Rapidly Changing Norms, Rules and Laws Are Hallmarks of Totalitarianism
Foxes Dare to Be Daniel's
Rapidly changing laws, predicated on science that changes, are a hallmark of totalitarian regimes. Whether intentionally or a byproduct of is a matter of debate. Orwell penned Animal Farm and The Prevention of Literature that explore the connection. And while Foxes aren’t farm animals they know their way around farms.
There is a Psychology of Totalitarianism. As Orwell’s Animal Farm pigs practiced. No pig better at it than Squealer:
“Nor did they live up to their promises. These experts pledged that the Gates to Freedom would re-open after two doses of the vaccine, but then they contrived the need for a third. Like Orwell’s pigs, they changed the rules overnight. First, the animals had to comply with the measures because the number of sick people could not exceed the capacity of the health care system (flatten the curve). But one day, everyone woke up to discover writing on the walls stating that the measures were being extended because the virus had to be eradicated (crush the curve). Eventually, the rules changed so often that only the pigs seemed to know them. And even the pigs weren’t so sure.”
George Orwell wrote of totalitarianism and its intentional or reactionary rapid changes in rules, laws and permissible thoughts in his essay, The Prevention of Literature, (1946):
“A totalitarian society which succeeded in perpetuating itself would probably set up a schizophrenic system of thought, in which the laws of common sense held good in everyday life and in certain exact sciences, but could be disregarded by the politician, the historian, and the sociologist.”
“What is new in totalitarianism is that its doctrines are not only unchallengeable but also unstable. They have to be accepted on pain of damnation, but on the other hand, they are always liable to be altered on a moment's notice.”
With that understanding we have an opportunity to explore what all of us witnessed but only a few understood to be a dangerous turn in system of governance. Community mask mandates. The flip-flop. In fact, masks in public were banned since the early 2000’s in many nations. Bans upheld by international human rights courts. Until they were mandated. Even just months after being officially banned in many nations.
Bans on *any* facial coverings, including masks. Reported as "burqa bans." But the law specifically included masks, all facial coverings. Prohibited. Period. Violations were fined. The Netherlands even banned masks as recently as August, 2019.
International courts ruled that lawmakers were right to recognize that we have "the right to interact with someone by looking them in the face and about not disappearing under a piece of clothing." Unobstructed human faces were declared a human right. Until they were declared a violation of human rights!! When free faces became too dangerous to behold. So dangerous people were attacked, violently arrested, hauled away to prison, denied services, denied services, even arrested for displaying their dangerous faces in parks, on beaches, anywhere in public. From a human right to see and share to a potential murder weapon. The human face.
France's burqa ban upheld by human rights court
The UK Guardian, July 1, 2014
"Judges at the European court of human rights (ECHR) have upheld France's burqa ban, accepting Paris's argument that it encouraged citizens to "live together". The law, introduced in 2010, makes it illegal for anyone to cover their face in a public place...the law was not aimed at the burqa or veil but any covering of the face in a public place... ...The European judges decided...that the preservation of a certain idea of "living together" was the "legitimate aim" of the French authorities. Isabelle Niedlispacher, representing the Belgian government, which introduced a similar ban in 2011 and which was party to the French defence, declared both the burqa and niqab "incompatible" with the rule of law. Aside from questions of security and equality, she added: "It's about social communication, the right to interact with someone by looking them in the face and about not disappearing under a piece of clothing." The French and Belgian laws were aimed at "helping everyone to integrate", Niedlispacher added."
Burqa bans, headscarves and veils: a timeline of legislation in the west
UK Guardian, May 31, 2018
[Burqa bans = all facial coverings, including masks. Not just a religious justification as the article above portrays]
Netherlands: Burqa Ban Enters into Force
Library of Congress, August 27, 2019
"On August 1, 2019, the “Act Partially Prohibiting Face-Covering Clothing,”also known as the “Burqa Ban,” entered into force in the Netherlands. The Act prohibits the wearing of clothing that completely or partially conceals the face in spaces where people are expected to communicate with each other. Thus, face-covering clothing is banned on public transportation and in educational, governmental, and nursing care institutions, but is still allowed in such public spaces as on train platforms. The ban applies to burqas, niqabs, full-face helmets, balaclavas, and masks, but not to headscarves."
Bans on masks, all across Europe, laws prohibiting any facial covering in public, shopping, transportation, workplaces, anywhere people would gather - Illegal!! The headlines said "burqa bans." the laws said no facial coverings, not even masks in public. Illegal!!
And then came 2020....
Coronavirus: Germany's states make face masks compulsory
BBC News, April 22, 2020
"All of Germany's states have announced plans to make face masks compulsory to combat the spread of coronavirus.
Bremen became the final federal region to back the measures, with its senate set to confirm the decision on Friday.
Mask use will be compulsory on public transport throughout Germany, and nearly all states will also make face coverings mandatory when shopping."
