Keir Starmer should stand alone. Darren Staples/Getty Images
The age of neoliberal globalisation is well and truly over. Donald Trump’s volley of executive orders and new tariffs were the final nails in that coffin. In asserting America’s interests so forcefully, the President is cascading the question of self-interest onto all other states.
It is admittedly hard not to enjoy the spectacle. Whether Trump is humiliating the Canadian or Danish governments, the EU or Lord Mandelson, he is forcing through the end of global technocracy. Yet while there are plenty of Western leaders cheering this on, as evident in the delight of Right-wingers such as Nigel Farage and Giorgia Meloni in being invited to Trump’s inauguration, the fact that they’re happy to be pulled along by Trump’s coattails suggests that they, too, are still thinking in globalist rather than national terms.
The fact, moreover, that these populists assume Trump’s victory is their victory too tells us that their political calculations are cast in terms of the ebb and flow of global culture wars, rather than the progress of their own countries. The national interest is, by definition, a national affair, not a matter of narrowly partisan politics. That so many on the Right are thrilled by the new President reveals a mentality still trapped in the bygone era of the first Cold War, in which the success of one’s politics was measured in terms of the strength of one’s international alliances and ideological devotion to a foreign superpower.
This struggle to articulate or defend national interests is not just a matter of the age of the populist leaders, or folk memories of global ideological rivalries. It also reflects the political structure of populism, and how much it remains defined by its opponent: globalist liberalism. Ultimately, both sides represent two sides of the same coin: the absence of institutionalised representation and legitimate mass parties that once comprised the substance of national political life.
The populist shuns representative institutions because it undercuts his efforts to rule directly through personal charisma and connection with the people; the technocrat, for his part, despises representation because it gets in the way of rule by experts. Both share hostility to party-political representation. Yet without it, there can be no means for the nation to imprint its demands on the state. The national interest remains to be served.
Britain, at least, should be in a better position to carve out its own position in this new world order. This is not only because, by Trump’s reckoning, the UK has a trade deficit with the US and is thus less likely to be subject to tariffs — for now. More important is the fact that Britain is in a stronger position because it was among the first to make a lasting break with globalism with the Brexit in 2016. It also has a long, if buried, history of non-alignment and independence as seen in the era of “splendid isolation” that ruled British foreign policy across most of the 19th century. These are deep resources to draw on in a new era of national interest politics.
Belatedly, even some mainstream politicians are now realising this. In a sharp denunciation of wars of intervention and neo-conservative regime change, shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick concluded that Britain should adopt a Palmerstonian foreign policy, ruthlessly focused on self-interest. Jenrick was name-checking Henry John Temple (1784-1865), the Viscount Palmerston, the Victorian-era statesman most widely remembered for his famous dictum that Britain has no eternal allies or enemies, only eternal interests. In his study of dissent over British foreign policy, AJP Taylor recounts that the famous phrase was delivered “to a thin house” in 1848 and deployed to defend Palmerston’s record against one of his most determined and maniacal opponents, the cranky Tory aristocrat David Urquhart, who was convinced Palmerston was a Russian agent.
While the same smears of being in the pay of Moscow still meet any criticisms of intervention or British expression of national interest today, our circumstances are otherwise greatly changed. The policy of splendid isolation — itself a retrospective label — was improvised after Britain’s withdrawal in 1822 from the Congress system, the global policing regime established in 1815 by the victors of the Napoleonic Wars. Following this early Brexit from a precocious effort at global governance, Britain sought to avoid entangling alliances with continental powers while maintaining her international naval supremacy.
Today, however, Britain’s policy is almost exactly the reverse across every register. That’s clear from our obsession with strengthening global governance, to our hopeless preoccupation with the so-called Special Relationship. Both Tory and Labour governments have pursued the redoubling of commitments to the UN and Nato as a means to mitigate the risks of national independence that came with the Brexit vote.
We seem, in short, to have plenty of permanent friends — yet no permanent interests. Our naval power, it goes without saying, is not only reduced in material terms, but also built around our allies rather than British strength. We rename attack submarines to avoid offending our allies, while the nuclear warheads carried by our ballistic missile submarines are dependent on US technology and support to function.
