Science, religion, folklore and behaviour

So, I've been reading a bit about Buddhism and science lately, and on the off chance something interesting would pop up, did a search for the religion on the arXiv pre-print site.

This rather odd paper turned up: 

On how religions could accidentally incite lies and violence: Folktales as a cultural transmitter 

The abstract:

This research employs the Bayesian network modeling approach, and the Markov chain Monte Carlo technique, to learn about the role of lies and violence in teachings of major religions, using a unique dataset extracted from long-standing Vietnamese folktales. The results indicate that, although lying and violent acts augur negative consequences for those who commit them, their associations with core religious values diverge in the final outcome for the folktale characters. Lying that serves a religious mission of either Confucianism or Taoism (but not Buddhism) brings a positive outcome to a character (\b{eta}T_and_Lie_O= 2.23; \b{eta}C_and_Lie_O= 1.47; \b{eta}T_and_Lie_O= 2.23). A violent act committed to serving Buddhist missions results in a happy ending for the committer (\b{eta}B_and_Viol_O= 2.55). What is highlighted here is a glaring double standard in the interpretation and practice of the three teachings: the very virtuous outcomes being preached, whether that be compassion and meditation in Buddhism, societal order in Confucianism, or natural harmony in Taoism, appear to accommodate two universal vices-violence in Buddhism and lying in the latter two. These findings contribute to a host of studies aimed at making sense of contradictory human behaviors, adding the role of religious teachings in addition to cognition in belief maintenance and motivated reasoning in discounting counterargument. 

I think this group of Vietnamese researchers might have too much time on their hands, but it's still a bit interesting.   Here is a peculiar Vietnames folktale which they discuss in the introduction:

Folklore materials offer one of the most imaginative windows into the livelihood and psychology of people from different walks of life at a certain time. These colorful narratives bring to life the identities, practices, values, and norms of a culture from a bygone era that may provide insights on speech play and tongue-twisters (Nikolić & Bakarić, 2016), habitat quality of farmers (Møller, Morelli, & Tryjanowski, 2017), treatments for jaundice (Thenmozhi et al., 2018), and contemporary attitudes and beliefs (Michalopoulos & Xue, 2019). While the stories tend to honor the value of hard work, honesty, benevolence, and many other desirable virtues, many of such messages are undercut by actions that seem outlandish, morally questionable, or brutally violent (Alcantud-Diaz, 2010, 2014; Chima & Helen, 2015; Haar, 2005; Meehan, 1994; Victor, 1990). In a popular Vietnamese folktale known as “Story of a bird named bìm bịp (coucal),” a robber who repents on his killing and cuts open his chest to offer his heart to the Buddha gets a better ending than a Buddhist monk who has been religiously chaste for his whole life but fails to honor his promise to the robber—i.e. bringing the robber’s heart to the Buddha. In his quest for the robber’s missing heart, not only does the monk never reach enlightenment, but he also turns into a coucal, a bird in the cuckoo family (Figure 1)

On the one hand, the gory details of this story likely serve to highlight the literal determination and commitment of the robber to repentance, which is in line with the Buddhist teaching of turning around regardless of whichever wrong directions one has taken. On the other hand, it is puzzling how oral storytelling and later handwriting traditions have kept alive the graphic details—the images of the robber killing himself in the name of Buddhism, a religion largely known for its non-violence and compassion. Aiming to make sense of these apparent contradictions, this study looks at the behavior of Vietnamese folk characters as influenced by long-standing cultural and religious factors. The focus on the folkloristic realm facilitates the discovery of behavioral patterns that may otherwise escape our usual intuitions.  

