Don't let people you dislike eat your brain
Last week, the Department of Energy concluded from its investigation into the origins of the pandemic that it most likely happened via a lab leak. The FBI has also concluded the same. Four other agencies who have done investigations into the pandemic’s origins have concluded that it most likely came from a zoonotic source.
Its conclusion was made with “low confidence,” meaning it believes a lab leak is the most likely probability, but that is not certain by any means. The FBI had made its conclusion with “moderate confidence.” The agencies who concluded a zoonotic source is the most likely probability also made their conclusions with “low confidence.” The truth is we will most likely never know for sure how it originated. My position has been the same the entire time and it is very simple: I have no idea how it originated.
This post is not about the origin of the pandemic, but about a very bad tendency that nobody is immune to. That is allowing people you don’t like to dictate what you think. I mention the origin of the pandemic debate because it is an example of the left going astray. Although the Biden Administration and many elected Democrats have long treated the lab leak theory as legitimate and worth looking into, there is a contingency on the left[i] that is wedded to the idea that it did not happen.
It is a small number of people overall, but it includes a few scientists who are very active on social media. Why some on the left have been adamant that the lab leak theory is wrong is a bit mystifying at first glance. The claim that the lab leak theory is racist is just bizarre. Is it more racist than saying that the pandemic started at a wet market, which is a fairly common practice in China and other countries in Asia? I can’t help but note that it is often the same crowd who decries the lab leak theory as racist, but was silent or dismissive when it came to the attacks against Asians in the US during the pandemic. Principled opposition to racism can’t explain why some on the left oppose the lab leak theory.
Their opposition can’t be explained by their faithful adherence to following the science because they are clearly not doing that here. The only honest answer from someone truly following the science would be to say they don’t know how the pandemic started because nothing has been definitively proven. The reason, I believe, that some on the left oppose the lab leak theory has nothing to do with its merits and everything to do with who some of its early proponents were, most notably Trump. Simply put, some on the left allowed their dislike of Trump to override everything else.
During and after the pandemic, I heard many on the left, both in-person and online, praise China’s response to it. That is not because they have a special love for Xi Jinping, but because they wanted to bash Trump and because Trump talked about a lab leak that meant it was false. That drove me off the wall then and still does today. It was and still is very easy to criticize his handling of the pandemic without praising a murderous dictatorship. I certainly had no trouble doing it and there was no reason anyone else couldn’t do the same.
Disliking Trump is certainly a reasonable position to have. I have almost nothing nice to say about him and think he is probably the worst president we have ever had. Still, even Trump can be right even if it is for all the wrong reasons. At a minimum, while the lab leak theory may not be right, it is not wrong and those on the left who treated it as automatically wrong made a huge error in judgment and reasoning.
The pandemic illustrated very well the dangers of believing that anything opposed to Trump was good while anything associated with him was bad. I have no doubt that his dismissive attitude towards the pandemic led many on the left to go in the opposite direction and embrace excessively cautious measures that had no rational justification. Because Trump didn’t wear a mask, that meant those on the left should wear a mask everywhere, all the time, no matter what. Because Trump treated the CDC and public health officials with disdain, that meant those on the left should worship them as gods and defer to everything they say and forget about all other considerations. If Trump says schools should be open, then they should be closed.
I am not defending his record. His handling of the pandemic was terrible. Even when he happened to be right, it was never for the right reasons and he always went about articulating it in the most alienating way possible. It was plainly obvious, for example, that he didn’t care about schools being open or closed. He just tweeted that they should be open and did not work with school officials to help them out or reassure concerned parents and teachers. That doesn’t change the fact that schools were closed in many places for far longer than was warranted and those on the left who advocated for school closures were dead wrong.
While I have been talking about the left so far, the right is every bit as susceptible to that tendency and I would argue is a much bigger offender right now. As bad as those on the left can be in allowing people they dislike to dictate what they think, they have nothing on those on the right. In fact, what unites those on the right more than anything else these days is not a set of substantive ideas, but a dislike of the left and Democrats. On the national level, that sentiment is the only thing that keeps congressional Republicans together. While some individual members have substantive ideas they believe in, as a group, they have no positive vision whatsoever.
Extremism on the left is largely confined to a few small circles, i.e., some media, non-profit and academic settings, even though that crowd gets a disproportionate amount of press coverage. It seldom extends to elected officials, especially on the state and federal level. The same can’t be said for extremism on the right. It very much includes elected officials at all levels. More than anything else, that is what makes it so much more dangerous than its left-wing counterpart. I am vastly more concerned about threats to free speech and other civil liberties from a president, member of Congress, governor or state legislature then I am about threats posed by fragile snowflakes on college campuses.[ii]
A great example of those on the right allowing their dislike of the left to control them is from this opinion piece written last week in The New York Times. The author is a student at Princeton who writes about how extremism from the left on college campuses is driving some conservative students to the far right. He mentions a friend of his who started off as sort of moderate, but because of the extremism from left-wing students, especially their hostility to free speech, became very right-wing and a big supporter of Trump.
I don’t disagree that extremism from the left on college campuses can have that effect. The problem I have is that the author is trying to defend conservative students in their decisions when his piece is actually a big indictment of them. What he is essentially saying is that those conservative students have allowed their dislike of the left to drive them to support the likes of Trump. Like those on the left who denied the lab leak theory because they dislike Trump, conservative students who embrace Trump because of their dislike of left-wing extremism are making the same error.
