JH
It was so easy to feel virtuous during Covid: just stay with the herd and receive instructions, messaging and moral cheerleading from the Good and the Great; those kindly powers that were leading and saving the multitudes of good souls who did ‘the right thing’. But corporate virtue feelings are easy come, easy go, for the easily led.
Trust in institutions and their leaders, so readily given in the time of fear, has been fading in the time of reflection, leaving questions hanging that few have found the courage to ask: Why was I deceived? What was it that I wanted more than truth? The harder question for some is: Why did I go along with what I knew was not true?
Here and there some different stories were lived – stories of truth and courage. This is one:
In the summer of 2020, maligned Stanford professor, Jay Bhattacharya, was at a low point. “I spent that summer incredibly stressed...At one point I was losing weight so quickly I was almost afraid for my life.” He could have taken the offer to go back to being a faculty member in good standing, at the expense of truth. In the summarising words of Jordan Peterson, “As long as you were quiet and compliant like a good faculty member…I’m crossing the Rubicon …I don’t care about my reputation any more…I’m going to use my knowledge and what resources I have to say what I believe, because I think that there are many, many lives at stake.”
Four years later Donald Trump has nominated Bhattacharya to run the National Institutes of Health.
His response on X – “We will reform American scientific institutions so that they are worthy of trust again…”
Great pick, Donald. Science needs heroes of truth and courage: we all do.