 The next part of the paper - about a literature review of studies of the effect of religion on behaviour (usually in a Christian context) is pretty interesting, though:

To make sense of the relationship between religiosity and deviant behaviors, scholars from as far back as the 1960s have sought to measure how church membership or religious commitment could deter delinquent activities, though pieces of empirical evidence over the years remain inconclusive (Albrecht, Chadwick, & Alcorn, 1977; Hirschi & Stark, 1969; Rohrbaugh & Jessor, 1975; Tittle & Welch, 1983). In their influential study, Hirschi and Stark (1969) ask if the Christian punishment of hellfire for sinners can deter delinquent acts among the firm believers, and surprisingly find no connection between religiosity and juvenile delinquency. Subsequent studies tend to fall along two lines, either confirming the irrelevance of religion and deviance (Cochran & Akers, 1989; Tittle & Welch, 1983; Welch, Tittle, & Grasmick, 2006), or pointing out certain inhibiting effect of religiosity depending on the types of religious contexts (Benda, 2002; Corcoran, Pettinicchio, & Robbins, 2012; Evans, Cullen, Dunaway, & Burton Jr, 1995; Rohrbaugh & Jessor, 2017). Additional studies have looked at religious contexts beyond the WEIRD (Western, educated, industrialized, rich, democratic) countries
such as in South Korea and China but also reached inconsistent results on the religiosity–deviance relationship (Wang & Jang, 2018; Yun & Lee, 2016).

 Anyway, pretty interesting.

As I was saying...

I've been bagging Adam Creighton as an unreliable commentator on matters economic for years now - and in a column at The Australian today (which I presume will be making Jason Soon grind his teeth) Adam has gone into bat for the "this has all been an over-reaction" crowd.

In fact, Jason:  you seem to be having an all out crisis of confidence as to who on the conservative-ish side of commentary you can possibly trust now.   You hate "glibertarians" (fair enough) now but conservatives keep coming up short.

I think you should just give up and just accept my lines:   the soft (and harder) Left may be annoying on identity politics, but they don't jeopardise entire planetary populations' safety by denying/downplaying climate change or pandemics because of culture wars and conspiracy ideation.  They may (if you can count Democrats as "soft Left" at all) try to play at Middle East interventions in a way that does not always work out, but the entire Muslim world there is a a geo-political nightmare and you can't expect great outcomes.   International co-operation on trade and all matters is way, way better than populist nationalism:  the fact that a cynical dictator thug like Putin is encouraging the West to break up into nationalist enclaves shows it is obviously the wrong path.   And Trump is an absolute idiot of a damaged man and any commentator who defends him in any respect at all deserves to be completely ignored.  

Well, that was a bit dull...

A long weekend with nice, warm sunny weather, and no where to go for a drink, or a meal.  Even the dog parks are chained up.  We did a bit of yard work, and washed a ceiling to get rid of some yellow spotiness that doesn't look like mould, exactly.   It's a good question as to what it is - it hasn't  appeared in any bathroom, and is worst in the dining room where we sometimes do cooking at the table, but has started to spread into the adjacent living room. Yet I don't think it is happening in the kitchen, which should have the biggest effect from cooking steam or fumes.   The spots can be washed off the cornices very well, but not so well off the flat ceiling, although they can be made much fainter.   Actually, I see from the internet that you can get yellow mould.   It's an annoying problem.

Some other observations:

*  Brisbane is feeling as if it has gone into winter dryness already.  After a relatively dry summer, this is not a good thing;

*  this COVID virus seems to work in really complicated ways, doesn't it?  Lots of different effects on the body, and lots of collaboration and note comparing needed still to understand how it usually works.   I was reading an ICU doctor's comments about this on twitter yesterday, but didn't save it. 

*  I continue to think that doctors and nurses who work in hospitals in the US must be the most ropeable people on the planet when they hear conservative scepticism of the seriousness of the issue from the likes of Fox News.   If the New York ones could organise a posse to firebomb the Fox News studios, they would only be doing the world a favour.

*  I think low rates of new cases in at least Brisbane is starting to make people feel very careless about social distancing at the supermarket.   I wore a mask at one on the weekend or the first time, though, but as I was a Vietnamese heavy suburb, lots of other people were too.   I didn't find it much of an issue, although not scratching an itchy nose through the outside surface was a challenge. 

Short movie review: BlacKkKlansman

I don't normally pay any attention to Spike Lee films, but his recent comedy/drama BlacKkKlansman, now on Netflix, is really good.

Based on a true story, I see that it adds one key plot element for drama. (Look it up after you have watched it:  there are several articles on the net discussing what's true and what is invented.)  But I forgive that:  it's just really well made, and I liked the mix of tension as well as humour; and the serious message at the end too.

