"Alfie's Army" and long term implications

[Andromeida59]

I think that there has been so much scaremongering around the hospital and expertise of the medical professionals that I genuinely feel that this will put some of from having their children treated because of the mass hysteria created around this case.

I have been gobsmacked by so much that I've seen around the Alfie Evans case. Personally, I don't think I've ever seen such rabid paranoia and conspiracy theories (lethal injections, Big Pharma, organs for cash etc.). I'm also trying to understand the mentality behind "Alfie's Army". I think what started off as well intentioned "thoughts and prayers" etc. has now escalated in to something that even the family will not be able to control. I also think it's only a matter of time before the "Army" turn on the father.

I do think that hospitals make mistakes and of course medical professionals will not always be right but there seems to have been an escalation in animosity since the Charlie Gard case. I think that next time a case of this type occurs, the outcome could be far worse because who would have imagined we would have seen protesters attempting to "storm" a children's hospital?

Also, really don't understand the "the child belongs to the parents ergo it's up to the parents to do what they want" attitude. I'm not a parent (and I don't think being a parent suddenly endows parents with a wealth of medical and legal knowledge) but surely people understand that children do not "belong" to them?

Phosphorus

The NHS can and does ban people from certain premises where they have threatened the safety of staff.

For example, a GP who is threatened or assaulted an refuse to maintain the patient on their list. The patient is then transferred to a specific GP practice that specialises in handling aggressive/violent patients. There are significantly more safeguards in place at these practices to protect staff. Much higher level of security.

It's not common but it does happen and certainly has a place. No one should be threatened with violence or intimidation, and that has occurred in this instance. Not necessarily by the parents I might add.

Tbh the ‘army’ will be the reason the can’t take him home as they pose a risk to any staff visiting. I think the father realises this and it is the only reason he is pulling away.

In addition to social media, I wonder if there has been a soap opera effect where the mob is always looking for the next sensational storyline. It was particularly noticeable yesterday when Tom Evans asked everyone to back off, and a sizeable number of people were complaining on the Alfie's Army FB page that they wanted to continue getting updates.

While I agree entirely with the sentiments about the mobs outside children’s hospitals being something deeply regrettable and i am horrified by the threats made to medical staff, there is an element of smugness in some parts of this threat that perhaps explains why some white working class people dislike middle class professionals.

TERFousBreakdown Really interesting post and I think really hits the nail on the head.

Have anyone seen Hypernormalisation? Has been on iPlayer for ages and covers similar themes - complex situations being reduced to simple narratives of good vs evil (even if those narratives are complete bollocks).

I work in maternity and sadly see similar situations. I would love to say that AA’s army if they turned up in A&E with an emergency would defer to medical expertise. However my experience is that people are increasingly confrontational towards the doctors who only want to keep them and their baby well. That’s not to say that the maternity care is not without fault, that we can’t do better at communicating and giving choice. But I see increasing numbers of people with babies clearly in distress refusing caesareans because “You’re not fucking cutting me open”, partners attempting to punch doctors and midwives mid-surgery because they refuse to allow their premature, intubated baby to go to NICU as “he’s fine, he doesn’t need all these tubes”, parents refusing their babies to have antibiotics because they’re fed up of staying in hospital and they’ve found a website on how to cure GBS naturally....the list goes on. It’s fucking depressing and not helping with the numbers of doctors, nurses and midwives leaving the profession.

Sadly cases like AE and CG will only fuel the sentiment that the NHS deliberately causes harm.

Sisyphus You sound amazing. Hope the exam has gone well by the time you read this!

The internet is great in lots of ways. (Warning, long post, but this presses lots of my buttons.)

Good things:

1. People can easily find others who share some rare characteristic and keep in touch with them - whether that's a hobby, a disease or a common family background.
2. Online shopping, especially for things no local shop would ever stock routinely.
3. Real time news updates.
4. Online conversations are a godsend for the housebound, the shy and lonely, people stuck in very remote places and so on.
5. Access to huge amounts of information.

Bad points: All of the above!

Echo chamber if your views never get challenged is right up at the top of the list for me, along with despair at the way people cherrypick information without evaluating it critically. If it fits their world view they accept it, otherwise they denounce the person telling them.

I don't think there's ever been a golden age when everybody was good at critical thinking. I'd say what we're seeing now is people whose views were invisible until quite recently (outside their local communities - and if somebody spouted nonsense in the pub they were easily ignored or shouted down). Somebody said on a thread yesterday about grammar that in the past most people never had to write anything for anyone else to read. If they'd had to we'd have seen that many of them had very shaky grammar and spelling. Now we see it all the time on social media, along with the very, very poor understanding and knowledge of all sorts of fundamental stuff like science, geography, history, basic grasp of law and government etc etc. Without a reasonable general knowledge to build on, it's hardly surprising so many people can't evaluate whether what another person is telling them is likely to be correct or not.