What would a Palmerstonian foreign policy mean in such a context? In the first place, it would require a lucid reckoning with change. Rather than serving the national interest, the cost of protecting global sea lanes by maintaining British naval power on a world scale today would be an act of national self-sacrifice, or even self-annihilation. Whatever we might seek to achieve with naval power today would necessarily have to be in coalition. In light of even America’s inability to stamp out threats to global trade such as the Houthi chokehold on the Red Sea, the diminished utility of global naval power combined with the fact Britain is an island would have to be off-set by greater economic self-sufficiency as opposed to free trade liberalism.
Although Britain will always be a trading nation — not least by virtue of being an island — plenty could be done to enhance our self-sufficiency. Restoring control over Britain’s borders would be a vital step not only in strengthening security but also forcing business to cultivate a skilled national labour force. Rebuilding industry, reshoring critical supply chains, building new nuclear power stations and expanding fossil fuel production in the North Sea would all be good starts. With this groundwork in place, Britain could then start reestablishing permanent interests — rather than cultivating reliance on permanent friends. As these interests will be dictated in part both by geography and history, they will be significant continuities in British foreign policy. But maintaining friendly relations with our neighbours need not mean tying ourselves up in the entangling alliances that Palmerston sought to avoid.
None of this will be easy. Time and again, British leaders have shown themselves unable to think independently. Battered by catastrophic unpopularity so early in his premiership, many in Keir Starmer’s Labour Party clearly hope that crawling back to Brussels will make up for his domestic weakness. At the same time, Starmer is under fire from Trump, who has said the UK is “out of line” but can be managed without the need for punitive tariffs. At any rate, Starmer’s opponents should resist the urge to cheer Trump on: to do so would be to accept Trump’s humiliating designation of the UK as a vassal state that can be easily wrangled. There would be little point in ending a permanent friendship with Brussels, only to cling more tightly to another with Washington.
Britain’s post-war policy of seeking to be the trans-Atlantic bridge between Europe and the US has unsurprisingly resulted only in Europe and the US trampling all over British interests as they cross. Britain should be thinking more in terms of balancing between the two, carefully maintaining ties with both while seizing advantage wherever it presents itself, whether in trade or security: including pursuing connections with more distant powers such as China if need be.
It goes without saying, of course, that if there is to be a new age of Palmerstonian foreign policy, it will require more than simply repeating the cliches of a dead prime minister’s speeches, owning the libs and hoping foreign leaders will humiliate your domestic opponents. It will require brave and vigorous national leadership, willing to pursue the kind of disruption that Trump is enacting in US foreign policy. For 30 years, if not longer, our foreign policy has been dedicated to globalist ends — solving climate change, global poverty, human rights. It is time to make foreign policy serve national needs, and in the context of Britain today this would mean in service of the pursuit of national renewal.
For now, however, Britain’s permanent interests are buried beneath the rubble of our permanent friendships. If we are to excavate those interests, it will require a willingness to cast aside the debris of Cold War-era alliances and membership of crumbling 20th-century organisations. If we are to have a new Palmerstonian foreign policy, we must be willing to endure the risks that will come with an exhilarating new era of splendid isolation.
Philip Cunliffe is Associate Professor of International Relations at the Department of Risk and Disaster Reduction, University College London. He is author or editor of nine books, including most recently, The National Interest: Politics after Globalization (2025).
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SubscribeA thought provoking article.
The media in many respects has a conflict of interest. We see it time and again where there is a pressing issue of major importance. It benefits the media to exaggerate and prolong the ‘debate’ so that it can sell copy. Interesting that a newspaper in Sydney recently photoshopped a photo of a surfing beach at Manly to make it seem that people were not social distancing. The media helps to whip up hysteria, and increasingly Government policy is made ‘on the hoof’ in response to media pressure. Policy implemented quickly is often poor and ill thought through leading to negative and unforeseen consequences. In the case of the lockdown, there are many, many examples of policy leading to illogical removals of freedoms for some beyond mountain biking and surfing. As Matthew Crawford points out, many aspects of the restrictions seem to disproportionately affect the less powerful groups within society. Indeed, it is the less powerful who are exposing themselves to the virus working, doing the non-glamorous but essential jobs, in care homes, supermarkets, running public transport, etc. while office workers carry on in the safety of their own homes. While told that “we are all in this together”, it is clear that some are disproportionately losing their freedoms and lives for the safety and convenience of others. There is also a risk that some of those lost freedoms will not be fully restored when this is all over.
