Unpopular Opinion Within

I'll say it because no one else will: Fuck "Essential Workers"

Now that I have your attention, I'm not saying it to be a contrarian, or an anti-natalist, a misanthrope, or a goth. Worse. I am saying it as an (armchair) activist with an agenda, a conspiracy theorist that doesn't read MSM and on every level, a free thinker using the internet for its intended purpose.

So grab your popcorn because someone on the internet is about to explain his big idea...

First of all, I am proud to have medical doctors in my family. By sharing a last name, their achievement is my achievement. They send weekly emails about their work during the historic P A N D E M I C, and explain their day-to-day experience.

I abhor this analogy, but my doctor relatives are like medics. Or grunts. They show up, heal the sick, write down objective facts, go home, repeat. Their superiors take their reported data and give it to The State, and The State crunches the numbers and makes a daily report that the media publicizes. The media then ask them questions at a press conference and all us 'Non-Essential Workers' quake in fear about getting sick and *gulp* dying so we sit around eating snacks all day.

My problem with the title "Essential Workers" is the same problem I have with titles like "White Privilege" and "Social Distancing." It is a catchy label of perfect hashtag length that describes a thing of questionable veracity not previously labelled, and yet somehow completely sums it up with a very digestible and understandable soundbite. It is of such marketable length that it is easily shared across the internet without hesitation or critique. Overnight it is everywhere. Not being on Twitter is no longer acceptable for ignorance of these things; they have been entered into the lexicon and therefore, you should know what we mean when we say these phrases

Except there is plenty of room for questions and disagreement. Are Persians white? Are Greeks? Italians? How far is distant? What is social? Why can liquor stores and golf courses be open but not churches? People can spread out in pews, no? How can the economy be crashing if only 'Essential Workers' are employed? How many people are actually still sick? How essential are these workers if the vast majority of people are healthy, immune, compliant, quarantined?

Wandering around my (now) ghost of a town, I see signs plastered on closed businesses saying "We Thank Our Essential Workers!"

Why? Doctors and nurses don't own mom and pop stores on Main Street. They do not make up the majority of customers. They alone are not essential to the life of the town. (Even if 250 people are sick.) They are essential in the teeny, tiny context of sick, hospital bound people, of which my doctor relatives admit there is a dwindling number.

The term "Essential Worker" is a useful shield for dissent. Question them and your opinion is null. 'What, you hate doctors? We can't trust your opinion, heretic!' As stated, I don't "hate doctors." They have their place, as do we all. 

We can absolutely thank doctors for doing their difficult job, but that is like thanking firemen for making guacamole--they are just doing their job. They didn't 'sign up for danger' like a soldier who willingly chooses to be put on the front line, in harm's way. Essential Workers did not expect a P A N D E M I C when they signed up. Essential Workers are not typically in harm's way. They work in a safe, controlled environment. Is that why we thank them? Because they are working in a dangerous zone? It is still a much safer environment than construction workers, who risk their lives to build extremely necessary shelter. As someone thanked unnecessarily for doing his mere job, I find these signs condescending in the very least. A doctor doesn't need thanks, they are not an intern, a volunteer, or a child. They receive compensation.

If Essential Workers left their job because of the P A N D E M I C, then they would be cowards. So, Essential Workers are heroes by default. Because they are not cowards. Seems stupid.

(For the record, I was never essential and never fooled myself into thinking I was. But I also wasn't a coward--they fired me for my own good! Would I be a hero if I chose to work instead of hang around all day, eating snacks? Nope. Society would deem me an asshole and send me to jail as warning to other dissidents: behave.)

"Essential Workers" is too vague to be taken as anything more than suspicious. There are too many kinds of essential workers. Does our economy grow and prosper because it is inessential? Is that why there are so many Instagram Tastemakers, Yoga Teachers, and obese streamers? Seems like this is an existential problem bigger than Covid-19...

As an activist I want to open the state. As an conspiracy theorist I think this was not as bad as "they" claim, and as a conspiracy I think that there is no single scapegoat. There are many pieces to the puzzle. As an opinionated person on the internet, thanks for reading!

Please: Stop calling them "Essential Workers!" Be specific! Moreover, they are only essential because people are essential! If people were not essential then "Essential Workers" wouldn't be essential....Context is everything!

But let's set hypocrisy aside for good old fashioned appeals to emotion by some objectively unessential celebrities ensuring us--with faux wisdom--something that we can discern from observing reality: 'we are all in this together.'

We have no choice.