Liars, fakers, and the addictive character of authoritarianism
2020 has seen one of the most authoritarian governments in our nation's history . Sean Walsh discusses the 'fakers' in government and the damage this is having across the country.
In 1986 the philosopher Harry Frankfurt wrote an article called On Bullshit in which he pointed out that there is an epistemological and morally significant difference between lying and faking. When you lie, he argued, you inadvertently disclose that you have some concern for the truth. To fake, on the other hand, is to reach for whatever you can spout in service of your desired end.
This lack of concern for truth is what makes the faker worse than the liar. The faker, having lost any interest in separating the true from the false, will inevitably end up deceiving himself. And self-delusion is a morally worse form of dishonesty than mere mendacity. The liar is at least theoretically capable of being brought to book; the faker is beyond help. His world is fundamentally distorted.
The histrionic Establishment response to C-19 has shown that we are presided over by a Lockdown Sanhedrin, the High Priests of which are not liars but fakers. This secular clergy cannot follow "the science" because science, properly done, eschews fakery. Our capricious rulers are trapped in the addiction of authoritarianism. And self-deception is a driver of that pathology. There is a bewildering disparity between the "data" they offer us and the homily they compose from it. They look at the same data as the rest of us and see varieties of catastrophe which aren't there. Why? Because when you acquire the habit of lying to yourself you end up not being able to spot when you look ridiculous to other people.
And this is what's happened. The authoritarian junkies who are in charge of us have come to seem both terrifying and risible at the same time.
This addiction explains an otherwise perplexing refusal to even take seriously any opposing, non-Establishment, view. When Michael Yeadon points to the fragility of the SAGE assumption that "everyone" is vulnerable to C-19, he is ignored. When Sunetra Gupta raises questions concerning the infection mortality rate, she is traduced. When Carl Heneghan, a physician and professor of evidence-based medicine, urges scepticism about the timing and efficacy of "lockdown" he is derided by our Health Secretary as an "outlier".
And now we have the farcical "Tier Review" which was always going to be no more than another fix for the Hancock types and their accelerating totalitarianism. Ross Clark (quoted on Lockdown Sceptics) is forensically quizzical about the methodology behind Thursday's announcement that 38 million people will now be living under the toughest restrictions. I'm disposed to be a little less kind. The whole exercise reminds me of that scene in Father Ted where the two Vatican officials randomly decide that Craggy Island should be given miracle status as the site of the Holy Stone of Clonrichert.
If there exists any method in this madness, it doesn't rise above that level. And remember that the "relaxation" of restrictions is also an expression of the same authoritarian addiction. The serial strangler who brings his victim back to life before the final despatch does so because the ersatz "mercy" is part of the gig.
And what have had now? On Saturday evening the Usual Suspects have announced that the new "mutation" of this virus will do no more harm than the previous iteration, but because it has some advantage of transmission the lingering hope that we might have a Christmas must, regrettably, be snuffed out.
The Johnson government is the barfly who really means it when she says that this is her last drink. Only one more lockdown and all will be fine. Except it won't be. Because when you are addicted to something you will use any available mechanism to keep it going ad infinitum.
How do you deal with an alcoholic? You intervene. The UK demos has become an enabler of the authoritarian addiction of the political class. We've gone along with it. We've become like the sufferer of Stockholm syndrome who encouraged her own initial abduction. This government needs to be led out of its current habits of authoritarianism in the direction of a humiliating recovery program (I know of what I speak). Sometimes the barfly needs to have the drink removed from then, for the good both of themselves and those who are affected by the consequences of the addiction.
I'll be doing my own thing at Christmas. Hopefully, in doing so, I'll be helping the fakers in this government liberate themselves from the appalling and pitiful self-deception they have chosen to weaponize against the decent rhythms of human life.