Yes, the behaviour of the MSM during this crisis has been disgusting, even by their appallingly low standards. I have progressively ‘walked away’ from the MSM over the last 20 years and now refuse to fund any of it.
One frustration for MSM in this crisis might be that although their viewing and circulation figures are well up, there is a signifcant downturn in advertising so they cannot capitalise on it.
They certainly whipped up the hysteria which led to the so-called U-turn in Covid policy -a disastrous consequence of media influence- but now they desperately need business to return to normal so they can get the revenue they depend upon for their survival.
Hello. I agree with your comments. However, I have some sympathy for governments making legislative mistakes at the time in that every day counted and they had to move fast. The UK’s death toll is 5 times higher than Germany’s because we were 1 week slower moving to a lockdown – and 100 times higher than Japan because we were a little over 2 weeks slower than them. That is the extraordinary impact of rapid exponential growth. In the UK, courts are now overturning many of the convictions secured by over-zealous police forces in those early weeks and the MSM is holding the government’s feet fairly firmly to the fire on this issue amongst others.
The UK’s death toll probably has more to do with the lack of planning. By all accounts there were many meetings over the years discussing the possibility of a pandemic but insufficient measures had been put in place to cope effectively. Years of austerity had also reduced capacity within the health service. A big contrast to Korea, Germany and others who were able to act quickly and decisively because they had plans in place and, importantly, the necessary resources at their disposal.
“When this is all over”.
No, it is all over now; And we’ve done it ourselves! Wonderful! Who could ever have guessed it?
Consummatum est.
Great article.
Particularly like this line (possibly the most succinct summation of PC I have heard):
The flip side to this power grab is the increasing disregard and respect of the institutions that enforce the laws (police, judiciary, other government arms with ‘statutory powers’ ) and those that are deemed to keep us informed (MSM in its various forms) , the latter have become ‘clickbate’ harvesters rather than sources of information.
The relevance of these institutions is no longer a given.
As far as I’m concern the MSM lost its relevance years ago. Most public institutions likewise.
I run a blog covering blood antibody testing and devices.
I was gobsmacked by MSM safetyism after reporting on a research evaluation of rapid antibody test kits, which the researchers said were (for just one quote) “Good to excellent.”
Only to see the NY Times slash the rapid tests as “inconsistent,” “unreliable,” “inaccurate,” etc. ” obviously not understanding, or not reading, but certainly not caring, what was actually written in the report.
It took me some time to puzzle out the syllogism: antibody testing -> some people test positive, showing they’ve had Covid in the past -> these people might think they are immune -> thus may stop social distancing or want to go back to work -> we can’t have that.
So the NYT sees it as its “responsible” public advocacy job to raise “concerns” (read, doubts) about the science all the way down that line: the tests are no good; antibodies may not mean immunity; maybe you can still spread the virus even if you’re not infected. Etc.
All of which might be worth debating, but does the NYT show any interest in such a weighing of evidence on open science issues? Hell no. Their mind is made up until the WHO, or unnamed ‘public health officials,’ give them new guidance.
Wrote about that incident here:
https://medium.com/@wmbates…
And on media coverage of another Zombie Covid story (survivors getting re-infected), see:
https://medium.com/@wmbates…
Interesting article. In the UK the state has been to big for a long time and is now bigger still with the absurd removal of our civil liberties and an incoherent approach to saving lives. Will we ever get them back? If only we had followed the Swedish approach for the response to the virus and if only we had started on reducing the state with our overbearing civil service and many quangos earlier.
Agree with every word – Particularly like the final comment ‘The ceremonies of political correctness……….. dogmas that nobody believes…….but ….useful instrument of social control’ – So Supreme Soviet/Animal Farm/1984/CCP and soon us?
“How many fingers am I holding up Winston?” You echoed my on thoughts. A well written article.
Powerful writing!
It won’t be long before we have to fill in a risk assessment and method statement, wear full body armour and PPE before we leave home.
I wish you well. California is beautiful, we lived in west San Jose for many years. If you’re not a community organizer or activist, at some point you’ll be forced to give in to someone or some group that has built up enough “power” to change things and it’s typically a “lockdown” on an activity that seems innocuous enough. It can become oppressive. We biked 3-5 days a week in the Cupertino foothills. I look back and miss it, but after reading your article, I’m sure the situation has grown more controlled and difficult. It’s just life in California, unfortunately. Power-hungry brainiacs ” it’s quite a force to deal with when all you want to do is work off the stress of the day.
