In Perspective, Planet: The Truckers Convoy

[Asher Kelman]

But are wages reasonable and fair?

Well as a start, trucker companies seem to be exempt in the USA, at least, from paying workers overtime!

 

[Michael_Stones]

We now have a Freedom Convoy here in Thunder Bay. It originated with local farmers, who called it the Tractor Convoy, but with trucks and anyone else welcome. The Convoy plans to travel to the US border at Pigeon River. I’ve included a photo of a couple of tractors driving toward the starting point. Literature provided by the organizers indicate that the purpose and intended activities of the protesters are as follows.

The proposed activities at the border are as follows:

​

These protesters are not right wing radicals but ordinary folk protesting about what they consider to be illiberal activities by the governing Liberal Party of Canada. Note that Prime Minister Trudeau initially called the protesting Trucker’s Convoy and like-minded supporters "a small fringe minority”. The BBC today reported that in recent polls 30%-40% of Canadians support the protesters' message and "46% agree that their frustration is legitimate and worthy of sympathy".

 

[Jerome Marot]

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Well... I have no idea about the market for truck drivers in north America. I never said I did.

But there are two things I know:
1: job advertisements are just that: advertisements. They usually make it appear a lot more palatable that it actually is.
2: if there are lots of apparently palatable offers for a particular job, it means that the industry is absolutely desperate for workers.

So there we are: I have even less ideas about what is going on with truck drivers. Thank you for looking up job offers.

 

[Asher Kelman]

Well... I have no idea about the market for truck drivers in north America. I never said I did.

But there are two things I know:
1: job advertisements are just that: advertisements. They usually make it appear a lot more palatable that it actually is.
2: if there are lots of apparently palatable offers for a particular job, it means that the industry is absolutely desperate for workers.

So there we are: I have even less ideas about what is going on with truck drivers. Thank you for looking up job offers.

Jérôme,

I just want to get an idea as to who the Canadian people protesting are.

Certainly, in the USA Republican stronghold States, such protestors (gathered, in mimicry of Canadian truckers) would be very different: likely with a heavily Right Wing core, essentially fascistic Trump supporters.

Asher

 

[Jerome Marot]

I just want to get an idea as to who the Canadian people protesting are.

Certainly, in the USA Republican stronghold States, such protestors (gathered, in mimicry of Canadian truckers) would be very different: likely with a heavily Right Wing core, essentially fascistic Trump supporters.

There have been protests against covid measures in the eastern part of Germany where leftists walked along neonazis. The yellow jackets in France were not linked to the Front National at least in the beginning.

 

[Asher Kelman]

Jérôme,

So what happened to the Yellow Jackets? Did Macron smite them down in the end?

We obviously have to address “genuine” concerns of protestors, even though, as far as Covid is concerned, Public Health measures are desperately needed and work.

We don’t want the populists and fascists to find easy venues to hoist their banners of hatred amongst the anti-Covid mandate protests. The latter come from fear and bewilderment about restrictive measures to control a deadly pandemic. We haven’t addressed this lack of trust!

If billions of people spend entire lives raised on magical stories, of course the least-educated and least privileged folk among us are going to fear being duped!

 

[Jerome Marot]

The yellow jackets were stopped by the lockdowns, but the number of participants went already down at the end of 2019. In summer 2021, there were some demonstrations together with opponents to the vaccination pass. In today's news, Jérôme Rodrigues, one of their historical leaders, was arrested in Paris in relation to the truckers' protests.

 

[Asher Kelman]

Jérôme,

Do these protests have some common cause: unequal distribution of rewards of work for society, ignorance of science, belief in conspiracy theories or what?

Asher

 

[Michael_Stones]

Jérôme,

I just want to get an idea as to who the Canadian people protesting are.

Certainly, in the USA Republican stronghold States, such protestors (gathered, in mimicry of Canadian truckers) would be very different: likely with a heavily Right Wing core, essentially fascistic Trump supporters.

