People who raise doubts about the set up of a police state in response to Covid-19 are denounced as irresponsible idiots. But those who want to be locked down have no monopoly on wisdom, we must resist the locking down of debate. At first, I could not believe what I...
Covid-19 is a disaster without precedent. Not primarily in terms of the disease itself, but in terms of how we have responded to it.The impact of Covid-19 on people’s lives and on economic, social and global relations, both now and in the future, is likely to be more...
Green zealots want to turn the global catastrophe of Covid-19 into fuel for their alarmist extinction narrative. By blaming humanity’s impact on the planet for the outbreak, they hope to mobilize support for their cause. The hastily cobbled together green playbook on...
Throughout history, humanity’s response to major disasters has been shaped by the prevailing attitudes of the day. Our views on the meaning of life, on human efficacy, and on how to manage uncertainty have all impacted on how we deal with severe crises. These...
It does not help that numerous psychologists are telling us ‘don’t let coronavirus tip society into panic’. As a sociologist with a professional interest in how fear works I can confirm that nobody decides to panic. People panic when the messages communicated to them...
There is nothing unusual about the outbreak of a new virus. In fact, in recent years, such outbreaks have become almost normal. Avian flu in Hong Kong in 1997, the West Nile virus in New York in 1999, the MERS virus discovered in Saudi Arabia in 2012, the outburst of...