I can think of no peaceful way out of our current civilizational predicament other than the complete rebuilding of public institutions and communities from the ground up. Far too many public institutions are controlled by powerful actors who are themselves controlled by government and regulatory bodies. Having descended completely into COVID hysteria, many of these institutions are lost completely, and it would be a waste to attempt to change them from the inside. The only solution that I can think of is to completely rebuild a separate sphere, where free association is allowed, where decisions about whether to re-open or stay locked down are out of reach of corporate power. In order to rebuild society, and return it to pre-COVID normalcy, the control of institutions must be free of corporate influence. We must be the ones to take the bold steps of rejecting outright the pandemic hysteria. We must forcefully reject the liberty-depriving ideology behind it, and denounce and expose its destructive control over every aspect of public life. Schools, churches, shopping, public events, the way in which towns are being run into the ground by unhinged city councils and mayors, the way in which local health departments hold the power of life and death via quarantines and lockdowns, all of these must be separated from the current class of decision-makers if they are to ever return to some semblance of normalcy.
This is urgent: we cannot continue to allow months and years of our lives be stolen from us and our children. We must consciously reject this new fundamentalism that has swept through our social world, empowering government officials to destroy society while simultaneously crippling our ability to oppose it. But it must be opposed. If it isn’t, if we continue with this quiet acceptance, this will continue for years. And we are reaching a point in the near future when we will no longer have the option or ability to return to normalcy. “Normalcy” will be something that the young children of today will barely remember at all in a few years’ time if something isn’t done soon to stop the course we are on.
