psychology

Blinding Obsession — The Rise of the Covid Karen

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I’ll admit, it went through me when I heard that my brother had the clear symptoms of a Covid-19 infection. Sure, it was far enough along that the deadliness of the disease wasn’t so statistically foreboding anymore. But emotionally there was a certain significance that was given to this and a bit of dread as well. What if this loss of taste developed into serious respiratory issues? My brother or one of his family members, who had been at home with him during the shutdown, could die.

My brother is fine. He was never formally diagnosed with the virus, they would not test him given that his symptoms were not life-threatening or severe and he could ride it out at home. The probabilities were always in his favor as a relatively young person in good health. However, my own anxieties, despite my own understanding that the risk of him dying was not that much greater than it ever was for him or other members of my family, were something of interest to the more rational half of my consciousness. Why would I worry at all when the threat really wasn’t that great?

It is one of those quirks of human psychology, I suppose, that we can go from not knowing a person at all to being totally obsessed, wondering how we ever live our life without, “text me when you are home safe,” with them. Likewise, when something ‘novel’ comes into our lives, be it a new video game or an unknown virus, we can’t get our mind off of it. We are fascinated with this unknown commodity, whether we want to protect it (as in a new love interest) or protect ourselves from it, our thoughts will go there over and over again. It can be consuming, it can be blinding as well.

Fear of Covid-19 has much to do with availability heuristic or the tendency people have to judge the likelihood of an event based on how readily they can recall said event. This is what makes anecdotes so powerful. Some stories of young, otherwise healthy, people getting a disease and dying will feature far more prominently in our minds than the dozens lost in car accidents. I have a good friend who had a friend my age die and knows of another. The media has fed into this bias by highlighting the suffering of some. It feels likely enough and yet here’s the reality of the situation:

“To put things in perspective, the virus is now known to have an infection fatality rate for most people under 65 that is no more dangerous than driving 13 to 101 miles per day. Even by conservative estimates, the odds of COVID-19 death are roughly in line with existing baseline odds of dying in any given year.”

How Fear, Groupthink Drove Unnecessary Global Lockdowns

That is not to minimalize the threat. I know a couple of cases of people who have become seriously ill due to Covid-19 and, yes, many people have died who would’ve otherwise lived. The virus can be quite contagious in certain conditions, it can send a relatively young person to the hospital, I believe that many more will fall ill and some of them will die.

But, the thing is, our outsized focus on this virus is to minimize the many other risks equal or greater in consequence brought on by our response. It is deeply troubling to me that so many people seem so completely unable to comprehend the strong possibility that, with our saving people from the specter of Covid-19 and obsession on one risk out of many, we are ultimately killing more people by suicides, drug overdoses, neglected cancer screenings (along with other medical procedures being postponed) and starvation.

Why is it selfish for a young economically vulnerable person to work, to put food on their tables, and not selfish for you to order them home in a vain attempt to save grandma?

Furthermore, going back to my momentary fear of losing my brother, there was always a far greater risk to my brother’s life from him driving to come visit than from the infection. Why don’t I call him every fifteen minutes to make sure he’s wearing his seat belt? If physical safety was the only concern, then what would posses me to encourage him to take up flying years ago or to join him in the cockpit years later? It makes no logical sense for me to have a terrible fear of a virus that kills a small percentage of the infected while accepting or even encouraging more dangerous activities.

Rise of the Covid Crazed Karens

Many imagine a zombie apocalypse: The living dead, creatures of human flesh and yet no longer human anymore. Well, we are living in such times. The zombies are here and they are here to rob you of life with their devouring fears. And, unlike the fantasy horror movies, these are zombies that you aren’t allowed to shoot. But beware, if you decide not to comply with their screeching demands and choose to live as a free person, they may make real on their threat to shoot you.

Think I’m exaggerating?

Think again.

Dr. Jennifer Rager-Kay, a gun control activist and school board member, not too far down the road from me. Decided that it was completely okay and rational to threaten to kill people for refusing to wear masks around her or her family. Dr Rager-Kay (aka “Karen”) was in such a lathered up panic about a virus that has a very low probability of death that she was actually willing to murder. Makes one think of the expression, “Physician, heal thyself.” This woman is obviously smart enough to make it through medical school, but seems woefully lacking in rationality and ability to keep things in perspective.

