When I read Deirdre McCloskey’s 2006 The Bourgeois Virtues soon after it was published, I was impressed. But when, four years later, I read her follow-up 2010 Bourgeois Dignity, I was gobsmacked. Few books have had as big an impact on my worldview as has Bourgeois Dignity. My deep admiration for this book is apparent in my 2014 essay for Liberty Matters. And nothing that I’ve learned in the intervening seven years has dimmed my assessment of this remarkable work.
Indeed, the earth-shaking events that began in early 2020 have only further impressed upon me the validity of McCloskey’s foundational theme that the ultimate governor of human society is the prevailing set of everyday ideas as these are shaped and spread by the way we talk – and write, and blog, and text, and tweet.
How extraordinarily quickly attitudes changed in 2020. What was unthinkable to do in February was unthinkable not to do in October (and perhaps earlier). Talk in March of using lockdowns to “flatten the curve” within weeks became talk of protecting everyone from Covid-19 indefinitely. Even young people, for whom Covid poses little risk, are to be protected with unprecedented restrictions. Judging by people’s widespread acquiescence to lockdown measures and other mandates, this talk was and continues to be singularly persuasive.
People’s “habit of the lip” (to use one of McCloskey’s favorite descriptions of human conversation) soon included denunciations of those whose talk runs counter to the dominant narrative about Covid. According to this narrative – told by much talking to the public by public-health officials and members of the news media across the globe – Covid is so obviously a titanic threat to human life, and lockdowns so obviously the only effective means of addressing this threat, that any contrary talk must not be tolerated. And those who dare talk contrariwise must be explicitly and harshly ridiculed, thus imposing on these renegades a crushing “dishonor tax” (as in my 2014 essay I called the critical talk aimed in the pre-industrial age at merchants).
If several personal reports made to me are to be believed, this dishonor tax is having its intended effect: Many people who disagree with the mainstream approach to Covid are keeping their silence out of fear of incurring the contempt, or even the wrath, of others.
The validity of the mainstream approach is not here the issue. Whether you support completely or dissent utterly from most governments’ and people’s dramatic reaction to Covid, you cannot help but be impressed with how rapidly talk can change popular attitudes. Of course, in 2020 and 2021 technology supplies many more platforms for talk than were available even a mere quarter century ago. Today, nearly everyone can hear their health ministers, prime ministers, and presidents warn of Covid 24/7. Social media, instant messaging, YouTube, Zoom, and the ubiquity of handheld smartphones multiply and amplify the talk of Covid’s grave dangers and of the need for unprecedented responsive action.
Why the doomsday narrative about Covid became the dominant one is a question for others to answer. Regardless of the reason, in the span of less than a year humanity witnessed, in real time, the awesome power of talk to change ideas, and of ideas to dramatically change behavior, policy, and social arrangements.
Talk about the tremendous power of talk!
READER COMMENTS
AMT
Apr 30 2021 at 3:44pm
Even young people, for whom Covid poses little risk, are to be protected with unprecedented restrictions.
I stopped reading at this sentence because it demonstrates such extreme ignorance your opinion no longer has any value. Anyone with half a brain, nay, a quarter of a brain, understood the restrictions were to prevent young, healthy people from spreading the disease on to those who are more vulnerable.
Jon Murphy
Apr 30 2021 at 4:09pm
That was a post hoc justification of the restrictions, but not the original. Much of the original was “flattening the curve,” which has nothing to do with protecting the most vulunerable. Indeed, even now, protection of the young is frequently given as a justification. For example, most of the arguments against the Great Barrington Declaration and other schemes of “focus protection.”
I did a quick Google search of “justifications for COVID lockdowns” and found some 35.8 million results. The first few pages are all major organizations like the CDC, WHO, Lancet, SAGE saying lockdowns are needed for general protection, not preventing the spread.
AMT
Apr 30 2021 at 5:46pm
Lol. Since it was about preventing hospitals from being overloaded, we are obviously talking about the spread to those people who are vulnerable and would need hospitalization. If you think about it for two seconds, it wasn’t “flatten the curve because we are concerned about how many 21 year olds get sick and stay home from the bar at the same time.” It was about how many people would get dangerously sick and be hospitalized…aka the vulnerable…
Jon Murphy
Apr 30 2021 at 11:06pm
I am sorry, AMT, but that is simply not true. I highly encourage you to go back and look at the early justifications. Or countless breathless headlines from the NYT, WaPo, CNN, CNBC, etc., about how children are getting infected and dying and thus we need lockdowns. Here’s one sample story from Missouri. A simple Google search will find many such stories
Andre
May 1 2021 at 8:24am
Correct. The entire argument was that we wanted to avoid hospitals being overloaded. And the media were playing games like using photos of an overloaded Italian hospital (which they are every year) and claiming it was a NY one to stoke fears and induce compliance.