Asher

Here’s the local media report on yesterday’s protest gathering in Thunder Bay. https://www.tbnewswatch.com/coronav...na-park-smaller-group-heads-to-border-5058331 The participants’ concerns are similar in tone to those in current media reports from Ottawa, Windsor and elsewhere. Earlier reports from left-leaning media in Canada and elsewhere focussed on behaviours of a few extremists rather than those by the majority of protesters. Their media’s purpose, of course, is to sell newspapers and attract viewers to gain advertising revenue.
Nuff said on the matter. This is my last post on the thread. Cheers, Mike

 

[Asher Kelman]

Here’s the local media report on yesterday’s protest gathering in Thunder Bay. https://www.tbnewswatch.com/coronav...na-park-smaller-group-heads-to-border-5058331 The participants’ concerns are similar in tone to those in current media reports from Ottawa, Windsor and elsewhere. Earlier reports from left-leaning media in Canada and elsewhere focussed on behaviours of a few extremists rather than those by the majority of protesters. Their media’s purpose, of course, is to sell newspapers and attract viewers to gain advertising revenue.
Nuff said on the matter. This is my last post on the thread. Cheers, Mike

Thanks for your contributions, Mike.

I still feel lost trying to persuade folk that there’s no “hell” and “sin” is invented to make us confess!

I feel empathy for those blocked from access to so many aspects of life for refusing to get vaccinated. But they did make there choices and so that’s the result.

Still, I wish they could be persuaded!

Asher

 

[Jerome Marot]

Do these protests have some common cause: unequal distribution of rewards of work for society, ignorance of science, belief in conspiracy theories or what?

The protests started about low wages and high fuel costs and also about the deterioration of public service in rural areas. All these can indeed be grouped under "unequal distribution of rewards". In a second phase, they were instrumentalized by political parties (far right and far left) as a show of general discontent with the government. Then covid happened and I am not really sure of the present situation. General discontent explains protests against vaccination cards or tests, but one should not assume the "movement" is united. There probably is a sizable proportion of the followers who are vaccinated, for example.

My explanation is the following. Basically, in any country there are political opponents who want to be in power. They use real and legitimate resentment to manipulate part of the electorate against the powers in place. To do that they advance under the guise of "libertarian" theories as in "the state is corrupt, you would do better without it, only you can serve your own interests". It is particularly easy because our states are corrupt and do not serve the needs of large parts of the population. The lie, of course, is that the little individuals would be better without a government.

 

[Maggie Terlecki]

Well, I say this. Michael may think that 35% to 45% of Canadians are with the truckers. I live in a small town in Quebec, Canada. I get coffee with friends several times a week, Out of 10 people, 8 are Péquists (Quebec Party) and not Trudeau people. Of all the gang, there is 1 person who says they are doing the right thing, and she has only recently been double-vaccinated. While we were all gathering, she couldn't join in, so eventually she relented. But all these people except for 1 find it deplorable. Not happy about it!

I have friends in Ontario. Many are vaccinated, but want Trudeau out. They take any opportunity to show how he is not handling this properly.

 

[Asher Kelman]

What is it: lack of education, religion or antigovernment sentiment.

I can’t comprehend why sane rational folk wouldn’t want vaccination and public health safety controls!

Asher

 

[Jerome Marot]

That is the point: they are not rational.

 

[Asher Kelman]

That is the point: they are not rational.

Why not? What’s missing in their education. After truckers understand how to look after their trucks, they change the oil regularly, obey rules of the road. Why are they blocked from rational thinking about a need to protect Canada from the Pandemic?

 

[Jerome Marot]

It is not a question of "education". Manipulation of the masses always involves the emotional and not the rational plane. Emotions easily overwhelm the rational part of our brains.

Populists do not use objective reality in their discourse. Let's not forget that on your continent, the electoral mandate of the president of the most powerful country in the world was defined by the expression "alternative facts".

The real question is "why do the voters accept the vaccine alternative facts about vaccines? The reason is, I think, first that it appeals to their feelings, in particular to their feelings of frustration. The other reason is that the reality of the disease appears remote and abstract.

