Science is downstream from values
Just like politics will trickle down from culture
“ You can't have a value structure without a hierarchy. They're the same thing because a value structure means one thing takes precedence over another. ”
Jordan B. Peterson, clinical psychologist
When our governmental and media elites keep shouting in harmony to "follow the science" like a mantra, day in and day out since the beginning of the current crisis, as a way to redirect the public into a rational thinking lane (or so they assume), it hides a particularly big elephant in the room.
First, the scientific method by itself does not constitute a guiding principle. It just can’t. By construct (and if performed in optimal conditions) it has an objective basis to it devoid of outside influence. While the method per se has a neutral element to it, the selection of the subject to be scientifically explored does have a subjective component underneath.
Thus, science in itself does not constitute the sole variable behind our Covid response even if we are convinced it has to be the case. Science is at the service of industries, organizations of various types, nations and the like. Not the other way around.
Second, it is individuals and groups that make choices to pursue a certain type of scientific inquiry. To prioritize one thing over another. To follow or not a specific scientific advise.
We must not forget that nations, just like individuals, have an overarching value system that guides most of their decisions and the path they choose to take (consciously and unconsciously).
In short, everyone has a value hierarchy that orients their actions. Otherwise, since March 2020, if scientific data was sufficient, all countries and states in the world would have reacted the same, which is obviously not the case. Collective values were the main driver.
Without noticing, our modern western democracies shifted their moral compass away from rugged individualism, courage, risk taking and slowly embraced encroaching social policies, victimhood, security.
In that respect, some jurisdictions shifted more than others. I won’t examine or compare each country here as this is not the goal.
What I’m trying to argue here is that the same type of event, occurring in different eras, will trigger completely different response schemes depending on the prevailing value structure of the time.
It has nothing to do with science but rather the overarching mood of the era.
And since the transition of value systems is often slow (even generational in nature), and emerges from an already existing pattern depending on each nation (see my first essay on Québec for its particularities),
we don’t notice it fully up until a real crisis occurs which suddenly skyrockets to preeminence the underlying trends in society. The last 18 months have certainly shown us the true nature of our value hierarchy in the 2020’s.
Therefore, when we naively claim that we must “follow the science”, the real question we need to ask ourselves is: which value guides our decision-making process ?
In the crisis at hand, we clearly had already escalated security and caution at the top of the pyramid while putting aside other considerations.
20 years ago, following the 9/11 attacks on American soil, do you recall how much time it took to resume commercial flights after the infamous day ?
Surely a couple of weeks you would presume, right ?
Possibly even months, you wonder.
After all, there were severe security breaches in multiple airports that demanded locking down these perimeters and all other airports across the country (even abroad in other western countries) in order to reopen them safely.
Well, on September 13th 2001, some commercial flights were already restored in limited areas. Other cities and airports were added in the following weeks. Although with limited capacity and added security of course, airports were still gradually reopening for business.
2 days it took.
Let that sink in for a moment, 2 days only.
Can you imagine such an event occuring in 2021 with all we know today and what we experienced recently. Do you think authorities would be willing to resume normal operations within a couple of days ? Probably not.
My contention is that our value hierarchy has continued shifting during the last couple of decades. Security and caution in our lives has now surpassed other values in our western societies.
Back then, governmental representatives were also surrounded by advisors and experts in diplomacy, terrorism, airport security, scientists and the like that most likely proposed a longer shutdown of commercial flights. But in the end, economic imperatives prevailed, civil liberties were protected and projecting an image of force and courage was a more important imperative.
Education
Already in 1990’s, the culture was heading into more and more of a cautious paradigm gradually implementing an increasing number of safety and health regulations (from smoking rules to reduced speed limits to child security and so forth).
Untempered individualism was slowly being curtailed, almost vilified. It eventually became synonymous with most of the negative outcomes from our economic and social systems.
This trend was also observed in the education system where new values of safety permeated the academic world especially when the Millennials generation were coming of age and entering universities.
Demands for censorships (even self-censorship) in the transmissions of ideas became increasingly common on campuses. Not only the physical world needed to be secured, but the intellectual sphere as well.
