In George Orwell’s classic dystopian novel 1984, one of the many interesting concepts was the notion of “Crimestop,” the ability of well-trained citizens to self-censor their thoughts before they strayed into dangerous and forbidden territory. As conveniently summarized in the Wikipedia entry, Orwell wrote:

Crimestop means the faculty of stopping short, as though by instinct, at the threshold of any dangerous thought. It includes the power of not grasping analogies, of failing to perceive logical errors, of misunderstanding the simplest arguments if they are inimical to Ingsoc, and of being bored or repelled by any train of thought which is capable of leading in a heretical direction. Crimestop, in short, means protective stupidity.

Given the existing and ever-growing number of forbidden topics in contemporary Western society, this concept may or may not be applicable. Perhaps thoughts are being self-censored or perhaps merely words. Lacking eyes into human souls, it’s obviously difficult for us to distinguish between the two cases.

In any event, that concept entered my mind near the end of November when I began reading a full page of book reviews in the Wall Street Journal entitled “What Happened in Wuhan,” with the descriptive subtitle “Four books pursue theories of possible origins of the Covid-19 virus—and the question of cover-ups.”

Our global Covid catastrophe is probably the most important historical event since the end of World War II, and with its second anniversary now upon us, serious books analyzing the origin have finally begun to appear in print. I have extensively written on exactly this topic since April 2020, ...
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Until recently the media might have relegated any such discussion of Covid origins to the “fever swamps” of the conspiratorial fringe.