It's Easter, so let's talk about...Buddhist emptiness, physics etc

Back in January, you may recall, a robot in a Buddhist temple in Kyoto got me into considering the Heart Sutra, which was the subject of a separate post (which had some interesting comments from my handful of regular readers.)

You might also recall that I had stumbled onto a translation of a book by DT Suzuki about the Swedish 18th century oddball Swedenborg. 

So, the connection:  the Heart Sutra in English translation has a lot of emphasis on "emptiness", with this key part -

Form is emptiness
and emptiness is form.
Form is not other than emptiness
and emptiness is not other than form.
So is the same for feeling,
perception, mental formation,
and consciousness.

In the afterword to the Suzuki book, by David Loy (who I see is a pretty widely know author on Buddhism), I thought this commentary on "emptiness" was interesting:

OK  That clears up everything.* 

I see that Wikipedia has a lengthy entry on Nagarjuna (the philosopher, not the Bollywood star), and it talks about how a lot of his philosophising was on "emptiness".  This, apparently, is a key saying:

All is possible when emptiness is possible.
Nothing is possible when emptiness is impossible.

Which does, a Loy indicates, sound like it is putting a more positive spin on "emptiness" than one's initial reaction.


In another interesting bit from Wikipedia, Nagarjuna is considered by some to be neo-Kantian:

Nāgārjuna was also instrumental in the development of the two truths doctrine, which claims that there are two levels of truth in Buddhist teaching, the ultimate truth (paramārtha satya) and the conventional or superficial truth (saṃvṛtisatya). The ultimate truth to Nāgārjuna is the truth that everything is empty of essence,^[43] this includes emptiness itself ('the emptiness of emptiness'). While some (Murti, 1955) have interpreted this by positing Nāgārjuna as a neo-Kantian and thus making ultimate truth a metaphysical noumenon or an "ineffable ultimate that transcends the capacities of discursive reason",^[44] others such as Mark Siderits and Jay L. Garfield have argued that Nāgārjuna's view is that "the ultimate truth is that there is no ultimate truth" (Siderits) and that Nāgārjuna is a "semantic anti-dualist" who posits that there are only conventional truths.^[44]

As I am fond of Kant, I think it's pretty cool to find debate about whether a Buddhist philosopher from 150CE got to his ideas before Immanuel did.  (That's Kant, not Swedenborg).

The other thing that the Swedenborg book has got me thinking about is Buddhism and non-locality in modern quantum physics.   I keep getting the feeling that these might be pretty compatible.

First, a reminder about nonlocality can be found in this pretty good 12 minute explanation of quantum physics, which Youtube conveniently suggested I should watch:



So, how's this tie in with Buddhism?   I don't know yet, but there is a very lengthy discussion of it on this page (The Physics of Peace: Quantum Nonlocality and Emptiness) from what looks like a very lengthy website called the Chinese Encyclopaedia of Buddhism.  That website seems to be a project started by an Estonian Buddhist who has connections with Australia.  How odd.

Anyhow, I'll read it and report back.

Maybe I can factor the emptiness of the tomb and Easter eggs into the story, too.   I seem to be turning all EM Foster - "Only connect!" 

* Narrator voice:  no, it didn't.

Unusual protection from COVID-19

From Atlas Obscura, a tale from Japan newly relevant to current circumstances:

In the first half of 1846, a kawaraban, or cheaply printed broadside, recorded a strange account in Japan’s old Higo Province on Kyūshū island. A local government official had spotted a curious creature in the water one evening: a scaly, three-legged figure with long hair and a beak. Even more curious, it had warned him of a forthcoming illness and instructed him to draw and distribute its image for protection. A sketch was printed next to this account, and as the kawaraban spread, so did tales of this mysterious half-merperson, half-bird, from Kyūshū all the way to Edo.

Known as Amabie, this yōkai, or spirit, has become associated with refuge from epidemics. It makes sense, then, that it has resurfaced during the global COVID-19 pandemic, only this time on social media. Illustrations of Amabie are circulating on Twitter and Instagram under the hashtags #amabie and #アマビエ; artists around the world are drawing and sharing Amabie in hopes of repelling disease, or at the very least honing their talents and finding community while social distancing....

