I were traveling overseas, I might just say I am from the United States. The point is, all of these answers are correct. What matters is the context and the dialogue that follows the question. So, if we cannot even come up with one answer to the question “where we are from”, why do we think Tucker and Dave have the intellectual capacity to boil down the complexities of an international quarantine into a true or false question?
I believe most people understand we need some form of quarantine to slow the spread of this deadly disease. Those very same people also know that staying locked inside forever is untenable and would have significant impacts on our mental health and our economy. We know the answer lies somewhere between these two extremes. So why is this controversial to anyone? The answer is, it’s not. But media personalities like Tucker Carlson and Chris Cuomo need to make everything controversial so they can sell you more pillows made by a religious zealot.
Do you really think Adam Smith’s infamous “Masters of Mankind” (hereby referred to as “They”) really care if you are Republican or a Democrat? Do you think They have any preference regarding which cable news show you watch? Their only concern is “the conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses” so They can “engineer your consent”. That is what Edward Bernays, who is considered the father of the modern public relations and advertising industry, said about the unintelligent majority (that’s what he calls you). Interesting fact, Edward is also the same person that is credited with figuring out how to sell cigarettes to women. His “Torches of Freedom” ad campaign was pure genius, albeit evil genius, and essentially doubled the profits of tobacco companies.
It is a simple, but effective, magic trick that has been used for centuries. They use misdirection to draw the audience’s attention away from the things that truly matter. They are continually trying to convince us that “man differs more from man, than man from beast”. They know if we are busy yelling at each other about ludicrous QAnon conspiracy theories, watching football, flipping through TikToks, or jerking off to PornHub, then They can murder, control, deceive, destroy, and steal with impunity. How else could 1% of the population accumulate over 50% of the world’s wealth? While that fact alone is practically unbelievable, what really makes me lose faith in mankind is just how willing we are to accept it.
There have been times in history when the roar and trampling of the bewildered herd has threatened the Intelligent Minority. The 1960’s was one such period, which later They would label as the “Time of Troubles”. That is when blue-collar workers, women, and people of color all started to wake up and demand change. The Masters would have none of it so they took steps to remind the majority that they are meant to be spectators, not participants. One only has to read the Lewis Powell Memorandum or the Trilateral Commission’s report on “The Crisis of Democracy” to understand Their concerns. Here’s a spoiler, the crisis they were worried about wasn’t too little democracy. Neither side was willing to tolerate a threat to their unmitigated freedom to accumulate wealth, because when you get to the top, there are no sides.
Why are humans so quick to forget that we are in this together? We are all riding the same pale blue dot as it hurtles through infinite space. If we are going to have any chance of surviving as a species, we have to start thinking for ourselves, because the earth doesn’t need saving, we do. We have to understand that complex issues are unique and never have simple solutions. We have to accept uncertainty and the discomfort it creates. We need to consider the future and not just what is expedient. We must be willing to admit to and learn from our mistakes because we are going to make lots of them. We must open ourselves to new information that may challenge the very core of our beliefs, and then we have to be willing to modify those beliefs. We have to listen and treat each other with respect. Finally, and this is where it all seems to break down, we must learn how to compromise and make sacrifices. Anything worth having is gonna cost something but just remember, getting some of what you want is still better than getting none of what you need.
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