I recently commented on FB on something a friend posted about COVID. We were discussing the victim blaming mentality that sees people essentially not caring that people who are ill, infirm, imuno-compromised or even just elderly might die from Covid just as long as they don't have to suffer any trivial inconvenience such as wearing a mask.
The point I made was the way that language has been used to promote this.

They don't ask "Would this condition kill them if they didn't have Covid?", they ask "Would Covid kill them if they didn't have this condition?"

The first phrasing shows that adding Covid to a condition they may have been living with for years and could live with for many more years is the cause of death - i.e. that Covid has killed them.

The second phrasing suggests that Covid wouldn't be a problem if they didn't have the other condition meaning that Covid didn't kill them, the condition did. So they don't need to take any precautions because Covid doesn't kill people, underlying conditions do.

This is such a deliberately disingenuous form of words its hard to know where to begin. I think of it as the great co-morbidity lie. The word order change is small but the implication is huge.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: BobHale,

I missed that FB conversation, but see it as part of the rampant propaganda on FB.

A book I'm currently reading, "After the Fall https://www.penguinrandomhouse...-fall-by-ben-rhodes/ Discusses how social media have manipulated right wing extremists in Russia, Hungary, and the USA. See pages 130-140. The same phenomenon applies to Brexit as well.

It was a conversation with a friend on her page. However I wasn't actually talking about how people on FB discuss the pandemic - I accept that FB often attracts people with extreme and sometimes idiotic views. I generally don't go to comment sections on FB. I was talking about what seems to be a media and Government coordinated campaign to always word it in the way that makes it sound as if Covid isn't responsible and to always make it sound as if it's somehow the fault of the "co-morbidity" which in reality could have been lived with for decades more if the dead person hadn't caught Covid.

Very interesting perspective, Bob. I have never thought of it that way before.

About FB, I am not sure why I just have never gotten into it. Maybe it's my friends, mostly talking about their pets or the food they've prepared or how wonderful their life is or how awful their life is. That's why I prefer Twitter. I find less trivia there. But again, maybe it's the connections I have? I also find good articles on LinkedIn. I don't go to Instagram a lot, but perhaps I should.

quote:

Originally posted by Kalleh:
Very interesting perspective, Bob. I have never thought of it that way before.

About FB, I am not sure why I just have never gotten into it. Maybe it's my friends, mostly talking about their pets or the food they've prepared or how wonderful their life is or how awful their life is. That's why I prefer Twitter. I find less trivia there. But again, maybe it's the connections I have? I also find good articles on LinkedIn. I don't go to Instagram a lot, but perhaps I should.

It's the connections you have. Donald Trump loved Twitter. No more needs to be said about it. The trick with FB is very simple. As soon as you friend someone you go straight to their page and unfollow them. This means that you are friends but you only see the stuff they post if you actively seek it out. It doesn't fill up your own FB with photos of their lunch or their cat playing the piano. The only stuff you see is stuff you have asked to see. (Groups are still a bit of a pain though!)

Bob: word order picks up the very cleverest way that sentiment is expressed. Translate as “blame the victim,” or “tough noogies for them.” Many are not so subtle. Especially if they imagine the comorbidity is something preventable by willpower or their fave prescription for ‘eat right live healthy.’

Absolutely it's "victim blaming", an all too common tactic in modern times.