Maybe sports is the answer

Last month I asked what — other than a religious revival — “is likely to move the country towards large-scale adoption of personal morality and decency?” That is, to honor following the rules more than obtaining a desired outcome. To insist on fairness, even when it goes against your interest. To look upon adversaries as friends who are temporarily on the other side.

Isn’t this good sportsmanship? Isn’t it part of what it means to play a game? After all, the goal of playing a game is not primarily to win today’s game, but to play in a way that encourages long-term success.

And maybe it’s not only organized sports, where the referees and the parents keep things in line. There’s a place for organized sports, to learn certain disciplines and such, but there’s also a very important place for pick-up games — for backyard football and for playing baseball on the street, where you have to make up your own rules and resolve your own conflicts.

It is possible that the decline in civility corresponds with a decline in sports participation?

Are we allowed to ask if lockdowns work, or if they’re worth it?

Some social media companies have taken it upon themselves to decide what we can and can’t say, question or believe. They think they’re doing this in the public interest. E.g., they — geniuses that they are — understand “the science,” and they’re doing their part to stop stupid people (who don’t understand “the science”) from spreading false information that will cause other stupid people to do bad things.

I hope the arrogant bastards get what they deserve from that, but … be that as it may, from a certain point of view, you’re only allowed to ask specific things. As with most of these woke-aligned campaigns, it’s futile to ask for a list, or ask who curates the list, or what rules they use. It’s all subject to change. It’s like the ministry of truth in 1984. “We have always been at war with Eastasia.”

Let’s take it as a given that we want to slow the spread of COVID-19 — to save lives, to keep the hospitals from being overcrowded, etc. If we agree on the goal, do we have to agree on the method to get there? Who, for example, has definitively decided that lockdowns are the right way to achieve this goal, and where is the evidence that lockdowns work? (An additional question is whether they are worth the cost. Here’s an article about physicians who say they do more harm than good.)

Here’s an interesting article from a few months back examining studies allegedly showing that lockdowns work, … or don’t work. You can find them going either way, of course.

I don’t know the answer, and I suspect it would take at least a day’s work to get close to knowing the answer — which I’m not going to do. I’m not even sure it’s possible to know “the answer” at this point, and it doesn’t matter in any event. Gov. Hogan isn’t going to ask me for policy recommendations.

Here’s what amazes me. In the midst of this confusion and lack of certainty, the geniuses at Facebook know who to censor. They know what speech is in the public good and what isn’t. Facebook Sparks Another Free Speech Debate by Removing Anti-Lockdown Event Posts

Free speech looks like it will be one of the casualties of COVID.

November 545: Five topics in five minutes

P&C review DuClaw’s Candy Cane Imperial Stout, one of the latest in their Pastryarchy series. Then they do five quick topics in about five minutes each.

#1. The Left controls every institution in America — education, fashion, most of the news, Hollywood, etc. So if there’s “institutional racism” in America, who’s to blame?

#2. Mexicans celebrate their indigenous populations on holidays and such, but they are not treated well. It’s a caste system.

#3. A French feminist is promoting the idea that women should erase men entirely from their lives.

#4. Pigweed shares his Zen experience with ambient videos and challenges Crowhill to pick one.

#5. Is religious revival the only hope for restoring America?

We end with our man of the week: Megyn Kelly