Now, in defense of Karens everywhere, most are content to only steal away your life by imposing their “new normal” and won’t actually shoot you.

However, they all have a sort of nurture gone bad, the assessment of their own importance that is shared by hall monitors everywhere. Possessed by their lack of contol or relative insignificance an a complex and unpredictable world, they wield their petty authority over their neighbors given to them by state snitch lines, wag their sanctimonious fingers at anyone who doesn’t meet their own standard, and are completely willing to imprison you for your own good. They stopped thinking months ago when their minds were reprogrammed, infected by fearful anecdotes, their cognitive function addled by scary projections, never considering new evidence, and they are now mindless zombies stuck on repeat, “Covid bad, must stop Covid!”

Of course, Covid Crazed Karens are not only women nor only the meddlesome troublemakers of memes, there are many man and people in positions of real political power who are willing to kill you for your own good and seem even to have some sort of sadistic satisfaction watching people squirm under their smoothering care. If only you would start thinking their way, sacrifice your all for their misguided public safety crusade, then everything would be just fine. You see, they think like a psychopath, that your suffering is only a result of your defiance against their wise council, that it would not be tyranny if you would simply submit to their lawless edicts.

You must be broken, like Winston in Orwell’s 1984, who after torture finally becomes a zombie to the cult of the totalitarian state:

“Years it had taken him to learn what kind of smile was hidden beneath the dark moustache. O cruel, needless misunderstanding! O stubborn, self-willed exile from the loving breast! Two gin-scented tears trickled down the sides of his nose. But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother.”

George Orwell, 1984

We may not have Big Brother. But we do have Karen watching and her fear-driven lust for control over you won’t be satiated once Covid-19 has passed. No, you are already being conditioned, you will accept her “new normal” or you will die. And, if you don’t die from the virus be sure she will punish you severely for her being wrong. A Karen is never wrong, being wrong does not compute with her one track mind, and she will kill you, if need be, to prove the point. The zombie apocalypse is upon us and these privileged elites are out for the blood of you ignorant and unwashed common folk.

But Covid Karen is not the only threat, Denial Deranged Darnell, well he’ll tell you masks don’t work because he once had a fart that stained his underwear and, with pride, he will tell you how he survived his entire life never once wearing a seat belt, that he actually drives better drunk, and you can’t tell him ’nuffin! Watch out for him as well, he may not have the power of government on his side, but he has already killed a security guard in Detroit and wounded a Waffle House cook in Aurora, Colorado, for the “disrespect” of mask policies. He thinks carrying a firearm to a protest makes him tough. No wonder so many Karens think the masses need to be controlled!

Fear Is Contagious. Fear Is Deadlier Than Coronavirus.

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Spanish flu of 1918 was unusual, amongst modern influenza outbreaks, because it killed young and otherwise healthy people.  One of the possible reasons for this is an immune reaction called “cytokine storm” in which overreaction of a bodily system leads to a cascade of other failures and eventually to death.  I’ll let my friends who are medical professionals correct me on the details, but that is the basic idea and sufficient explanation to set the stage for this blog post.

The Herd Reacts…

The psychology of human behavior, in particularly how it pertains to people in groups, is a fascinating study.  We are social creatures and because of this our own response to anything can be easily influenced by the reaction of group.  If one person or several, who are considered credible by the group, start to do something new, it won’t be very long before there are many others copying them.  That is how fads and fashions are born, that is why religious people conform, we want to share in the credibility of the credible by doing what they are doing.  We do this unconsciously, like the contagious yawn, and can help explain what happened last week.

All of the cancelations of the past few days may very well come down to the actions of one man.  Rudy Gobert, days before becoming the first NBA athlete to positive for the Covid-19 virus, decided it would be funny to deliberately touch all the mics and recording devices in a news conference.  This led to the NBA suspending their seasons and, like Mrs O’Leary’s cow kicking over the lantern starting the Great Chicago Fire in 1871, one man’s caviler attitude could very well have triggered the response of the NBA and the long list of other cancelations that soon followed.

