In U.S., lies preferable to a ministry of truth
George Orwell’s classic dystopian novel “Nineteen Eighty-Four” describes a government-operated Ministry of Truth, which indoctrinates the population with irrational Newspeak messages like “war is peace” and “freedom is slavery.” Reminds me of nonsensical coronavirus-related phraseology like “#alonetogether.”
It is frightening how many Americans today seem to clamor for a ministry of truth, insisting on everyone agreeing to one set of facts determined either by the state or by media fact experts. It plays into the idea Americans are fragile or infantile, in need of guardians or babysitters, since they are incapable of deciphering for themselves right from wrong, safe from unsafe, or truth from lies. And it can only serve to stifle the search for a path forward at a time when the country needs all the creative thinking it can get.
Now comes the novel coronavirus pandemic, and an insistence by the state and many in the media that we must all sing from the same hymn book. To do otherwise represents a danger to ourselves or to our “most vulnerable.” But does it make sense to rely solely on government health agencies that have arguably been consistently wrong in their predictions?
Scott Gottlieb, former head of the Food and Drug Administration under Trump, acknowledged recently that while “mitigation didn’t fail, I think it’s fair to say that it didn’t work as well as we expected.” Likewise, predictive virus case and mortality models have typically been as inaccurate as longrange weather forecasts.
Millions of Americans can be forgiven for not placing blind trust in federal and state government leaders and their health advisers, whose main tactic was to order Americans to surrender freedoms while a national economy was intentionally crashed.
Meanwhile, those who protest draconian lockdowns are depicted as right-wing, gun-toting vigilantes, ignorant in their resistance to state-mandated health directives.
It’s important to correct misinformation, which requires hearing or reading it in the first place, something we shouldn’t fear. Two urgent-care doctors in Bakersfield, Calif., recently held a news conference to share their opinions the negative effect of the virus has been exaggerated, and most lockdowns should be lifted. The video went viral on YouTube.
In a story headlined “Dubious coronavirus claims by California doctors condemned by health experts,” CNN reported the American College of Emergency Physicians and American Academy of Emergency Medicine issued a joint statement calling the doctors’ claims “inconsistent with current science and epidemiology regarding COVID-19.”
The doctors’ good-faith viewpoints were considered so damnable YouTube removed the video for “violating the platform’s policy on misinformation.”
That’s frightening. If the California doctors are wrong, say so and explain why. But don’t fear allowing Americans to hear and consider their opinions.
Americans will sometimes fall for lies. But more often than not, they can be trusted to decipher the difference between the War of the Roses and the Game of Thrones, despite surface similarities between fact and fiction. From political disinformation on social media to debates about the severity of a virus to the existence of fire-breathing dragons, Americans are pretty good at figuring out the truth — even when they have to separate good information from bad, all by themselves.