Scholars believe that Amabie is a local variation of Amabiko, a similar Japanese creature that appears from the sea and prophesies good harvests and outbreaks of disease. “In accounts of Amabiko, it is sometimes said that the image itself can ward off the epidemic,” says Jack Stoneman, a professor of Asian and Near Eastern Languages at Brigham Young University. “This is not unusual in Japanese cultural history—images as talismans.”

Here's an old school version of the critter, indicating that Japanese art is not always that impressive  (Wikipedia says this is a woodblock print from the Edo era.  Really?)

Here's another version, which I think is modern but looking more "old-school vibe":

And here's a recent government poster using that old woodblock image, it seems:

I feel safer already...

Victorian Police and the Church

Jack the Insider has a very interesting take on the matter of the George Pell prosecution, which seems not to be behind the paywall, for now.  He points out a long standing history of the police force in that State turning a blind eye, or actively protecting, sex offending priests.   Jack wonders if the prosecution of Pell was undertaken with view towards diverting attention from the history of their previous protection.

Sinclair Davidson likes to believe that Pell was targeted purely for being a conservative figure hated by the Left.  I have never felt it likely that the Police were especially sympathetic to carrying out the wishes of political Left in such matters.  Jack's view adds some greater nuance to the matter.

[I should add - I am not in a position to argue the details of what various figures within the Victorian police have done in the Pell matter.   I have not followed it in that close a detail.  So sue me.  I do know, however, that the conservatives and culture war warriors at Catallaxy do not do nuance.  Their take that it is the greatest scandal in Victorian prosecution history is therefore virtually guaranteed to be wrong.]

Einstein in England

The TLS does a quick survey of some recent books on Einstein, some of which deal with his visits to England.  He quite liked the place, apparently.

This episode, of which we have a photo, sounds like a event you could perhaps write a fanciful movie around:

On September 9, 1933, something spooked Einstein, who was by then living in exile in Belgium. Apparently fearing for his life, he travelled alone to England at short notice. Einstein turned to Oliver Locker-Lampson, whom he had met on an earlier visit, for protection. A Conservative Member of Parliament and decorated former soldier, Locker-Lampson was “an impulsive romantic” and, according to Robinson, Einstein clearly liked the “commander’s can-do, gung-ho personality”.

Locker-Lampson took Einstein to his thatched holiday hut in Norfolk. In what sounds like an episode of Dad’s Army, he armed locals with shotguns to protect Einstein from Nazi assassins. Einstein used the “admirable solitude” of the countryside to continue working on his unified field theory, a project which would occupy him for the rest of his life. The sculptor Jacob Epstein came to model him and recalled his “wild hair floating in the wind”, like “the ageing Rembrandt”. His wonderful bronze bust of the scientist is in the Tate Gallery.

Before Einstein departed for America on October 7, he said “no matter how long I live I shall never forget the kindness which I have received from the people of England”. Once ensconced in the Institute of Advanced Study at Princeton, Einstein never returned to Britain.

And here's a staged photo from that time.  Not sure if that is part of the actual accommodation - it looks a bit like a hut, but a very rough one!:

A coupla interesting sites

A month or two ago, I stumbled across a blogspot blog by some older guy who just put up quotes from old books.  It seemed a rather esoteric exercise, with little readership (a familiar feeling), but some of the quotes were interesting.  Do you think I can find the blog again?   I think Google used to make it easy to search their own hosted blogs, but it seems harder now, even though there are probably fewer blogspot blogs around than ever before.   I think it might have had a latin name?  Anyway, I will keep looking.

Amongst other interesting sites recently found, try this one:  Res Obsura (a catalogue of obscure things).  It's run by an assistant professor of history at UC Santa Cruz, and although he posts infrequently, they are high quality and interesting posts on a range of unusual topics that seems to align closely with my interests. 

One other new site, Notches - (re)marks on the history of sexuality.  

Come on, who doesn't like considering the history of sexuality?   I think it's particularly interesting because of the remarkable changes anyone aged, say, 40 or over, has witnessed in their own lifetime. 

