We had the ‘war on terror’ and over a period of year most people came to understand that you cannot fight against an abstract concept or inter-subjective reality as if it were the military force of an opposing state massed on your borders. You may make a belief system ineffective and even kill its self-proclaimed leader but another belief system will appear in its place, which of course allows a government to continue its war on terror.
Now we have the war on a virus. Fighting a single cell microorganism. Governments like a bit of war as it offers the chance for everyone to unite behind the government against a shared, common enemy. Leaders have the opportunity to appear Churchillian. Except we aren’t fighting ze Germans and 500lb bombs aren’t raining down on towns & cities.
In order to make the situation sound more scary and war-like, a litany of new words have been introduced into our language: terms such as self-isolation, social distancing, furlough and safe. Not to mention ‘the coronavirus’ itself, used like ‘the bogeyman’ to instil panic and spread fear more effectively than SARS-CoV-2 itself (which doesn’t sound anywhere near as scary as ‘the coronavirus’).
Anyone who doesn’t obey these actions is somehow on the side of the enemy. This completely ignores those who have had the virus and been asymptomatic and who have had the disease and recovered. The likely now millions of people who are able to return to work, go to the shops, go outdoors and lead a normal life, yet the government is completely silent on this increasing cohort of the population.
When most people have little, if any, knowledge of virology, what information is presented is likely to be taken as authoritative. The more terms that are introduced that nobody really understands – but which sound scary and weighty – the more effective the language of making you afraid.