I advocated lockdowns combined with strong social safety net protections and a thorough testing regime and the person still said "yeah but the other effects." When I pressed as to what effects, they said "well children won't be able to socialize." Like yeah.... that's bad, but you know what else can effect a child's mental health: mommy/daddy/granpa/grandma/etc dying from a totally preventable pathogen.... Jesus and this person is in "academia" doing anthro and shit....
I would say don't bring anthro into this, but yeah, anthropologists who aren't explicitly Marxist in their frameworks tend to be incredibly lib and naive. That being said, I think the more 'correct' version of that argument is that lockdowns, when executed efficiently with deadlines are incredibly effective at containing viruses (i.e. China and Vietnam) when combined with followup support and tracing.
However, extended longterm inconsistently enforced half lockdowns are detrimental to people's mental health and social well being. It only kinda solves the problem of hospital overflow, while stressing out your population and creating protocol fatigue from those that are following your protocols. This is even more so with the western conception of society, as individuals will not do things without explicit incentives or punishments. You cannot appeal to society because there is barely a concept of community and those who do have a conceot of community tend to be conservative and primed against these kind of actions.
The west is incredibly fucked here and survives only upon it's accumulated wealth.
It's a matter of incentives and messaging. People were lied to about how long the measures would have to last - top public health officials said the pandemic would last 18+ months, never the "2 weeks" BS that was sold to the public.
People also didn't get anything in return for the inconveniences and chaos. Not everyone has the same risk profile or tolerance, and those being asked to sacrifice their treats who don't feel a risk aren't being given anything in return except "You won't die". Of course they're gonna get mad!
I'm curious, what's your experience in academia? Like what do most people believe? MSNBC shit? "Evo Morales bAd" kinda stuff?
it varies by uni and individual.
lots of critiques of "power" but doing a full on marxist analysis is often frowned on, or seen as reductive.
honestly, the anthros are usually better than the polisci or middle eastern studies. I once had a masters student tell me that democracy was wrong, that not everyone should be able to vote (this was around first trump election).
in my cohort specifically (5 of us), it's me a hardcore marxist, a racist lib, a well-meaning lib (bio), a kinda braindead lib (bernie supporter), and a woman who is pretty lib, but did her research in India/Bangladesh and came back a communist.
others in my program run the gamut, but it's very lib heavy, but like progresive lib, so huge bernie types, some liz/hillary types. a tiny minority of chuds.
academia as a whole in USA is a scam. social sciences/liberal arts specifically.
academia as a whole in USA is a scam. social sciences/liberal arts specifically
Aw man, I know that's true (being an anthro undergrad) but I really want to go back into acedemia to rub some 'lived experience' of years of actual factory work in their faces. A boring fantasy to be sure.
yeah, I also worked in a factory (meat packing) for a bit too, which people find "interesting".
I am from a solid poor background. Grew up in the poorest county in my state, and while obviously had privileges, money from my family wasn't really one of them. All but one of my grad school friends come from rich families (parents have PhDs, doctors, etc).
like thankfully most of the leftist ones are doing what they can to try to counteract that. but it's still so frustrating sometimes...
lots of critiques of “power” but doing a full on marxist analysis is often frowned on, or seen as reductive.
:maduro-katana-2:
I think a lot of people are just very tired of all this, and even people who should know better will reason themselves into a position where they can just try to go on as normal.
That's the insidiousness of the western leader's poor response to covid.
They have half-hearted lockdowns to minimize the impact on the economy (most importantly to minimise the impact on their corporate donors) and keep opening early, letting it spread, then half-heartedly lockdown and repeat. Eventually, you make lockdown look ineffective and the population is so exhausted that you can open up, say it's what the public wants and they'll accept the deaths as a sad fact of life.
Yeah the person also said that even with a lockdown, the virus can "linger in the body" or some shit like that, even past the contagious stage...
Well, that means they can be safely ignored. It's not fucking herpes ffs take 2nd year microbiology.
The discussion really ought to be about the freedom to choose which of our overlords get the guillotine and which get the wall.
Guillotine for the bigger ones to make a spectacle and send a message, wall for the lesser ones for greater efficiency. Boom, solved. Next issue!
starting to think that western people really need to experience some "hard times" -- or at least to find out what it's like to not be such pampered little fucks
It's also important to recognize that these babies include the most highly-educated and prestigious fuckfaces. Roomfuls of PhDs wearing no masks in crowded, tight indoor spaces in the middle of a new variant's meteoric rise.
There is a deep rot in Western culture that could be summed up as a lack of empathy or value for human life - or maybe more accurately, a culture where those are both highly prized in only certain contexts and totally ignored in ones that matter. No cognizance of the misery, even though they are generally empathetic people.
The fact that mass death is ocurring in the USA is more fucking damaging to my goddamned mental health than having to sit at home, WTF
judging by how weird and aggro everyone is in public these days I'm 99% sure everyone else is feeling similiarly unless they're dyed in the wool reactionary psychos
anthro is to sociology etc
The sudden concern for mental health is the same sudden concern for Muslim people despite all the evidence to the contrary. They dont care, it's just a convenient copout they've had in the back pocket.
So this person is actually from the global south smh... They pointed to Afghanistan as showing that "there are other factors." Like bro yeah a pretty weak state that can't enforce public health... yeah I'm sure that doesn't affect anything....
They're right, but ignorant of the fact that none of these "other effects" would be happening if we just did a complete shutdown like China did 8 months ago
So I mentioned the China thing, i.e. how China did a complete lockdown and basically was able to stop the rapid spread of COVID. The person basically denied that what China did worked and when I pressed the facts (less than 5k dead despite a huge population), the person said "well they don't have freedoms." Like what freedoms? The freedom not to die? The freedom to know that your government takes public health seriously? The freedom to feel safe when going out? The word "freedom" means different things, it's not just the "freedom" to infect people...
I had a similar responce from someone the other day when I advocated the same lockdown method as you. They said "You can't because it's against human rights." I was all like "Bruh forcing people to catch a deadly disease is against human rights."
I find they become more amenable to moderate measures if you're a giant edgelord and go "Covid Stalin"
I openly advocated for universal lockdown and squads going door to door vaccinating people street by street at a party last night and got a surprising amount of agreement. That said we're 94% vaccinated here, for what good it is now our premier is pushing for an Omicron Party Chistmas.
I also agree with vaxxx squads, but only because it would lead to huge shoot outs between the cops and Chugs and hopefully set something off.
I get yelled at every time I say this. More and more I think the only way out of this is a revolution, and it wouldn't be a clean one. Academics are mostly awful though. Thoroughly anti-proletarian people.
My dad has a philosophy PHD but doesn't understand Marxism for shit and is as lib as they come. Every time I mention I'm a communist, he just defaults to "BUT BUT BUT WHAT ABOUT THE USSR?"
Exactly. Next time he brings it up, I'll come ready with stats about their industrialization, life expectancy increases, and caloric intake compared to the USA at a similar timeframe.
Has a PhD
Refuses to read before opening their mouth
Curious.
Just sucks cause he's usually actually really good about that shit, but the cold war brainworms got to him for sure when it comes to anything opposing capitalism.
Can you imagine these people having to do the victory gardens from ww2 or some shit. They would starve to death.
