Opinion
Success, as they say, has many friends, while failure is an orphan. And when the grandiose schemes of the unelected elites go bung, they vanish faster than a black father who went to the store to buy cigarettes.
Where, after all, have all those “experts” who showered their wisdom on us — along with a hail of rubber bullets and capsicum spray — during the Covid pandemic suddenly vanished? They’re certainly not sticking around to take responsibility for what they did.
Instead, like a whole generation of Germans, they’re suddenly adamant that they knew nuzzink.
The state’s reliance on behavioural science strategies – ‘nudges’ – to facilitate the public’s compliance with covid restrictions has been widely documented. The many psychologists and behavioural scientists advising the government during the covid event (such as those in the Sage subgroup, SPI-B, and the Behavioural Insight Team, BIT) have, reasonably, been assumed to hold a significant degree of responsibility for using these methods of persuasion in communication campaigns. Intriguingly, however, several prominent psychological specialists within these advisory groups have attempted to distance themselves from involvement in nudging, not only from the specific use of fear inflation but more recently from being associated with all forms of this type of furtive persuasion.
In fact, the “experts” are denying that politicians were following their “science” at all.
Contrary to the evidence of the published outputs of SPI-B and BIT, a series of behavioural experts have claimed zero responsibility for scaring people (the ‘affect’ nudge) into compliance with the covid restrictions and subsequent vaccine rollout. In March 2022, Professor Ann John (a SPI-B co-chair) told the Commons Science & Technology Committee: ‘We never advised on upping the level of fear […]
In March 2023, four members of SPI-B (Professors Reicher, Michie, Drury and West) wrote an opinion piece for the British Medical Journal in which they claimed that politicians, not they, were responsible for fear inflation during the covid event: ‘When [Matt] Hancock and [Simon] Case advocated scare tactics they were going against the scientific advice they had been given.’
And even if they were advising fear-mongering, they weren’t trying to scare people, they were trying to empower them. Just like an Einsatzgruppen was only sending people off for a nice, relaxing shower.
These serial denials of culpability for the widespread use of scare tactics during the covid event are unconvincing. Although these prominent behavioural scientists may not have been directly involved in the production of the ‘Look them in the eyes’ campaign (arguably, the most disturbing and ethically dubious of all the covid messaging), there are sound reasons to question the veracity of their assertions of innocence: for example, the documented outputs of these high-profile nudgers (collectively, as part of SPI-B and BIT, and in some instances individually) have sanctioned the use of fear as a method of promoting compliance; some SPI-B members told investigative journalist Laura Dodsworth that the group was not averse to using scare tactics on the British people (A State of Fear, p94); and, despite a highly visible media presence, they did not publicly criticise the covid fearmongering campaign.
Is anyone reminded of Anthony Fauci’s denials of facilitating gain-of-function research? Hell no, they were just funding research “yielding a level of viral activity which was greater” and “which possibly did lead or could lead to health issues or other unacceptable outcomes”.
They weren’t making spades, they were just making rectangular manual earth-moving implements.
When asked at the Covid Inquiry whether the SPI-B was a ‘nudge unit’, Professor Rubin replied: ‘Instead of nudging, SPI-B’s work focused on providing support to people to help them to engage with the measures that were openly recommended by public health experts.”
Get that? They weren’t nudging, they were supporting… by, well, trying to nudge people.
Of course, even if this claim by some behavioural scientists to occupy the higher intellectual ground could be justified, it would not deflect responsibility for the pervasive scaring, shaming and scapegoating of the British people witnessed throughout the covid event; for instance, equating adherence (to restrictions) with virtue – even when couched in euphemisms such as ‘platforming a sense of community’ – still constitutes the promotion of covert psychological manipulation, in this case in the form of an ‘ego’ nudge.
More pointedly, despite the arrogant superiority complex of these bureaucratic troughers, a great many people can tell when they’re being manipulated — and they don’t like it one bit.
These prominent government advisers will be aware of empirical evidence suggesting that nudging is often perceived in a negative light. Thus, Sanders et al (2021) examined the public and media discourse around the Government’s deployment of behavioural science in early 2020 and found that the term ‘nudge’ seems to ‘stir divisiveness’.
No wonder these labcoated Sgt Schultzes are so keen to slink off into the shadows.
These attempts by specialist government advisers to deny that they endorsed the use of behavioural science strategies on the British people sound rather hollow. Promoting theoretical principles that directly or indirectly encourage the deployment of fear, shame and scapegoating to lever the compliance of citizens, implicates them as holding significant responsibility for these often damaging and ethically dubious interventions. Nudge methods of covert persuasion are now ubiquitous across all areas of government activity, yet the plentiful supply of experts offering psychological advice within the government infrastructure seem incapable, or unwilling, to own or challenge this unacceptable state of affairs.
The Conservative Woman
Zey vos only obeyink orders, is that how it goes?