Here's from the "About" section:

NOTCHES is a peer-reviewed, collaborative and international history of sexuality blog that aims to get people inside and outside the academy thinking about sexuality in the past and in the present. Since its launch in January 2014, NOTCHES has attracted over 200,000 views, been profiled on About.com’s Sexuality site, the History News Network, and Freshly Pressed three times by WordPress. NOTCHES is sponsored by the Raphael Samuel History Centre, and we are committed to the centre’s mission of “encouraging the widest possible participation in historical research and debate.” Our goal is to create a collaborative and open-access blog that is intellectually rigorous and accessible, historical and timely, political and playful.

I see from the posts linked on the main page that there is a bias towards towards gay and queer topics, which is probably what you would expect, but a lot of it is to do with heterosexual behaviour, and particularly across different cultures.  Also abortion.

I haven't read a single post yet, but there is a lot that sounds interesting.

I suspect it will be providing grist for the mill for several future posts here.  

How absurd

More on India and COVID19

There's an interview of interest about this at the New Yorker.  I thought that this painted a grim picture of the country health wise, even without COVID19:

And it’s also got a population that has tuberculosis and respiratory issues and pneumonia and high rates of smoking and air pollution. So, the trajectory of the disease in this population is going to be unclear. The other thing is that India also has a lot of hypertensives. About a third of the country’s adults are hypertensive, and about one-tenth of them are diabetic. And, so, all of this is likely to compound the problem. Of course, we don’t know anything for sure until the numbers actually start going up. But these are all the reasons why people of India are worried.

But then I Googled the figures for diabetes and hypertension in America, and the figures are pretty much the same!

Very Japanese

Robots replace Japanese students at graduation amid coronavirus 

The photo:

Reminds me of one of the funnier episodes of Big Bang Theory in which Sheldon attended work in a very similar manner.

Then they shook hands, and parted ways

With the release of a statement by the complainant "J" in the Pell case, we now have statements by both of the key players.

I would love to know how many of the words in the complainant's statements are genuinely his, because it does read very well.  I would expect there was at least some lawyerly help in drafting it.

But assuming it is a genuine reflection of his attitude, the funny thing is that both he and Pell are being pretty damn gentlemanly about the outcome.   Pell, who doesn't exactly give the impression of being a "life of the party" type anyway, seems to indicate no great bitterness over a period in which he got to be like a religious hermit;  J got to say that he accepts the court decision and respects the need for the criminal burden of proof being set high, and (in a key point that makes me think he is actually a good example to people who have encountered sexual abuse) says that "this case does not define me."  That attitude should actually please conservatives, who dislike the intense victimhood claims common in identity politics.

So, it is a very peculiar situation, where both of them are being pretty stoic and (seemingly) leaving it up to other people to hyperventilate about what happened.

If they can do that, so should those on the extremes of commentary about the case.

Update:   perhaps it is not clear where I am getting my sense of Pell's reaction.  Here it is, from Pell talking to a Catholic media outlet:

The cardinal told CNA that he had lived his time in prison as a “long retreat,” and a time for reflection, writing, and, above all, prayer.

“Prayer has been the great source of strength to me throughout these times, including the prayers of others, and I am incredibly grateful to all those people who have prayed for me and helped me during this really challenging time.”

The cardinal said the number of letters and cards he had received from people both in Australia and from overseas was “quite overwhelming.”

“I really do want to thank them most sincerely.”

In a public statement at the time of his release, Pell offered his solidarity with victims of sexual abuse.

“I hold no ill will to my accuser,” Pell said in that statement. “I do not want my acquittal to add to the hurt and bitterness so many feel; there is certainly hurt and bitterness enough.”

Dear Leader doesn't like oversight

Yeah, what a stupid "if anyone has ever criticised me or my administration, it's because they are being politically biased" performance by Dear Leader Trump today.

Culture war warriors bouncing off the walls after Pell convictions overturned

I see that, reviewing my previous comments on Pell, I initially did not think it likely the High Court would readily overturn the conviction after a jury and three judges thought it could stand.   (I'm including the trial judge, who could in theory have directed the jury that the evidence was so weak that they must acquit.)

I've always been ambivalent about the likelihood of the allegation, and thought it wise that no one, on the either side of the culture wars, should be expressing certainty about the case.  I specifically said that David Marr should not have spoken as if he had complete vindication after the initial conviction - it was a bit of grandstanding.