It goes like this: The NBA canceled because 1) a few of their players tested positive, 2) they realized they were no longer in control of the situation, and 3) they could possibly be held liable if the death of someone’s grandpa could be traced back to one of their sporting events.  So, in the name of public safety and all things good and right, they decided to approach this unknown risk by abruptly ending their season.  This, in turn, very likely influenced other leagues to follow suit for fear of their own inaction, despite knowledge of risk, becoming a heyday for trial lawyers everywhere or simply a public relations disaster.

The more leagues and events that cancelled, the more others felt pressured to do the same.  Sure, this was something rationally justified, the idea of “flattening the curve” or slowing the spread of a disease by “social distancing” soon became common parlance, and yet the spread of this idea to start canceling events seems also to be very much like the simultaneous run on toilet paper.  Anxiety disorder is something I know a little about and, while I’ve never been tempted to hoard toilet paper, it certainly has gotten in the way of my better judgement. 

So is the reaction to Covid-19 wholly rational or was it post hoc rationalization and basically a collective panic attack?

Nothing To Fear But Fear Itself…

I have a friend who was an Air Force medic during the First Gulf War.  He told me an anecdote you’ll never hear reported in the news, a behavior that doesn’t make any rational sense and yet is something he encountered a few times in the lead up to combat in Iraq. 

Apparently some of the young soldiers were so keyed up and anxious that they couldn’t take the pressure of the wait anymore, they would find a place where they had a little privacy (the porta-potties as I recall) and take their own life using the firearm issued to them.

It makes absolutely no sense.  Why would someone, facing the danger of death, be so anxious that they would actually kill themselves?

In times of crisis people want to do something, anything, to lose that feeling of powerlessness.  That is probably the reason why many people have recently started to stock up on things that really would not help them.  That is why young soldiers, concerned about losing their life, took their own life rather than continue to wait in fear.  Fear often leads to an irrational response.  And our most educated and elite, given responsibility to make decisions, are not immune to this kind of irrational “do something” impulse either.  Our leaders are capable of panic as much as any of us.

It reminds me of the story of Easy Company, told in the series “Band of Brothers,” where the Company Commander, 1st Lieutenant Norman S. Dike Jr. (or “Foxhole Norman”), was portrayed as being frozen by combat and unable to make a decision.  He had obviously been talented enough to rise up through the ranks and become an officer, but apparently he lacked the calm and collectedness to be an effective leader outside of a controlled predictable environment.  He had to be replaced by a more common and practical man, with the right instincts to get the job done:

During the assault on Foy, Dike had ordered a platoon to go on a flanking mission around the rear of the town. During their charge, he ordered them to take cover. His subordinates informed him they were going to get killed because they were sitting ducks.  At the same time, Captain Richard Winters, former commander of Easy Company and the Battalion executive officer, tried radioing him to tell him the same thing. Having no idea how to control the situation, Dike froze. Carwood Lipton, at that time the company’s first sergeant, later put it: “He fell apart.” He was relieved during fighting at Foy by First Lieutenant Ronald Speirs under orders from Captain Winters, then moved on to become an aide to Maxwell Taylor, 101st Airborne Division.”

Military Wiki, Norman Dike

Could it be those whom have power in our institutions are men (and women) of similar caliber to Dike?  Smart, capable of working their way up through the established system, and yet lacking the courage necessary to lead society through uncharted waters?  Some of them freeze in fear, others overreact in their anxieties, while others (seeing the bigger picture) are more more able to make good decisions and navigate the stressful circumstances of the present moment.  Running the NBA or being at the top of a government agency does not mean that a person is qualified to manage a crisis and in some cases those in those positions are probably going to make matters worse rather than better.

Self-sabatoge, Fear-based Overreaction and Titanic Failures…

It is really hard to know, actually, in a politically polarized time, when many are willing to cut off their nose to spite their face, what is a real crisis and what is merely an opportunity to try to undermine a political opponent.  In fact, there are some in this country who seem quite willing to destroy the economy in a desperate bid to get their power back and a few who even seemed to cheer the plunge in the markets.  When some see personal benefit in feeding hysteria and panic, it is hard to know who too trust when clearly not everyone is on the same team anymore.  

