Health supremacism is a fascist ideology, and the pandemic has given it a massive boost.
Its rise will harm us all.
What follows is a summary of a longer essay (link at the end of this thread) 🧵 1/19 https://t.co/euSKe4LtZf

In a nutshell, health supremacism says that those who are healthy have a natural privilege to dominate and abuse others in society. 2/19

Instead of acknowledging that health and illness can technically befall anyone, health supremacism imagines good health to be an inherent, natural trait of some persons (but not others). It is an essentialist fantasy. 3/19

Health supremacism has been boosted by the pandemic. During the last two years we have seen it seize hold of public consciousness in a way it had not done for a while. 4/19

Doctors have stressed that everyone is at risk, and continue to do so. And yet, many keep repeating the fiction that SARS-CoV-2 as such would be a mild virus; that COVID-19 would be a mild disease which a ‘naturally healthy body’ should easily be able to clear. 5/19

By now, the public image of society is one almost split in two: the presumed superior, ‘healthy’ individuals on the one hand, those deemed inferior, ‘vulnerable’, on the other. 6/19

If you want to see health supremacism at work in the attitudes towards the pandemic, it can be helpful to distinguish between its overt manifestation, and its covert forms of existence. 7/19

Overt health supremacism is hard to overlook, precisely because it is usually loud and prominent. It is self-consciously spectacular and symbolic, and typically teams up visibly with other far-right ideologies. Think: rowdy anti-mask and anti-vaxx rallies. 8/19 https://t.co/pdHMtkxHIX

Covert health supremacism can be more slippery and takes many forms. It can come in the form of institutional discrimination, exclusion, covid minimising, and micro-aggressions. I list some examples in the essay. 9/19

Maybe the most performative form of everyday health supremacism during the pandemic has been the irrationally strong resistance to mask-wearing. The existence of people who, for whatever reason, take the risk of covid seriously seems intolerable to the mask refuser. 10/19

Guess what, health supremacism is at root a fascist doctrine. Fascist movements center around the belief that one group in society has a natural right to dominate the rest, and history has taught us where that leads. 11/19

Health supremacism is also closely linked to a phenomenon called ‘ableism’. Ableism is a form of discrimination and a system of stereotypes that treats the ‘able body’ as a norm in society. You can see ableism as a specific manifestation of health supremacist thinking. 12/19

Another association: health supremacism sounds similar to eugenics. But it's good to see that they're distinct. The one is an ideology, the other a breeding programme. Eugenics is a paradigmatic manifestation of health supremacism, but certainly not the only one. 13/19

Because health supremacist thinking has permeated so much of everyday life and public consciousness, the fight against it will for many involve changing the way they do things and changing the expectations that they have. But it’s high time to face this reality. 14/19

It begins with checking if, over the past few months, perhaps under pressure from online media or acquaintances or family, you may have made comments or shown behaviour that has health supremacist leanings. 15/19

Then, can you identify how you might currently be performing these ideas? Tacitly advertising them?
If you find some ways, then stop doing those things. Stop it, even if it’s uncomfortable. 16/19

When you see others around you perform in this way, point out to them what they are doing. Act to change these behavioural patterns. We must expose covert forms of health supremacism as the fascist murmurs that they are. 17/19

To adapt a phrase from data scientist and activist Emily Gorcenski: health supremacy doesn’t want your attention. It wants your inaction. Don’t give it what it wants. 18/19

Here's the full essay in a format you can also share easily outside Twitter. 19/19 https://msteenhagen.medium.com/loathe-fascism-then-dont-be-a-health-supremacist-c8841acdf69