Musings on: Coronavirus Parallels - An Easter Article, Richard Ramsbotham
Part of the sea of uncertainty that we are all swimming in is possibly due to not considering the underlying drivers of the situation we are living through. All the cards have been thrown in the air, and landed in places we cannot see. Richard Ramsbotham rigourously digs around in the collective state to uncover these places.
He makes some amusing and terrifying parallels with the Cold War. We are in a ‘Doctrine State, where the state issues bulletins telling people the official line on what is taking place and how people are to behave. People are not free to travel across borders. The media is state controlled, in that people now accept that alternative viewpoints are dangerous and unacceptable. There are queues in shops and rationing. Religious services are banned. Police can fine you if you visit a friend.
What is interesting is how scientists are now not to be questioned or contradicted. The reasoning behind what they say is not understood, for only the scientists can do this; they are the authority. We must obey the lockdown instructions, believe in the science, because we cannot understand it, therefore we must believe it, ‘scientific authoritarianism’ is running modern society:
‘The problem here is the dictatorial stance, regardless of whether each of us, individually, either understand or agree to it. Particularly when we are facing measures relating to far more than our health, when we are now seeing the collapse of our whole economic system and of almost everyone’s livelihoods, and an end to much of life as we know it.’
He discusses the historical origins for this way of conducting government and authority, going back to the 18th Century. Science and technology are the new order:
‘It is important for now, though, to note the fundamental characteristic of scientism and technocracy and all that works in a similar spirit – their religious character, their presentation of their so-called scientific findings, laws and doctrines with all the force of absolute religious dogma that are to be believed in and obeyed. It goes without saying, I hope, that this is completely inappropriate for our age.’
What is fascinating is that he then draws links in the same way with the climate change movement and religion. The mantra of this movement is ‘unite behind the science’, in the same way we must accept what the scientists say about the coronavirus. Climate deniers are heretics, and climate scientists are the high priests of the movement. Man made climate change is a contemporary equivalent to the Catholic attitudes towards sin:
‘According to this attitude we are all sinners – and should feel guilty not only about our ‘carbon footprint’, but also about our whole sinful existence, in that we breathe out carbon dioxide with every breath. Believers must seek atonement - and the modern equivalent of this is the sense of atonement to be felt if one lessens one’s carbon footprint. And there are even ‘indulgences’! The concept of ‘carbon credits’ is almost identical to the medieval concept of indulgences, through which one could buy exoneration from the sins one had committed – or now from the carbon one has used.’
He goes on to discuss a dark side to the corporate and governmental response to climate change. It is seen as an opportunity to make vast amounts of money, in the ‘financialization of Nature’ in the
‘Commodification of every single being and habitat in the natural world, by giving them each a commercial value to ‘protect’ them, through which the banks will sell these ‘ecosystem services’ are already making vast profits’.
This is a wide ranging article that may prompt further reading on a number of threads. As ever, ignorance is the enemy. Now more than ever it reminds us to keeping questioning the orthodoxy presented to us, and have an open mind about other discourse.
Ramsbotham’s original article: file:///home/chronos/u-80b11c6a979a2a2f2bca522d2380a47966310fdc/MyFiles/Downloads/Richard%20Ramsbotham%20New%20View%20Spring%202020.pdf