The Cult of Safety
Codifying Risk Elimination to Control Society
Thanks to Brownstone Institute for running this piece and Dr. Robert Malone for re-posting on his Substack. You can visit the sites at: https://brownstone.org/ and https://rwmalonemd.substack.com/
It was the 1970s. Dry cleaning bags lurked quietly behind couches waiting patiently for the opportunity to pounce on the hapless child who dropped a Lego nearby. Unguarded five-gallon buckets stood brazenly in the middle of basement floors hoping to entice their next drowning victim. Discarded refrigerators prowled the land looking for unsuspecting eight-year-olds to gobble up. GI Joes and Barbies, with the help of their little owners, were making out everywhere.
It is the 2020s. Entire schools ban peanut butter and jelly sandwiches because maybe one kid might have an allergy. Parents get visits from county protective services for letting their children play unsupervised in the park across the street. Jungle gyms are an endangered species. And third-graders are taught to not impose cisnormative constructs, let alone behaviors, on anyone or anything.
The odd thing is that the events described in the first paragraph (except the GI Joe one) were not actually happening on any grand scale. The sad thing is that the events in the second paragraph are.
Admittedly there were children – one assumes - who did manage to trap themselves inside random refrigerators, hence the televised public service announcements (seriously, and such a seventies solution) asking the public to at least take the handle off of the appliance before heaving it over an embankment or leaving it in a burned-lot in the Bronx.
And admittedly – again, one assumes – a child somewhere somehow managed to get themselves tangled up in a dry cleaning bag. As to the bucket problem, that one is rather hard to fathom but it must have happened at least once to spawn the lawsuit that forced manufacturers to put drowning warnings – complete with a graphic depiction of the inept toddler – on their buckets:
Whether it was caused by the misadventures of Darwin’s children, the ever-burgeoning personal injury litigation field, a cherry-picking sensationalist media, humanity’s inability to comprehend statistics or some combination thereof, society has clearly shifted drastically from a relatively laissez faire approach to common hazards to - not just a risk aversion or risk reduction model – the codified elimination of risk.
There was once a feeling that hard cases make bad law; it now appears that the concept that any case must make immediate law holds sway.
The process started with some actually pretty necessary common sense notions – drunk driving is not actually cool, dumping toxic waste in salmon brooks might not be a good thing, smoking really can kill you so quit, don’t eat lead paint, etc. But these were the easy bits and the organizations and forces behind their implementation soon came to realize that if people started to be more sensible in general, society’s need for their input, expertise, and services – their guiding hand – would by definition decrease.
Take, for example, the March of Dimes. Originally started as an effort to both find a vaccine against polio and to help those already stricken, the organization in the early 1960s was facing a dilemma. With the vaccines pretty much eradicating the disease, the group was faced with a choice: declare victory and essentially close up shop or continue forward and not waste the fundraising and organizational skills and socio-political capital they had built up over the previous 20-odd years. They chose the latter and continue to this day as a very well-respected and important group, leading various initiatives to fight numerous childhood maladies.
Just not polio.
In the March of Dimes case, they unquestionably made the right call and they continue to serve a vital function. But to state that there were no, shall we say, personal motivations involved in that decision strains credulity.
This pattern – whether with good and righteous intent or not - was and is being repeated over and over again as lesser people and groups actively search out something – anything – that could theoretically possibly be misused or can even remotely be deemed questionable (everything is questionable – all someone has to do is ask the question) to latch onto and save us from.
Whether out of true concern or some other nefarious motive – power, profit, societal purchase – the inexorable march towards the bubble-wrap of today that was launched by the professional caring class continues all the way from the classroom to the living room to the newsroom to the board room.
The more nefarious motives seem to be coming to the fore of late, with those who would control the entire society in the name of safety brazenly touting their desires under the rubric of “better safe than sorry – and we can make you very sorry very quickly.”
Obviously, we saw this process in real time in the pandemic effort. From “two weeks to stop the spread” to fully vaccinated people being shame/told to wear two masks a year later, to the laughable “we did the best we could” claims of the present day, this continuing impact is a perfect example of a cultural power version of “gain of function” experimental research principle being implemented not in a lab but in society at large.
The censorship movement is also part of the attempt to perma-coddle the world. Different thoughts are deemed both literally and figuratively dangerous, so for the safety of the general public they must be stopped. This is not only a media issue but a personal one as well as staying quiet is always safer than saying anything, let alone anything that may offend the perpetually offended.
