In Maclean’s, Jen Gerson admits that she has not (yet) reported any of her neighbours for their failure to obediently follow the rules of social distancing. She must be reported to the appropriate state authorities!
Commemorative badges of the German Democratic Republic’s Ministry of State Security (Stasi).
Wikimedia Commons.
Look, I know I’m going to get flak for this, but someone needs to say it: think twice before you narc on your neighbours.
Snitching may work, but the downsides to citizen-policing are grim — to say nothing of the historical antecedents.
Firstly, “you can play havoc with somebody just by snitching on them with an anonymous snitch line,” noted Sharon Polsky, the president of the Privacy and Access Council of Canada. In addition to the risk of malicious reports, if people of colour aren’t disproportionately subject to snitching, I’d be shocked.
Totalitarian states turned neighbour against neighbour and family against family, in order to maintain the illusion of social cohesion.
Authoritarians use this tactic because there are never enough police or soldiers to force compliance upon an entire population, not unless everyone consents to become an agent of his or her own mutual oppression.
The term “fascism” has an innocent history. It comes from the Roman term “fasces,” which means a bundle of sticks bound together. One stick breaks, but the fasces remains strong. It’s another term for unity. That’s what makes it so seductive, especially in times of uncertainty and mortal dread. We’re all in this together. Nary a stick shall stray.
“We are now living amid the very tactics that the West [once] criticized,” Polsky added. “With state controls on commerce, industry, speech, and media.”
The federal government, for example, is already considering legislation that would bar the spreading of misinformation about COVID-19 online.
“Extraordinary times require extraordinary measures and it is about protecting the public,” Privy Council President Dominic LeBlanc told reporters with a line that should give any student of history the creeps.
“This is not a question of freedom of speech. This is a question of people who are actually actively working to spread disinformation, whether it’s through troll bot farms, whether [it’s] state operators or whether it’s really conspiracy theorist cranks who seem to get their kicks out of creating havoc.”
No doubt LeBlanc et al are operating under the noblest of intentions. But repressive measures buy conformity at a terrible price. Snitch lines turn us against one another. They teach us to fear the people we need to survive, thus making us more dependent on the apparatus of the state.
No MacLean’s just, nope.
“No doubt LeBlanc et al are operating under the noblest of intentions. But repressive measures buy conformity at a terrible price. Snitch lines turn us against one another. They teach us to fear the people we need to survive, thus making us more dependent on the apparatus of the state.”
He is not operating under “the noblest of intentions.” He is a typical authoritarian who requires the proles to stay in line, and will utilize the gatekeepers and propagandists to feed them only the information they require to obey. I cannot believe the self delusion one has to work under to believe that any government is doing us, the people, a favour by protecting us from the free flow of information.
Comment by Dwayne — May 1, 2020 @ 01:01
Canadians have a remarkably positive default view of the government that seems immune to reality checks, scandals, and blatant corruption. The government could go much further in our current
3090-day free trial of authoritarianism and Canadians would just go along with a bare minimum of grumbling. We sometimes make sheep look stroppy and rebellious.On second thought, omit “sometimes” from that last sentence.
Comment by Nicholas — May 1, 2020 @ 10:19