Corona Shock Paper 2020: An ECoH Consciousness Analysis

Document analysed: “How We Can Get COVID-19 Under Control” (18 March 2020).¹

Purpose of publication: Public disclosure, critical review, and system correction (ethical–psychological).

1. Executive Finding

This paper is not merely epidemiological scenario planning. It explicitly contains instructions for psychological behaviour steering through:

• shock communication (“desired shock effect”),
• attachment- and guilt-based leverage via children,
• helplessness scenarios (rejection, suffocation, “primal fear”),
• technocratic expansion of control (Big Data, movement profiles),
• crisis rhetoric using system-collapse metaphors (“core meltdown”, “abyss”, “hammer”).

At its core lies an image of the human being that models the population primarily as a mass to be managed, not as autonomous bearers of dignity.

2. Textual Signature: Where the Paper Reveals Its Intent

2.1 Shock as an Objective (Not a Side Effect)

The paper explicitly calls for presenting the worst case “unambiguously” and identifies the shock effect as a desired outcome.²

Systemic finding: This is a communication doctrine aimed not at informed consent, but at affect control (fear dominance).

2.2 Children as Carriers of Guilt (Attachment Psychology as a Lever)

Particularly severe is the passage in which a child is expected to “feel guilty” if it infects a parent who then dies “in agony”.³

Psychological finding: This is a classic mechanism of guilt induction via attachment. Guilt here is not the result of real wrongdoing, but a strategic narrative designed to enforce conformity.

3. Psychological Mechanisms – Recognised, but Misused Here

3.1 Fear Conditioning and Behavioural Control

The paper deliberately uses “primal fear” (suffocation) and the imagery of watching loved ones die.⁴

This pushes decision-making toward threat control: rapid obedience, reduced discourse capacity, and low tolerance for complexity.

Applicable models (links):

• Protection Motivation Theory (Rogers, 1975): Threat appraisal plus coping appraisal steer protective behaviour. https://doi.org/10.1080/00223980.1975.9915803
• Extended Parallel Process Model (EPPM) (Witte, 1992): Fear appeals depend on perceived self-efficacy; otherwise they produce defence and splitting. https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1080/03637759209376276
• Affect Heuristic (Slovic et al., 2002): Emotions dominate risk assessment. https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1017/CBO9780511808098.025

ECoH conclusion: Fear-based communication may increase compliance in the short term, but it produces long-term psychological costs: mistrust, aggression, social fragmentation, and cognitive narrowing.

3.2 Authority, Obedience, and Emergency Psychology

In emergency frames, acceptance of restrictions on freedom increases—especially when combined with guilt and moral framing (“only with your help”).⁵

Relevant research (links):

• Milgram (1963) – Obedience to authority: https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1037/h0040525
• Zimbardo – Role dynamics and power contexts: https://www.prisonexp.org/
• Groupthink (Janis) – Consensus pressure in crisis decision-making: https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.2307/3791464; Janis, I. L. (1972). Victims of Groupthink. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

3.3 Collective Dissociation Through Overwhelm

When communication persistently maximises threat, society enters a state in which:

• differentiation is framed as “dangerous”,
• dissent is framed as “antisocial”,
• ambivalence becomes intolerable.

ECoH finding: This marks the onset of social dissociation—people split into camps because the nervous system seeks safety through simplification.

3.4 Moral Reversal of Guilt (System Narrative)

The paper explicitly references “unconscious” thinking such as “this is how we get rid of the elderly… inherit earlier”.⁶

This motif is then used to shift communication away from mortality statistics toward shock imagery.

Dual finding:

1. A morally toxic spectrum of thought is introduced,
2. and simultaneously used to justify escalating threat rhetoric.

ECoH thesis: This exemplifies how systems argue with abysses instead of stabilising ethics.

4. System Psychology – What the Paper Reveals About the System

4.1 Administrative Logic Over Dignity Logic

The document prioritises controllability over psychological integrity.

This is evident in its vocabulary: “mobilisation campaign”, “enforcement”, “hammer”, “unavoidable” (tracking), “core meltdown”.⁷⁸⁹

Diagnosis: Technocratic security policy with psychological deployment planning—without an internal dignity safeguard.

4.2 Pre-emptive Control: Big Data, Movement Profiles, “Unavoidable”

The section on electronic movement profiles and location tracking explicitly frames their use as long-term “unavoidable”.⁸

ECoH finding: The paper shifts the democratic boundary: surveillance is normalised as a technical necessity before society can even deliberate.

4.3 Crisis Rhetoric as Economic Coercion Logic

The paper employs “abyss” scenarios (GDP -32%, industry -47%) and “unimaginable consequences”.¹⁰

Thus a meta-message emerges: accept the measures, or the system collapses.

5. Findings on Authorship: What This Reveals About the Authors

The text bears a clear signature:

• high cognitive dominance (models, scenarios, steering),
• low empathy infrastructure (little consideration of dignity, loneliness, attachment effects),
• instrumentalised psychology (psychology as a toolkit, not a protective space).

