ACCESS VERIFIED HEALTH NEWS FOR SANITY

This week, while stuck in the heart of the draining and negative emotional effects from the Coronavirus pandemic, I learnt a new word.  The word is ultracrepidarianism. It summed up the period we are in. To stay sane we need to sanitise ourselves from ultracrepidarianism. Do not mind its pronunciation, what is important is what the word means. I will elaborate more in a bit. 

While the battle seems to be against a devastating medical issue of this inexplicable virus, we are also facing other mental battles of misinformation and negativity especially through social media. 

Platform

These two have a larger bearing on our sanity and essentially our productivity. Then again, I guess that is why it was termed ‘social’ media because it is mainly a platform for socialising. But sadly, in the midst of it all, some people have hijacked it and turned it into a form of mainstream media. This is where other people go for latest news from even ghost sites with no interviewees or references that one can look up. It is unverified news, but travels fast. It is sad. For my sanity and for factual news, I stick to mainstream media. Rumours and hearsays just do not do it for me. Since COVID-19 came to the fore, we have welcomed pseudo health experts and quasi doctors and overnight health writers on our social media timelines feeding us with what they claim is the latest conspiracy around the virus. The more one thinks about what they post, the more depressed one gets. And with depression comes a compromised immune system. 

That is the last thing we need in this battle against the raging pandemic. 

Back to my exciting new word; ultracrepidarianism. This word describes the habit of giving opinions and advice on matters outside of one’s knowledge. The term ultracrepidarian was first publicly recorded in 1819 by an essayist called William Hazlitt. It is hard to imagine there was human kind in years as far back as 1819, but here history records there was and not only human kind, but wise essayists like Hazlitt. It must have been a great time. 

Term

So according to my research, the term draws from a famous comment purportedly made by Apelles, a famous Greek artist, to a shoemaker who presumed to criticise his painting. It can be taken to mean that a shoemaker ought not to judge beyond his own soles. Hence today I refuse to get a haircut from a scruffy looking barber, he should be exemplary of the service I will get. So in essence, the new word I learnt means critics should only comment on things they know something about. While it may sound harsh and dictatorial, it is actually not. It helps restore order in debates and arguments. I cannot go into a discussion about biotechnology. I know little about biology nor technology to confidently sit in a seminar and debate with biotechnologists or scientists. I would just embarrass myself. On topics of self-development, entrepreneurship, marketing and general life skills, we can debate until the next full moon. I have my facts in a row and can reference from here to Harvard itself. But I refuse to be an ultracrepidarian. Society should also discourage the emergence of more ultracrepidarians. They only seek to distort and distract us from the main issues at hand. And distraction always leads to destruction in whatever you embark on.

Pandemic

With all of us in the quicksand of this pandemic, within it are the obvious negative forces. Daily we hear people criticise how certain things should be handled to get us out of the situation. It is all well and good and all advice is needed, but it should be objective and offer solutions not just end with telling us what we already know. We know we are sinking. Tell us what is going right and how we can build on that. Hence the words critic and critique are different. The word critique connotes a detailed analysis that describes and weighs the characteristics of something before drawing conclusions based on evidence and inference. A critique’s conclusion may be negative, but the critic will have demonstrated a line of reasoning that led to it. The meanings of critique and criticism overlap, but criticism is already used in a general sense to refer to an expression of mere disapproval or faultfinding. It seems desirable to reserve the word critique to refer to a detailed and thoughtful analysis. While critics are simply negative most times.

These days, quasi health experts are telling us to steam with this and that, eat this or buy these tablets to survive COVID-19. While it is easy to blame them for being ultracrepidarians, but on the other hand they are also taking up a space that is lacking. We rarely get any information on how to boost our immune systems from the verified health experts. The best I saw was from The Clinic Group and fortunately the things they recommended were already in my medicine cabinet having heard from strangers lending a helping hand to try flatten the curve. 

Information

We pray that the Ministry of Health and its partners will share more information about how we can treat symptoms of the virus and other preventative measures than the washing of hands, masks and social distancing. It would be great to have a campaign that goes back to teaching us on how to boost our immune systems and which foods are rich with vitamins. Frankly I have forgotten most of those foods because we learn to pass, not to understand sometimes. We appreciate all the work being done by the frontline workers and as one person stated on social media this week, we would love to also hear more stories about the recoveries, the negative tests and great work happening in the health centres so we do not develop a fear of hospitals and turn to ultracrepidarians for quick fixes. In the meantime, stick to verified news channels and not only social media if you want factual news, or google any updates from the World Health Organisation. There is hope. Stay safe everyone and keep adhering to all regulations. Wear a face mask even with friends or family, together we will get out of this.  

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