“Shaming, conditioning, lies …” Frédéric Badel, psychiatrist (Bordeaux, France) on pandemic measures
English translation, original in French, published on September 7, 2020, here.
Covid 19: techniques of manipulation
Except those who live as hermits or who retired into a meditative retreat, no one has failed to notice that our way of living has been radically changed with the imposed measures of “social distancing”, the wearing of masks and the collapse of our economy. With disconcerting ease, the government has shattered the way we live together, restricted our basic individual freedoms and even more, is prepping us daily for additional upcoming measures.
How do you get such a quick result?
The pillar of such effect is fear conditioning. By the repeated dissemination of danger messages accompanied by audio-visual stimuli (a sound or an image) it is possible to fairly quickly create in most individuals a fear reflex anchored in the fear center, a small spot in our most common brain, called reptile brain (we share it with reptiles). The regulatory mechanisms which reside in more developed structures of the brain (observation, analysis, judgment, classification), which normally operate by feedback, are overwhelmed and this small fear spot becomes abnormally activated. With each new stimulation, it will be aroused, without a possibility of controlling it in any way. Therefore, the individual is limited to more primordial behaviors, as can be seen, for example, in hoarding food or the fights people fight when there is a risk of food shortage. Fear conditioning is a self-perpetrating, extremely effective and well-known mechanism. Some people are more inclined to this conditioning than others. Fear therefore modifies human behavior into losing its rationality. Caregivers, too, are not vaccinated against fear and, like others, suffer from it. For example, medical practices have been closed, doctors have no longer examined their patients, and remote doctor-calling has boomed.
This phenomenon has been aggravated by the short-circuiting of health care structures that are usually operative and efficient in case of an epidemic; everything had to be managed by the hospital, which may have clogged up some departments.
Beds were kept in reserve for the “second wave”, the peak of the first in most areas not even being noticed, thus depriving patients of sometimes urgent care or procedures, going so far as to cause their death. Panic among doctors, always coupled with political injunctions, has led to the depriving inhabitants of care in EHPAD (“Etablissement hébergeant des personnes âgées dépendantes — Accommodation Facility for Dependent Elderly, i.e. Nursing Homes) and generally the depriving of care of the elderly. The consequences of this phenomenon are now known: many of them died in the greatest emotional distress, others experienced irreversible alterations in their cognitive functions or lost their autonomy. Health care workers report this catastrophic development on a large scale.
As Professor Raoult essentially stated, a doctor who is afraid for his own safety must change his profession.
Patients avoided consultation and there are an estimated 30,000 undetected cancers based on the average usual number of screenings.
Day hospitals have been closed, depriving the most vulnerable and frail of care, particularly in psychiatry, and leaving families helpless. The media have covered this news extensively with lots of images, I am thinking in particular of patients transferred by rail. These unusual images had all the more impact as their hypnotic effect (one tries to understand what he sees, over and over) creates a vicious circle by stimulating the fear centers.
This same fear has facilitated behavior of reporting neighbors to the authorities and created in some individuals the feeling of the virtue of vigilance. One of my patients was apprehended in a supermarket by another customer for coughing “madam when you have covid you should stay at home!”
Another was nearly punched for a badly positioned mask. Many people fearful and disconnected from their intelligence set themselves up as vigilantes or good learners who think “I have a right, I follow all official recommendations.”
The conditioning is reinforced by distortions of logic used systematically.
Among the most frequent is the selective abstraction which consists in isolating a minor element and treating only that one. As an example, we can mention the case of this deceased teenage girl and the cases of Kawasaki syndrome in children, which widely spread the idea that the virus affects all age groups equally.
Generalization usually goes hand in hand with selective abstraction: one particular detail covers all the facts. (“The virus kills young people”). We could conclude by the same logic that we should give up cycling because it is fatal, whether you are an amateur or professional cyclist.
This fear conditioning, which makes such poor judgement, has been coupled with incessant and major shaming. Anyone who does not follow the regulations is made responsible for the worsening of the restrictive regulations, for the prolongation of the epidemic, for the death of those close to them. This imposing of guilt continues today through messages hammered into all types of media telling you not to kiss loved ones or recommending masked barbecues with friends because we are responsible people. We must protect the most fragile, a laudable but cynical message because it has led to inflicting the worst on our elders — the deprivation of contact and care.
The diversion of the meaning of words and the introduction of new words.
The head of the state said we are at war. We have never been at war, but this made it easy to pass the principle of a state of emergency and to impose all measures without debate. Likewise, unknown semantics gradually hijacked our language to become commonplace today. This is the case with the word “cluster”. Who knew the word? No doubt a few of us. The “cluster” has imposed itself and it has become a threat, another stimulus of fear, because it seems scientific, therefore “knowledgeable”. However, it only designates a source of contagion (there are other meanings of this word in music, computers, etc.). In this vein one can also note the deliberately maintained confusion of “positive cases” and “sick”. Unable to continue to condition us by picking up the numbers of patients or deceased victims on a daily basis which are decreasing, they have been replaced with a number of “positive cases”, thus continuing to evoke the feeling of fear. Currently, we maintain the idea of an epidemic of positive cases, without victims, without patients.
Other mechanisms are also employed.
Lying or the deliberate action of deceiving: lie about the availability of masks, about their unproven usefulness (German studies even report harmful effects of wearing a surgical mask — made with microplastics; the European RAPEX system has recalled 70 models of masks because they did not meet EU quality standards and could lead to “serious risks”), on their directives lie about the lethality of the Covid (CDC in the USA for example), about the functioning of hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) and its side effects (Carlucci et al, May 2020). We are therefore mocked by the Africans who commonly use this medication (our soldiers too) and in whom the widespread use has not resulted in the promised harm and may even have helped minimize deaths. Lying about the need for a vaccine (you don’t vaccinate a population against a low-lethality virus). For more details, the referenced studies and their results can be found on the “Swiss Policy Research” website.
