JuliusGoat

JuliusGoat, 2 days ago

And let’s pretend that in this society there exists a well-funded media infrastructure fully committed to validating the choices of these deliberately ignorant people, and increasing their ignorance by broadcasting further disinformation, false equivalencies, and outright lies.

JuliusGoat, 2 days ago

Or, try this: Imagine a government that decided only to fight the virus to the extent that capital was protected, and, outside of those bounds, would simply exercise a practiced ignorance, or else claim the virus was simply a part of the immutable unchangeable way things now are.

JuliusGoat, 2 days ago

Before long you might decide that such a society was committed, as a first priority, to ignorance of things already known. Before long you might even have to conclude such people had aligned themselves with the spread of the virus, no matter their stated intents.

JuliusGoat, 2 days ago

In our story, these people didn’t align themselves with the spread of the virus primarily by actively and deliberately spreading it. They aligned themselves with it by simply refusing to know things that are already known.

They refused to know things already known because they didn’t want to accept the responsibility that came with knowledge, because they were intent on avoiding any inconvenience or cost that might come with that responsibility.

JuliusGoat, 2 days ago

I hope this totally hypothetical scenario isn’t too divorced from everyone’s recent experiences to be relatable.

End of story one.

JuliusGoat, 2 days ago

Story two: let’s pretend there’s a disease called “cancer,” and that there’s a person who has it. Let’s say it’s been growing in this person’s body, stealthy and invisible, for long months and years.

Let’s say it’s only made certain localized parts of the body less comfortable as it grew—twinges and aches that in retrospect might have been considered warnings to heed. Now let’s say that for the first time there is an unignorable visible sign; a tumor grown too large to miss.

JuliusGoat, 2 days ago

Let’s imagine a doctor who runs some tests. She prescribes immediate surgery to remove all affected tissue, an aggressive campaign of medication and treatment, frequent testing, and a radical change to diet, exercise, and environment.

JuliusGoat, 2 days ago

Now: Imagine a patient who ignores all symptoms and refuses all the tests. You’d have to assume that—for whatever reason—they don’t want to know the frightening truth. Yes?

Or imagine our patient refuses the treatment, because in their estimation the treatment is too radical.

JuliusGoat, 2 days ago

You’d have to assume the patient had decided, for whatever reason, that the treatment was no longer worth the pain or the cost; that they’d decided instead (as some do) to let matters progress on the established course, with the fatal consequences that choice entails.

Correct?

JuliusGoat, 2 days ago

But now imagine our patient accepts the initial surgery, but refuses the lifestyle changes. You’d have to assume they’d decided that the likelihood of a recurrence wasn’t worth the effort to prevent it, or had deluded themselves that am obvious risk wasn't really a risk.

JuliusGoat, 2 days ago

Imagine our patient makes these decisions not from a difficult-but-clear decision that the fight is not worth the pain of treatment or the cost of change, but because they have decided to imagine—despite any evidence—that the fight can be won without incurring any cost.

JuliusGoat, 2 days ago

Imagine our patient insists that diet and environment don’t affect risk factors for recurrence of cancer, or insists that their body isn’t a system—that what’s happening in one organ in the abdomen can’t possibly affect any other part of the body.

JuliusGoat, 2 days ago

Imagine our patient decides, despite all available evidence and the exhortations of multiple oncologists, that the tumor is the only problem, that the cancer from which it grew doesn’t exist, that the clearly proven environmental factors that fostered it are actually unproven.

Imagine our patient makes their only priority a return to the familiar comfort of their life exactly as it was before they received the knowledge of the diagnosis, and expects health to be the result.

JuliusGoat, 2 days ago

Before long, you’d have to understand our patient as somebody committed, as a first priority, to not knowing things that are already known, in order to try to return to a previous state that is no longer attainable.

Before long, you’d understand that our patient is putting their body in grave danger, not because they’ve made a measured, aware, and purposeful decision about their physical being, but simply because they don’t want to acknowledge the reality in which they now find themselves.

JuliusGoat, 2 days ago

Before long, you’d have to conclude that this patient is aligned with the spread of the cancer, whether or not they claim that as their intent.

Our patient in this story doesn’t align themselves with the spread of the cancer by actively spreading it. They align themselves with it by simply deciding to not know things that are already known, and by not taking active steps to oppose it.

End of story two.

JuliusGoat, 2 days ago

It seems to me that viruses and cancers have a number of clear similarities and intersections. Both are opportunistic, committed only to their own growth. Both consume healthy systems—first destabilizing them, and then, if untreated, compromising them to the point of failure.

JuliusGoat, 2 days ago

In both cases, effective treatment involves: 1) knowledge they exist; 2) a short-term change—often radical, often targeted—to eliminate the threat; 3) a permanent, holistic, watchful, systemic restructuring of priorities and behaviors—to monitor for and prevent recurrence.

JuliusGoat, 2 days ago

In both cases, aligning against the spread requires active, persistent, determined, informed, and transformative action. In both cases, aligning with the spread requires only passivity, which will prevent the needed transformative action.

JuliusGoat, 2 days ago

The differences between viruses and cancers are also instructive.

A deadly virus has no place whatsoever in a healthy system.

A cancer typically grows when a system improperly prioritizes a part of itself that would otherwise be healthy and natural.

JuliusGoat, 2 days ago

With a virus, the challenge is keeping it out of the system entirely, and guarding against mutations.

With a cancer, the challenge itself is systemic. The remedy can be targeted to preserve what is healthy about the affected organ, but eventually it must consider the system from which it grew.

JuliusGoat, 2 days ago

When we find our systems compromised by either cancer or virus, we should not avoid radical and transformative change, if we would align with health.

We should seek radical remedy and transformational change.

We should desire them as if they were survival itself—which they are.

JuliusGoat, 2 days ago

And, if we would align against recurrence, we should never avoid a systemic restructuring, no matter the expense. We should seek it.

We should desire a systemic restructuring as if it were survival itself—which it is.

JuliusGoat, 2 days ago

If we care about health, we must never refuse to know what we know. We must make the remedy as radical as the threat demands.

The cost of ignorance is, eventually, everything.

The cost of knowledge, however painful, can never exceed it.

We don't need to actively spread the disease to align with their spread. We just have to fail to actively oppose them.

Virus and cancer: all either needs to devour a healthy system is for you do nothing.

They’ll do the rest.

JuliusGoat, 2 days ago

So now that we have that out of the way, it’s time to talk about the United States and the world.

It's time to ask the first question we need to ask if we would seek health, which is how did we get here?

https://www.the-reframe.com/very-fine-people-copy/

JuliusGoat, 2 days ago

Very Fine People: Confessions of an American Fool is available for preorder everywhere books are sold and releases on June 25, 2024.

If you were to buy it or ask your library to carry it, I'd say thankee kindly.

Signed preorders available at no extra cost.

https://www.the-reframe.com/vfp-e-book-now-available/