If the Physicians oath is to first do no harm, how does that translate to politics? Dr. government can do nothing without first doing harm (before we can even pretend that it means to do is good).
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No government act occurs without force or coercion, no force without funding, no funding without first depriving someone of something they obtained legally (or a right to which they were born) so the state can then pretend to do good.
Government can’t do anything without first doing harm. So why do people insist it can and should?
While (perhaps) not meant to, I think this adds some perspective.
“Of the thousands of patients I have seen, only two or three have ever claimed to be unhappy: all the rest have said that they were depressed. This semantic shift is deeply significant, for it implies that dissatisfaction with life is itself pathological, a medical condition, which it is the responsibility of the doctor to alleviate by medical means.
Everyone has a right to health; depression is unhealthy; therefore everyone has a right to be happy (the opposite of being depressed). This idea in turn implies that one’s state of mind, or one’s mood, is or should be independent of the way that one lives one’s life, a belief that must deprive human existence of all meaning, radically disconnecting reward from conduct. A ridiculous pas de deux between doctor and patient ensues: the patient pretends to be ill, and the doctor pretends to cure him. In the process, the patient is wilfully blinded to the conduct that inevitably causes his misery in the first place.”
That’s Theodore Dalrymple. In our context today, that doctor is the Government, and the patient is the citizen, or more accurately, the political culture of the citizenry.
Dr. Government tells us we are sick. It promises that the problem is not only real but that only they can resolve it.
To do so, it will need to make itself larger (more powerful), and that will require they do harm to others – but not to you, and not in those words, so why would you care?
The improvements will solve the sickness they decided you have, we have, that someone somewhere has, and none of this is your responsibility.
Not getting sick nor getting better.
This idea in turn implies that one’s state of mind, or one’s mood, is or should be independent of the way that one lives one’s life, a belief that must deprive human existence of all meaning, radically disconnecting reward from conduct.
It may become necessary to dehumanize some people in the course of the cure, but not you. You are the victim, a self-fulfilling prophecy to which you become enamored because to quote Dalrymple again,
“IT IS A MISTAKE to suppose that all men…want to be free. On the contrary, if freedom entails responsibility, many of them want none of it. They would happily exchange their liberty for a modest (if illusory) security.”
And they do, liberally sacrificing yours along the way, never realizing that it was not about them. To get what it wanted, the Government needed to cure a cultural predilection toward liberty, and you were kind enough to insist.
Now apply that to the COVID19 Culture and response.
Originally Published: March 24, 2021 – Republished: June 13, 2021
