Let me ask you a question. Would you give up your job, your savings, your kids’ economic future, your pension, your parents’ current pension, your house, and your mental health, if I told you that doing so may possibly extend my old, sick grandfather’s life by a year or two? I don’t suppose you’d be too keen, would you? In fact, even the most mild-mannered of people is likely to get angry at the sheer effrontery of such a request.
What if I told the world the same thing? What if I told the world that if everyone in every country gave up their wordly possessions, and spent the rest of their lives in grinding poverty, then it’s possible that my grandfather might get to see Christmas? And suppose that there was some bare plausibility to this, based on a computer model developed by scientists at Imperial College. What do you think the world is likely to say to me? The polite response would be, ‘Sorry to hear about your grandfather, but we’re not going to do this’. The less polite response would be more like… well, just incredulous laughter, and slammed doors.
The reason I bring up these hypothetical scenarios, though, is that all over social media we are hearing about the Covid-19 lockdown being ‘worth it if it saves just one life’. But would the people saying this really be willing to give up, say, their own house, car and possessions and teenage daughter to someone who is suicidally depressed over their lack of prospects in life? No. Would they be prepared to serve ten years in jail if it saved the life of someone at risk of being killed by gangsters? No. Would they be happy with having the government forcibly remove a kidney from them to extend the life of someone with failing kidneys? No. Economic ruin and loss of liberty is not something we generally regard as a fair trade for a stranger’s life. Generally even the bleeding hearts among us will say, and rightfully so, ‘I’m sorry for this person, but they are not entitled to this, and I will not damage my life to any great extent for them’. Charitable donations are one thing. So is volunteer service. But that’s it.
Another thing I am seeing is people who say, ‘Anything is worth it if it saves lives’. Anything? Really? Shall we ban alcohol then? Because some people die from alcohol. Cars? Paracetamol? Steak knives? Shall we ban mobile phones, because terrorists might use them to communicate with? Shall we lock up for life anyone convicted of a minor juvenile crime, in case they turn out to be a killer? The whole idea is too ridiculous for words, yet all over the world there are fearful people hiding in their homes and posting such thoughts. It is one thing to feel sorry for them, but their stupid ideas shouldn’t pass unchallenged.
Someone responded to a tweet of mine calling for an end to the lockdown by asking what they obviously thought was a killer question: ‘But imagine if it was your wife. Wouldn’t you want the lockdown to continue then?’ The answer to that is no, I wouldn’t. What if it was my child? My answer to that is also no. Or me? Still no. I would never even dream of asking anyone to give up that much for the sake of me or my family. I might beg some money off them if my daughter was on her deathbed and I needed to buy medicine to save her. But I wouldn’t ask that person to give up their job and have the bank take back their house for her. I wouldn’t ask them to live under house arrest in a tiny one-bedroom apartment for months for her. I wouldn’t ask them to give up their own kids’ career aspirations for her. I feel like nobody else ever loved anybody as much as I love my kids, but the idea that a whole nation should inflict the worst depression ever seen on itself in order to save — possibly save — my kids, or my grandparents, or my wife, strikes me as an utterly bizarre notion.
Update: I don’t deny that there are difficult moral dilemmas that might be posed, involving a lot of deaths, where less is required of us. But that is not the situation we are dealing with with Covid-19, where economic ruin and considerable loss of liberty is required of many of us, nor is it the sort of simplistic and absurd view I am concerned with in this post.
31 thoughts on “Is anything worth doing to save a life?”
well said; so well said Hector.
at last we are starting to approach reality; I used to put this scenario to my children; when they were small; and we talked about the cost of “saving lives”: theu used to dismiss my scenarios: like yours; as “stupid” so we would bargain on costs;
well done Hector; this is “big boys’ games” and we are starting to get “big boys’ rules” dished out to us: we don’t know the devastation we are going to face;
we need to show courage; get up; get out; mix; and be with our fellow human beings; and some day, we will all die.
Blojo and the gang don’t seem to be listening.
But even that nitwit Kier Stumour is slowly beginning to see that there is mileage in joining the anti-LD ranks. Labour were orig against it for race-baiting reasons –but as soon as they saw the possibilities for holier-than-thou “we value lives/NHS not money” line etc they switched. And have spent the last 5 weeks condemning Govt hysteria for not being hysterical enough.
But once enough people try to pick up their lives and realise that they have been ruined over a damp squib flu –there will be millions of v angry folk. Who might just be angry enough to forget how Labour was a willing part of the same hysteria which ruined them.
A mob needs someone whose head it can call for–and Blojo is doing a lovely job of lining himself up for that role.
“…we are hearing about the Covid-19 lockdown being ‘worth it if it saves just one life’.”
Out of interest, where is this being said? The leftist echo chamber of Twatter? I haven’t come across it – yet.