The elimination of any dissenting voice: the most famous voice in France is that of the Professor Appointed In Charge. Difficult to hear outside of his IHU Marseille channel; but if he is sometimes credited with something original, he is in reality far not the only one to have opinions which diverge from official narrative. Numerous studies, in different countries, conclude that masks are useless or even harmful outdoors, question the virus mortality rate etc … without commenting here on the relevance of these positions, we recognize that it is abnormal that any divergent voice is inaudible or discredited from the onset and that it is really necessary to fight through to gain access to public!
Labeling: Anyone with a dissenting opinion is suspected of being a conspiracy theorist or of ties with the extreme right. This process makes it possible to spare people essential reflection; it is decreed without any analysis or reflection that so and so is a conspiracy theorist. Your intelligence is left out.
False benevolence or paradoxical injunction. It consists of linking two propositions that eliminates any decision and paralyzes all action. For example, it is up to everyone to wear the mask outside in some cities, but a lockdown has already been planned if the epidemic “resumes”. This process, well known to psychiatrists, is a process that drives people crazy. If you couple it with the high level of deliberately maintained uncertainty about the outcome of the epidemic, you practice evil.
Predict certain aspects of the future. Despite the cleverly orchestrated uncertainty, from the start of this crisis, it was said that the epidemic was going to last, that the return to school in September would not take place normally, and, above all, the myth of the “new normal” has been developed and propagated. This is another aspect of mind manipulation, brainwashing, or propaganda. I tell you that we entered the “new normal” (this is being repeated ad nauseam), in April or May. Whatever we do, whatever happens, the old world will be gone. The upholding of the measures that deprive people of liberty proves me right. This is an insult to intelligence since the prophecy, by the measures taken, is fulfilled: despite very low official figures of deaths and emergency visits (see geodes public health France), the upholding of social distancing and wearing a mask continues to maintain the idea of the epidemic. We are prepared for restrictive measures “until vaccination”. No other way out seems possible. The sanctions serve to coerce into submission those who have not been sufficiently responsive to the conditioning. And the figures show that the process has been widely used in France. The level of fines has been high, with over a million fines being imposed during lockdown.
The cocktail of fear conditioning, shaming, punishment is extremely effective.
What are the consequences?
The measures taken have left our economy drained. Job losses and bankruptcies have always been accompanied by an epidemic of suicides. Will the number of deaths by suicide, lack of care, lack of screening and overall depression be counted? How many disfigured mournings will we see, the aftermath of inhuman measures prohibiting all gatherings? According to some prospects, the measures taken will cause many more deaths than the virus. We remain in cultivated uncertainty, with a population split between pro and anti-masks. This climate is harmful and fosters violence and the emergence of wrongdoers; deprivation of liberty also fosters violence.
What to do ?
Individually, it is difficult to fight against this propaganda. We see that the excessive use of the communication tools mentioned here , even incompletely, does not allow us a great margin of maneuver. But nothing prevents us from shutting off the continuous news channels which always activate fear. No one is forced to listen to the main news channels from main corporations, it is possible for everyone to find alternative sources of information from independent newspapers, mainly online, and we, health professionals, can come together to blow the whistle on the lack of consultation. We can learn not to believe everything that is said or shown on television. There is a plethora of manipulation techniques in this area (see, for example, on Swiss Policy Research). For the humanity, it is neither its first nor its last virus. Viruses are everywhere, we host them all the time. The only novelty lies in the human behavior implemented to protect from covid. No matter how dangerous a disease agent, viral or otherwise, nothing in a democracy can justify forcing confinement on people. We can use pedagogy, education, information. But to activate the repressive component, to apply coercive measures depriving of liberty under the precautionary principle or any other principle, without proof in our case of the effectiveness of such measures, is catastrophic in human terms. This contributes to the dehumanization of our country (others are suspected of infecting you, you live masked and muzzled, the places of celebration remain closed, those which are open are sometimes open according to incomprehensible schedules, bordering on arbitrariness … ). Mandate is given to elected officials to protect citizens, not to gag them or deprive them of their means of subsistence.
If the virus claims new victims, and it will do so in fragile populations starting in the fall, as viruses do every year, we can say that those people who have not strictly followed the instructions and regulations, are at fault. Lockdown threatens you. We infantilize you. If the virus goes away, which is unlikely because coronaviruses alternate but don’t seem to go away, the government can congratulate itself on doing the right thing. In all cases, the State emerges victorious from the crisis. And if it redefines the pandemic as a large number of people who test positive, what outcome can we imagine from this crisis? These techniques of mental manipulation are worthy of totalitarian regimes. What is looming, and what we are being prepared for, is the tracing, the health passport, even a mandate or a strong incentive to vaccination, even more severe restrictions on our individual freedoms. Covid can be a test shot. It allows today to measure the docility of the people, their power of rebellion. When a state decides on the happiness of its people and considers them incapable of deciding by and for themselves, the way is opened to dictatorship (here public health security); all the signs seem to be present: the rhetoric, the means of restraint, the announcement of the “new normal”. We must ask ourselves the question of the type of society we want to create. Above all, zero health risk seems to me to be the worst of the options because, on the one hand, it outlines the way of means of control of the entire population, of increasingly severe restrictions on our fundamental freedoms and institutes a paranoid delirium on a large scale — and on the other hand, it is absurd, an ontological negation.