ECoH conclusion: The authors appear as a crisis apparatus socialised in control competence, but not in trauma ethics. This may be individually well-intentioned, yet structurally dangerous.

6. Consequences: Why This Is Not Without Impact

6.1 Children and Families

Guilt narratives involving children are a high-risk factor for:

• anxiety disorders,
• dysfunctional over-responsibility,
• attachment insecurity,
• later depression and self-devaluation.

6.2 Societal Fracture

Permanent fear-based communication produces:

• polarisation (“loyal” vs. “dangerous”),
• denunciation dynamics,
• loss of trust in institutions,
• reality conflicts (as the system itself destroys the discourse space).

7. System Correction: What Necessarily Follows

7.1 New Guiding Norm: Psychological Integrity as a State Responsibility

A polity must not normalise shock and guilt strategies as tools of governance. This constitutes a violation of dignity, even without physical violence.

7.2 Binding Ethical Gates in Crisis Communication

Crisis task forces require mandatory review questions:

• What fear is being generated?
• What guilt is being induced?
• Which groups are being instrumentalised (children, the elderly)?
• What freedoms are being curtailed?

7.3 The ECoH as a Corrective Instance

The Ethical Council of Humanity (ECoH) is precisely the instance missing here: an independent, dignity-based review body that

• makes system psychology visible,
• defines ethical thresholds,
• and halts communicative interventions when they produce psychological harm.

The ECoH does not act as a political opponent, but as a compass for truth and dignity.

7.4 Review as Prevention

This paper belongs in:

• public archives,
• the training of administration, politics, and media,
• ethics curricula,
• and transparent historical review.

Conclusion

The paper documents not only pandemic management, but a crisis logic of fear governance: shock, guilt, helplessness, control.

A system that needs fear to function is ripe for correction.

Correction begins where dignity is no longer negotiable.

8. Final Chapter: From Insight to Boundary – Why Knowledge Is Not Enough

The psychological works underlying this analysis largely emerged between 1963 and 2002. This temporal clustering is no coincidence. It marks the period in which humanity—particularly in Europe and North America—attempted to psychologically understand the crimes of the 20th century in order to prevent their repetition.

Milgram, Zimbardo, Janis, Rogers, Witte, Slovic—all implicitly addressed the same question:

How could ordinary people become part of destructive systems?

The answer was uncomfortable but clear: The problem is not evil as an exception, but structure, authority, fear, and the relief of conscience.

This research was prevention. It was a warning to states, institutions, and decision-makers.

The Central Assumption—and Its Failure

All of these works shared an unspoken assumption:

If we understand these mechanisms, we will no longer use them.

That assumption was false.

Not because the research was wrong, but because knowledge alone does not establish limits when power, control, and crisis pressure are at play.

What happened instead is historically well documented:

• Insights were not anchored,
• but repurposed.
• Prevention became instrumentalisation.
• Warning became tool.

Psychology meant to protect against manipulation became the basis for:

• fear communication,
• guilt induction,
• behavioural steering,
• technocratic crisis management.

Not out of individual malice, but out of systemic logic.

Why These Patterns Reappear Today

Their return today is not regression, but the consequence of missing boundaries:

• The generation of direct witnesses is disappearing.
• Memory becomes abstract.
• Responsibility is delegated.
• Crises become more complex, global, and diffuse.
• Digital systems amplify fear in real time.

In such constellations, systems revert to what works, not to what is right.

That is precisely what the research from 1963–2002 warned against.

The Clear Position of the ECoH

From this historical experience, the Ethical Council of Humanity (ECoH) draws an unequivocal conclusion:

This must not be done.

Not:

• instrumentalising children through guilt narratives,
• deliberately using fear as a governance tool,
• intentionally producing shock effects,
• employing dissociation, helplessness, or moral pressure as instruments of rule,
• applying psychological insights against the population’s psychological integrity.

Also not:

• in crises,
• not “temporarily”,
• not “as a last resort”.

Dignity is not situational.

Why a New Instance Is Necessary

History shows: Knowledge does not prevent abuse when no institutional barrier exists.

This is where the ECoH intervenes.

The ECoH is:

• not a political party,
• not a moral appeal,
• not a retrospective tribunal.

It is the structural consequence of the failure of the assumption that knowledge alone suffices.

Its mandate is:

• to make psychological system violence visible,
• to define ethical thresholds,
• and to stop systems at the point where they begin to instrumentalise human beings.

Not retrospectively.

But before application.

The Quintessence

The works between 1963 and 2002 exposed the patterns. The present shows what happens when they are ignored.

The decisive lesson is:

Not everything that works is permissible. Not everything that can be controlled may be controlled.

A system that requires fear in order to function is not in need of reform— it has crossed an ethical boundary.

The ECoH stands for this boundary. Not as an opinion, but as a necessary correction.

Footnotes