Stay Safe and Be Kind

Why our politicians sound like kindergarten teachers

This is not a rhetorical question: When was the last time someone told you to “stay safe”? Turn your mind back over the past few days, the past week… maybe you can get as far as a month without having heard this fascinating phrase which has become ubiquitous in the last two years.

It appeared out of nowhere. Indeed, before Covid the only person who ever told me to stay safe was my drug dealer.  The irony of this is not lost on me in 2022 as the biggest drug pushers on the planet flood the market with billions of advertising and lobbying dollars geared toward the very same theme.

But in April 2020, ‘stay safe’ did not seem that out of place. I may even have said it myself once or twice – and then I saw the data and understood Covid was nothing for most fit and healthy people to worry about and I swiftly blacklisted these words from my vocabulary.

But many others, particularly those in positions of power – my CEO and head of HR, TV personalities, politicians and bureaucrats – all continued to chant the mantra with increasing fanaticism, until it had all but replaced most traditional forms of farewell.

This is a point worth lingering on. Remember how we used to say goodbye to people? A few salutations that spring to mind are: ‘Have a good one’, ‘Take it easy’, ‘Rock on’, ‘Peace out’, ‘Catch you later’, and ‘Keep it real’. Consider these phrases. What do they all have in common?

They invite the recipient to embrace their own human agency; to go out into the world and live life.

‘Have a good one’ literally instructs the listener to maximise one’s joy in the moments at hand. Take it easy (probably my favourite) suggests that a relaxed approach to things is the best approach. ‘Rock on’ invites a more adventurous attitude and implies that risk-taking should not be off the table. ‘Peace out’ is a commitment to do no harm, to live and let live. Even the innocuous ‘Catch you later’ has a free-spirited undertone – the notion of catching someone implying that they may be flying or moving at speed. And of course, ‘Keep it real’ speaks for itself.

In contrast, ‘stay safe’ admonishes the listener. It is an imperative, but not one that opens a door and sends you off with a cheery quip and a slap on the back. It patronizes and cautions. It elevates the speaker to the role of proxy Big Brother and infantilises the recipient. ‘Take it easy’ are the words of a friend. ‘Stay safe’ are the words of a kindergarten teacher.

Most people don’t spend much time thinking about the words they use. Others such as I who read voraciously and write for a living are more sensitive to the nuances of our day-to-day language and indeed, far more suspicious of sudden additions or deletions from the popular lexicon. Readers of this blog are likely skewed toward the latter group and as such may well have been similarly offended by this condescending new terminology.

It behoves us though to take the matter beyond simple distaste and consider what darker motivations underpin this kindergarten teacher Newspeak. When a new phrase suddenly enters our vernacular, it is most unlikely that it sprouted organically at the grassroots level. Indeed, like ‘new normal’, ‘social distancing’, and ‘we’re all in this together’ – ‘stay safe’ was most likely crafted by PR consultants and then repeated ad nauseum by politicians and news anchors until everyone was saying it.

Stay safe… But it sounds reasonable right? What could possibly be wrong with telling someone to stay safe? Surely staying safe is a good thing. And the more we all remind each other to take care and stay out of danger, the better off we will all be, right?

Yes and no. If you were to tell me to stay safe (as my dealer used to) from a place of genuine concern for my wellbeing but grounded also in the fundamental understanding that my life is my own and ultimately, I am going to do with it as I see fit, then yes – stay safe is a reasonable suggestion.

Certain pursuits are risky. If you’re about to drop some Ecstasy, for instance, you are taking a risk with your body and mind. Things can go wrong when you’re on drugs, it is therefore reasonable for the person who just supplied you with those drugs to say “Stay safe man.” The same is true if you’re about to get stuck into a bottle of vodka (perhaps even more so). Heading off skydiving? Sure – stay safe. About to climb up a sheer rockface? Who would begrudge a friendly “Stay safe dude”?

But here’s the thing. All these activities carry with them disproportionate risks. Disproportionate to what? you might ask. To everyday life.

Covid is a moderately bad illness that the vast majority of people recover from without complication. That is a fact that does not even bear citation at this late stage of the game. Why then have the words ‘stay safe’ become embedded in our approach to everyday life?

This is how you can tell it’s not actually about safety at all – but rather, control. It is what CJ Hopkins recently referred to as “the pathologization of everyday life”.

‘Stay safe’ is actually code for something else. Since early in the ‘pandemic’ (another word that has been weaponsied by marketers and spin doctors) it has been clear that most of us are not at any great risk of serious illness from Covid – and it is therefore reasonable to discount the notion that stepping outside and going about one’s business poses any disproportionate risk to our health. In other words – it is life as normal; it is everyday life. In the context of everyday life, when applied to fit and healthy adult humans, ‘stay safe’ does not mean stay safe, it means obey the rules.