Of course not! But that doesn’t mean that _you_ shouldn’t be forced at gunpoint to give up everything including your entire family’s future so that _my_ gran can soil her diapers for an additional few weeks.
Mr. Drummond’s piece today seems to be yet another excellent reason for staying away entirely from all forms of social media.
Not so much the questions you need to ask people.
Problem is that few knew the questions they were being asked.
Of greater concern is that even fewer would have understood the ramifications.
That is the fault of mass hysteria, fueled by a Left leaning feminist, man shaming media machine.
If you look at BBC.com/news you would think you are reading a Woman’s mag.
Not one mention the plight of Africa, now suppose to be ravaged.
Because clearly the answer has been given, in the form of stay home, protect the NHS, save lives.
This will take us to economic and health devastation occurring now and in the future.
Economies around the world have sustained the worst terror attack ever.
The likes of ISIS, Osama could not have inflicted anywhere near the damage this hysteria has caused.
Just accept the outcome and deal with it.
The economic damage has now been done.
The poor will suffer the most.
Or are everyone still touchy, feely, lovely dubly.
Anyone looked at Sweden lately?
I’ve seen it on comment threads on ‘Conservative Woman’. I replied to an article relating to lockdown and how there is a view that this will kill more people than CV. I received a few replies along the lines of ‘why are those lives lost through the lockdown more important than those lost through CV’! Another tried to goad me into that ridiculous dilemma ‘what price would I put on a human life’. You just can’t reason with these people because they think they own the moral high ground
“Someone responded to a tweet of mine calling for an end to the lockdown by asking what they obviously thought was a killer question: ‘But imagine if it was your wife. Wouldn’t you want the lockdown to continue then?’”
This is like the idiot police officers telling people they’re putting lives at risk while sitting on a park bench. But those same officers probably unknowingly spread the flu virus by not isolating themselves when off-duty every winter. It seems that people like your tweet responder are hopelessly ill-informed about the world, and like many people is letting fear rule their head selectively.
Isn’t about Sweden particularly but does get a mention…well worth watching
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=BTLii-e_UtY&feature=emb_logo
The ‘if it saves one life’ attitude is the logical end point of a society that has lost its religious underpinnings. Most people are not capable of facing the reality of death, so find solace in religion to protect them from the negative thoughts that would otherwise fill their minds. Once they have lost that religious safety blanket their anxiety manifests itself in the ‘must do everything to avoid death’ behaviour we see so widespread in society today – the obsession with health, diet, fitness, safety first. Everything must be done to avoid death at all costs.
Its quite often that significant changes to society run undiscovered until something unexpected triggers them into public view. The mawkishness that surrounded Princess Diana’s death was obviously present in society for some time before her death, it just took that event to display it to everyone. Similarly with this virus – an underlying change in society has been exposed.
“Take all I have but spare my life” is a perfectly reasonable personal decision. If, in your concern for your nearest and dearest, you value their life and needs more highly than that of the patient in the next bed, that is an understandable human behaviour. But in the wider world, there has to be some value, something to hold society together, that goes beyond me, me, and mine.
“It’s the first effect of not believing in God that you lose your common sense.”
“Another tried to goad me into that ridiculous dilemma ‘what price would I put on a human life’.”
The correct answer is “In your case, love, tuppence ha’penny.”
Those who claim they are willing to give up everything to “save 1 life” probably have nothing to lose or give away anyway or will back off if it came to the crunch of doing it.
They also seem to be the ones who shout “something must be done” as long as it is not them doing it or suffering.
I don’t expect you to do it for me, I am definetly not going to do it for you.
I will take responsibility for me and my own, you do the same.
Give me facts and I will decide the risks I will take.
People have lost faith (not religious, just faith in general)in themselves and their dormant abilities, they need to regain it.
Below is part of an open letter I sent to some media channels and the PM (it is much longer) – of course no reply or acknowledgement of my existence by them:
“Ours is now such a risk-adverse, over-sissified HSE driven, dumbed down society this could happen very easily in a matter of weeks and that is what scares me most: how easily the world economy was destroyed, how millions of people in China “disappeared” without explanation and which has been documented in the UK and the USA on a lesser scale, how hundreds of millions of people will be in permanent poverty, untold dead from starvation, murder, self-isolation mental problems etc to supposedly give a few thousand already seriously ill people an extra few months of life.”
“It’s the first effect of not believing in God that you lose your common sense.”
YMMV but, for me, that is the wrong way round.
As you said previously there are any number of other causes of preventable deaths that the same people defending ‘lockdown’ are complicit in. CV-19 is political because people *are* political. Even if the rationale is utilitarian – ‘saving lives’ – it would still be political in virtue of being in the public domain.
But that can’t be the only criterion. Hong Kong flu in 1968 was never a matter of political contention even though the casualty rate was far higher. So victims alone can’t supply the political motive, there must also be someone to *blame*: a scapegoat.