Do not forget that in our rich societies, most humans do not face the reality of infectious diseases. In the 19th century, Pasteur had no trouble convincing his patients of the benefits of vaccines. Why did he do this? Because the average patient had experience of diseases. Half of the children were affected by tuberculosis, tetanus, polio, and many died. The need for a vaccine was obvious.

None of that is true today. The average voter does not confront the physical world: diseases, predators, the elements. The average voter is up against other humans. The limits he knows are not "dying from infection" or "being eaten by a predator". The limits he knows are when his banker refuses him a loan, when the police gives him a ticket or when his neighbor taunts him with a bigger SUV than his own. These are human limits, not physical ones.

But human limits can be changed through discourse, and all the more so when one is of high social status. This is the operating system of populists: "others put limits on you, but you are superior, we will force them to stop putting obstacles in your way". The discourse works with humans (the banker can be convinced, the policeman can be corrupted and the neighbor can have his car burned). The physical reality cannot be convinced, but our societies have detached themselves from its existence (except for the social classes in charge of the interaction with this reality like engineers and technicians).

For the covid pandemics, we end up with a population that is unaware of the reality of disease (they have not experienced it) and see confinement and vaccination as bullying by a power that it would be enough to overthrow in order to put an end to this bullying. Populism, whose raison d'être is to overthrow the power in place, is rushing into the opening.

 

[Asher Kelman]

It is not a question of "education". Manipulation of the masses always involves the emotional and not the rational plane. Emotions easily overwhelm the rational part of our brains.

Populists do not use objective reality in their discourse. Let's not forget that on your continent, the electoral mandate of the president of the most powerful country in the world was defined by the expression "alternative facts".

The real question is "why do the voters accept the vaccine alternative facts about vaccines? The reason is, I think, first that it appeals to their feelings, in particular to their feelings of frustration. The other reason is that the reality of the disease appears remote and abstract.

Do not forget that in our rich societies, most humans do not face the reality of infectious diseases. In the 19th century, Pasteur had no trouble convincing his patients of the benefits of vaccines. Why did he do this? Because the average patient had experience of diseases. Half of the children were affected by tuberculosis, tetanus, polio, and many died. The need for a vaccine was obvious.

None of that is true today. The average voter does not confront the physical world: diseases, predators, the elements. The average voter is up against other humans. The limits he knows are not "dying from infection" or "being eaten by a predator". The limits he knows are when his banker refuses him a loan, when the police gives him a ticket or when his neighbor taunts him with a bigger SUV than his own. These are human limits, not physical ones.

But human limits can be changed through discourse, and all the more so when one is of high social status. This is the operating system of populists: "others put limits on you, but you are superior, we will force them to stop putting obstacles in your way". The discourse works with humans (the banker can be convinced, the policeman can be corrupted and the neighbor can have his car burned). The physical reality cannot be convinced, but our societies have detached themselves from its existence (except for the social classes in charge of the interaction with this reality like engineers and technicians).

For the covid pandemics, we end up with a population that is unaware of the reality of disease (they have not experienced it) and see confinement and vaccination as bullying by a power that it would be enough to overthrow in order to put an end to this bullying. Populism, whose raison d'être is to overthrow the power in place, is rushing into the opening.

Jérôme,

I thank you! You have shown us clearly radical differences of the “realities”, the blocks in the path of men of a “modern society” face today.

Everyone has food, there are no invaders or wild animals and we live in air conditioned comfort.

Polio, Smallpox, diphtheria and plague are not part of even memory!

For the first time I understand the gap in attitudes and why it’s so easy for populists to promise the truck driver and blue collar worker more freedom and the life of free choice without foreigners or interference with their free will and bodies!

Is your analysis, that “our modern populations have largely zero fear of infectious disease” generally already accepted and I was simply behind the times or is this your own analysis?

In any case I now understand the landscape we operate in far better!

I have struggled with so many anti-vax blue collar workers coming to my house after a major flood and damage and now I see why I can’t convince them!

Asher

 

[Jerome Marot]

There have been several reports of unvaccinated people who suddenly changed their convictions when covid sent them to hospital. It thus makes sense to believe that even if they knew that covid could hit them they did not believe it would happen. That is the difference here: knowing appeals to the rational parts of the human brain and believing appeals to the emotional part. This is also why you can't convince them: you appeal to the rational part.

