Mind Control

We have a Google group named "Egremont Neighbors" where people can post things like "can you recommend a plumber" or "the garden club will meet next Tuesday" or "is anyone going to Boston that could give me a ride."   It's very useful and can promote neighborliness.

Today someone posted a tsk-tsk that she was walking somewhere, and saw people not wearing masks, and how can we enforce mask wearing?

I could go on and on about why in the world people are sheepishly and unquestioningly doing what the governor and our town officials tell them to do.  If they said "jump up and down and chant the Lord's prayer," I suspect most of my  fellow Egremonters would comply.  That subject deserves serious and extensive analysis and commentary.

But for now I want to raise a corollary issue: The trend toward shaming and reporting neighbors.  There are many historical examples of how dangerous that is. Almost every tyrannical regime engages in the practice of encoraging the reporting of violations by others.  Reporting crimes like murder or burglary is beneficial in a society.  Reporting crimes against the state in the nature of disagreeing with the authorities is not.  Cambodia under the khmer rouge and Germany under the nazis are two examples.  There are many others.

Restrictions on the populace, even where they are resisted by a minority, are always justified as being in the best interest of everyone and the nation. That is the stated justification for the current mandatory shutdowns, social distancing and stay at home orders.   But it is all too easy to slide from that into restrictions on particular categories of the citizenry.  If the "data" show that slavs spread the virus more than others, why not restrictions applicable just to slavs?  You get the idea.

RESIST!