In order to function in the world, we each construct an internal and incomplete model of reality. From how the physical world functions in terms of what we have to deal with – I’m not talking quantum mechanics – to how the social world works. These models help guide our behaviors and choices, and, because they are often shared models that guide social groups, we often modify each others’ behaviors via various communications modes: writing, pictures, social media, art, etc.
These originally began as survival strategies, but have gone beyond that. For example, the internal models may include constructions of what the Divine is, and what it demands. In the absence of real evidence of, or communications with, a Divine entity, we are left with baroque imagination, human desires, and, of course, inflicted models: charisma, intimidation, and warfare are, indisputably, modes of communications.
The advent of the Age of Reason and Science has served to obscure the reality of these various models. This is unsurprising, since mental models are definitionally not tangible; the Theory of Mind, the idea that, unlike most animals, we recognize that other creatures have a mind, and that it models reality, is not something we can reach out and feel. We recognize it primarily by behaviors, whether directly observed or from historical sources; artifacts, either contemporary or from archaeological sites; and the like.
And the models of reality associated with the Age of Reason and Science have enjoyed an almost unreasonable success in the areas of medicine and technology, leading to greater comfort, longer lifetimes, and a generally accepted notion that we’re better off than when, say, smallpox was rampant; philosophy has struggled to keep up, by comparison. Indeed, one might say the currently dominant model reality, powered by reason, excites a certain jealousy among adherents to old models of reality.
As ever, social evolution, or the competition between social aggregates, has demanded certain features of most such entities. Of interest here is the hierarchy of roles, and bodies to fill them, because it serves to efficiently order societal groups to fulfill those requirements peculiar to them. For example, the most basic societal structure, underlying all others in some geographical space, has responsibility for the physical needs basic to the human organism: sustenance, first and foremost; defense; and sanitation come immediately to mind. In response to these needs, we’ve developed several models of governance: monarchies, theocracies, democracies are familiar forms, while a few more outre forms have existed. Each of these have a hierarchy as a defining characteristic, as well as the methods, stable or chaotic, of filling the roles defined by the hierarchy. By comparison, a model train club may have more modest needs, such as a provider of a physical space, a historian, PR officer, etc. The hierarchy may be less stable, or, better put, more pliable, as well as flatter, but it will exist. In comparison to an undifferentiated mob, a group possessing a recognized and respected hierarchy has a greater chance of surviving a conflict. A hierarchy is generally considered a social good.
Accompanying most, or even all, such hierarchies is the concept of prestige. Prestige brings influence and esteem, at the very least; in more important societal structures it may bring wealth, more desirable foodstuffs, access to religious items, even unparalleled sexual access.
Prestige, particularly for those who lack it, or have lacked it, and suffered the boot heel of disdain, is a precious commodity. For all that I write very little of it here, prestige is akin to the gold of the avaricious 1500s Spanish: It motivates choices and behaviors even more firmly than do moral systems; indeed, moral systems often assign prestige as a way to entice adherents to certain actions. The prestige of orthodoxies can be the pillars of societies.
Or its undoing.
Prestige’s position on the meter of social goodness is in the eye of the beholder; it can certainly lead to uncertain outcomes.
So why am I blathering? I’ve noticed that the frustration and bewilderment of pundits commenting on vaccines and treatments for Covid-19 who are not of the far-right persuasion seems to be growing. Here’s former Republican Jennifer Rubin:
That so many people refuse to receive a vaccine approved by the Food and Drug Administration but trust the FDA-approved monoclonal antibody treatment for covid-19 or — worse — unproven drugs such as the horse dewormer ivermectin, suggests a level of irrationality and oppositional behavior (Biden want us to get shots, so we don’t!) more indicative of a cult than people capable of self-governance.