Safetyism, like political correctness, is the devil spawn of feminism, and of women now being in prominent institutional roles. Mommies fret about safety and say “Wear your golashes. Be safe.” Dads say, “Let’s wrestle. Have fun out there.” No woman ever took a shovel out on a mountain trail and built a jump. This is the purview of the masculine, and a world that has become a place of stultifying nannyism can not tolerate boys, on bikes, carrying shovels, in the fresh air, probably mercifully unhelmeted too, far from feminism’s cold, lifeless clutches.
Yes, the way in which Democratic governors in the US (and the left here, to some extent) have seized the opportunity to crush the human spirit is chilling. We have always known that these people are malicious, but even I had not suspected this level of evil. But in the US, at least, I believe the voters are noticing this and will take their revenge. Just this week, In loognie-leftie California of all places, the Republicans flipped a Congressional seat with a substantial swing.
Nice to see Huizinga mentioned. I’ve read a couple of his books but not ‘Homo Ludens’, which is obviously the most relevant here.
I am frankly astonished at your naivety!
There is no depth, or nor ever has been, to which these ‘people’ will not stoop.
This is a battle where no quarter shall be asked, nor ever given.
The normal translation for Ludens is Games. Gladiatorial Games in the Arena. As ‘they’ said : “Venare, Lavare, Ludere, Ridere, Occ est Vivere”. eg :
‘To Hunt to Bathe to Play to Laugh, that is to Live!’
Sic Gloria Transit Mundi!
Well said.
I’m afraid this article is a little bit too wordy for me to get to grips with, but I do get that it seems to be a very American point of view with apparently a multitude of illogical restrictions to deal with. That would annoy the heck out of me. That is one thing I think Sweden here has managed to avoid (always a lot of criticism here too obviously). The restrictions and recommendations have been largely well-researched and easy to grasp the logic of, as well as taking the health of people in general, especially children and the youth into account. The conclusions he draws seem very far fetched but possibly true. Maybe you have to be American or at least living in the US to be able to judge that.
Sadly I think it rings every bit as true here in France, while friends and family in the UK are also concerned by the tentacles of the state spreading every deeper into everyday lives. The optimist in me believes those in power are trying to do their best while grappling with an impossible situation, the cynic in me believes they are winding the ratchet of control with glee.
Certainly rings true in Britain. I think this article is wonderful and expresses perfectly the underlying malaise many are feeling at government response to this virus.
Perhaps the removal of standard freedoms in the west, though certainly extreme and OTT, is based on ignorance of how to treat this new virulent virus? So the policies vary so much from a fairly relaxed approach in Sweden to drastic measures in South Korea and Taiwan and Germany, Canada. One thing has emerged is that covid19 deaths are highest by far in the age group of over 60s. 95% here in Ontario. So including all under 60 in lockdowns seems to ignore this fact. Confusion reigns and nowhere more than under the headbanger ignoramus in the White House. You call him ‘clumsy’ Matthew. How generous of you!
Bravo.
This is a really good article. When asked what his guiding principle was, Douglas Mac Arthur answered ‘the defense of the United States of America’. Contrast with today’s version: ‘keeping us safe’. But I’m afraid that there is an even larger fault line at work best described by Michael Anton in ‘The Flight 93 Election’ which is to say the fear of life versus the love of life: This is insane. This is the mark of a party, a society, a country, a people, a civilization that wants to die.
I just finished reading The Decadent Society by Ross Duthout. It’s an interesting contemplation of what becomes of “a civilisation that wants to die.”
Thank you so much for this article. It shows signs of robust sanity which is widely lacking around the world.
Very interesting. I was especially struck by the footnote about the NYT slideshow, and by this quote: At what point do the ceremonies of political correctness become a mere façade, a set of dogmas that nobody actually believes, but which make a useful instrument of social control? It’s important to point out, as this article does, that the imposition of political correctness and of the dictates of the ever-encroaching Left is a one-way ratchet.