But today I award my "nonsense Culture War reaction of the day" to - guess who - Sinclair Davidson, reverting to his "physically unimpressive man who compensates by talking like Conan the Barbarian when it comes to politics" mode with this silly claim:

CRUSHING DEFEAT FOR THE LEFT, THE ABC, THE VICTORIAN POLICE, THE VICTORIAN CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM.

Yeah - because every single person on the Left had exactly the same view of the matter, and this "defeat" will change the mind of every person who believes Pell was undoubtedly guilty.  

As it happens, I have talked to people who would never vote Labor (and are not, I think, especially big viewers of the ABC) who thought Pell was guilty after his initial conviction.    I have also spoken to people of Leftist persuasion who didn't know what to think.   There is also the possibility of ongoing civil action involving Pell - although how much there may be to gain from that, I don't know.

In a way, the process has given something that could be seen to "please" both sides:  those who were unduly certain of his guilt see that he still served a fair bit of time in jail; those who were convinced that this is the greatest injustice ever* get to jump around with the warpaint on a few days, although they'll soon enough be fuming again if civil actions proceed.

But what is 100% clear is that the final outcome will do nothing to remove the incredible loss of reputation of the Church over child abuse, or resolve its slow moving, painful internal conflict over its loss of credibility on all matters sexual, which really started with its disastrous 1960's decision on contraception. 

Good luck with the bigger picture, culture war warriors of the Right...

* It pales into insignificance compared to the Chamberlain case

The problem for other, poorer, countries

The BBC has a story about COVID 19 infections starting in a slum area in Mumbai. 

Just so hard to believe that efforts to contain it will be successful in that environment.

And in another "how can they possibly cope" story, I see that Jakarta Post is still reporting low total numbers in Indonesia, but a lot of doctors dying:

At least 18 doctors across Indonesia have died in the fight against COVID-19, the Indonesian Doctors Association (IDI) said on Sunday.

One of the 18 doctors died from exhaustion while fighting the pandemic while the others had tested positive or were under surveillance for COVID-19.

Wahyu Hidayat and Heru Sutantyo were the latest doctors confirmed to have died of COVID-19, the association announced on Sunday.

Wahyu, an otolaryngologist, died at Pelni General Hospital in Bekasi, while Heru, a doctor from Diponegoro State University, died at Pertamina Central Hospital.

Also, looks like the Philippines is claiming similar numbers as Indonesia (3,660 cases, less than Australia!), but again it's hard to believe.  

Hot contender for the most nonsensical comparison of the century

What a failure of a "gotcha"

Roger Franklin thinks that Sarah Ferguson should be embarrassed that she didn't do the research to see that one man who was on the show and speaking about his time as a child at a Ballarat orphanage, Peter Clarke, has once said that "it was great fun" growing up there.  On Revelation, about which I posted, his attitude was more nuanced, in that he said some nuns were good, some not; and that there was "no love" there, except that between the children.  He seemed to remember some mates there fondly enough.

So what?   The earlier comment and the present one are not necessarily inconsistent at all.

And if Roger thought it was a case that Ferguson was out to give an overall bad impression of the orphanage - she actually had the main guy who claimed he was the subject of some highly dubious attention and actions by Pell say that he was really happy living there!  He literally said he "loved it". 

The show, if anything, gave a very balanced picture of the place, just as you might expect from talking to a bunch of former residents:  Bernard (the main focus of the story) was clearly generally happy there; but some others said they didn't like the intense religiosity of daily life; some thought some of the nuns too strict; I think all acknowledged some nuns were fine and there was some fun to be had; and Clarke himself said he thought it a case that the nuns just weren't trained about how to deal with really troubled kids.   That observation would be undoubtedly true, for the era.

Franklin is just out to try to make any "gotcha" he thinks he can.     He instead just shows himself up as the stupid old duffer that he is. 

