In a previous post I wrote about Professor Mattias Desmet’s theory of Mass Formation, which he applies to the societal mania we are seeing around Covid. One area he didn’t delve into much (in that interview at least) is something common to mass formations and totalitarianism throughout history: a scapegoat group.
What I’m about to write is mainly my speculations, so take it with a grain of salt—I’m not a psychologist.
In the interview, Professor Desmet stated:
Another consequence that is very typical for totalitarian states, is that people become radically intolerant for dissonant voices. Because if someone tells another story, if someone claims that the official story is wrong, then this person threatens to wake the people up and they will get angry because they’re confronted with the initial anxiety and the initial psychological discontent. So they direct all that aggression at these dissonant voices.
It seems that another angle to the aggression against dissenting voices is related to what Prof. Desmet shared earlier in the interview: once people are presented with an object which provides an explanation for their pre-existing anxiety and a strategy to deal with it, they follow that strategy at all costs. They begin a heroic collective battle with the object, which results in a euphoric sense of social connection and purpose they previously lacked.
One can see why people in this state could grow very angry with anyone who threatens this new sense of meaning, purpose, and connection. The Emperor doesn’t like being told his beautiful new clothes don’t exist. Not only that, dissenters threaten to derail the entire mission. How many times do we read or hear things like:
“If only those selfish unvaccinated people would do the right thing, we could put this behind us already!”
If your life and sense of purpose have become entirely wrapped up in a goal, no matter how unfeasible, a threat to the achievement of that goal evokes rage. In addition, Covid fanatics really do seem to believe their lives are uniquely under threat from Covid. If I truly believed this particular virus was likely to kill me and that interventions like masks, vaccines, and social distancing worked to stave it off, I’d be pretty angry at people who carelessly put my life at risk by not following them.
However, I think there’s yet another aspect to this scapegoating that reveals an ugly facet of human nature; that is, our desire to see ourselves as righteous and condemn others.
Recently we’re seeing a lot of anecdotes to the effect of “I did everything right, and I still got Covid.” These are often people who strongly condemned “unvaccinated” people and may have even rejoiced in their deaths from Covid or called for them to be excluded from medical care.
Today I came across an article in the Washington Post titled “Thousands who ‘followed the rules’ are about to get covid. They shouldn’t be ashamed.” (link is to the article on an archive site). It tells the story of “Aline”, who for two years “has diligently — desperately, even — protected herself against the coronavirus. Vaccinated and boosted, she took a test last week ahead of holiday travel to Atlanta. She was stunned when it came back positive.”
That’s not the most painful part of the ordeal, though: “I feel very embarrassed and dumb,” she says, and upset that she’s causing her family stress. “It’s eye-opening that I feel so much shame from it. I’m realizing how much judgment I was secretly harboring against people who got it before.”
To me, this beautifully illustrates the idea that Covid orthodoxy has become, for many secular, liberal moderns, a type of religion. Like it or not, we are inescapably religious. We may have rejected God and formal religion, but we still have an innate sense of right and wrong, a sense that we are answerable to this standard, and a strong desire to find ourselves on the right side of that divide.
It’s not hard to see how following Covid rules satisfies this aspect of human nature. We’ve rejected traditional morals and the idea of universal truth, but this leaves us drifting in a relativistic moral sea and we long for objective guidelines to follow. “Follow your heart”, “your truth”, “you do you” - the mantras of our relativistic age - sound beautiful but provide no lodestar in difficulty.
Along comes Covid orthodoxy to give us the rules and laws we innately crave. Wear a mask. Wash your hands. Stay six feet away from other people. Go down the grocery store aisle in this direction. Get vaccinated. Get tested. Stay home for fourteen days if you get sick. If we religiously follow these, we are Good People, and our god will protect us. We are justified in condemning those who are not like us, who are selfish, who are Bad People, who do not follow the rules, who put others at risk.
Except our god is failing. And the only answer to that is shame: I must have done something wrong.
Of course that’s absurd: it’s not a moral failing to get a contagious respiratory disease. And hopefully these experiences cause people to question the narrative they’ve believed. But it won’t solve the underlying problem: the desire to believe ourselves good, and condemn those who make different choices.
We’re all prone to it. That’s why Jesus had to tell us:
“Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you. Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? (Matthew 7:1-3)
This is a passage that secular people love to quote, but love a lot less to apply to themselves, ironically. But that’s not a secular person problem: it’s a human problem.
Jesus told a parable about this problem:
He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt: “Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.’ But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.” (Luke 18:9-14)
There is no room in the gospel for boasting. No room for thinking ourselves better than others because we “followed the rules”. No room for believing we deserve anything we get from God. No room for excluding others.
The grounds on which we come to God are radically plain, swept clear of any human accomplishment, pride, or offering. We come to him absolutely empty, totally needy, 100% dependent on his mercy to save us.
That’s what sets Christianity apart from any other religion or pseudo-religion. And it’s radically good news, once we understand the fact that we can never measure up to his standard: we are freed from the burden of attempting to do so. We just come to him as we are, and humbly accept his forgiveness. Those who cannot or will not admit they haven’t kept all the rules, done everything right, who can’t let go of that heady feeling of self-righteousness and condemning others - will never enter the kingdom of heaven. That door is low and narrow, and it offers no room for anything we bring with us, at all.
For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God (Ephesians 2:8)
This is excellent. 5 siblings and Mom against crazy me. And all I really have is a slew of (unanswered, banned, heretical, treasonous) questions.
Thanks Susannah. Keep your focus on Him. Even if you are only encouraging or preaching to the choir, others will come. “The fragrance of life”