Since I am in the category of the vulnerable population, I wanted to add my two cents from my perspective. At first, we didn’t know what the novel corona virus was or how dangerous it was or even how it was spread. It may have made sense to be extremely cautious while the heads of state made preparations for the worst case scenario. Some leaders responded very quickly while others took a wait and see attitude and some, like Sweden decided to just plow through with as much caution as possible without damaging the economy any more than necessary. They must have a much better communication system (news outlet) than we have here in the US because they saw that they had a plan and were willing to follow it. First, they protected the older and sicker among them. Then they decided as individuals how much caution to use in order to protect themselves. Yes, their death toll is higher than other Scandinavian counties, but we will not know the whole story until the crisis is past, because Denmark, Finland and Norway will have to open their economies eventually. People can’t shelter in place indefinitley. The virus will still be with us and the economic damage will have been done. Also, in the total death count they will have to include the additional suicides and drug and alcohol related deaths.
Here in the US our course of action is mainly determined by the political response which has been horrible. Politicians are likely scared to death to open the economy too soon or to stay at home too long. Whatever they do they will face criticism from the media unless they are far left politicians like so many who seem to wield power over their constituents that is far beyond necessary. Those on the right who have dared to open too soon face criticism from the right and the left. Those who do it right are confused about how to decide which businesses are allowed to open and when. President Trump made a big mistake when he allowed the doctors to dictate the terms, but he is accused of being callous when he tries to moderate their demands.
People should give President Trump credit for closing the border quickly and for involving the private sector in order to get the equipment that the governors were supposed to have on hand and providing more hospital capacity than they needed.
Sweden’s medical executive is apparently independent from the political executive, which may be worth looking at. Nonetheless, both the UK and US seem to be driven by the political agendas of the media, which is a big problem if you want a calm and rational public debate.
Before we had things like “Media Studies” at university, journalists used to strive for a kind of detached and robust reporting that informed. Now it seems to be all about “exclusive” that “expose” something outrageous, the more outrageous the better they’ve done their job.
Maybe the “Media Studies” is not the reason, and its the 24/7 news cycle and the competition for an ever dwindling audience. But it doesn’t feel like there are any grown up conversations in this environment. In the UK we have the funding model for the NHS, triple locked pensions, and all kinds of unsustainable things you just can’t talk about. In the US, there are gun laws, the powerful lobby groups that control senators etc.
I’d take all of it over Russia, China, Turkey, KSA etc, but we should be better than this. Sweden seems far more grown up.
Will school children need PPE for PE?
What about RE? Where is God in all this tosh?
I love neologisms. Making up words isn’t just a sign of intelligence, it’s a sign of intelligent development. The more we understand, the more words we need to communicate the intricacies of our understanding.
However there is an existing word that encompasses safetyism and puts it into context. This will be a connection few want to make.
The word is cultism.
Safetyism is one if the primal drivers in the formation of cults and, if unresolved, always creates a cult — even if just a cult of one dichotomized soul scaring the shit out of themself and ordering themself around like a child.
“Cult” as I’m using it is a clearly identifiable entity with unmistakable characteristics. At this point, the only reason it isn’t clear to most people is that so much that we consider normal and necessary is actually cultic.
—
Here in BC, Canada, long term care homes are closed to families and the care workers they hire personally to care for their loved ones. This is not a law; it is “advice” , “recommendation” of the provincial health officer, a technocrat who now has a large following as a mother/auntie substitute. The result is that elders – the most vulnerable – are suffering, perhaps more likely to die sooner, lacking love, care, and supervision of the care they are receiving, and the staff cannot keep up with the resulting increased work load. The obvious implication of this virus (and many others) is that institutionalizing humans is unwise from a contagion, health, economic, and humanitarian points of view. We need to support families and friends rather than institutional settings to do and provide for the care work for their own elders, kids, handicapped in family-controlled space.
On the safetyism agenda, it is interesting to note how 7-8 weeks ago, under media pressure, the Government closed schools to stop the spread of the virus. Now, because we need to get the economy moving, we are all being told that it is safe to send children to school. Indeed, some of the same media outlets that were clamouring to get schools closed, are now criticising teachers and unions for questioning whether it is safe to send children back. The virus is not a direct threat to the next generation but, like the young mountain bikers in the article, they lack power and are just pawns in a game that they will have to pay for later in life.
