The False Religion of Biosecurity

05-07-2023Weekly Reflection

In the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) we find the following: under the First Commandment it teaches Idolatry not only refers to false pagan worship. It remains a constant temptation to faith. Idolatry consists in divinizing what is not God. Man commits idolatry whenever he honors and reveres a creature in place of God. (2113)

Under the Fifth Commandment it teaches: Life and physical health are precious gifts entrusted to us by God. We must take reasonable care of them, taking into account the needs of others and the common good. (2288) Also: If morality requires respect for the life of the body, it does not make it an absolute value. It rejects a neo-pagan notion that tends to promote the cult of the body, to sacrifice everything for its sake, (emphasis added) to idolize physical perfection and success at sports….(2289)

Long before COVID, the 2019- shutdown, the masks, the quarantines, constant government health edicts by politicians, doctors, and bureaucratic organization about what people can and cannot do, inflicting much damage on people’s lives, this was already forseen(!) by Patrick Zylberman in a book called Tempêtes microbiennes, Gallimard 2013, Microbial Storms. It describes the process whereby biosecurity was becoming an essential component of State and international political-strategy and control! Philosopher George Agamben points out that this strategy was nothing less than using bio-terror as a governing technique using worst-case-scenarios. Agamben summarizes Zylberman’s thesis as follows:

• set up, based on possible risk, a fictitious scenario, presented in such a way to favor government-control in an extreme situation
• adopt the worst-case-scenario as a governing-principle of a political calculation
• order the body of citizens to enforce maximum adherence to government mandates producing a super civicmindedness, in which, the obligations imposed are presented as proofs of love of neighbor. Thus the citizen has not simply a right to bio-security, but by law the guarantee of bio-security. What Zylberman described as a possibility in 2013 became reality in 2019.

Agamben questions: is it legitimate to ask, whether such a society can still be defined as human, and/or whether the loss of sensitive relationships, of seeing people’s faces, of friendship, of love can truly be compensated by an abstract and presumably entirely fictitious bio-security? Does a world, can a world without risk really exist?

Is there a false religion of science?

Catechism of the Catholic Church:

#2293 Basic scientific research, as well as applied research, is a significant expression of man's dominion over creation. Science and technology are precious resources when placed at the service of man and promote his integral development for the benefit of all. By themselves however they cannot disclose the meaning of existence and of human progress. Science and technology are ordered to man, from whom they take their origin and development; hence they find in the person and in his moral values both evidence of their purpose and awareness of their limits.

#2294 It is an illusion to claim moral neutrality in scientific research and its applications. On the other hand, guiding principles cannot be inferred from simple technical efficiency, or from the usefulness accruing to some at the expense of others or, even worse, from prevailing ideologies. Science and technology by their very nature require unconditional respect for fundamental moral criteria. They must be at the service of the human person, of his inalienable rights, of his true and integral good, in conformity with the plan and the will of God.