In his August cover story for Harper’s Magazine, Jason Blakely argues that an overreliance on scientific authority, or “scientism,” only furthered the divide between those who adhered to and those who disobeyed public health guidelines during the COVID-19 pandemic. Instead of engendering legitimacy through dialogue, Blakely says, policymakers passed down “neutral” doctrines in the name of science and often at the expense of other social values. Blakely sat down with Harper’s deputy editor Jon Baskin to discuss his piece and its implications as we’ve gained hindsight on the pandemic.
Subscribe to Harper’s for only $16.97: harpers.org/save
Read “Doctor’s Orders,” Jason Blakely’s piece in the August edition of Harper’s
Jason Blakely’s book We Built Reality
The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, by Max Weber
Giorgio Agamben’s Homo Sacer
4:32: How could these two opposite positions “shed light on our situation”
8:12: “Some very extreme human experiences happened at that time”
15:11: It’s the economy, stupid!
17:02: “Humans are a weird animal; we can become like the things that describe us”
23:20: “People have to be listened to in order to understand what’s guiding their life”
27:26: RFK Jr., and the blurred lines between anti-scientism and anti-science
37:09: “As daunting as it is to say politics must start from the bottom up, there’s no other way”
Scientism and COVID-19