Scapegoating, Compliance, and Control

Photo by Anna Gru

I have recently had a chance to speak with Dr. Aaron Kheriaty about the topic of compliance on my Forbidden Conversations podcast.

One of the things we discussed is how difficult it has become to during the pandemic to challenge any policies without being labelled things like “selfish,” “conspiracy theorist,” or “grandma killer” — even when the skepticism was quite warranted. Such labels effectively shut down discourse.

The government didn’t even really need to silence people—though they did attempt to do so by controlling the flow of information by directing social media platforms to take down misinformation, disinformation, and even correct information that might cause doubt in individuals. Many people were simply afraid to challenge anything due to peer pressure and remained silent. But many others didn’t even when really have doubt, they just accepted things at surface level without giving it much thought at all.

When I asked Dr. Kheriaty about this, he responded: “I…