Of Masks and Men

There is a great scene in Amazon Prime’s show Chernobyl where the experts need the help of miners to dig under the nuclear power plant and install a heat exchanger so that the melted reactor core doesn’t fall through and contaminate groundwater reservoirs.

The recruited miners were issued a very painful death sentence as they had to expose themselves to lethal doses of the radiation. The task, however, was essential in preventing nuclear material from running into both the Pripyat and Dnieper rivers: the water supply for 50 million people. The miners put themselves in danger through a sense of duty, similar to that of a soldier being sent to war to defend his motherland.

Indeed, what made the miners trust the experts, the people in power, in such dire conditions, was that they were not lied to. Their orders were not issued via the phone, but face to face under the shadow of the burning power plant.

When the miners asked if the protective gear on the table, gas masks and hazmat suits, were effective in stopping the radiation they would soon be exposed to, the experts chose to be honest, stating: “no, it is not.” Such transparency pleased the miners, who, revealing that they had already “realised [the gear was] not effective because if it was [the experts] would have been wearing it,” said: 

“We just wanted to see what type of people we are risking our lives for.”

In other words, the miners, though they were not scientists, and though they did not have university degrees, did have something that experts today seem to forget exists and ignore completely. They had wisdom. They appreciated and trusted the authorities because they were not lied to: they were treated like rational adults even in the direst of circumstances.

Today, in this climate of drastic lockdowns and government totalitarianism, most ‘experts’ blame so-called social media ‘misinformation’ as the major influence behind the pandemic’s prolonged duration. If only people did not talk to each other and would just listen to official sources, then everyone would do what they were told and the pandemic would have been over by now.

To me, the problem with this line of thinking is that I do not see where all this misinformation can be found. I have spent hours on the internet looking for such legendary ‘misinformation’, the ‘one ring to rule them all’ that holds the power to coerce people away from the safety of expert opinion. All to no avail. 

Nevertheless, social media algorithms are hard at work removing or burying anything that does not come directly from an authoritative source. Never in the history of mankind has information on the internet been more sanitised than it is today. Never has the press spoken with one unified voice in repeating the rhetoric dealt by the self-styled officials. There is no dissenting opinion, no two sides of the same issue — there are only facts or misinformation.

As such, if any person still manages to misinform people under this system, they must be among the most skilled propagandists that the world has ever seen and clearly the government needs to offer them a job as a political agitator.

The reality of the situation, though, is that the most likely contributor to people’s “misinformed” opinions and distrust of the elite is the politicians themselves. It is very difficult to look at the television and watch your leaders warn you about a kind of impending doom before ordering you to ‘stay at home to save lives’ when they themselves, often the next day, are found to be engaging in activities that endanger people.

Such news is all too common at this point. It does seem that, all around the world, the same politicians and elites who told people to stay home and stay safe in 2020 were walking around doing whatever they wanted. The media of course shamed them for such transgressions for a day or two, and then everything went back to normal and everyone pretended that these events don’t influence public opinion at all.

To finish, let me tell you a story. In 1918, during the Spanish Flu, citizens around the world were also subject to mask mandates. Indeed, such mandates were often just as controversial then as they are today and, in one incident in San Francisco, a special health officer shot a man for refusing to wear his mask. Like today, though, it was not events like these that influenced the public to stop complying with the mandates. What did stop the public from complying was a picture a journalist took during a boxing match. In the picture, the public could see the San Francisco mayor, the police chief, and other important figures sitting at an event without social distancing, and, crucially, without wearing a mask.

Like our times, the public back then was willing to suffer much when it came to giving away their rights in exchange for the ‘good’ of public health. But, like today, what they could not suffer was a tide of hypocrisy from their leaders and politicians. Unsurprisingly, San Francisco’s mask mandates were removed several days after the incident.

It is hopeful that recent events in the UK will produce similar results. Maybe Christmas has been saved by Boris Johnson after all.