Through the normalisation of the imperative ‘stay safe’ we pathologize our everyday lives with exaggerated and imagined threats, the antidote to which is more centralised authority. And this is how they trick us.

First, they traumatise us with fear porn – daily death tolls, case totals and hysterical advertising that depicts young, healthy people gasping for air in dim hospital rooms. Then they adopt the roll of the kindergarten teacher and infantilise us with syrupy platitudes about safety, health, and wellbeing.

In turn we infantilise one another, also adopting the default persona of the kindergarten teacher, as we earnestly chant the incantation at the end of each video call, and briskly append it to our text messages. And so, the whole sordid story plays itself out, and all the while everyone thinks they’re being virtuous and responsible.

This is nothing new and has been employed by establishment elites since time immemorial. The formula is simple: Be afraid, be very afraid. Now look to us – your leaders. We are here to keep you safe. Here are the rules, adherence to which will keep you safe. Now, my darling children – stay safe.

‘Stay safe’ is an obvious one and easy to identify because it speaks directly to the old dichotomy of fear and protection that power structures have always used to maintain hegemony. But the manipulation of language for nefarious psychological means takes many forms.

For instance, the great clarion call of the modern left, particularly beloved of the socialist Prime Minster of New Zealand, Jacinda Ardern: ‘Be kind’.

Again, you might be tempted to remonstrate here: What on earth could be wrong with being kind to people? Surely we need more of that in in the world, right?

Again – yes and no.

This is a great example of how bad faith actors like Ardern weaponise truisms to gain political capital. ‘Be kind’ is perhaps the most banal of axioms. What could be more fundamental to our humanity? The answer is – nothing.

Being kind is most certainly the magic dust of the human condition. It is what sets us apart from beasts and what lies at the heart of many of our most exhilarating endeavours. It is, in a word, essential. So much so that most people are socialised to be kind by default – it is just how we are.

But what personalities like Jacinda Ardern do when they go on TV and pucker up their faces and say “be kind” is – they take an objective truism, which is ingrained in most of us already, and wave it about in front of one soap box issue or another, thus establishing themselves and their tribe as the benchmark for kindness. In other words, they commoditise the act of kindness, making it contingent upon adherence to their particular ideology. Again, this pathologizes everyday life, creating the assumption that we are all somehow lacking in empathy and in need of a great and loving leader to remind us all to be nice to each other.

This is why the ‘be kind’ mantra is so popular with the left and has always been at the heart of socialist programmes. Acting out of kindness is the perfect, and perhaps the only justification for taking the property and rights of others to satisfy a utopian social agenda. It is like a magic cloak, a cure-all that obscures all failures or missteps. For if you are the one constantly telling people to be kind to one another, then surely anyone who would criticise you is just a big old meanie – right?

It sounds ludicrous because it is. But it is also very effective. It is in fact the baseline tactic of passive aggressive bullies the world over. Many politicians fall into this category, but these folk are everywhere – you will know several of them personally. You may even have a couple in your immediate family.

As with ‘stay safe’, ‘be kind’ is a reasonable thing to suggest in some instances. Perhaps you have a friend who is a bit low on the empathy setting, and the two of you are about to go into a situation with someone who’s just suffered a bereavement. A quiet reminder – be kind – might be reasonable in this circumstance.

But to be honest I struggle to think of many more situations where it is anything less than offensively condescending to instruct another human to be kind. Most of us learned how to do this by the age of four and any adult who still needs reminding is probably beyond redemption, short of intensive psychotherapy.

It is no accident that children finish kindergarten around the age of four – this is the point at which most kids have become socialised. It is the age at which they have learned how to treat others with respect and kindness. That is largely what kindergarten is for – teaching children the fundamentals of what it is to be human, among which are safety and kindness.

It is only after children have learned these basics that they can go on to school proper, and the more advanced tutelage that will set them up to achieve. Before one can achieve though, one must be able to get along with others.

This is a good moment to shout out our early childhood learning professionals – it is a crucial job upon which, along with good parenting, our entire civilisation rests.

Our children need kindergarten teachers. We do not.

The politicians and corporate interests who would create a world where we pathologize everyday life through the use of maxims like ‘stay safe’ and ‘be kind’ would like nothing more than to devolve us all back into kindergarten kids.

Do not give them the pleasure.

Next time someone tells you to stay safe – just say “You can stay safe – I’m going to take it easy.”