"Do We Tolerate These People?"

Prime Minister Derek Zoolander, in a nakedly eliminationist rant about the small and filthy group who remain unvaccinated:

Gregory Bedaux #NoVaccinePassports @GregoryBedaux

Justin Trudeau calls millions of unvaccinated Canadians misogynists, and racists who don't "believe" in science. He has denigrated Canadians as disease-carriers many times, as a divisive ploy to get elected. His statement about science proves that he doesn't even know what it is.

But what’s fascinating about this exchange is the recitation. Trudeau refers to the unvaxxed, and the interviewer instantly and simply replies with the word “extremists,” after which Trudeau ritually invokes the highest sins of his status group: 1.) don’t believe in science; 2.) racists; 3.) misogynists. It’s word salad, complete nonsense, a random chanting of empty words: the unvaxxed are misogynists! No discussion is taking place; no thoughts are occurring. There is a formula, and the formula is being applied. A machine is running a scripted program.

This moment is extremely familiar, an occurrence of what Boris Pasternak called “the dominion of the ready-made phrase,” and you’ll see it everywhere if you just bother to look for it. We credential people for high status in politics, academia, and media on the basis of their ability engage in ritual performance, as a protection of orthodoxy and a barrier against crimethink. The result is an emptying of the public sphere, as ritual phrases displace argument. Members of the several overlapping status groups receive their ritual phrases, and then they recite them in moments where the phrases can be made to fit. Childcare is infrastructure!

There are words and phrases, issued for recitation: infrastructure, insurrection, racism, believe in science. The words are applied:

Christopher 🇺🇸 Proud Dem @cwebbonline

Ron Brownstein on CNN speaks TRUTH about the “Let’s Go Brandon” slur. It’s not about incivility, it’s about insurrection driven by the “big lie” from people who are afraid of the disappearance of their “American” way of life. BTW- insurrection is by definition ANTI-AMERICAN‼️

Insurrection is one of the currently issued words, so a lot of things will be insurrection for a while.

This is why, as rates of COVID-19 infection soar among vaccinated people, Trudeau says that “we will emerge from this pandemic through vaccination.” Cruise ships with vaccination requirements fill up with the COVID-positive; fully-vaxxed NFL, NBA, NHL, and college teams cancel games due to massive COVID outbreaks; highly vaccinated countries, states, and cities see enormous COVID case rates; and political leaders chant, with ritual solemnity, that vaccination will eliminate COVID. They don’t notice. They aren’t making an argument. They are priests, performing the Mass of their order, which contains a set of ritual words that are chanted because they are what is chanted, full stop.

Three shots aren’t working. Order the fourth shot!

What we’re watching is the end of thought as a tool of authority. As I have said and said and said, it’s a completely ordinary moment. It always ends in the failure of the ritual performance, and the failure always surprises the priests of the order.

What I had not anticipated, having seen this moment in history many times before experiencing it, was the tediousness of the performance.

But it’s probably misogyny and insurrection to feel that way.