But that said, I would tend to see the fear as being real and the reaction a sincere effort to prevent the worst case scenario from happening.  It was easy, as Covid-19, ravaged China, to deny the severity of the situation.  For one, the Chinese government is not the most trustworthy source of information (add to the that they had every reason to minimize the outbreak as not to scare away investment dollars) and, two, it is very easy to dimiss China as a them rather one of us.  The real wakeup call was Italy, a country clearly on par with our own in terms of medicine, and how quickly a few isolated cases suddenly exploded.  And, unlike China, where the government kept a tight lid on information, the truth was allowed to escape.

What has happened since I see as being similar to when a driver dozes off, wakes up while crossing the rumble strips, and reactively jerks the wheel.  Their immediate reaction may spare them a trip into the trees, but it could also be an over-reaction that takes them head-on into an incoming tractor trailer.  It could be too little too late.  There are those right now who call the idea of “flattening the curve” a “deadly delusion” an that only complete containment strategy will make a difference.  But then I begin to wonder has the opportunity to save those most vulnerable been missed a month or so ago when we failed to close our borders when it was clear that China was dealing with something unprecedented in our own times?

They say had the HMS Titanic ran straight into the iceberg, rather than barely grazed it, some would’ve died from the violent collision and yet the ship would likely haved stayed afloat.  It is also strong possibility that they could have avoided a collision with the iceberg altogether if they had only used the rudder rather than try to reverse the engines.  The Titanic, unlike many ships of the period, had two outer propellers run off piston engines and one in the center that was powered by a turbine.  The outer propellers could be reversed quickly, the inner could not, and the result of their attempt to reverse being turbulence over the rudder which made the magnificent ship unresponsive.

Sometimes I wonder if it is too late to spare the lives that will be lost if we slam headlong into Covid-19 and let be what will be.  Yes, people will die.  But people will die regardless and crippling the economy may only add to the death count.  Don’t get me wrong, I believe cancelling unnecessary activities and avoiding large group gatherings is a precaution worth taking, as is practicing good hygiene, washing hands, wearing masks and self-quarantine.  However, I would also argue that wrecking the economy will only make matters far worse and must also be avoided at all necessary costs.

In my own mind there is a vast space between paralyzing fear or irrational over-reaction and blinding arrogance.  We can and should be getting prepared, but with deliberate calm.  We are at war, the strength of our enemy is not fully known, we must not recklessly expose our vulnerable flanks, we dare never freeze in fear.  It would be wise to buy some time, to allow better countermeasures to be deployed and that does mean social distancing, less travel, more cleanliness, and really what should be common sense.

What Is Coming?

Despite our best effort, war is coming. We can expect that in the coming weeks that case numbers will jump dramatically and, not only that, but ICU beds will begin to fill at an alarming rate.  We could see abandoned shopping centers and malls converted into makeshift hospitals.  We will probably see some “wartime medicine” or triage, where those most likely to survive are given access to treatment over those who have only a slim chance are basically left to die, so snap out of your dismissive stupor and conspiratorial denial now or you will not be prepared for the battle of the coming days.  

That is the truth. 

We are emotional beings, not wholly rational. 

We make poor decisions, both collectively and individually, that can turn a dire circumstance into an absolute disaster.

If you are seeing this only in terms of politics, who gets blamed or who benefits, you are the problem more than the virus.  If you have filled your cart with toilet paper because suddenly you feel vulnerable and don’t know what to do, stop thinking only about yourself and stop feeding into the anxieties of others.  It is time to buckle down, put aside partisan differences, selfish ambitions, and act together as one nation again.

In the end, remember, like the case of many who caught Spanish flu and died because of their strong (yet unhelpful) response, overreaction can be more deadly than the actual threat.  We cannot bring the economy to a grinding halt out of fear, instead we must thread the needle with a prudent and properly measured reaction.  There is no point in stopping the virus by killing the patient.  We should pray that our leaders are given extraordinarily wisdom and calm for this unprecedented event.

God bless!