[FRIAM] anthropological observations

[Owen Densmore]

Nicely done David.

On Mon, Apr 13, 2020 at 9:35 AM Jochen Fromm <jofr at cas-group.net> wrote:

> I believe the cultural divide between China and the US is bigger than the
> cultural divide between US and EU. At the moment I'm reading "River Town"
> from Peter Hessler, an American who spent 2 years for the Peace Corps as an
> English teacher in Fuling, Sichuan. Sichuan is located in the west of China
> and it is known for Pandas and spicy food.
>
> The book is a few years old. Nevertheless Peter reports that many Chinese
> back then saw both Hitler and Mao as great leaders (!), despite their
> crimes and their millions of victims. Some even confuse the dictator in
> Charlie Chaplin's movie "The Great Dictator" with the real Hitler. Of
> course in the US and in the EU nobody shares this view.
>
> Peter also reports about the strong effects of lifelong propaganda from
> the communist party of China. In Europe we have propaganda as well, but it
> is mostly in form of marketing and advertising for corporations and their
> products. Advertising for political parties only happens during elections
> for limited periods of time. We have freedom of speech in EU & US, but
> there is no freedom of speech in China. I believe that's a major difference
> between EU & US and China.
>
> -J.
>
>
> -------- Original message --------
> From: Prof David West <profwest at fastmail.fm>
> Date: 4/12/20 20:52 (GMT+01:00)
> To: friam at redfish.com
> Subject: [FRIAM] anthropological observations
>
> I have been in Amsterdam for the past year and had the opportunity to put
> on my anthropologist's hat and observe cultural differences in reaction to
> the Covid-19 virus. I returned to the US two weeks ago and just completed a
> two-day auto journey from Wisconsin to Utah — also in full ethnographic
> research mode.
>
> My "research methodology" is typical for anthropology, observation,
> conversations with as many people from as many different backgrounds as
> possible, reading newspapers — most importantly, small local publications —
> and, in the US, listening to radio broadcasts — again mostly local stations
> including lots of country western and even religious stations in addition
> to NPR, CBS, and Fox radio (I could not find CNN radio).  I was trying to
> gain insights into the population of those who listen to / read the
> different sources, as well as attitudes of media to their audience. Both
> country-western and religious stations reflect the mostly rural populations
> of Nevada, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Nebraska, Colorado, and Utah along
> my route.
>
> Some observations:
>
> 1) Covid-19 Numbers. Mainstream media in the US gives you opinion,
> analysis, and interpretation with just enough numbers to "justify" the
> conclusions. They are woefully short on "raw" or complete numbers. In
> contrast, European media and local media in the US provide numbers with no
> analysis or interpretation. And reasonably complete, e.g. total number
> tested, number tested negative, number tested positive, hospitalizations,
> available beds, used beds, available respirators, used respirators,
> specific outbreak loci, including jails and prisons.
>
> CONCLUSION: mainstream media outlets in the US assume their audience is
> composed of idiots incapable of making sense of the data and in need of
> "guidance" and "leadership" while European and rural US information sources
> presume a basic level of competence in their audiences.
>
> 2) Models, projections and actual. In Europe I encountered almost none of
> the "the models predict and hence we are doomed unless ..." kind of
> articles that seem to dominate US mainstream media. Instead, "spreadsheet
> models" with data were published in tables by date, country, and raw
> number. European readers were left to make their own conclusions about how
> Netherlands data compared to Italian (for example) and make projections or
> draw conclusions as appropriate.
>
> In local newspapers in Nevada, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Nebraska I saw
> articles that compared projected numbers from the models touted by CDC,
> Fauci, et.al. with actual local numbers. Local numbers varied from
> national model projections by as much as -50% and never less than -20%.
> (That is actual was dramatically lower than projected.)
>
> I saw and heard numerous editorial commentaries with regard the
> discrepancy between what the 'experts" were saying and what was locally
> observed and questioning why the variance. This leads immediately to
> questions about "hidden agendas" on the part of the Federal government and
> the "experts."
>
> CONCLUSION: A population that already mistrusts the Federal government and
> the"intelligentsia" is given one more reason, backed by hard data, for that
> mistrust. Also very clear — the population is NOT anti-science but IS very
> mistrustful of "authoritarian scientists" — those prone to saying "you
> wouldn't understand, but I do and you should trust me."
>
> 3) Medical science. In the past two months I have seen around a dozen
> "treatments" advanced that have the potential to alleviate and/or treat
> Covid. I have seen at least five articles from companies that have