In times when disease was more common, people had the experience of losing children or friends. That experience is emotional. So the emotional part of their brain had stored the experience. They would fear the disease. Fear is an emotion.

As the parts of the brain responsible for rational thought came latter in evolution than the parts responsible for emotions, emotions can shut off rational thinking. When experiencing fear, for example, people cannot think properly. The feel overwhelms them. That basic mechanism explains why it is next to impossible to convince people with purely rational arguments.

Now, in the case of people you failed to convince, they do not experience fear of the disease. But they are not devoid of feelings about the subject. That particular feeling is what you failed to recognize. Can you guess what it is?

 

[Asher Kelman]

Now, in the case of people you failed to convince, they do not experience fear of the disease. But they are not devoid of feelings about the subject. That particular feeling is what you failed to recognize. Can you guess what it is?

Jérôme,

That’s an important question you pose!

They feel irreconcilably isolated from the rest of society and violated by Covid mandates. This eruptive feeling is now internalized and is part of their personal and group identity.

Pressed for one emotive term, I would choose “antipathy” or perhaps “animus” as the net description of the complex visceral anti-vax feelings towards the powers and supporters of Covid mandates!

They have already accepted that there’s no resolution possible with the authorities in power, except to use anger, avoidance and protests to demonstrate their righteousness and resolve not to change.

Asher

 

[Doug Kerr]

Hi, Jérôme ,

Thank you for that excellent essay.

Best regards,

Doug

 

[Jerome Marot]

They feel irreconcilably isolated from the rest of society and violated by Covid mandates. This eruptive feeling is now internalized and is part of their personal and group identity.

Now, that is a bit surprising as an answer to me. But the reason I am having this discussion is to get new facts from other people about the subject and new facts are often surprising, so this is good. Can you elaborate a bit on the "isolated from the rest of society" part? I'll give my answers later.

 

[Asher Kelman]

Now, that is a bit surprising as an answer to me. But the reason I am having this discussion is to get new facts from other people about the subject and new facts are often surprising, so this is good. Can you elaborate a bit on the "isolated from the rest of society" part? I'll give my answers later.

First let me state that rational or logic behind irreconcilable disrespect is never a sine qua non of group self/public isolation.

When I was privileged as a teen in the U.K. To pass the 11+ examinations and gain entrance to a fine richly academic grammar school, I was assigned to the “House of Ellis” , and green Rugby football jerseys as opposed to “House of “Radcliffe” with, (if I remember correctly), purple or the other several color-coded divisions by “Houses”.

That assigned color, turned out, governed much of our attitudes and relationships with others. Those of the house of Ellis bathed naked together after a game in a very long 20 to 30 ft bathtub to get rid of the mud of the rugby field.

We were bonded and had disdain towards anyone “Radcliffe”. We didn’t need to think about it. Radcliffe boys were obviously always arrogant and we were, equally “obviously”, better!

So, here, the trigger for self-sustaining, (mutually opposed), competitive groupings was that irreconcilable difference in color of uniform. It would be absurd for me to try to fit in as a Radcliffe pupil by wearing one of their sweaters!

So it seems that there has to be merely a discoverable difference to recognize and isolate “foreigners”. In Christian Europe, other schoolboys might pull down a boys pants to discover a circumcised Jew, and dishonest privileged Christ-killer), as otherwise many Ashkenazi’s look as Caucasian as Poles and Slavs.

[BTW, for years I went to primary school in London, under police escort!]

Segregation of blacks is easier, unless the lights are off.

For segregating anti-vaxers, simply ask for a vaccination certificate for entry to public events, restaurants or wedding parties!

The party having the power and authority to decide “who is allowed in” gets to feel righteously powerful and the offended, righteous victimhood!

Asher

 

[Doug Kerr]

Some people here in our little desert town of Alamogordo, New Mexico are concerned that if the government continues to tell us what we can and cannot do, before long the city will tell us that we can't park next to a fire hydrant.

