Pandemic Derangement Syndrome.

The new crisis.

The condition developed when one’s observations become inconsistent with beliefs, which typically includes an unpleasant arousal as he attempts to harmonize what is observed with what is believed to be true.

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America- August 7, 2021. Half the country is vaccinated and half remain unvaccinated. This is good news, in a sense. It implies Americans fear different things. Half the country fears a Communist China-engineered virus. The other half fears mandated risk-management and totalitarianism. A population that shares the same fear for the same reason is not free, but imprisoned, and the absence of diversified fear is evidence of that. Additionally, what’s most feared is rarely the same thing as what’s most dangerous. When the strongest institutions are the arbiters of truth and fear, you are experiencing secondary-effect totalitarianism¹.

Jordan Peterson explains totalitarianism arises when those with power attempt to eradicate all that is unknown and uncertain. Totalitarianism aims to create certainty to eliminate the potential for chaos. Totalitarianism creates order by way of limiting what is unknown (chaos). Limiting what is unknown creates the illusion of certainty and security. But in America, however, an attempt to eliminate the potential for chaos does not create order. Rather, it creates more chaos. America’s foundation is made up of differences. In America, an attempt to eliminate the potential for chaos will infringe on it’s citizens rights. In America, chaos is necessary for order. This is not a bug in the operating system. It’s by design.

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COVID-19 breached America. Cases and deaths climbed, Trump was still in office, and a large portion of the country is high in openness, empathy, and neuroticism traits. These people are Liberals². This was the perfect setup for Pandemic Derangement Syndrome.

Liberals quickly and intensely embraced the romantic, virtuous narrative of self-sacrifice (lock-downs and mandates) as part of their identity. “Do your part” and “we’re all in this together” became the creed. Romanticism. Virtue. Fantasized Crisis. Righteousness. Morality. Fear. Anxiety. Torment. Pandemic Derangement Syndrome was born into being.

But the Liberal began experiencing unpleasant arousal. They observed others living in ways that implied an unshared fear. Their identity was strained after witnessing others choose different risk management and life-strategy. What the Liberal believed ought to be was not what they observed. Cue dissonance.

The Liberal mind had to harmonize this dissonance by adjusting it’s perception of what it observes. This adjustment functioned as the trigger for Pandemic Derangement Syndrome. Considering the circumstance, the Liberal mind would have to adjust it’s perception in one of the following ways:

1. Recognize what is most dangerous and what is most feared is different for others, therefore they will observe people practice different risk management than theirs.

2. Believe everyone who practices different risk management and lives different values are apathetic to others’ well-being and are parasites to public health.

Those whose reality filter adjusted to incorporate option 1 were able to maintain rationale thought.

Those whose reality filter adjusted to incorporate option 2 developed Pandemic Derangement Syndrome.

Pandemic Derangement Syndrome sufferers cannot let go of the romantic, virtuous narrative of self-sacrifice for the illusion of order and safety. Their self-identity is now attached to this narrative To adopt a narrative, a pandemic solution, that diverges from this would destroy their self-image. Consider cults. People in cults become invested in their beliefs to such a great degree that to abandon it would destroy crumble their reality. It would cause misery and a fractured self-image. They need to embrace their cult stronger in order to maintain harmony. Their self-image can’t afford to lighten their grip on the narrative they embrace³.

Pandemic Derangement Syndrome will remain until the sufferers are able to dis-attach from the romantic, virtuous narrative they currently embrace in exchange for one equally romantic and virtuous. Media and public officials need to present this new narrative in a way that allows the Liberal to let go of the old narrative and attach to the new one without shattering their identity. Currently, this new narrative does not exist.

Will media, Democrats, and Public Health institutions give them the new narrative they need to reach the end of the pandemic with less emotional turmoil?

Expect tyranny until then. Pandemic Derangement Sufferers will continue to exert maximal force to get others to conform to the idea of how they believe pandemic life ought to be. They need to eliminate chaos to have order. Yet, their pursuit of order is what is fueling chaos.

PDS is real. The media has overloaded peoples’ nervous system to such a degree that they will attempt anything to settle the unpleasant arousal.

Stand your ground.

1. A cause always results in an outcome. This outcome is the primary effect. The secondary effect is the outcome that follows this cause, the primary effect.

2. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/43050088_Compassionate_Liberals_and_Polite_Conservatives_Associations_of_Agreeableness_With_Political_Ideology_and_Moral_Values

3. Let this analogy reinforce the concept. Imagine you were led to believe that swimming in the ocean is the greatest concern in your life. You’ve come to understand the ocean as the deadliest threat to America. You’re going to make sure you don’t go in the ocean and do everything you can to help people have mutual understanding of the threat the ocean poses to society. You want to make sure nobody goes in the ocean. But when you get to the beach, thousands of people run full-speed into the waves and swim in the ocean. You have embraced the idea that the ocean is the most dangerous issue in America. It has become part of your identity. You have strong beliefs on how life on the beach ought to be, but what you’re observing is not how you believe it ought to be. You now have to shift your perception. Imagine what this does to this person’s mind. Derangement.