I listened to an interview with Mike Lee on RNZ talking about some of the reasons people avoid vaccines from his research and his first point was about wellness woo and religion. The idea your body is perfect you just have to eat healthy or believe in god enough and you’ll never get sick. This is a problem people like myself with chronic illness such as autoimmune disease face all the time. People don’t like to believe that it’s possible to become unwell even if you’re doing the most. I call it the “perfect body” theory and it’s what drives a bunch of discrimination against people with chronic illness and disability. I’m stoked to be double vaxxed finally, and ooh boy it was so much easier than the weekly injection of cytotoxic immune suppressant I have to do to control my disease. People place so much moral value on health and it’s fucked. I could ramble about it for a long time. My brain-wormed anti-vax mum has even told me I have autoimmune disease because of “taking vaccines” although she can’t decide if it’s my childhood vaccinations or the yearly flu jab. Needless to say I’ve not disclosed my covid vaccine status to her yet. If anyone knows what the academic term for the idea that “you just have to be healthy/and or believe in god enough you will never face illness” that would be great so I can read some academic research about this frustrating phenomenon and have better ways to combat all the wellness woo and “advice” people give me about what I should do to cure my incurable disease Hahahha.
There primary academic term that springs to mind for what you’re describing is the ‘Just World Hypothesis’, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-world_hypothesis which can be roughly summarised as wanting to believe that bad things don’t happen to good people. The troubling part is how easily it can veer into subtle (and not so subtle) victim blaming https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victim_blaming when people are confronted with it’s falsity.
Of course, lurking under the just world hypothesis is an attempt to avoid confronting existential terror i.e. it’s veiled death anxiety.
Yalom in his masterwork on Existential Psychotherapy https://www.amazon.com/Existential-Psychotherapy-Irvin-D-Yalom-ebook-dp-B085P24DDQ/dp/B085P24DDQ/ notes that the two common strands of defence against death anxiety can be summarised as either believing in an ‘ultimate rescuer’ who will save you from personal extinction (e.g. religion and an afterlife) and the second is a sense of ‘personal specialness’ i.e. other people might get ill or die but I’m more careful or clever, etc. so I’ll avoid it.
The just world hypothesis sits with the second strand.
OMG, this - yes! There is so much health privilege in the anti-vax camp - and I think it's not going to be until they suffer themselves or have sick loved ones that a lot of them are really going to be able to empathise and start to consider the perspective of others. I got my autoimmune diagnosis in 2010 but it wasn't until my mother's own health started to deteriorate fairly recently that she could actually understand what it was like for me and didn't just blame it on "not enough exercise", "eating badly" etc. I'm really happy to be double-vaxxed now and feel so much safer and protected outside now that masks have become more acceptable and seen in public, so if nothing else the Delta variant reminds us that we are all being affected by this.
This sums up exactly what a friend and I were discussing last night. The irony is a lot of these people also talk about working on themselves to lose the ego but a lot of their actions are doing exactly the opposite. They definitely seem to feel morally superior. I don't know if there's a term for it but I'm going to start looking into it.
Every time I hear "I trust my immune system" as an argument against the vaccine, I want to scream. They completely lack the basic understanding of how a vaccine works with your immune system, not against it.
Couldn’t agree more. I think it’s in large part to the fact that most people around today have grown up in a world where if you get sick, you go to the doctor and you get well. and THAT’S IT. There are very few people left who lost childhood friends to preventable illness, because with the advent of vaccines, that does not now (frequently) happen. I’ve talked to my mum about this a lot. She was a nurse in wellington in the sixties and remember nursing what must have been the last (ish) child with polio in NZ, he was in an iron lung. It was rare and unusual then. Her thoughts are that there are several generations living now who have no memory of this type of thing because it HASNT HAPPENED IN OUR LIFETIMES. We can trust our immune systems because we were not alive to see what happens to healthy unvaccinated people with “strong immune systems” during times of widespread and completely common health danger. We think we’re alive and well because we do yoga and eat salads, not because of several generations benefiting from the wonders and care and science of modern medicine that have allowed us to reach this point. Perhaps if we had all lost childhood friends to polio, rubella, whooping cough, measles and everything else, perhaps these dolts would realise that our immune systems really haven’t had a whole hell of a lot of hard work to do thanks to science.
Fuck you're cool Sibby. It must drive you WILD to listen to this health and wellness nonsense. Again - so much of that coming from a place of total (often white) privilege. I'd be curious to hear more about your take on this - I don't know if you'd ever be open to penning more thoughts, but if you ever were, drop me a line: davidfarrier@protonmail.com
Thank you for holding space for all of us who have horror stories of churches, as well as so many others. Evangelical churches in particular have a lot to answer for, although I also remember my only Catholic communion as a Catholic School kid . . . that was pretty stunningly bad also.
Thank you for every single thing you write, too. It's always well thought out and powerful and I appreciate it very much.