It is especially rich that those conservative students will frequently cite (accurately) threats to free speech posed by left-wing extremists on college campuses and because of that will support Trump. Anyone who would support Trump has no right to claim that they care about free speech when they support someone who is more hostile to it than most anyone else. Those students are making it clear that free speech is not really a concern of theirs. What they really want is to go in the opposite direction of campus left-wingers no matter what. The enemy of their enemy is their friend.
I have noticed this intense dislike of the left in many people I read and used to read. It has been frustrating seeing many people I thought well of allow their dislike of that crowd to drive them insane. It has been even worse seeing some of them make common cause with people on the right who are plain horrible just because they dislike the same crowd. I have also noticed that many people who started off as being rightfully against crazy left-wingers, especially the woke type, have devolved into becoming anti-vaxxers and have all but sided with Putin against Ukraine. It is as if anything remotely associated with the left is automatically bad and anything against it is automatically good no matter what.
Why does it happen?
Trying to psychoanalyze any individual is hard. Trying to psychoanalyze a group is impossible and necessarily involves making generalizations and assumptions. I believe that the driving force behind why people on the left and the right allow their dislike of others to determine what they think is fear. It is fear of giving the other side anything, which is driven by the fear that they may be proven right.
For example, many on the left have been dismissive or have downplayed the crime surge that has happened since 2020. I think that is a very bad approach and a guaranteed political loser, but I don’t think that response is rooted in indifference towards crime. It is because they are afraid of what they think will happen if they acknowledge it. The fear is that the only way to deal with an increase in crime is by locking everyone up and throwing away the key.
In the eyes of many on the left, particularly many criminal justice activists, going after criminals, while necessary, is inherently harsh and involves incarceration. The last time there was a crime wave during the 1970s and 1980s, a big part of the response to it was mass incarceration. That had some severe unintended consequences, namely the relegating of many people to second-class status for the rest of their lives. That is not something those activists want to see happen again, but are afraid it will. That is why, I believe, they have been hesitant to talk about the increase in crime even though it is not a tenable position.
An example from the right is the denial of climate change. That, too, is rooted in fear. The fear is that if they acknowledge that climate change is a problem, then it will have to be addressed. In their eyes, the only way that can happen is by imposing massive taxes and regulations and cutting back on their way of life, i.e., no more meat or trucks. Since it is either deny climate change exists or radically alter their way of life, they go with the former.
Those two examples are hardly the only ones, but I think they illustrate well what is going on psychologically when people on the left or right act that way. In both of those cases, I think those fears are wrong. Reducing crime necessitates catching criminals, but does not require mass incarceration. Dealing with climate change involves many things, but does not require going back to the living standards of the 1800s.
Don’t just be against something
What every example of people allowing those they dislike to determine what they think share in common is people refusing to think for themselves. Whether they are on the left or the right, people have allowed themselves to be defined by what they are against and not what they are for. That is a terrible approach and is all but guaranteeing that they will drive themselves insane and wind up in bed with some bad people.
To be clear, there is nothing wrong with being against things. Usually, if you stand for something, that inevitably means you will be against something else. In the cases of the left and right I just mentioned, I don’t think they are wrong in what they oppose. I think Trump and his ilk are bad and I think the extremism from the left that has reared its ugly head on college campuses and some other places is also bad.
But you can’t just be against those things. You have to have something you believe in and are in favor of. For example, being in favor of free speech is different from just being anti-woke. Being in favor of free speech will entail opposing the woke crowd, but it includes so much more. It means being in favor of the right to speak for everyone, regardless of the content of what they are saying. It means supporting the rights of those whose views you find abhorrent and consistently opposing attacks on free speech from the left and the right.
Being solely anti-woke, just like being solely anti-Trump, is bad. I have lost count of how many times I have seen people who oppose the woke crowd saying and advocating for things that are every bit as authoritarian if not more so. Someone like that is not against threats to free speech. They are only against those threats when they come from the left. They are not champions of free speech or civil liberties of any sort. Nobody who cares about free speech or any civil liberties should throw their lot in with that crowd.
At the end of the day, everyone is capable of making their own choices. Letting someone you dislike determine what you think is a choice. Nobody is forced to do that. It is undeniably true that extremists on the left feed off of extremists on the right and vice-versa, but that is because they choose to. Don’t let anyone tell you that they have no choice but to go way out into left/right field.
Avoiding making that error is easier said than done. It is always going to be tempting to have a kneejerk reaction against anyone you dislike. It may even lead you to the right conclusion more often than not. The problem is you will be right for the wrong reasons and there will be times when you are wrong, often dead wrong. Because you have allowed people you dislike to blind you, you will not know that you are wrong and will likely double down on whatever mistake you are making.
How best to avoid falling into that trap? There are undoubtedly many different ways, but one of the best is to get off social media of any kind. It is designed to feed us stories that validate our priors, which includes giving us stories and viral videos about how people we don’t like are bad. Staying away from cable news and talk radio is a good idea, too. Doing those things may not be sufficient, but are probably necessary to avoid letting people you dislike control you.
[i] I am using the left interchangeably with the Democratic Party and the right interchangeably with the Republican Party. They are not the exact same thing, but they overlap closely.
[ii] As bad as the woke crowd is in the few settings they dominate, there are finite limits to what they can do. They can’t fine you, take your property, imprison you or kill you. The government at any level can do all those things, which is why threats posed by governments are always much worse than threats posed by private actors.