Social psychologist Jonathan Haidt, himself a practicing academic in a US university, examined and analyzed this phenomenon he experienced first hand.
This short excerpt from his book, co-authored by Greg Lukianoff, summarizes this new value structure where safety trumps confrontation to any idea that does not suit the contemporary outlook towards life.
“ Safetyism is the cult of safety - an obsession with eliminating threats (both real and imagined) to the point at which people become unwilling to make reasonable trade-offs demanded by other practical and moral concerns. Safetyism deprives young people of the experiences that their antifragile minds need, thereby making them more fragile, anxious, and prone to seeing themselves as victims.”
Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt, The Coddling of the America Mind,
Haidt eloquently argues throughout the book that we are making people weaker by not exposing them to all sorts of conflicts at a young age. Like a muscle, we psychologically need to practice and “stress” our brains to conflicting interests and the like.
That being said, I do not wish to extrapolate further in this text on the positive or negative outcome of such a particular trend in academia. Again, it was just to demonstrate the extent of transition of our value hierarchy.
In short, we find that our approach to academic life and ideas (intellectual discourse) is similar to our response to the physical world.
Politics
For political outcomes, the logic is similar in the sense that cultural traits and priorities must shift before we see an impact in electoral results for example. Politicians will follow the dominant cultural path laid out by their constituents.
We have the leaders that we deserve, right ?
A better way of putting it would be that our leaders mirror the value structure of their electors.
On culture influencing political leaning:
“ People’s political opinions are mostly not thought-out or analytical so much as an expression of what they think is valuable, cool, scary, smart, stupid, impressive to their friends.
People generally put more of their hearts and free time into cultural pursuits – from mass media and video game consumption to churches, schools, museums, gun clubs, bowling leagues, etc. – than political ones, so the attitudes that pervade the larger spaces of their lives affect the smaller ones, not just in what they believe but who they know and trust.”
Dan McLaughlin, lawyer & senior writer for the National Review
Culture will change first, politics second.
Bottomline, in all of this ordeal, we should at least be honest and humble with ourselves by understanding a little better the psychological framework behind our behavior.
Hopefully, we will be lucid enough to consider the fact that our emotions and values take precedent on our rational mind in most situations.
In closing, another quote from Jonathan Haidt, social psychologist:
“ Intuitions come first, strategic reasoning second.”
When aware of this basic human characteristic, we see ourselves in a different light.
Merci Patrick. Je me demande depuis plusieurs années si ce besoin de sécurité n’est pas importé par la capacité des médias de nous montrer la moindre accident sur terre à tout moments de la journée. En 1942, au Canada en pleine guerre mondiale à une époque où les plus grands genocides de l’histoire ont eu lieu, je ne pense pas que le sentiment d’insécurité était aussi fort. Les nouvelles arrivaient une fois par jour par le journal (écrit) ou la radio (audio). Pour avoir des images (censurées) il fallait aller au cinéma. Aujourd’hui, je me lève et voit des “catastrophes” et des “horreurs” en direct et qui se passent partout dans le monde alors que je n’ai pas encore pris mon déjeuner. Et finalement ça n’arrête pas jusqu’au soir.
Pourtant l’espérance de vie des humains n’a jamais été aussi grande, le nombre de personnes éduquées également et la plupart des paramètres sociaux économiques ne se sont jamais aussi bien portés dans l’histoire humaine.
Ce besoin de sécurité qui nous porte n’a jamais été aussi fort alors que nos vies n’ont jamais été aussi sécurisés.
Des fois je me dis qu’un “confinement médiatique” régulier nous aiderait à mieux gérer ces angoisses sécuritaires.
Je le pratique sur une base régulière depuis 18 mois et il n’est pas rare que je me trouve moins émotif que mes amis consommateurs de médias en tous genres.
Ou peut-être n’est ce là qu’un biais de confirmation de mon cerveau.
Au plaisir Pat.
I hadn't thought of the example you gave from 9/11. I imagine if something like that were to happen today, flights would probably still be grounded. Another insight to be had here is the permanence of temporary safety measures.
Yes, we were flying again in two days. But two decades later we're still taking off our shoes and walking through x-ray machines at the behest of an agency that only has a 7% success rate in detecting contraband.