> developed tests and or testing machines (some of the latter capable of
> 15,000 tests per day). There have been at least six articles from
> Universities (including the one Frank shared from Pittsburgh) or
> companies/organizations that have developed potential vaccines. Oxford
> University has one that, they say, could be deployed as soon as September.
>
> In Europe you see stories about the use of tests and testing devices, use
> of treatments along side data about effectiveness and heuristics for use,
> and optimistic projections of the availability of vaccines.In the US you do
> not.
>
> CONCLUSION: Science, and in particular medical science, has become
> Fetishized in the US — that is to say that form and ritual is more
> important than substance. The use of hydrochloroquine, for example is
> widespread in Europe and backed by all kinds of information on indications
> for use, heuristics for determining dosage, contra-indications, and
> effectiveness numbers. Information is widely shared on all possible
> treatments along with all the caveats, and physicians are encouraged to use
> their best personal judgement. In the US, none of the above, because it is
> not "scientifically proven to be efficacious" mostly because we have not
> done a six-month double blind study.
>
> 4) Cultural ignorance, part one: non-medical masks. The use of ad hoc and
> home-made masks is an astoundingly bad idea in the U.S., for cultural
> reasons. In Asian cultures — for the most part — the wearing of a mask
> invokes non-conscious, but very real, feelings of "social solidarity,"
> "conformance," and "consideration for others." In the U.S., even in medical
> settings where we know, intellectually, the reason for the mask, invokes
> non-conscious feelings of "threat," "mistrust," and "alienation." A simple
> test: ask 100 black males if they would wear a medical mask in public. Ask
> them is they would wear a home-made mask. Group responses by education and
> economics. Among those with high education/economic status, maybe 50% would
> wear a medical mast, but only about 10-15% would wear an informal mask.
> About 10-15% of those at the lower end of the education/economic ladder
> would be likely to wear a medical mask and 0-5% a homemade mask. Then ask
> why.
>
> 5) Cultural ignorance, part two: social isolation. Supposedly, social
> distancing is the best, perhaps only, means for "flattening the curve."
> This is nonsense. Ethnographic (and,of course, therefore not "scientific")
> studies of two previous 'epidemics;" AIDS and STDs show that a far more
> effective means for controlling conflagration is the establishment of
> "communities of trust." Communities of Trust were self-organized
> communities of at-risk individuals, within which behaviors such as
> promiscuity and needle sharing were allowed, even encouraged and expanded,
> while such behavior outside the community was strictly forbidden and
> grounds for permanent banishment if violated.
>
> Within such communities the transmission rate immediately dropped to near
> zero. Because everyone in the community knew everyone else, contact
> tracing, if needed, was also immediate and globally shared, leading to
> effective and temporary isolation. Communities could scale. There were at
> least two communities that were national in scope, using a kind of
> federated model with local communities assuming responsibility for local
> populations but allowing for individuals to participate in non-local
> communities. Woe to the local community that allowed one of their members
> to "infect" another community. It was pretty much a one-strike and you are
> out situation, and that translated into each individual establishing a
> local, long term, track record before being allowed to participate
> elsewhere.
>
> I have seen this kind of community of trust in the Netherlands and Europe,
> with regards psychedelic drug users, BDSM groups, even Naturist groups. In
> the US is is very evident in the Mormon culture and in most rural
> communities.
>
> OPINION: this possibility is not pursued because it is self-organizing and
> not amenable to centralized government control.
>
> 6) U.S. Federal Bureaucracy and antipathy to "Medicare For All."
> Conversations and editorial commentaries exposed a very pragmatic argument
> for not entrusting health care to the Federal Government. Using FEMA and
> the current situation as an example, people pointed out that FEMA has
> failed to deliver because it is implacably bound to "PROCEDURE" and "FORMAL
> PROCESS" to the extent that it cannot certify vendors and place orders for
> equipment. Imagine if health care was entrusted to the same kind of "brain
> dead" "lacking common sense" "exclusively by the lowest common denominator
> rules" bureaucratic entity.
>
> 7) Cultural divide. I won't go into this in detail unless asked at some
> point, but it is clear, to me, that the red-state / blue-state
> differentiation is fatally flawed, but underneath is a
> centralized-command-and-control-grounded-in-liberalism culture versus a
> local-self-responsible-independent-anti-centrism-anti-authoritarian
> culture. These cultures are implacably opposed and will be the basis for a
> "civil war" of some sort within the next decade.
>
> davew
>
>
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