Dr. Steve Templeton, author of "Fear of a Microbial Planet: How a Germaphobic Safety Culture Makes Us Less Safe," discusses the pandemic response and the underlying cultural issues.
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Motivation for the Book: Dr. Templeton was "floored" by the public's response to the pandemic, particularly the widespread acceptance of lockdowns and controls by politicians and public health experts. He was surprised by behaviours like people wearing masks outdoors, playgrounds being shut down, and hiking trails being closed, despite a lack of evidence of risk in such activities. As an immunologist, he noted that the pandemic was age-stratified in terms of mortality, with children largely unaffected, facts known early on. He was struck by the social, political, and psychological responses rather than just the biological aspects.
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Critique of the Pandemic Response as an "Autoimmune Response": Templeton uses the metaphor of an immune response, suggesting that a healthy response starts non-specifically but becomes more targeted, causing less collateral damage. He argues that the pandemic response became like an autoimmune response, attacking things that "didn't matter," such as schools, and issuing mandates without evidence. He believes the response was driven by the "appearance of safety" rather than real safety.
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The Behavioural Immune System and Political Overrides: The discussion touches on the behavioural immune system and the disgust response, which typically leads to defensive and avoidance reactions. While studies suggest conservatives might be more easily disgusted, early pandemic observations, like Donald Trump being a germaphobe, aligned with this. However, this was overridden by political considerations; conservatives often rejected mandates, while liberals "bought into all of it" and enforced measures "almost to the level of it being a religion".
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Left-Wing Authoritarianism and Dark Tetrad Traits: Jordan Peterson introduces the concept of left-wing authoritarianism (LWA), which was historically denied by social psychologists for political reasons. Recent research suggests LWA is identifiable and predicts a willingness to use compulsion and force to enforce beliefs. Predictors include low verbal intelligence and a feminine temperament that values equality of outcome over other values. More strikingly, there's a strong correlation between dark tetrad traits (Machiavellianism, psychopathy, narcissism, and sadism), particularly malignant narcissism, and LWA. Peterson suggests that the pandemic presented an opportunity for malignant narcissists to manipulate the population with fear to gain power and notoriety.
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Fear and Instrumental Manipulation: The conversation highlights that the initial messaging aimed to prevent panic, but then there was a "mysterious switch" to fear-based messaging. In Canada, many COVID lockdown policies were based on opinion polls and then given a "post-hoc justification with the science," indicating "100% instrumental manipulation". This suggests fear was used by "narcissistic, psychopathic power mongers" to cement and broaden their positions.
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The "Safety Culture" as a Cultural Problem: Templeton argues that the extreme pandemic response was enabled by a deeper "cultural problem" – an overriding safety culture. This culture views taking risks as reckless and prioritises safety as the ultimate virtue, often without considering probabilities. He contrasts this with Nordic countries, which have a different approach to child-rearing and did not exhibit the same authoritarian responses. This culture has led to a lack of independence in children and a tendency to reduce all risk to zero, or at least create the "illusion of control" and safety.
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Critiques of Specific Measures and Their Consequences:
- Schools and Children: Shutting down playgrounds, berating a child for being alone on a closed playground, and cancelling school for predicted snow are examples of this over-cautiousness. He highlights "hurting children for the appearance of safety". Schools made children wear masks without evidence, kept them distanced even outdoors, and doused them with hand sanitizer, none of which were proven effective for respiratory viruses.
- Economic Impact: Lockdowns caused a massive transfer of wealth from small businesses to large retailers like Amazon, with devastating long-term consequences for the working and lower-middle classes.
- Healthcare and Social Costs: There was a "singular COVID monomania" that led to the neglect of cancer treatment, heart attack screenings, and the closure of vital community support groups like Alcoholics Anonymous. Children's BMI doubled, retention rates in schools dropped, and test scores declined.
- Perverse Incentives: Hospitals received more money for COVID patients, especially those on ventilators, creating an incentive to overcount COVID deaths and treatments for profit.
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"Unholy Alliance" with Pharmaceutical Companies: Templeton notes the surprising alignment of left-wing individuals and pharmaceutical companies, despite historical distrust of Big Pharma from the left. This alliance, he suggests, was driven by the shared interest in gaining power and influence, overriding traditional political beliefs. He also points out that vaccines were minimally tested, not necessarily on the most vulnerable, and pharmaceutical companies were granted liability removal, with incentives not aligned with public health.
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The Nature of the Microbial Environment: Dr. Templeton explains that humans live in a constantly microbial world, with countless viruses and bacteria in and around us. Excessive cleanliness can lead to "first-world diseases" like increased autoimmunity, allergies, and asthma, which are less prevalent in developing countries. Trying to achieve "zero microbial exposure" is "completely preposterous". He distinguishes between nasty viruses that are hard to transmit (e.g., HIV, hepatitis) and easily transmissible respiratory infections that are much harder to avoid.
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Why the Safety Culture Emerged: Peterson and Templeton discuss several hypotheses for the increased predominance of the safety culture:
- Later Parenthood: Parents having children later in life might make them less risk-tolerant.
- Smaller Families: Fewer children per family means "all eggs in one basket," leading to more doting and less challenging interaction between siblings.
- Increased Wealth: Richer parents can "dote in a way that would have been practically impossible before".
- Female-Dominated Institutions: A higher prevalence of female-dominated families and schools (where most teachers are female) might contribute, given the link between female temperament and left-wing authoritarianism, which values equality of outcome over other values.
- Technology: The rise of computers, streaming, and tools for "helicopter parenting" (like Zoom) has facilitated this culture, matching what the culture wanted to do.
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Political Stance of Dr. Templeton: He describes himself as "centre-right" and not a "liberal person" compared to his academic peers, but also not a "hardcore Trump supporter". He expresses frustration at how any critical stance against pandemic measures was immediately politicised and assumed to be Trump support, shutting down debate.
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The Reversal of Authoritarian Controls: Despite the push for authoritarianism, the restrictions were eventually lifted. Templeton believes this happened because enough people got infected, particularly with highly transmissible, less severe variants like Omicron. The direct experience of the virus, even among vulnerable family members who did fine, lessened the public's fear and willingness to comply with restrictions, a "reality of being infected" that "lessened the fear".
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Lingering Concerns and the Future: Templeton remains cautious, noting that the "machinery of the pandemic response is still there" and that leadership may not have learned sufficient lessons. There's a continued "hubris" about eliminating risk, even from everyday infections, which he considers a "dangerous idea". The demand to reduce risk to zero is itself a "cardinal form of risk". He advocates for restoring communities, improving children's education, and fostering independence, understanding that a hyper-concern for safety paradoxically makes children "less safe, less prepared to face the world".