This of course is why in the past we relied unquestioningly on experts. Unfortunately they were often wrong, and some people have no tolerance for error. They expect everything to be right first time. They also underestimate other people's intelligence and skills. Many people seem to think that having access to all the information equates to anybody being able to do anything. No. With complex subjects, you need to be trained to sift through all the information, understand the methodology used to obtain it, identify the reliable sources, look for the strongest evidence, work out how to use that to change current practice, monitor how it goes and eventually evaluate the results and see if if the new way made a difference for the better.

There was something similar in the 20th century. During WW1 and WW2 because of conscription many affluent, educated people were thrown into close contact with the working class and were aghast at how bad their education had been and how underdeveloped and unhealthy they were compared with those who'd been well fed and housed in childhood. This fed directly into the huge amount of social change in the UK and all over the western world in the middle of the 20th century.

There's always a big lag between a huge social change and the whole of society catching up with it. The Luddites smashed new machines at the start of the Industrial Revolution because they were frightened of losing their jobs and being destitute. It certainly wasn't a painless transition, but society changed to provide the work eventually. We're in a similar position now. Jobs where you can get by without being literate are dwindling. Our education and governance systems are, not surprisingly, struggling to keep up with the rapid pace of change. We'll get there eventually, but the collateral damage along the way isn't going to be pretty.

I don't want to comment on any individual cases, it's far from my intentions to speak about parents in a very vulnerable position.

It's the phenomenon of the social media mob, the rise of it combined with the distrust in expert opinion and and the "I have the right to it, and I don't care about anyone else" attitude that's deeply worrying.

As a general principle, I'm in favour of openness, but the scenes at GOSH and Alder Hey shocked me so much that I'm starting to feel that in any future cases like that of AE and CG, there should be a legal ban on anyone releasing any information, including the geographic area, that makes it impossible to identify the child, the family the hospital or any of the staff involved in the child's care.

It must have been terrifying for staff and very distressing for those with sick children at Alder Hey while all this was going on.

Alongside the CG charity the parents continue in an activist role. One, they are still looking for answers from GOSH on the care that CG received (Connie Yates has tweeted about this) and they support other parents who are struggling through similar situations. They are still grieving parents trying to make sense of what happened.

I can only see things getting worse. The lack of funding and changes to the education system are shutting out many from being encouraged to think critically.

We have schools that can't get teachers and a curriculum that focuses on rote learning. This will lead to another chunk of their generation being anti school and anti authority. It's really sad.

Tbh the ‘army’ will be the reason the can’t take him home as they pose a risk to any staff visiting

And unfortunately the army were continually stoked up by the family to get them into the frenzy they have been.

I agree with those saying there is a lack of critical thinking in these situations.

DS wanted to study A level Critical Thinking but decided against it when he discovered that is is discounted as an A level by most universities.

Tells you everything you need to know about the value even educational establishments place on critical thinking skills.

Lately I'm questioning whether the good points of the internet outweigh the dangers. It's like a Black Mirror episode coming true. The internet is a powerful tool to rabble rouse and spread hatred and bigotry.

People love a bit of righteousness indignation, you only have to see how the CF threads go on here. If you're not careful you get these hard of thinking angry mobs outside hospitals and in another news story those Incel groups getting murderous because they can't get a shag.

The echo chamber effect you get from social media discourages self reflection and critical thinking and even old fashioned politeness.

There's a lot of sneering on here about working class people. Truth is, the biggest wind-up merchants in this tragic case have generally been middle-class (and above) professionals in positions of power. Theirs are the voices with reach and impact, not the normal people of Liverpool whose critical views of the Army have gone completely unnoticed: as people like us always are unless the middle-classes want a scapegoat for their own shortcomings.

I don't consider it sneering to state, accurately, that the Alfie's Army phenomena is a product of white working class frustration. I say so without any kind of snootiness whatsoever, having been raised working class myself. I grew up among the sorts of people that have joined and participated in that group.

Also, really don't understand the "the child belongs to the parents ergo it's up to the parents to do what they want" attitude. I'm not a parent (and I don't think being a parent suddenly endows parents with a wealth of medical and legal knowledge) but surely people understand that children do not "belong" to them?

We are the only country that rushes to terminate parent rights and refuses parents wishes if they wish to transfer their child to another medical organisation who are willing to provide care.

You might not understand it but it’s the rules the rest of the civilised world works by.

There has been so much concern over the UKs willingness to forcibly terminate parental rights it’s something the EU parliament has investigated in response to concerns from other states.

So much to agree with on this thread!

Wide spread dissemination and of knowledge, the rise of social media etc, isn’t a bad thing, in itself, but I think it’s come about so fast that there have been a lot of unintended consequences. That’s simply because it has changed how we interact with the world very, very fast.

Fear of the echo chamber is one of the reasons I deliberately don’t delete fb friends with opposing views to mine, and why I try to get information from a variety of sources... being aware of your own bias and making an effort to overcome them doesn’t take very much effort - probably needs to be taught in schools!