Ohmigawd, it already does!

Doug

 

[Jerome Marot]

First let me state that rational or logic behind irreconcilable disrespect is never a sine qua non of group self/public isolation.

When I was privileged as a teen in the U.K. To pass the 11+ examinations and gain entrance to a fine richly academic grammar school, I was assigned to the “House of Ellis” , and green Rugby football jerseys as opposed to “House of “Radcliffe” with, (if I remember correctly), purple or the other several color-coded divisions by “Houses”.

That assigned color, turned out, governed much of our attitudes and relationships with others. Those of the house of Ellis bathed naked together after a game in a very long 20 to 30 ft bathtub to get rid of the mud of the rugby field.

We were bonded and had disdain towards anyone “Radcliffe”. We didn’t need to think about it. Radcliffe boys were obviously always arrogant and we were, equally “obviously”, better!

So, here, the trigger for self-sustaining, (mutually opposed), competitive groupings was that irreconcilable difference in color of uniform. It would be absurd for me to try to fit in as a Radcliffe pupil by wearing one of their sweaters!

So it seems that there has to be merely a discoverable difference to recognize and isolate “foreigners”. In Christian Europe, other schoolboys might pull down a boys pants to discover a circumcised Jew, and dishonest privileged Christ-killer), as otherwise many Ashkenazi’s look as Caucasian as Poles and Slavs.

[BTW, for years I went to primary school in London, under police escort!]

Segregation of blacks is easier, unless the lights are off.

For segregating anti-vaxers, simply ask for a vaccination certificate for entry to public events, restaurants or wedding parties!

The party having the power and authority to decide “who is allowed in” gets to feel righteously powerful and the offended, righteous victimhood!

Asher

It seems that we are circling around the same idea, but here you are describing your feelings in a setting which happened long ago. The question was about the feeling of the anti-vaxers. It needs to be a positive feeling, as it reinforces their belief. So?

 

[Asher Kelman]

It seems that we are circling around the same idea, but here you are describing your feelings in a setting which happened long ago. The question was about the feeling of the anti-vaxers. It needs to be a positive feeling, as it reinforces their belief. So?

I don’t think a positive feeling is needed to reinforce their belief. It can be one of resentment and betrayed of principles related to “freedom”!

 

[Jerome Marot]

I think that there are positive feelings associated with belonging to a given group. When you were in the "house of Ellis", didn't you find it great when you won a match? Sports fans certainly look exhilarated during matches.

Humans are social animals. It thus makes sense that they would have developed a set of emotions related to bonding. The set of emotions has a positive side, when they feel support from the group and a negative side, which precludes them abandoning or not supporting the group. Without this system, groups would not be stable and we would not be social animals.

Note that for social animals, loyalty to the group goes before the interest of the individual. Taking bees or wasps as an example, the immediate interest of the workers would be to reproduce in place of the queen. But they don't do that and tend their half sisters instead.

Now, back to the anti-vaxers you observed. I understand from your posting that most of them would be self-employed (just like truckers). Can you identify the group they would feel loyal to? You wrote that they "feel isolated from the rest of society". I suppose this corresponds to your observations, but maybe what you actually observed is that they felt isolated from the group you belong to in their eyes, which is a subtle difference.

Once the group they feel loyal to is identified, the path to their feelings will be clearer.

 

[Asher Kelman]

These are t proud fulfilled people. They are resentful and only talk of pride in their family and Trump!

 

[Jerome Marot]

I am not quite sure what you mean by "proud fulfilled people", but the notion of "pride in their family" is related to the idea of showing social status. The two faces of the same coin are pride / public shame. Basically, you know they fear social stigma and public shame.

Of course, it makes sense that they would fear that if they do not show agreement to anti-vax theories, they would fear social stigma. That is common amongst anti-vaxers, they fear to lose all their friends if they are a "traitor to the cause".

But it does not answer the question: what is their group? Who else belongs to it? Where do they meet to exchange and reinforce their views. Can you just ask them a few questions about their hobbies, families or religion next time you meet them?