Downing Street’s Ebola panic is a classic case of the politics of fear

The Guardian ^ | October 17 2014 | Simon Jenkins

[Winniesboy]

Remember Sars? What about bird flu? Here we are again with the latest ‘pandemic’, having our insecurities cynically exploited...

No one can tell me if Ebola is the worst plague since, variously, Aids, Sars, BSE or the black death. All I hear is that it “might” be. I do not mind being told no one knows. But what do I make of a prime minister who emerges from his Cobra bunker and declares “a very serious threat to the UK”, a US president who says it is “spiralling out of control”, and a World Health Organisation that says it is “the most severe health emergency seen in modern times … a potential threat of an unparalleled human catastrophe”?...

We have lost control of the language of proportion....

...Is this all scientific drivel, or merely abuse of the sacred word “could”? We have no tools for assessing such threats. There is no help from the Office for National Statistics or Office for Budget Responsibility. Tim Harford of the BBC Radio 4 programme More or Less tries to keep his head above the sea of tosh. But the only sane response is total scepticism of the motives of those seeking to make us afraid....

[Winniesboy]

The full article is quite a useful summary of the psychology of risk perception and its manipulation

[Phillyred]

People who get ebola usually die, unlike the bird flu and sars.

[dirtboy]

But the only sane response is total scepticism of the motives of those seeking to make us afraid....

As opposed to what? The inane and contradictory platitudes coming from Obama and the CDC? If we would have stopped flights from the affected regions, we would not have Ebola in this country now. If, after that fail, the CDC would have had adequate protocols, the outbreak could have stopped with patient zero. After that fail, stringent travel restrictions could have limited subsequent exposure to the next two patients. Now, we have a vector that is expanding exponentially.

[VanDeKoik]

So I guess this is going to be the left-wing response to the seriousness of this?

Every effort to restrict it is going to be painted as “overblown” or “racist”. How cute.

[Ouchthatonehurt]

I bet Nina Pham wished there had been a little more “panic” involved.

[RC one]

Remember HIV?

[caligatrux]

If governments really thought it so terrifying they would issue a temporary ban on air travel...

This is where his analysis goes awry.

He trusts the government to issue a travel ban if the ebola threat was real. He is assuming that since the government is not instituting strict measures, then the crissis isn't real. He supports this conclusion by showing that past "outbreaks" like bird flu were over-hyped. Thus, he is assuming that ebola isn't really as bad as "they" are making it seem, and ascribes the tactics of "scaremongering" to them.

His solution? He suggests more government:

The government should appoint a commission for the assessment of panics. Its job would be to test alarmist announcements against stringent statistical probability. If a budget can be independently audited and crime figures independently scrutinised, why not Downing Street scaremongering?

Perhaps this is tongue-in-cheek... it's hard to tell with those cheeky Brits. But his conclusion that "A democracy must know what it should fear" makes me think he is a least somewhat serious.

I'm not saying ebola is the end of time, or that the sky is falling. I hope ebola burns itself out like it has in the past and becomes just another bird flu.

I also agree with a lot of what he is saying. Health scares are "the classics of the politics of fear." The sane response is, in fact, "scepticism of the motives of those seeking to make us afraid."

But you can't assume the government will protect you when the threat is "real" and you don't have to really worry about something if the government isn't "really" doing something about it. Consider his statement:

I expect the police to guard me from danger without constantly telling me what the danger is.

That is completely illogical and irrational. In the real world, everyone knows that most of the time the police show up well after the danger to bag the evidence and start making a case for trial, assuming they catch the perpetrator.

If there is danger, I want to know what that danger is so that I can evaluate for myself what steps I need to protect me and my family.

So while the author's points on fearmongering are important and worth discussion, his analysis of ebola in particular and government in general is quite flawed, in my humble opinion.

[RayChuang88]

I think people forget that Ebola spread like crazy in the most affected areas of western Africa due to very poor sanitary conditions that makes the spread of the disease very easy to do. It's the same issue that led to the fast spread of two dreaded diseases in Europe: the bubonic plague between 1346 and 1353, and cholera between 1829 and 1851.

We need to dread the common cold and influenza more, since both are spread by viruses that transmit extremely easily and one of its effects is pneumonia, which is deadly in some cases.

[El Cid]

So while the author's points on fearmongering are important and worth discussion, his analysis of ebola in particular and government in general is quite flawed, in my humble opinion.

I agree with your humble opinion.
I hope this Ebola burns out quickly - with minimal damage.
The Government pretty much works against the people and their objective is to increase their power - not govern as public servants. I.e., I'd trust their public pronouncements as far as I could throw them.
And finally - this Media screed from the Guardian is just trying to influence people to remain sheep and to trust their 'masters' (or 'betters', so to speak).

[dead]

I never see this call for cooler heads ever expressed about global warming chicken littles.

There - the more insanely melodramatic and breathless, the more serious you are taken.

[dead]

I seem to see far more "don't get hysterical about ebola!" hysteria than I see hysteria for the disease itself.

It's a concerted effort to stave off complaints about government incompetence in the face of this situation. If you criticize Obama or any of the dozens of government-funded global health organizations you are obviously a hysterical nut.

They are far more out front with a strategy to minimize the political impact than they are with a strategy to minimize the health impact.

[arderkrag]

I seem to see far more "don't get hysterical about ebola!" hysteria than I see hysteria for the disease itself.

Then you haven't been on FR much in the past two weeks.

[goodnesswins]

Yes...Their “Strategy” is becoming obvious...which is why no one is trusting any of their statements on Ebola...Chicken Little too much in the face of real problems and people MAY wake up...MAY hopefully

[RayChuang88]

I think because we're so paranoid about a potential Ebola outbreak, everyone is really on edge and a suspicious fever of anyone who has recently travelled to western Africa is taken VERY seriously.

[dead]

Then you haven't been on FR much in the past two weeks.

We around here are immune to any mainstream media attempts to calm us down.

[arderkrag]

I’m around here, and I make it a point to NOT get worked up.

[DoughtyOne]

The Gardian’s Ebola indifference is a classic case of the politics of ignorance

Why not lead the populace into the dark abyss? It’s worked so well in the past.

[Winniesboy]

Hardly indifference. I wouldn’t take this article as a Guardian editorial view - there’s plenty of fairly straight Ebola coverage elsewhere in the Guardian. Jenkins is a contrarian, not easily classifiable. Sometimes he appears very left, sometimes the opposite.

[DoughtyOne]

Putting this stuff into print is a mistake.

Strong measures are called for, and here’s this guy acting as if the government is doing something it shouldn’t.

You could easily be right regarding the overall Guardian deliverance of information, but all this article is going to do is enable those who are trying to game the issue on race or unfairness.

So at least in part the Guardian is problematic here.

[independentmind]

Fear can sometimes be an appropriate, healthy response.