And the political mood was different then. Even if the economy was more “socialist”, officialdom was far weaker than today, the populace stronger. Not only in being culturally homogenous, but with the family as the primary social unit. I didn’t know of one child at my school whose mother worked or whose parents were even separated / divorced.
We had one single parent neighbour where the husband had moved out to live with another woman, and it was considered scandalous. In retrospect, I can see now there was also a single parent in the sense of unmarried mother who attended our Catholic church, but when we asked where Louise’s daddy was he was always ‘away on business’. The stigma of illegitimacy remained powerful: ‘bastard’ still counted for something.
Never mind that the war remained a vivid memory for anyone over 30, that we hadn’t yet joined ‘Europe’, still had our own currency, and a ravenous 24/7 plutocratic global mass media belonged to the realm of science fiction.
Agreed: no one merits that role better than Boris.
Look, it’s perfectly simple.
Well said John
I have asked a few who expressed the opinion that the LD was worth it – for how long?
At the moment many, including me, are not too badly affected – at least financially. No wonder 80% think it should go on, especially those who are furloughed and the many on the handouts, or full public sector pay sat in the garden. They have no idea how the economy will be affected – it is a phony war at present. Wait until the reality hits in the coming weeks and months.
Of course there is the irony that they will be running another computer model to see the effect on the economy!!!!
The reason I believe for this mass hysteria is the woke narcissistic society that has been allowed to breed unchallenged for a decade or more.
Many years of unheralded peacetime and unprecedented living conditions along with poverty of education have shortened memories and bored complacent have it all now people support the destruction of capitalism as they have nothing else to do.
They’ll soon return to bogus climate change arguments when the natural course of Covid means it’s gone by next spring.
“this mass hysteria is the woke narcissistic society that has been allowed to breed unchallenged for a decade or more”: more. Remember the Lady Di hysteria.
“They’ll soon return to bogus climate change arguments”
They already are
The UN-funded financial arm of the Paris Agreement has labelled the killer coronavirus an “opportunity” to raise funds for climate change action and “relaunch economies on low-emission, climate-resilient trajectories”
The only place I’ve seen it is here, as an apocryphal quotation! I’m sure there are dimwits somewhere saying it, but all people of normal intelligence see that there’s a trade-off to me made.
The problem is not agreeing that there’s a trade-off, it’s agreeing what the optimum balance actually is.
I noted that in locust ravaged Ethiopia, home to the WHO’s Tedros, the virus is almost non-existent supposedly.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/ethiopia/
Indeed, cases in Africa remain rare:
https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/Q3DA0/1/
My son, in his 20’s complains about the selfish people going out and how it’s risking lives and how can I condone people dying etc.
When I point out that the entire city has less than 50 people currently in acute care and that the peak was in the 80’s and the number in hospital was never above 175 with the govt stating they had 4,500 beds available and that 90% of deaths were from care homes anyway, so what was point of lockdown he just refused to discuss it.
My Twitter notifications is full of creeps with #StayHomeSaveLives and #MasksForAll shouting at anyone who disagrees with them. it’s the new #FBPE.
But isn’t the question ‘would you forego your cancer treatment so my grandmother can live another year?’ As that’s what’s happening and we aren’t even giving people the choice.
It has to be restated back to them as lives v lives
@Hector
100% agree with you
Our politicians are not leading and making life/death decisions, they’re hiding behind sofa in fear of negative coverage from BBC/C4 etc. Yet, they’re still getting the “not enough/too many” coverage.
They need to man up, end lockdown and say we’re doing this “For the many, not the few” – how could Left object?
‘worth it if it saves just one life’ is perhaps the worst maxim in modern (esp EU) politics and bleeding-heart types
It’s not, a life has a monetary value which includes emotion – it’s why many have their pets ‘put to sleep’
Also, unless the ‘life saved’ becomes immortal, it’s death delayed as they will still die
As I’ve said before, lockdown is wrong. We didn’t lockdown before MMR, Whooping cough, Chicken Pox vaccines developed. We haven’t lockdown despite high HIV and TB deaths
Further, as has been discussed here non CV19 deaths up due to ‘Protect NHS, Stay at Home” propaganda: Media has finally noticed and now pumping out “Phone 999 immediately if heart attack, stroke, etc”
@Theo
Hancock, NHS etc imply ‘worth it if it saves just one life’ every time they speak
@John L
+1
@T on Saturday 25th April 2020 at 20:59
Spot on
See:
If the government wants to start getting Britain back to work, why not start with the bits of the NHS that are now doing nothing? And save even more lives from cancer than the coronavirus is killing
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-8251365/
Great article and thought provoking. As I move between enquiry and incredulity and anger and now sadness about this whole sorry mess, I am becoming aware of the absurd situation that the politicians and the media, far from admitting potential error or even that this needs to be discussed, are doubling down. A function of now not being able to admit they were wrong. The whole thing is becoming a tragedy. Very very sad.
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