France Covid-19: Paris compulsory face-mask rule comes into force
BBC News, August 28, 2020
"The French prime minister said all pedestrians would have to wear face masks in public areas in the capital from 08:00 on Friday (06:00 GMT).
While individual streets and areas of the capital already have rules on wearing face coverings, this new rule will be far more extensive, covering not only Paris but its inner ring of Seine-Saint-Denis, Hauts-de-Seine and Val-de-Marne.
Paris is already a red zone, along with the southern area of Bouches-du-Rhône, where France's second-largest city Marseille made masks compulsory from Wednesday evening.
A broad expanse of the Mediterranean coast and the Gironde area around Bordeaux are also red zones.
Masks will also become part of normal life for French schoolchildren aged 11 and over. The World Health Organization (WHO) has recommended use of masks in school from the age of 12.
Masks are already required in most enclosed public spaces and will be mandatory in workplaces from next week."
France asks citizens to wear masks again in public transport
Reuters, June 27, 2022
"French people should start wearing masks again in crowded areas, especially in public transport, as France has to deal with a new wave of COVID-19 infections fuelled by new variants of the disease, Health Minister Brigitte Bourguignon said on Monday.
"I'm not saying it should be mandatory but I do ask the French people to put the mask on in public transport," she told RTL, adding it was a "civic duty" to do so."
Coronavirus: Netherlands makes face masks mandatory indoors
BBC News, December 1, 2020
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-55143938
"The Netherlands has made it compulsory to wear a face mask in indoor public spaces in an effort to contain the spread of coronavirus.
The country is one of the last in Europe to introduce such a measure.
The rule will apply to those over the age of 13 in public buildings such as shops, railway stations and hairdressers from Tuesday.
The new face mask rule will remain in place for at least three months, with those who ignore it facing a fine of up to €95 (£85; $113)."
Netherlands reimplements mask mandate as COVID-19 cases surge
The Hill, November 2, 2021
"Mask wearing has been reintroduced in stores and public places, and the government is advising citizens to work from home for at least half the time.
Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte announced Tuesday that the “corona pass” will be expanded on Nov. 6 to apply to public places including museums, gyms and outdoor venues."
Prohibited ---> Mandated. Just months apart.
Human Right ---> Human Rights Violation. Just months apart.
This is what totalitarianism does. A hallmark of it. The refrain I’d often hear from friends I tried to enlist as allies to oppose them, “Not my hill to die on” still rings in my ears to this day. Most still believe that. When it was the most defensible hill of all. More just had to say “no.” Understanding our free faces are the most personal expression of our human rights of all. How humanity thrives. Forfeited by the obedience of the majority. Some Foxes us are familiar with this Revivalist hymn. And find our purpose in it:
Dare to be a Daniel
Dare to stand alone
Dare to have a purpose firm
Dare to make it known
This article deserves its own post. And I'll do that and break it down when I have some time again. But for now it provides a fascinating insight to the field of science under Hitler, Mussolini and Stalin that draws a frightening number of parallels to what we are experiencing today. It's deja vu, all over again.
Science in the Totalitarian State
Foreign Affairs, January, 1941
https://web.archive.org/web/20181125112623/https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/1941-01-01/science-totalitarian-state
"The totalitarian conception of the relation of science to the state is remarkably elastic. When political expediency so determines, the whole concept is modified. "
"This Nazi and Soviet pursuit of "rebels" may seem absurd, but actually it is logical. An artist or a scientist in Germany and in Russia serves the state. He therefore cannot separate his politics from his strictly professional activities. If he departs from the prevailing official ideology he automatically becomes an anti-Nazi in Germany and a counter-revolutionary in the Soviet Union."
"It was also charged that Soviet materialistic works on cosmology "have been suppressed by the enemies of the people." In other words, because Marx and Engels were saturated in Victorian materialism, which followed Newton in picturing the universe as a colossal machine instead of a problem in higher geometry, all the experimental and observational evidence that supports relativity must be rejected.
How does science like this tyranny? A few bold spirits still survive in Germany and Russia, but, on the whole, there is a remarkable pliancy of the scientific mind in both countries."
"The Russian gift of recantation, which marked the trials of Party members accused of adherence to Trotsky, manifests itself in science as well as in politics.
Back of the ideologies of the dictators, back of the professional pliancy, is something more than political expediency, something more than blind obedience. Long before the world ever heard of Mussolini and Stalin and Hitler it was in a state of social unrest. The revolutions that overthrew the Romanoffs and the Hohenzollerns, the upheavals that gave British labor new rights and privileges, were expressions of dissatisfaction with the social structure. To say that the dictators emerged because science and technology had taken possession of society and stamped it with a pattern utterly different from that which the égalitarians of the eighteenth century knew is an over-simplification. There are psychic factors that cannot be ignored -- inner drives, national traditions, habits of life. Yet if the dictators are to be overthrown, if democracy is to be preserved, the part that science and technology played in the rise of democracy cannot be ignored. Research produces not only change within science itself but social change. The democratic method is to adapt social change to technological change. The dictators are trying to do the contrary.