On a more general level, the MAGA cult’s claim that their anger is the result of elite condescension or economic dislocation never made much sense. MAGA politicians and their most virulent supporters seem more motivated — to the point of self-destruction — by unhinged and illogical resentment. Ending that phenomenon may be more challenging than ending the pandemic itself. [WaPo]
Notice Rubin’s use of the terms irrationality and oppositional. Steve Benen remarks “I will never understand this” when it comes to … vigilante treatments:
Anti-vaccine Facebook groups have a new message for their community members: Don’t go to the emergency room, and get your loved ones out of intensive care units.
Consumed by conspiracy theories claiming that doctors are preventing unvaccinated patients from receiving miracle cures or are even killing them on purpose, some people in anti-vaccine and pro-ivermectin Facebook groups are telling those with Covid-19 to stay away from hospitals and instead try increasingly dangerous at-home treatments, according to posts seen by NBC News over the past few weeks.
The messages represent an escalation in the mistrust of medical professionals in groups that have sprung up in recent months on social media platforms, which have tried to crack down on Covid misinformation. And it’s something that some doctors say they’re seeing manifest in their hospitals as they have filled up because of the most recent delta variant wave. …
Others are turning away from hospitals altogether. In recent weeks, some anti-vaccine Facebook groups and conspiracy theory influencers on the encrypted messaging app Telegram have offered instructions on how to get family members released from the hospital, usually by insisting they be transferred into hospice care, and have recorded those they’ve successfully removed from hospitals for viral videos.
Some people in groups that formed recently to promote the false cure ivermectin, an anti-parasite treatment, have claimed extracting Covid patients from hospitals is pivotal so that they can self-medicate at home with ivermectin. But as the patients begin to realize that ivermectin by itself is not effective, the groups have begun recommending a series of increasingly hazardous at-home treatments, such as gargling with iodine, and nebulizing and inhaling hydrogen peroxide, calling it part of a “protocol.” [NBC News]
Speaking as someone who shares with Benen a model of reality in which Science & Reason is dominant, I can understand his lament: it’s not easy to assume a viewpoint that is not rooted in the belief that the collection of protocols that is science is the best, if imperfect, way to understand and respond to reality.
But the part that I think Benen and Rubin really miss is the prestige component. Whenever joining a group that is an alternative view of reality, there is going to be more than a bit of prestige that goes along with it within that group. You are special for perceiving that reality is not what the dominant model depicts. That, in turn, feeds the ego.
So now the dominant model has vaccines available to strongly ameliorate Covid-19, and the alternative models are faced with a challenge: do they bow to the dominant model’s decree?
Or do they declare their model superior?
For the sake of the egos of the leaders, and in fact just about all members, it’s the latter. They have social position, they have wealth coming in, they have influence. For those who have no allegiance to the religiously agnostic dominant model of science & reason, it’s an easy decision: preserve social position.
Preserve and, by inventing and pushing ‘miracle treatments’ that are so much better than the dominant treatment of a vaccine, even if so much more expensive, improve one’s social position.
Or, for those pastors too lazy to even push that, just proclaim that God would never permit members of this congregation to become ill – and, when they do, claim it’s a blessing on the congregation. (No, I’m not making that up. I’m too lazy to supply the links.)
And the lure of prestige for the ill. You have the Covid, you take the Ivermectin, you get better, your prestige improves because both you and your social group makes the usual logical error of thinking the treatment cured the problem in the absence of a real study that can distinguish causation from incidental. But by following the orthodoxy of the group, the prestige increased. And that’s a good thing.
So long as you survive the tribulation.
But the fact of the matter is this: all models of reality are tested against reality, and those that are inferior models will cause suffering to their adherents. But the siren song of the ego is, truly, a siren song. Its wailing engenders gross moral misdeeds that are horrifying to those whose allegiance doesn’t lie in servicing their egos through leadership or suffering.
From those who are still adherents to inferior models of reality we can expect even more exotic claims of cures, of non-existence, of things I can’t even imagine, and will no doubt find horrifying when they say it.
But the dying and illness will continue. All for the sake of prestige.