Late to the party, but Theo. Dalyrmple’s comments on PC from 8/15/05 are apropos:
Political correctness is communist propaganda writ small. In my study of communist societies, I came to the conclusion that the purpose of communist propaganda was not to persuade or convince, nor to inform, but to humiliate; and therefore, the less it corresponded to reality the better. When people are forced to remain silent when they are being told the most obvious lies, or even worse when they are forced to repeat the lies themselves, they lose once and for all their sense of probity. To assent to obvious lies is to co-operate with evil, and in some small way to become evil oneself. One’s standing to resist anything is thus eroded, and even destroyed. A society of emasculated liars is easy to control. I think if you examine political correctness, it has the same effect and is intended to.
(“Our Culture, What’s Left Of It”, Frontpage.com interview w. Jaime Glasov now lost forever in the wastes of the internet.)
Safety nazis is what we usually call these folks. Anybody who works for a living has had to deal with these kind of bureaucrats from Labor & Industry for quite a while.
Obviously their numbers and reach have metastasized due to our ongoing panic pandemic. All in all it’s about the technocracy. Unaccountable and unelected experts are ushering in the new global order. Welcome to the new AbNormal, citizen.
Yikes, this article was written two years ago. I couldn’t wade through it all, I stopped at the point where Crawford referred to John Lennon’s song ‘Imagine’ as infantile. Childlike perhaps, but that’s where the sweetness is, the innocent longing for what might be through the unjaded eyes of a child. To have lost that capacity is surely something to grieve along with what has been lost.
Sorry to say it, but from across the pond this looks like a FoxNews hit piece with more syllables. But the mode of dissemblance is the same: half-truths twisted into their opposite.
For example, the author claims that “opprobrium” is heaped on a “low-risk” drug (chloroquine)
while the New York Times applauds other doctors who “experiment” with a different drug,
estrogen. Lazy readers won’t bother to check the NYT story which describes the doctors
REQUESTING CLINICAL TRIALS for the drug — just as they had for chloroquine– NOT
experimenting with them as the author suggests. You see, clinical trials for chloroquine are
exactly what is missing as every informed person knows by now. Crawford’s tale is designed
to enhance the “us versus the elitists” narrative over the actual “us versus science” reality embodied in untested Covid /chloroquine therapy.
I am both a mountain biker and hiker. The elitism, hypocrisy, resentments between the two
groups which Crawford pivots around is absent where I live. I suspect it is where you live, too.
Here in the mountains of Tennessee we call this “hogwash”. You may have another word for it.
Here in the English shires we would say “bollocks”.
Here in the English shires, we would say nonsense. Anything stronger or of a more vernacular nature, would be prohibited by the Censor.
Further regarding the idea that racism is a “pseudo emergency.” Have you noticed that the mainstream narrative, in textbooks and even in US National-Parks museum displays describes the acquisition of the SouthWest and California as “Westward Expansion,” despite the fact that for decades well-documented histories have been describing that acquisition as conquest. Have you noticed that the overwhelming majority of the descendants of the people who were conquered remain at lower socio-economic levels, and more importantly do not control the natural resources of the region? Are these facts not evidence that racism is an emergency in America?
The article by Mathew comes across to me as a selfish spoilt boy who wants everything for himself and sod the rest . I expect it has escaped him that the more people who are creeping off to play games in the hills are included in his silliness . It has not obviously occurred to him that he and his mind set are likely to stealing lives by their actions . The more immature ones who go tearing about up & down the bike tracks are far more likely to injure them selves & need professional medical help thus diverting much need life supporting medical aid from those in dire need of it .
Wait till six of seven of your close family & friends end up snuffing it due to Corona & perhaps you’ll have grown up enough to understand that this freedom to do as you please is truly detrimental to society the majority of the time .
Hold on! Aren’t you going ‘over the top’ a bit?
This is not the Black Death. It is in fact, as I’m sure you know, only a rather mild dose of traditional flu (the old man’s friend).
It selectively slaughters the old and to lapse into the vernacular, the knackered. Is that not so?
So cheer up, much worse is to come, but not for some time, hopefully.
As Mark correctly points out, David is over the top about the risk of this virus, particularly its risk to relatively healthy and relatively young people.
Also, I think that even at the time this article was written (mid-May) it had become clear that brief periods of contact outdoors present a very low risk of infection. The main way this virus spreads is when people spend a lot of time close to each other inside, particularly enhanced by factors such as singing (generating lots of droplets) or the chilled air and tight quarters in meat processing facilities.