Oh Mighty you do spout some bollocks, as you did on previous threads, mostly because you think it's distasteful people even discussing this subject,

Can you please provide links to sources that confirm that every other country in the world operates differently to the UK as you have stated?

The point about refusing to transfer a child to another medical organisation (ie, outside this country) is quite honestly sensible when it is clear that transfer will result in NO other difference to treatment, could possibly cause distress, harm or death to the child.

If parents could do what they like with their children, which is clearly what you believe is right and proper, then you're happy for parents to refuse their child to have life saving treatment because of their parents religious objection? You're happy to allow parents to decide that a child with no quality of life, continually suffering seizures, should be kept alive at all costs?

I'm not. I suggest if you don't like the UK belief that a child's needs are more important than a parents wants, you move to one of these other countries you think have better "rules".

Alltheprettyseahorses

Liverpool has a strong middle class contingent. I should know, I'm part of it, as are my colleagues/friends/relatives.

Let's not start perpetuating the myth that Liverpool is only populated by the working classes who are scapegoated by the middle classes at every opportunity.

Everyone I know locally has great sympathy for the parents, and huge respect for Alder Hey. Yes, the parents have been exploited and their actions have fuelled the fire, but I don't know anyone who would direct blame at them. They're a product of their environment and have been treated appallingly by some of the vultures that surround them.

"DS wanted to study A level Critical Thinking but decided against it when he discovered that is is discounted as an A level by most universities.

Tells you everything you need to know about the value even educational establishments place on critical thinking skills."

But you don't have to study critical thinking to get critical thinking skills. The entire point of many arts and humanities disciplines as a whole is to provide those skills. An English, History, or Philosophy A-level course would provide exactly the same kind of skills, and would count highly for UCAS.

The problem we have with critical thinking, in my view, has more to do with pedadogic pressures and methods. Kids at A-level are increasingly taught to the test. Increasingly, at university, they expect to be spoon-fed answers. Some are almost completely unaware that knowledge and skill go beyond the ability to parrot back facts or bullet points, and extend into a style of thinking and questioning. Many are graduating now with a good 2:1 and no critical thinking skills.

Part of the issue is schools, another part is parents. Many people in the middle class are so very confident that they have critical thinking skills, yet every single thought/utterance they produce lies within a fairly narrow neoliberal, positivistic framework of reference, grounded in a very naive realism. You see this time and time again on this site itself.

I've read quite a few of their posts on the FB page, and on the whole there are some pretty uneducated people on there making assumptions that they know more than the highly experienced medical profession. Some of the things they've said have been madness. It has raised awareness about the case, but in my mind the wrong awareness. I feel so sorry for the staff and the other parents and children at the hospital. I hope poor little Alfie gets some peace with his loving parents, who you have to admire for their sheer determination.

The huge elephant in teh room here is this :

These parents are ill educated, poor, working class. The " Army" feel they are one of their own.

The same for Charlie Gard's parents.

Generally, well educated, older, middle class parents can see reason more easily and would be utterly horrified at the mob behaviour.

And I am NOT judging. Who's to say what I might do if I were them? But I am not them so I wil not judge them.

It's not anything new it's just more noticeable thanks to social media and things having further reach. Nothing unites people like a common enemy, people love feeling they have a purpose, something that drives them. A lot of those people in the 'armies' have dedicated a lot of their time into this, like an obsession but with bbq's and other idiots to validate them.

I don't think the armies alone are a big issue, I think (and media plays a big factor again) organisations with not so hidden agendas getting involved and using the families involved to push their ideas and use them as a means to an end.

Thing is, this sort of fuckwittery was being fed and encouraged for decades before social media. The tabloid press (most of all the Sun) pushed a constant supply of vicious, self-righteous sentimentality (love the Royals, hate paedos, hate wierdos, love this that or the other celebrity...). How much of it was conscious, planned activity, with a long-term strategy in mind, is hard to say - some of the theorizing I have heard is well into tinfoil hat/lizard overlord territory. But there have always been strategies used by the rich and powerful to keep the proles in their place, and this sort of thing is more of the same - if they're busy screaming, blubbering, raging and praying, they are not looking at who might really be to blame for their troubles (ie large corporations who hold down wages, the deregulated finance industry that fucked the economy, etc). It's not that much of a coincidence that the tabloids have a long history of bashing 'intellectuals' (scientists, students, historians etc) - it's in the best interests of people who have and want to retain power to encourage feeling-not-thinking and imply that being thick as shit is endearing.

And both Charlie Gard and Alfie Evans got hijacked by a particularly disgusting crew - the forced-birth misogynists, who see these poor little kids as a way of pushing their anti-women, anti-choice, pro-superstition agenda (the right-to-life message can be bolted on to demands to 'save' the kids, and the power-of-prayer/medics-want-to-kill-you bullshit might be useful for reducing demand for healthcare...).

GREAT post reanimated.