Please be gentle with yourself, and take space when you need to cope with it all. The abuse and the horrors will always be waiting in your inbox, but I hope you are able to put them aside sometimes and just have moments of peace.
I do not believe in any higher power any more, but the power of myself, and others. With enough of us pulling together, each in our own way, we can make a difference. Every drop of power, of courage, of honour, of kindness, of gentleness, every one will make a difference to the world.
Extremely excited that Scott Kennedy, the Deputy Principal at Manukau Christian School, must clearly support abortion now. I guess I will see him at the next march? Seriously though, what a way to tell on yourself. I haven't ever cried except for this one time I was inconvenienced in an extremely minor way. Proof that none of these anti vaxxers have faced true challenges in life - like say, standing in the ICU over your child, who you can't touch because they have a machine breathing for them. I'd say my husband and I didn't stop crying for about six months then.
Emily - you nailed it, just how insanely melodramatic this all gets. Like: really? Crying? It almost feels disrespectful to real trauma. Whether it's real or imagined, it's the fucking pits.
Totally. I have not met one anti vaxxer who has had a child in ICU or has a medically fragile child. I said this once and an anti vaxxer told me her child had a vaccine injury so she did know what we (parents of very sick kids) have been through, I apologised to her and asked if there’s anything I could do to support her - she said it’s ok as “in the end we didn’t have to go to hospital”. Her child had nappy rash. Which she attributed to a vaccine. And she compared this to having a medically fragile child. 🥴 Like don’t vaccinate then, but don’t use the trauma of all our our kids as a cover for being a selfish toe rag.
I grew up in a third world country that didn't have access to vaccines. I saw first hand the effects of polio. I read an opinion piece recently that summed up my thinking; "It is truly privileged upon privileged to not only live in a country that has more than sufficient supply of vaccines while others have no access, but also to choose not to get vaccinated."
I get so much hope from reading this. There are so many people who do care about the common welfare who quietly go about their business being of service to others and the greater good. I see it in the folks that comment here and when I am looking I see it in my daily life. The problem is the other opinions are SO LOUD. I have to remember that LOUD does not mean that is the majority.
I also don't think the NZ media in general has anything to be proud about at the moment in terms of balance - it seems to be all about blame blame blame - not just holding those folks to account. I have to very much limit what outlets I read as the headlines, notifications and 'pundit' pieces seem to be bordering on hysteria at the moment.
Anyways thank you again for the webworm and for all the folks who comment - weirdly though topic is disturbing - it does give me hope
I so agree with you! I was listening to Drew Barrymore on Armchair Expert today and she said “insecurity is loud and confidence is quiet” and that made me think of this situation and then again when I read your “LOUD” comment 😊
"Protecting the innocent (immuno compromised, elderly, chemotherapy patients etc etc) from the evildoer (virus)" um yeah, this bit means get the vaccine you plonker
Stop being selfish. That's it. Its okay to be scared and to have questions. It's not okay to hide behind bullshit to self serve and encourage others to do the same- certainly not in the name of philosophies based on kindness and supporting others.
Brings to mind the scene from Pulp Fiction, Jules reviews his use of Ezekiel 25:17. Starts out with "The path of the righteous man..." ends with " The truth is you're the weak. And I'm the tyranny of evil men"
My girlfriend’s stepdad is a New Zealand mayor and I’m always flummoxed at how considerate and good he is - his politics are left out of his role. I’ve known him for almost three years now and I don’t even know what his politics are. He just wants to make sure everyone is okay at all times. The attitude of this anti-Pfizer mayor in the news is upsetting because it will influence others around her.
The MAGA hat wearing teacher is about to say something stupid and I’m excited to read about it.
All this anti vaccination sentiment must be so exhausting for them. It’s making me so angry that I have decided to unfriend, unfollow (but always read webworm) and simply remove myself because the inner rage I have is messing with my sleep. I took every vaccine available when I went nursing (still nursing and still getting vaccinated) and then when travelling and of course you couldn’t get in to some countries without yellow fever so we took that and never questioned it. Still alive and kicking.
The thing that puzzles me about the whole "They need to be able to decide before God whether or not to get a vaccine" argument, is how do that know that God hasn't sent them the vaccine? Maybe he guided the scientists? And maybe it's a test - one that only those who truly love their neighbours as themselves and get vaccinated pass?
Great piece, David - you have managed to articulate everything that has been sitting uncomfortably with me about this whole "personal choice" rubbish. I kind of get the whole need to feel like you have some level of personal autonomy... but Covid vaccinations are not about that. At all. The lack of empathy is astounding!
As a side note, I'm a relatively new Webworm convert and have been really enjoying it so far! So many fascinating topics to read up on... many of which I wouldn't usually dive so deeply into. Anyway, just wanted to say thanks and you're great!