Language itself is being made safer, as the euphemisms once only used by the absurd or the public relations department have become standard speech. If you can’t say anything unsafe, eventually you can’t think anything unsafe.
And there is of course the ultimate safety of the infant - https://thomas699.substack.com/p/the-censored-generation . Cared for, caressed, and controlled, the ultimate expression of the cult of safety is the demand by adults to be treated like children.
A bargain is being made: dependence for safety – barely enough stuff to get by, more than enough entertainment to pass the time, and a new pill for any new perceived ailment, all in exchange staying quiet and compliant.
You will be safe and secure, but never completely secure because that would obviate the threat that the easy (but empty) life you enjoy could be whisked away on a whim - https://thomas699.substack.com/p/an-abundance-of-scarcity .
And the process is being sold in the name of progress.
But this form of – or bastardization of – progress is in fact antithetical to the tenets of a free society. By worshiping at the altar of the safe we denigrate, delay, and deny the myriad possibilities for human advancement that are inherent in the concept of risk.
It may seem to be a bit of leap to claim that the proposition that children should be warned to stop eating lead paint led inevitably to having children ask people what their preferred pronouns are so as to avoid even the semblance of giving offense, but this form of incrementalism - as we now see - cannot be easily controlled once started.
And this is one slippery slope on which a Cuidado Piso Mojado sign is nowhere in sight.
Note - I re-wrote/updated this piece. I thought it made sense to.
Thanks for the comments - they're great!!
I grew up in Europe, where we didn't have child-proof medicine packaging or cleaning/chemical/... supplies, whose lids sometimes barely can be pried off, if someone has arthritis or is a bit clumsy. I never experienced all these weird contraptions until I moved to the USA and suddenly was faced with safety features that seem utterly ridiculous to anyone outside of America.
How did children in the rest of the world survive without these precautionary features added to everything that could possible pose a danger to a child of any age? So many times, I ended up cussing at an item I had bought but could not easily use because I had to adapt to the weird opening ritual that was supposed to keep youngsters safe. Yet I wondered how an elderly person could take their much needed medicine, if it required some considerable strength and coordination to get access?
What really caused all these features to be added?
Litigation is a favorite pastime in America, and it seems that frivolous lawsuits have long been a hobby to many.
So, in the end, is it more the fear of manufacturers going bankrupt over endless lawsuits by money greedy individuals who have learned how to play the system, or is this true concern for the safety of others? Having lived in the USA for many years now, I tend to think it is the first more than the second. Yes, we need to keep children safe - many adults too - but how about teaching everyone what to stay away from, taking responsibility as parents to prevent kids from playing with items they should not touch?
How about not letting anyone sue a company because they poured hot coffee in their lap, or because they ingested a harmful substance without anyone else participating or making them swallow the poison?
Here in America, we prefer to point the finger at someone else, even if no one else took part in our own mistakes. It seems that for many people almost everything needs to come with a warning label or special safety feature, yet those will find other ways to harm themselves, because heck, you can stumble over your own feet and knock a hole in your head on the way down. Will you sue the shoe manufacturer?
I sure have done stupid stuff in my life, but I am glad that I was raised to know that my mistakes are mine and no one else's, even if they involve a product that I purchased somewhere. There is a place for safety features and liability. If the braking system in my car fails due to a glitch in our highly advanced computerized vehicles and causes an accident - yes, that would be the time to contact the manufacturer. If I drive into a tree or hit a person because I was distracted for a second by my phone, my drink or anything else of my own choice...why would I blame anyone but myself?
I don't like to be controlled like a mindless serf, yet special protection comes with unsolicited control.
With the demands to have everything in our life overly protected by special features, so we can go about our day believing that kids (or some adults) won't be able to harm themselves, while we don't have to teach appropriate handling of items, we are only deceiving ourselves. While it might be harder to open a medication bottle for some, the same individuals will easily ingest one of the infamous bath bombs or sniff glue, if they set their eyes on a high or are 'adventurous'.
Little kids might not be able to get to the content of a weed killer, but they can burn their hands to a crisp if they touch the hot stove or open oven. There is no guarantee of safety if we don't explain and literally train our loved ones to be careful and understand the dangers that surround us. Sometimes, lessons are only learned with the pain from our own mistakes. Hopefully, the consequences are not severe and give us much needed insight from an early age on that we have to be careful and must heed the advise from others.
You brought up so many points that I would love to comment to but this would lengthen my reply too much.
It is time that we bring personal responsibility and accountability back. It has to be taught, acknowledged and exercised. Our society would be so much better off with that type of safety feature!