[10/365] misplaced pandemic blame

[cosmolinguist]

Interesting to read this, which I saw shared a lot yesterday.

The notion of behavioural fatigue associated with adherence to covid restrictions (so-called “pandemic fatigue”) has been a recurrent theme throughout the crisis.... Linked to the notion that people in general will find it hard to adhere due to shared human psychological frailties is the idea that when particular individuals break the rules, it is due to their particular psychological failings. They are either too weak, too stupid, or too immoral to do the right thing.

(I confess I have harbored a lot of thoughts like this as I've walked to work and gone to shops and things. Though I have noticed other patterns in this too: I'd add "too white" and "too toxic masculinity" to the list of reasons people don't think the rules apply to them.)

this narrative explains the worsening pandemic in terms of widespread non-adherence to rules which is a function of poor psychological motivations, which in turn are particularly prevalent in some people and some communities.

Each of these assumptions is both problematic and indeed dangerous....

To the surprise of many, adherence to stringent behavioural regulations has remained extremely high (over 90%), even though many people are suffering considerably, both financially and psychologically....However, there is one key area where the perception of low adherence is not at odds with the reality. That concerns levels of self-isolation in those who are infected or else are contacts of those who test positive for the virus...Unlike hand-hygiene and social distancing, self-isolation requires support from others to be possible.

While I've been very grumpy about the failings in British culture that quarantine measures reveal, like class hierarchy and entitlement, I am aware that the real problem is that the government is not stepping in to provide the support that would be needed for successful self-isolation: it's not testing and tracing, it's not paying people to stay home, it's not saving small businesses like pubs and restaurants.

I should've known better really: something I am used to from my USian upbringing is that anything blamed on individuals' moral character suits rich powerful people who don't want to have to share their wealth.

The way in which issues of adherence have been portrayed and understood during this pandemic have been spectacularly wrong. If anything, the headline stories should not be of “fatigue” and “covidiots”’ and house parties. They should highlight the remarkable and enduring resilience of the great majority of the population – including those who have been most subject to blame such as students and young people in general – even in the absence of adequate support and guidance from government. Indeed, in many ways the narratives of blame serve to project the real frailties of government policy onto the imagined frailties of public psychology.

Comments

[jesse_the_k]

Good points!

[conuly]

Link doesn't work.

[alatefeline]

Thank you.

[silveradept]

There are definitely some people who do think that the rules don't apply to them, others who deny the reality around them, and we've been seeing a lot of them in electoral and other coverage around here in the States. The perspective that they're supposed to be a small minority of people is helpful, but I think also that because I see those people as dangerous, I'm going to focus on them a lot more than I otherwise might. Even though there's also a significant systemic component to this that's also been failing extremely hard here in the States and has been making things worse because it's forcing people into the decisions between going to work infected (or possibly infected) and losing their house or their ability to eat while they try to isolate themselves. So there's plenty of well-deserved blame to go in all sorts of places.