The rise of scientific totalitarianism
Scientific totalitarianism came to fruition in COVID-19 in the United States and other “democracies”. In these states, governments exercised extraordinary, totalitarian authority in the name of science. The appeals by these states to “science” were not incidental. Rather, they were the consummation of the union between state and science; a union that has been growing for decades. Below, I trace the outlines of this novel form of government.
In the scientific totalitarian state, science is foundational. The state participates directly in the scientific process and the activities and policies of the state are motivated and justified by science. In its ideology, the scientific totalitarian regime is materialistic and naturalistic; public policy is based on the study of the natural world. Scientific totalitarianism implicitly rejects supernatural worldviews.
The clash between scientific totalitarianism and supernaturalism is most evident in its conflict with “fundamentalist” religion. The regime’s declared war on “terror” is understood to be against the threat of Islamic fundamentalism. The US government also has an adversarial relationship with “fundamentalist” Christianity. Members of such denominations are often characterized as extremists, the equivalent to being a violent threat to the state.
On the other hand, science is viewed as monotonically beneficial, in scientific totalitarianism. In COVID and beyond, the regime has been sympathetic to large-scale societal experimentation. That is evident in the subjection of a large majority of the US population to experimental mRNA pharmaceuticals. In fact, the mRNA pharmaceuticals serve as symbol of the regime’s commitment to scientific exploration. Other vaccines are also strongly backed by the regime for the nations children on an experimental basis. More conservative and traditional approaches to healthcare are disparaged and obstructed.
Scientific investigation is supported without reservation. Investigation of the potential laboratory origin of SARS-CoV-2 has been half-hearted. Investigators with potential involvement in the creation of SARS-CoV-2 have never been publicly questioned. The prospect that science, more broadly, may have unleashed this pathogen on the world is never been confronted.
The costs of technological progress are rarely considered by the scientific totalitarian regime. Technological progress is ideological validation. Technological stasis is ideological failure.
Historically, repressive regimes are dependent on censorship. In the US scientific totalitarian regime is no different. Opposition or dissent from regime policy is suppressed. Government control on publication is formidable. Dissenters are cast as anti-social. On the use of ivermectin in COVID-19, dissent to government restriction is portrayed as delusional; laughable. On the use of experimental mRNA vaccines in COVID-19, dissent to universal uptake has been classified as a form of terrorism. Skeptics of government-sponsored science are marginalized as emotionally unbalanced or psychotic, more generally.
Like other repressive regimes, scientific totalitarianism relies on fraud and deception. To maintain the grand deceptions of the state, the public has entered a para-psychotic state. Public perceptions are frighteningly divorced from reality. The public accepts fantasies of the manned moon missions of Apollo in the ramshackle “Lunar Module”, the symmetrically collapsing towers of 911 and the “safe and effective” vaccines of COVID-19, Under this regime, ivermectin is a “horse dewormer” and naturally acquired immunity to COVID-19 is a conspiracy theory. While our eyes tell us that masks are the equivalent of placing a piece of paper close to our face, the regime tells us that they obstruct the passage of microscopic material.
The separation of science and state is not a quirky government reform ideal. The US government is at war with reality and with its people under the guise of science. The path forward is the separation of science and state. Science conducted with the levers of powers of government has led us to catastrophe.
(Full disclosure: I am the plaintiff in Jin-Pyong Peter Yim v. National Institutes of Health, a lawsuit that seeks to demonstrate that the US government deceived the nation on the use of ivermectin in COVID-19; that no vote was held on its ivermectin non-recommendation.)
(Image from FDA Tweet on ivermectin: “You are not a horse. You are not a cow. Seriously, y'all. Stop it.” )