In his pursuit of safetyism the author chooses to attack, in his footnote, the New York Times for allegedly creating a “pseudo emergency of race.” He offers no support for his judgment. Almost any way you look at it, America is probably more integrally infected with racism than with Covid 19. Is the author familiar with the histories of slavery, reconstruction, Jim-Crowism, and the civil rights movement? Has he read Frederick Douglas, James Baldwin, Maya Angelou, or Ta-Nehisi Coates? Does he know that sociological studies still consistently find discrimination in the real estate and banking industries? Does he have any friends of color who tell him they feel safe and nurtured in American society? Mine say quite the opposite. As a person who passes for “White,” I myself feel harmed by racism. The New York Times may make mistakes, but they are correct to spotlight racism where ever reporters find it. It pollutes our national life. It endangers the lives of adults and children. It is an emergency.
What dreadful bien pensant drivel. Your nation is the guarantor of a Free World. Racism is a ridiculously fringe issue that is easily dismissed by strength of character.
Do you think, for example, you would get, as you say “a better deal ” from the Chinese?
Pull yourself together, this is no time for such nauseating self pity.
These naïve views of ‘freedom’ will not help in the end. Those countries which are now beginning to experience a drop in infections were very strict with lockdown at the outset, punished people who went their own way and are now seeing results, with children back at school and the work-force also slowly getting back to their jobs. Unfortunately, neither the UK, (run by a Merrie Monarch at present), nor the USA, seems to be doing as well as countries who understand the meaning of discipline. This is not a time for emphasis on empty libertarianism or money-making, but for safeguarding the health of the nation. Sadly, few leaders or pundits seem to care about the health of individuals. Sweden, by the way, is long and slender with a tiny population and miniscule demographic density. It is an outrider in the world in many ways. I would not include her, or countries with a population of 5 million or less (like New Zealand for instance) in the equation.
Convenient that you would just dismiss Sweden’s results as simply a function of their population size and low density. Are you aware that most of the places in the USA that are clamoring for the economic suicide to end ALSO live in areas that have lower population and low density? Your slip is also showing with the term “naïve views of ‘freedom'” (nice touch to put freedom in quotes, as if those who disagree with you somehow don’t even understand what freedom IS).
The Stockholm area, where the vast majority of cases/deaths are, is medium to high density.
Just clarifying.
Withdraw my comment on the basis that I wish to preserve my anonymity please – do not publish it.
Sweden has a population of 10.3 million, plus 1.6 million live in the Stockholm Urban Area.
It maybe “long and slender” but by European standards it is not “tiny”.
So, is it that you just can’t stomach Sweden’s very pragmatic approach to this grossly inflated synthetic ‘crisis’?
‘Safetyism’ is used here to set up respect for objective consequences as a bogeyman by associating it with external control on the playful side of human nature. External controls are superfluous where respect for objective consequences is generally part of common sense. With coronavirus it’s not the over 70s who need to be restricted, they largely get the point. It’s those young at heart types struggling to break free that can’t be trusted to act wisely for their own good or anyone else’s, they’re the ones who remind us of the need for controls.
This kind of thinking has led in South Africa to a lockdown ban on the sale of cigarettes (because smokers can’t look after their own lungs, and share cigarettes, thus spreading infection) and alcohol (because people might get drunk at home and hurt other people, and take up hospital beds).
In the first 5 weeks, outside exercise was also banned, because we couldn’t be trusted to do it safety.
Where does this logic stop? One may as well ban people under 25 from driving because they are more likely to be involved in fatal accidents. Or ban sex because it might transmit HIV.
Except that the demands placed on the “young at heart” aren’t in their own interest. Coronavirus is irrelevant to anyone under 40, but they’re being asked to sacrifice their livelihoods to save very privileged baby boomers. We all need to be mindful of this generational inequality.
I have the greatest sympathy for the ‘young at heart’ in this -confined and restricted by a hysterical response to a virus which will not (in the vast, vast majority of cases) cause them any serious damage. Their lives put on hold, their efforts in study furloughed, their progression through life postponed indefinitely and yet castigated as feckless and irresponsible. If they are ‘struggling to break free’ as you put it then I applaud them for it.
TJ Putnam expresses exactly the softly authoritarian nanny-statism that is, from what I can tell, the dominant worldview of public health officials in the U.S. even in normal times. They generally have a very narrow view of life that focuses solely on health outcomes without giving much thought to the inherent value of leaving people free to make their own choices.