Coronavirus – Social Conformity

The coronavirus pandemic we find ourselves in the middle of has really amplified the ongoing battle of consciousness that has been growing over the past decade.

We are seeing our civil liberties torn away, our privacy rights expelled from existence, our freedom of speech sacrificed at the altar, while deception and manipulation become the new accepted normality.

While these infringements on our freedoms have been creeping in over the past few years with increasing momentum, suddenly in the space of just a few weeks we have found ourselves dropped slam bang in the middle of something you only ever expected to read about in some Orwellian Science-fiction novel.

Two Tribes Go To War

This is a pandemic, make no mistake about that, but it isn’t a coronavirus pandemic. This is a fear pandemic, driven by the belief of a deadly virus which is coming to kill us all.

Fear is the driving factor behind every tyrannical dictator that ever came into power, fear starts wars, fear ultimately ends lives if its evil hooks on a society are not quickly cut off.

There are two tribes forming from this fear pandemic. Those that believe and those that do not. I was going to define the two tribes in far more detail, but I just seemed to be over complicating something which is just a simple black and white, binary difference.

As time goes on, the tensions between these two tribes are building, which was inevitable. The first tribe is fearful of the virus and therefore fearful of the other tribe that doesn’t take the precautions seriously. The second tribe is becoming increasingly frustrated at the other tribe for being so irrationally blind to the facts and naïve to the deception and manipulation.

As the lockdown and other measures continue, this tension will only become more and more intense.

Already we are seeing the fear-driven tribe attempt to uphold the draconian government rules:

Doctor pushes three girls apart and chokes one girl for not social distancing[1]

An 86 year old woman was killed in hospital as another patient shoved her to the ground for not keeping to the social distancing rules.

The woman, Janie Marshall, who had dementia, grabbed onto another patient’s IV pole to regain her balance and orient herself, the police said.

The patient, Cassandra Lundy, 32, had apparently become irate that Ms. Marshall had broken the six feet of personal space recommended to help prevent the spread of the coronavirus, law enforcement officials said. Ms. Lundy shoved the older woman, knocking her to the floor. Ms. Marshall struck her head and died three hours later.[2]

The following video was filmed in Birmingham, England showing a woman attack a man for not keeping to social distancing rules:

Authorities have been encouraging people to snitch on their neighbours and local businesses for failing to abide by the new rules and guess what, they are more than happy to do so.

Police in Spain — sometimes aided by videos and photos posted online by zealous residents, or “balcony police” — have arrested nearly 2,000 people and fined over 230,000 for violating quarantine orders.

In one viral video, the person recording it is heard criticizing a woman who decides to go for a jog and resists police orders to produce her ID card. Another shows a family of four heading to a supermarket carrying a scooter for one of their children while half a dozen neighbors yell at them from the window.

In New Zealand, a police website set up for the public to report violators crashed after too many people tried to access it at once.

Back in Tulsa, Lt. Meulenberg said the department’s call volume has increased substantially with residents ratting out businesses and neighbors alike, though they can’t respond to all of them.[4]

Social Conformity

Social conformity is a natural human response. We naturally want to fit in with our local environment. You can see this phenomenon in action in the following experiment:

I’m sure you’ve all at least heard of the Monkey Ladder experiment? For those that haven’t it goes a little something like this.

A researcher puts five monkeys in a cage. There’s a bunch of bananas hanging from a string, with a ladder leading to the bananas. When the first monkey goes for the bananas, the researcher sprays all five monkeys with freezing water for five minutes. Some time later, when a second monkey inevitably tries to go for the bananas, the researcher once again sprays all five monkeys with the cold water for five minutes. The researcher then puts the hose away and never touches it again. But, when a third monkey tries to go for the bananas, the other four attack him to prevent him from climbing that ladder. They are afraid of the punishment that may come.

Then, the researcher replaces one of the monkeys with a new monkey who wasn’t part of the original experiment and was never sprayed with water. And, as soon as he touches the ladder to go for the bananas, the other four monkeys attack him to keep him from doing so.  If he tries again, they attack him again. Thus, the new monkey learns not to go after the bananas because he’ll get attacked if he does.

The researcher replaces a second monkey with another new monkey. When this monkey goes for the bananas, the other four attack him, including the new monkey who was never sprayed with water. The researcher then continues to replace all the monkeys one at a time, until all five of the original monkeys are removed from the cage. Each time the newcomer goes for the bananas, the others attack, even when they, as new monkeys, have never received punishment for going after the bananas. And thus, the new monkeys, who have never been sprayed with cold water, learn not to go after the temptation of the bananas.

The researchers hypothesize that, if they were to ask the monkeys why they don’t go for the bananas, they’d answer “because that’s the way it’s always been done”.

Whether this experiment actually ever happened is up for debate, but regardless it is a known psychological response. And, it’s exactly what we are seeing happen all around the world, people grouping together to uphold the rules set by their masters through the use of fear.

The longer this lockdown continues, the worse the division slicing through society will get. Civil unrest is imminent and while one tribe’s anger will be directed at the Government, the other tribe will defend them.

We are living through unprecedented times, never has such infringement of basic human rights been placed onto such a large number of people.

Regardless of where you stand on the seriousness of the virus, the collateral damage from the Worldwide reaction might well go down in history as one of the biggest societal cataclysms of the modern era.

We’d love to hear what your thoughts are on this, where do you see this heading? Please leave your comments below.

Sources:

[1] msn.com

[2] nytimes.com

[3] express.co.uk

[4] japantimes.co.jp