Fear and Compliance

Most people don't realize this, but we're in the middle of a social experiment. Government bureaucrats are busy finding the exact mechanisms required for maximum compliance to arbitrary rules. At their disposal, they have propaganda and coercion, and their goal is to find the perfect mix.

The great thing about this is that attentive citizens can make their own observations. The findings are everywhere to be seen. No special equipment is required in order to observe the results.

What I find interesting from my vantage-point in Porto where I live, is the fact that there is more compliance now than at the start of the year. While people are less fearful of the virus now than back in March, the willingness to comply with government recommendations are going up. I see more people wearing masks when outside now than back then, even as this remains a recommendation rather than law, and the level of fear is lower.

I'd say that the compliant population where I live is about 30% or so. That's an astonishingly high number, considering that masks do nothing to actually contain the spread of the virus. It can even be argued that it makes it worse because numbers from Sweden, where rules were the most relaxed and masks were never worn, come out better than numbers in Spain where masks and self isolation was mandated by law.

The new compliance comes in conjunction with the second wave of the virus, which was advertised as early as in March. Now that the advertised second wave has arrived, a large number of people blindly comply with recommendations. This proves that persistent propaganda will triumph over rational thinking in about one third of the population.

A further experiment that would be interesting to see, would be to introduce a third wave into the narrative. This appears to be in the making, so we have a fairly good chance of actually getting it. A third wave is already being projected for early next year. Should this happen, I'm curious to see if the compliance will be higher or lower. A third wave would be met with very little real fear, so anyone following the recommendations related to it would be doing so almost entirely out of a willingness to comply.

As an added bonus, I find it interesting to see how far bureaucrats are willing to go in their pursuit of this kind of knowledge. They are apparently untouched by the human misery that they create in their eagerness to attain control of their fellow men. Seen in this perspective, this social experiment is just as much about them as it is about their subjects.

Finally, we mustn't forget that history doesn't actually repeat itself. Any information gained from this experiment is of limited value. To think that people will react in an identical manner to similar stimuli in the future is to underestimate people's capacity to learn from mistakes. Once it becomes clear to most people that everyone has been lied to, a second attempt at a similar power grab may end up very different. All that we're learning from this is that 30% of ordinary people are naturally inclined towards compliance, and 100% of bureaucrats are similarly inclined. Apart from that, future history will find a way to produce surprises that will both delight and terrify, just like it has in the past.

Execution of Robespierre

By Unknown author - This image comes from Gallica Digital Library and is available under the digital ID btv1b6950750j, Public Domain, Link