In considering the relation of science to the dictators we must bear in mind that the human mind is intrinsically no better than it was 10,000 years ago. It simply has acquired new interests under social tension. In the Middle Ages social tension expressed itself so strongly in religion that there were 110 holy days in the year; a new ecclesiastical architecture was evolved; all Europe rose to the spiritual need of wresting Jerusalem from the "infidel." Today, however, it means more to our society to discover how the atom is constituted than that a new ecclesiastical architecture is developed, more that the mechanism of heredity is revealed than that savages in Africa are converted to Christianity. Perhaps its pragmatic attitude has led science to ignore essential ethical values. But the point is that science dominates our society, and that if our society wants science it must choose between totalitarianism and democracy. There can be no compromise."
"When the business man and the inventor were freed from this aristocratic fetishism, machine after machine appeared, and with the machines came mass production and mass consumption of identical goods. Without standardization mass production is impossible. To have cheap, good clothes we must all dress more or less alike. To bring automobiles within the reach of millions we must have the assembly line. To live inexpensively in cities we must eat packaged foods, dwell in more or less standardized homes, bathe in standardized bath tubs, and draw water and gas from common reservoirs. Mass production has brought it about that the average life in New York is hardly different from the average life in Wichita. The same motion pictures brighten the screen, the same voices and music well out of loud-speakers in every town, identical cans of tomatoes and packages of cereals are to be found on all grocers' shelves, identical electric toasters brown identical slices of bread everywhere, identical refrigerators freeze identical ice cubes in a million kitchens. If gunpowder made all men the same height, in Carlyle's classic phrase, mass production has standardized behavior, pleasures, tastes, comforts, life itself.
Mass production and labor-saving devices have created a social crisis. We cannot have mass production and mechanization without planning. Engineers and their financial backers are planners. Dictators are planners. Whether they know it or not, most corporation executives and engineers are necessary totalitarians in practice. Hitler, Mussolini and Stalin clearly have the instincts of engineers. Their states are designed social structures."
"Often enough we hear it said that mechanical invention has outstripped social invention -- that new social forms must be devised if we are to forestall the economic crises that are brought about by what is called the "impact of science" on society. Communism and Fascism are social inventions, intended among other things to solve the economic problems created by technological change under the influence of capitalism. They attempt to answer a question: Are the technical experts and their financial backers to shape the course of society unrestrained, and even to rule nations directly and indirectly, as they did in France, and as they do in part in Great Britain and the United States? The totalitarians say that a capitalistic democratic government cannot control the experts, the inventors, the creators of this evolving mechanical culture. They therefore have decided to take control of thinking, above all scientific thinking, out of which flow the manufacturing processes and the machines which change life.
But science is more than coal-tar dyes and drugs, electric lamps, airplanes, radio, television, relativity and astrophysics. It is an attitude of mind -- what Professor Whitehead has called "the most intimate change in outlook that the human race has yet experienced." If Hitler, Mussolini and Stalin are to rule, that scientific attitude will have to be abandoned when it conflicts with the official social philosophy. But if it is abandoned there can be no Newtons, no Darwins, no Einsteins. Science will be unable to make discoveries which will change the human outlook and, with the outlook, the social order. If the world wants to preserve science as a powerful social force for good the research physicist, chemist and biologist must be permitted to work without intellectual restraint, i.e. to enjoy the fundamental freedom of democracy."
"An essential to this progress has been that the scientist has not demanded that his theory be considered "true." He does not profess to know what the truth is. A theory must work. It is an expedient. When it ceases to work it is thrown overboard or modified. This method of merciless self-examination cannot be followed in a society where the result of each investigation is predetermined for extraneous reasons. Democracy flounders before it arrives at satisfactory solutions of its social problems. But it is better to flounder and progress than to follow the philosophy of a dictator and to remain socially and scientifically static."
I agree that more needed to resist early on. I was almost the only one on an Upper New York State Facebook page saying the evidence for masking the public wasn’t there and the actual science showed harm. Those people wanted the masks and wanted to believe they would “scientifically” protect them. They were easily fooled, didn’t care to look up the truth and adapted a herd mentality and mantra that masks save lives. The medical establishment played along. I guess they were paid off early because it’s hard for me to believe they went along with it so easily without looking at the studies. The studies for masks were there. OSHA had to change, lower their standards in order to not be in conflict with the CDC. OSHA had standards in place for many years on acceptable carbon dioxide levels and the n95’s failed within minutes of being on. Everyone rebreathing their own respiratory waste, some for hours on end was not at all healthy. Maybe that was the plan? Lower people’s immunity so they would be more susceptible to germs and catch Covid and flu. They would be in less healthy state by the time the shots came from stress, lack of exercise, lowered immunity and overeating and drinking. That would put them in a worsened condition to fight off the spike protein, LNP and resulting inflammation. It’s a shame people took such pride in not thinking as their actions really hurt us all.