Trump Vs the doctors

Gee, I wish someone on a podium with Trump would just lose it during a press conference and yell at him "Mr President, you are simply wrong.  Shut up and listen to experts in the field.":

A strong piece on Trump and COVID19

Have a read of Fintan O'Toole's really great bit of analysis of Trump and his weird, contradictory impulses as to how to react to COVID-19.  Here are the opening paragraphs:

On July 4, 1775, just his second day serving as commander-in-chief of the American revolutionary forces, George Washington issued strict orders to prevent the spread of infection among his soldiers: “No person is to be allowed to go to Fresh-water pond a fishing or any other occasion as there may be a danger of introducing the small pox into the army.” As he wrote later that month to the president of the Continental Congress, John Hancock, he was exercising “the utmost Vigilance against this most dangerous Enemy.” On March 8, 2020, well over two months after the first case of Covid-19 had been confirmed in the United States, Dan Scavino, assistant to the president and director of social media at the White House, tweeted a mocked-up picture of his boss Donald Trump playing a violin. The caption read: “My next piece is called Nothing Can Stop What’s Coming.” Trump himself retweeted the image with the comment: “Who knows what this means, but it sounds good to me!”

It is a truth universally acknowledged that Donald Trump is no George Washington, but his descent from commander-in-chief to vector-in-chief is nonetheless dizzying. Trump’s narcissism, mendacity, bullying, and malignant incompetence were obvious before the coronavirus crisis and they have been magnified rather than moderated in his surreal response to a catastrophe whose full gravity he failed to accept until March 31, when it had become horribly undeniable. The volatility of his behavior during February and March—the veering between flippancy and rage, breezy denial and dark fear-mongering—may not seem to demand further explanation. It is his nature. Yet there is a mystery at its heart. For if there is one thing that Trump has presented as his unique selling point, it is “utmost Vigilance,” his endless insistence that, as he puts it, “our way of life is under threat.”

If the United States is to be run by a man who has perfected the paranoid style, the least its citizens might expect is a little of that paranoia when it is actually needed. Yet even on March 26, when the US had surpassed China and Italy to become the most afflicted country in the world, Trump continued to talk down the threat from the virus.

Many people have it. I just spoke to two people. They had it. They never went to a doctor. They never went to anything. They didn’t even report it. . . . The people that actually die, that percentage is much lower than I actually thought…. The mortality rate, in my opinion . . . it’s way, way down.

 Oh, OK.  I can't resist posting a few more paragraphs further in, which really do point to deeply offensive attitudes held by Trump:

Trump has long characterized those who do not appreciate his genius as “haters and losers”: “Haters and losers say I wear a wig (I don’t), say I went bankrupt (I didn’t), say I’m worth $3.9 billion (much more). They know the truth!” runs a typical tweet from April 2014. In The Art of the Deal, Trump claims that “There are people—I categorize them as life’s losers—who get their sense of accomplishment and achievement from trying to stop others.” But in Trumpworld, as in the rightwing ideology he embodies, life’s losers are not just hateful. They are a different species. Winners are one kind of human; losers a lesser breed. Trump— like so many of the superrich—believes that this division is inherited: “What my father really gave me,” he tweeted in June 2013, “is a good (great) brain, motivation and the benefit of his experience – unlike the haters and losers (lazy!).”

In How to Get Rich, Trump links his own germaphobia to the idea that some people are born losers. Winners are people who think positively—and positivity repels germs. “To me, germs are just another kind of negativity.” He then goes on to tell the story of an unnamed acquaintance who is driven home from the hospital in an ambulance after being treated for injuries sustained in a crash. The ambulance crashes and he has to be taken back to the hospital. “Maybe he’s just a really unlucky guy. Or maybe he’s a loser. I know that sounds harsh, but let’s face it—some people are losers.” The train of thought here is typically meandering, but the logic is clear enough. Losers are inevitably doomed by their own negativity, of which germs are a physical form. Infection happens to some people because they are natural losers.

In 2013 Trump suggested that there was an upside to the great recession caused by the banking crisis: “One good aspect of the Obama depression is that it will separate the winners from the losers. If you can make it now, you deserve it!” Apply this to Covid-19 and you get an instinctive belief that it too will separate the wheat from the human chaff. Great public crises are not collective experiences that bring citizens together. On the contrary, they reveal the true divisions in the world: between those who “deserve” to survive and thrive and those who do not. Faced with the threat of the coronavirus, this becomes an ideology of human sacrifice: Let the losers perish.