In my research career I’ve worked in both industrial and academic environments. One of the things I observed over time was the increasing lure and stranglehold of something called interdisciplinary research.
Essentially, it became harder and harder to obtain research funding unless your research proposal could demonstrate benefit by the inter-lacing of fundamental particle physics, the growth of dolphin fins, and basket weaving - or some other arbitrary combination of disciplines.
We all got very good at writing fabricated, but convincing, glowing summaries outlining the interdisciplinary nature of the work. We’d team up with people doing other things than us, working in different disciplines, and write the most egregious, but beautifully interdisciplinary, bullshit. The managers seemed to like it.
It was a word I came to despise; another one of those politically-charged but essentially meaningless bullshit words beloved of mediocre managers everywhere. After a couple of decades in industrial research, leveraging synergies, disrupting technological eco-systems, engaging with stakeholders in an orgy of interdisciplinary excess, and massaging key performance indicators till my brain hurt, I lost some patience and moved to academia.
It was some improvement, but interdisciplinarity was still often a key requirement in any funding round for research grants where I was working.
The problem here isn’t that the cross-fertilization of ideas from different disciplines is bad - far from it - it’s great and often necessary to solve complex technological problems. The problem is the assumption that it had to be mandated and this would, magically, guarantee a higher probability of success. These managers seemed to latch on to the fact that some projects required cross-collaboration to succeed and decided that it was, therefore, necessary for everything.
It’s an example of this one-size-fits-all thinking that seems to have become so entrenched in recent times. You can be as opposed to racism as much as you like, but if you’re not opposed to it in precisely the correct way, then you’re part of the problem. If you don’t bend the knee, or raise your fisted hand in the air, whilst pledging your undying love and devotion for BLM - you’re almost Hitler.
If you don’t observe all the covid-safe rituals, the masks, the distancing, if you have concerns about the vaccines, if you don’t believe covid is the most deadly threat faced by mankind since deadly threats were invented, then you’re a granny-killer, or worse.
The issue is not with the ideas themselves; if you have some idea that you believe to be important for humanity, then of course you’re going to try to convince others. The problem comes when it moves beyond mere persuasion and into the world of coercion.
You might passionately believe that a government-managed economy run on broadly socialist principles is absolutely necessary for the survival of humanity, but there will be people who, just as passionately, believe the exact opposite. What do we about that? If you believe it’s right that your side of the argument gets to suppress and ostracize the other, maybe send the wrong-thinkers to re-education camps for example, then you really have no legitimate grounds for complaint should they do the very same thing to you.
The surreal state of affairs post-covid represents a dangerous tipping point. Over the last decade or so we’ve been steadily marching towards a society in which the expression of certain views and opinions is deemed beyond the pale (is that racist to say that?). That, on the surface, seems unproblematic - to use one of those weasel-words much loved of current commentators. After all, some views in a civilised society ought to be beyond the pale.
The issue isn’t that some views are egregiously offensive, even potentially harmful - we can all think of views and expressions thereof which we find abhorrent. The issue is really about who has the power to define the scope and extent of the boundaries of offence and harm - and to impose consequences for overstepping those boundaries.
Advocating blowing up an abortion clinic, or blowing yourself to kingdom come in a crowded street, all in the name of your particular version of a God - these are views I hope most people would not wish to see promulgated too much. Yet when some scholars and writers call for criticism of feminism to be classed as a “hate crime”, we might wonder whether those boundaries of offence and harm might be in danger of being tightened a bit too much. Who gets to decide where those boundaries should be?
These are not abstract questions. People have lost their jobs and livelihoods for wrong-think, or an (allegedly) intemperate remark on social media. I’m a bit old-fashioned. I have a reverence for the miracle of childbirth. I don’t think women should be chained to the kitchen sink, but I still think giving birth to and raising children is one of the most wonderful things human beings can do. And yes, only women can give birth. The expression of this view, entirely acceptable only a decade ago, is now increasingly being seen as hateful and bigoted.
Is the view that only women can give birth an example of misinformation? If you believe that the correct definition of a woman is “anyone who identifies as a woman”, and by extension “anyone who identifies as a man is a man”, then you’ll think it is misinformation. If, like me, you think that someone’s actual biology is a bloody important factor here, although not the be-all-and-end-all, then you’ll come to a different conclusion.
If it weren’t for covid we’d still be endlessly going in and out of woke and anti-woke rabbit holes with issues like these. Covid has significantly upped the ante. Here’s why.
If I refuse to use your chosen pronoun you might accuse me of causing you “harm”. This notion of harm is entirely vague, subjective and unquantifiable. By making you face up to the momentary irritation of me being an arse I might be making you stronger in the long-term maybe? Who knows? Each assertion here is gloriously vague and arbitrary.
Not so with covid. People have died. We might argue about the exact quantification here, but there can be no doubt that covid has caused actual harm.
I’m going to iron out a few of those wrinkles in my tin foil hat here and indulge in a bit of speculation. Suppose you were a government interested in increasing your control of information. Suppose you wanted the legal power to censor certain views, remove anonymity, link someone’s online activity to things like their health records or bank accounts, then wouldn’t something like covid provide an almost perfect pretext to do so?
Far fetched? Maybe. But right now in the UK we’re facing the introduction of an “online harms” bill which will give the government the power to criminalise the expression of certain views online. It will, for example, give the government powers to censor and make illegal “misinformation” that could have consequences for public health.
Question the efficacy of vaccines? That could dissuade people from getting vaccinated. That’s dangerous - people could die. A huge fine and a jail term for you, sir.
All of a sudden, with covid, we have a seemingly much more quantifiable “harm” than the largely narcissistic and vague definition of harm experienced by mis-pronouning someone. Many people will agree it’s right to prohibit “misinformation” about vaccines.
What about “misinformation” regarding masks? They (allegedly) save lives too, don’t they? Express an opinion that masks don’t work (an opinion which is robustly supported by the available scientific evidence) then you’re putting people’s lives at risk by encouraging people not to wear a mask. Another fine and more jail time for you, sir.
Lockdowns? Sanitizer? Social distancing? The same logic applies to any of the covid-safe rituals many have accepted as life-saving measures and the norm.
During a so-called public health “emergency” then won’t all these (allegedly) life-saving crack-downs on “misinformation” seem so much more reasonable to the average person?
However reasonable these powers to limit “misinformation” might seem on the surface, the precedent they set is chilling. The precedent will have been set that whenever the government of the day deems certain views to be dangerous it will have the power to ruthlessly suppress those views by labelling them as “misinformation”. It matters little whether they exercise those powers very often - the mere threat will be enough.
And don’t forget, it is those in power who get to define and control what is, and what is not, misinformation, or dangerous.
We will have gone from, mostly, free speech, to freezed speech. It is, perhaps, the most dangerous of all the symptoms of covid.