{"id":15045,"date":"2023-03-24T11:51:55","date_gmt":"2023-03-24T11:51:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cassandravoices.com\/?p=15045"},"modified":"2023-03-24T11:51:55","modified_gmt":"2023-03-24T11:51:55","slug":"covid-19-shame-on-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/2023\/03\/24\/covid-19-shame-on-you\/","title":{"rendered":"COVID-19: Shame on You"},"content":{"rendered":"

A new book COVID-19 and Shame: Political Emotions and Public Health in the UK<\/em> <\/a><\/span>(Bloomsbury, 2023) co-authored by Fred Cooper, Luna Dolezal and Arthur Rose explores how the British government under Boris Johnson used shame as an instrument of coercive control during the pandemic.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018Shame\u2019, the authors contend, \u2018is commonly understood to be a personal experience that arises when one feels judged by another or others (whether they are present, imagined or internalized) to have transgressed or broken a social rule or norm.\u2019<\/p>\n

It appears to exert a particular force in Westminster politics where cries of \u201cshame\u201d or \u201cshame on you<\/span><\/a>\u201d are regularly hurled across the floor of the House of Commons. An anthropologist might trace this to the public school upbringing<\/span><\/a> of a significant proportion number of MPs \u2013 David Cameron<\/span><\/a> recalls in his biography, \u2018At bath time we had to line up naked in front of a row of Victorian metal baths and wait for the headmaster\u2019 \u2013 or a proletarian habituation through spectator sport.<\/p>\n

The stigmatisation of apparently errant behaviour through shaming is not, however, unique to English (or British) culture.<\/p>\n

Over the course of the lockdown in the U.K. the authors argue that shaming became \u2018an important component of the \u2018collective suffering, exacerbating and complicating other negative experiences and emotions.\u2019 Those that stepped out of line were dubbed \u2018covidiots\u2019, while people questioning canonical scientific accounts could be dismissed as a \u2018conspiracy theorists\u2019, belonging to the \u2018tin-foil hat brigade\u2019.<\/p>\n

Arguably, a drawback of the work is a tendency to assign primary responsibility to the bumbling and often insidious response of the British government, as opposed to a wider international consensus around COVID-19 within which that government\u2019s face-saving policies emerged.<\/p>\n

The authors also seem reluctant to criticize a medical profession, which, they argue, were subjected to widespread shaming. Surely governments lionised \u2018front line\u2019 doctors, albeit for their own ends?<\/p>\n

Moreover, some doctors even participated in the shaming effort, agitating for stringent measures that often were not based on cost-benefit analyses, while demonising \u2018granny-killing\u2019 objectors.<\/p>\n

The book contains important insights into the lives of ordinary people, many of whom suffered in silence as a result of a British government strategy that often relied on \u2018Second World War kitsch.\u2019<\/p>\n

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'A state of emergency is the best friend of the would-be-dictator' Andrew Linnane wonders whether our response to Covid-19 is undermining our democracy.https:\/\/t.co\/op953eTx5p<\/a>@broadsheet_ie<\/a> @amandaknox<\/a> @IlsaCarter1<\/a> @VillageMagIRE<\/a> @PaulGilgunn<\/a> @AliceHarrisonBL<\/a> @liamherrick<\/p>\n

— CassandraVoices (@VoicesCassandra) November 14, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n