How the expert class's moral crusaderism undermines science, truth, and freedom

Confessions from a former insider

This post from April 2, 2023 appears to be trending again on Twitter. Given its popularity (though some, like Denis Rancourt, have called it “disgusting”), I am cross-posting it here. And to provide an update, I should be back to posting regularly by the beginning of next month. There is a huge backlog of ideas and work that I am looking forward to sharing with you all. Until public health takes accountability for what it did during the pandemic—and what went wrong—it is up to us to ensure that the public (and future public) gets beyond the self-serving public relations campaigns and understands the facts—so that what happened during the pandemic cannot happen again.

Without further ado…

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During COVID, those of us on the Good Guy Team wanted interventions like vaccines, lockdowns, masks, etc. to work so badly that whenever there was any inkling that they might, we pounced on that and promoted it zealously.

We didn't brook scientific discussion because it wasn't a scientific debate that we were having. It had a scientific dimension but its main aspect was its moral one. Thus, to dissent was to be immoral.

None of us wanted to be immoral so none of us did. We all thought the same about this fact, so we also knew that asking questions and being critical meant earning the ire of our colleagues.

We couldn't see that to point out harms or downsides might actually help us to make better policy. We only saw that pointing out harms (and were they really "harms" anyway?) would dissuade people from doing the right thing and protecting themselves and others.

So we didn't question. And by not questioning, we didn't allow ourselves to develop views that were contrary to the ones we already held. We held ourselves rigidly in this morally dictated box, where our scientific opinions were mainly dictated by our morality rather than by our critical faculties that we had all developed but which we held in reserve on this one subject (and perhaps others).

I believe that most of academia and most of the expert class is still locked in this box with regard to COVID and many other questions. It makes me terrified about the future of this country.

Unless they can see the other point of view, the point of view outside their own, it will be impossible for them to make good policy, and we will see a further deterioration in the political fabric of the United States.

It is absolutely imperative that we break through this cult-like mental fortress, or I am afraid that the future of this country is in serious jeopardy.