Besides, the spreading argument in the absence of system overload is nonsense. An exposed young person who does not live with or interact with older people is a bonus toward herd immunity.
We have no idea how things would have proceeded if we’d encouraged young people who don’t live with or interact in close quarters with vulnerable people to go about their lives. It may well be that there would have been a bigger buffer protecting the vulnerable come infection season.
AMT
May 2 2021 at 12:01pm
Thank you for that sample story about the “early justifications,” with an article from December, 8, 2020, about that community’s change in viewpoint to concern for the young. Your incredibly terrible attempts at producing an argument never fail to disappoint!
Monte
May 2 2021 at 10:55pm
AMT,
Your comments might be more palatable without the sprinkling of insults (“half a brain”, “LOL”, ” incredibly terrible attempts”). Pejoratives like these tend to undermine one’s credibility. Please exercise a little decorum.
Respects
Jon Murphy
Apr 30 2021 at 4:24pm
By the way, if you need a primer on how quick justifications changed, I recommend The Price of Panic. One of the virtues of the book is they meticulously document justifications for various policies through the first 6 months of the pandemic. It’s amazing how ad hoc, and frequently unsupported, the vast majority of justifications were/are.
Monte
May 2 2021 at 7:24pm
AMT,
Your comments might be much more palatable without the sprinkling of insults (ie. “LOL”, ” half a brain”, “terrible attempts at producing an argument”). Pejoratives like these only hurt your credibility. Please exercise a little decorum.
Respects…
AlexR
Apr 30 2021 at 5:54pm
For interested folks who currently have very limited time to read such books, can Dignity profitably be read without having read Virtues first?
Jon Murphy
Apr 30 2021 at 11:00pm
You could also read Leave Me Alone and I’ll Make You Rich, which is (as Deidre said to me), the Trilogy summarized.
OneEyedMan
May 1 2021 at 6:54am
You mileage may vary, but I read Bourgeois Dignity without reading Bourgeois Virtues and still liked it a lot.
Thomas Lee Hutcheson
Apr 30 2021 at 6:43pm
“Lockdown” policies, like many others, suffered from lack of economists input into the design of lower-cost, higher benefit interventions.
Phil H
May 2 2021 at 3:17am
This seems very self-contradictory.
“…the ultimate governor of human society is the prevailing set of everyday ideas…”
vs.
“What was unthinkable to do in February was unthinkable not to do in October…”
If both of these are true, then the USA underwent some kind of fundamental transformation over the course of 2020. Now, I know the media casts everything in very apocalyptic terms (Trump was The End Of Civilization and Biden is Economic Disaster)… but a sober commentator can surely take a step back and see that the country is roughly the same as it was a year ago. Things change, sure, but this kind of talk is just frothy hype.
Jon Murphy
May 2 2021 at 9:00am
I do not understand your comment. I do not understand:
1) Where you see a contradiction
2) What your objection is
3) What you think is “apocalyptic”
4) How you can claim the country “is roughly the same as it was a year ago.” That comment only makes sense if you mean literally one year (May 2020 to May 2021), in which case it’s unrelated to Don’s point.
Tom West
May 2 2021 at 3:24pm
I think a lot of this comes down to utility function. Given the data points from all over, you can choose any narrative you like and find examples to support it.
For those who prefer caution over freedom, then it becomes a no-brainer – here are a bunch of data points showing how bad it will be if we don’t lock down (almost everybody dies). For those who prefer freedom over caution, it’s also a no-brainer – here are a bunch of data points showing how bad it will be if we don’t lock down (almost nobody dies).
Given that, this disease becomes an almost perfect subject to let our base preferences dictate our preferred policies. We all can be “following the science” and see anyone opposed as uninformed at best, and evil at worst.
Jon Murphy
May 2 2021 at 4:13pm
That’s not really a “utility function” explanation. That’s a cherry-picking data explanation.
David Seltzer
May 3 2021 at 5:31pm
“Many people who disagree with the mainstream approach to Covid are keeping their silence out of fear of incurring the contempt, or even the wrath, of others.” Alas for many that is true. It seems, those who behave otherwise are to be admired both because they may be correct and, if not, may be open to contrary evidence. Scott Atlas has been excoriated but still stands his ground. I have incurred the contempt of some for challenging the mainstream approach. One threatened physical violence, so adamantly did he disagree with me.
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