"The tyranny of evidence-based medicine."
another twitter essay nobody will read, this one on received knowledge vs. empirical knowledge, fundamentalist rejection of it, and how we got here.
Steve Silberman - @stevesilberman · 7h
Mind-blowing phrase from a right-wing doctor in my inbox this morning pushing ivermectin for what he calls the Wuhan virus: "The tyranny of evidence-based medicine." #medtwitter #COVID19
fundamentalism has been railing against empiricism - the idea that you can learn about the world through observation/evidence and make improvements based on what you learn - since before I started following/studying them.
in that context, this is predictable.
-----
why?
mostly because their worldview is contradicted by it. but also because their view religiously and culturally is that truth is inherited from a better past, handed down from ultimate authority, maintained through authority. “received knowledge,” essentially... from god.
-----
And they like it that way. any change is a threat to their authority as holders of that received truth. so of course they push against it, obviously.
(many of them say/said western culture lost its way with the italian renaissance - because that marked a “turning from god.”)
-----
mind you: it’s all bullshit. their beliefs are _much_ younger than the renaissance, centuries younger, no matter how much they insist it’s eternal unchanged truth.
but it’s bullshit they believe.
-----
and one of the reasons - one of the attractions - is that you don’t have to _think_. just react.
andrew the racist dickhead sullivan may be a racist dickhead, but he made a cogent observation years ago about his own side: most conservatives _really_ don’t like having to think.
-----
whoever wrote frank burns in MASH and had him say, “I don’t _think_, I _know_” was, sure, setting him up for a punchline (“I don’t think you know either”) but like a lot of good jokes, it’s pointing at a reality.
-----
frank burns was a christian conservative, in the text.
he didn’t want to have to think. not critically. he just wanted to already know - or be handed down the “truth,” whatever that was, which he’d accept as long as it didn’t offend other received “truth.”
or his wallet.
-----
(of course.)
so as surprising as this “doctor” railing against “evidence-based medicine” might seem to be, it’s really kinda... not.
it’s _bad_, fuck, of course it is.
but it’s not _surprising_.
-----
it’s what they are.
if reality offends received knowledge, it’s not received knowledge at fault. it’s reality that’s the problem - and which must be denied or attacked.
and in _that_ context, all it takes is the right kind of evil opportunism to make a crisis into a disaster.
-----
and with the @gop more than happy to become a literal party of sedition and plague to keep power, well.
the crisis became a disaster, exactly as you’d expect - if you’re willing to think about it.
-----
which they aren’t. not if they can help it.
it’s genuinely two different theories of knowledge at war here. if you wonder how they can reject reality so consistently and in real time, well, this is how.
and they have _lots_ of practice at it. so it’s easy.
-----
(if you’re wondering whether the explicitly fascist slogan of “reject modernity, embrace tradition” is connected? yes. it is. it is _exactly the same thing_, lightly rephrased just with more explicit emphasis on racism and patriarchy. not that either faction is light on either.)
Also posted to ソ-ラ-バ-ド-のおん;
comments at Dreamwidth. Please comment there.
Steve Silberman - @stevesilberman · 7h
Mind-blowing phrase from a right-wing doctor in my inbox this morning pushing ivermectin for what he calls the Wuhan virus: "The tyranny of evidence-based medicine." #medtwitter #COVID19
fundamentalism has been railing against empiricism - the idea that you can learn about the world through observation/evidence and make improvements based on what you learn - since before I started following/studying them.
in that context, this is predictable.
-----
why?
mostly because their worldview is contradicted by it. but also because their view religiously and culturally is that truth is inherited from a better past, handed down from ultimate authority, maintained through authority. “received knowledge,” essentially... from god.
-----
And they like it that way. any change is a threat to their authority as holders of that received truth. so of course they push against it, obviously.
(many of them say/said western culture lost its way with the italian renaissance - because that marked a “turning from god.”)
-----
mind you: it’s all bullshit. their beliefs are _much_ younger than the renaissance, centuries younger, no matter how much they insist it’s eternal unchanged truth.
but it’s bullshit they believe.
-----
and one of the reasons - one of the attractions - is that you don’t have to _think_. just react.
andrew the racist dickhead sullivan may be a racist dickhead, but he made a cogent observation years ago about his own side: most conservatives _really_ don’t like having to think.
-----
whoever wrote frank burns in MASH and had him say, “I don’t _think_, I _know_” was, sure, setting him up for a punchline (“I don’t think you know either”) but like a lot of good jokes, it’s pointing at a reality.
-----
frank burns was a christian conservative, in the text.
he didn’t want to have to think. not critically. he just wanted to already know - or be handed down the “truth,” whatever that was, which he’d accept as long as it didn’t offend other received “truth.”
or his wallet.
-----
(of course.)
so as surprising as this “doctor” railing against “evidence-based medicine” might seem to be, it’s really kinda... not.
it’s _bad_, fuck, of course it is.
but it’s not _surprising_.
-----
it’s what they are.
if reality offends received knowledge, it’s not received knowledge at fault. it’s reality that’s the problem - and which must be denied or attacked.
and in _that_ context, all it takes is the right kind of evil opportunism to make a crisis into a disaster.
-----
and with the @gop more than happy to become a literal party of sedition and plague to keep power, well.
the crisis became a disaster, exactly as you’d expect - if you’re willing to think about it.
-----
which they aren’t. not if they can help it.
it’s genuinely two different theories of knowledge at war here. if you wonder how they can reject reality so consistently and in real time, well, this is how.
and they have _lots_ of practice at it. so it’s easy.
-----
(if you’re wondering whether the explicitly fascist slogan of “reject modernity, embrace tradition” is connected? yes. it is. it is _exactly the same thing_, lightly rephrased just with more explicit emphasis on racism and patriarchy. not that either faction is light on either.)
Also posted to ソ-ラ-バ-ド-のおん;
comments at Dreamwidth. Please comment there.