Thanks heaps for being here! So much in the archive now.. it's a little terrifying how much typing I have done over the last year or so. Glad you are digging the variety. I just follow my nose. My main worry is that I get too preachy.... but this vaccine stuff has me wound up. Thanks for being here.
This was sent to me by a reader and I really like it:
"Disappearing into a fog of “rights rhetoric" is a familiar tactic, but such people should be made to unpick George Bernard Shaw’s famous question:
How can the smoker and non smoker be free in the same railway carriage?
The answer is, of course, that they can’t both be free because all rights eventually bump up against other rights and so the real question is how we arbitrate between them. This becomes a pragmatic issue about balancing the benefits/harm to each party and society decides this based on the facts as they see them at the time.
There is thus no golden sky hook that rights hang from – although religious people might see the hand of god holding the sky hook. However religion flourishes as a safe haven from reason so that is another battle in another place.
Personally I have always followed my grandfather’s advice – when you meet a man who talks about religion, keep your hand on your wallet."
"As a Christian, my theology of government is derived from the Bible and not from pragmatics or social convention." oh, this bit really rubbed me the wrong way... A school principal ignoring social contracts to substitute his own theological conventions, yikes...
Anyways, I've thought about this a lot recently and there happens to be a really good episode from the Adam Conover podcast "Factually" this week who talks to I believe a journalist. She details the history of anti-vax movements and how it has changed. I recommend you give it a listen, she gives a lot of advice on how to talk to anti-vax friends and family, it's really good.
I've also come to believe that, although I am firmly pro vaccine and pro mandates in certain at-risk professions like healthcare and schools, it's definitely a privilege to be able to confidently walk into a random clinic, roll up your sleeve and be injected without worry or anxiety. There's definitely been over the centuries groups that have been, at best, ignored and at worst harmed by the medical institution and it's not difficult to imagine the extra hurdles it puts in front of them when it comes time to follow government advice.
Very much agree that some groups have reason to be suspicious due to historic treatment. Very valid. And why it's even more annoying when privileged white people who have it all are the ones moaning.
Thanks re the Conover podcast, that sounds interesting enough for me to go have a nosey......and yea, its a bit rich isn't it? The schools deliver a school curriculum mandated by Govt and no doubt require kids to stay home if they have measles, or chicken pox, but pick and choose when it comes to what types of vaccines they get for themselves. Damn right they should lose their jobs. I hope the door doesn't hit them on their arse on the way out.
Schools make unvaccinated children stay home to stop the spread of measles etc. My youngest stayed home for two weeks in year 10, he wasn't fully vaccinated, up to date with his immunization schedule due to health issues when he was younger. He's fully vaccinated now and going for his second Covid on Monday.
Yet clearly, some teachers and principals think they are exempt from the same process when it comes to covid, which is a far more serious virus in general. Stupidity and entitlement seems to be more endemic than covid, some days.
I get so frustrated with ppl like this mayor and I just don't know how to get through to them. She's so entrenched in her opinion now, she really doesn't care about considering other points of view and she won't "back down" because that would be capitulating to her detractors. I'm sure she thinks of herself as a "pro-choice", "anti-authoritarian", and "honest" martyr, and that's the hill she wants to die on. It's a bit like debating with anti-abortion activists - they've put some much investment into identifying with this belief system that to change their minds now is unthinkable. I think the only way to get through to them is if someone they respect/trusts has a quiet word with them - the rest of us can shout til we're blue in the face and they won't care.
Yeah, Separation of church and state is such an important principle, especially because the history of most religions included being a persecuted minority which often gets ‘acted out’ in later generations by becoming a persecutory majority when they achieve state power, such as the enactment of Sodomy laws https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodomy_law in the 13th century due to Roman Catholic influence.
In my state, here in the nation of separation of church and state, the sodomy law was only repealed last year. And we generally vote liberal here, despite currently having a conservative governor who did not sign the repeal bill.
*sigh* Love your neighbour' 'Love one another' is kind of Jesus 101. This bodily sanctity in terms of medical care above the wellbeing of others is in direct opposition to the Xian prime directive. Very weird. I don't get it. I'm pretty sure if there is a god, he has been facepalming hard, well, more so than usual, for the last 18 months. I often think when I encounter both established and cult Christian organisations the salient points of Jesus' life flew clean over their heads.
If you are working with the general public, kids or vulnerable people the vaccine should be mandatory. It is not unknown for certain roles to demand vaccination, when I started nurse training in the 1990's we had to have a number of vaccines, there was absolutely no debate. It protected us and everyone we cared for. Win/win.
Hope you are bearing up against the unpleasantness in your DMs, you have rattled their cages for sure.
Gosh I was wondering why she rang a bell. Probably that same medieval bell they would ring when the village was under attack. She was “off grid, I’m off grid” when Coromandel had a COVID scare on the first day of the outbreak, nobody could reach her, then she climbed a hill and Lisa Owen from RNZ was the first to get her on the phone. Lisa’s shocked when Sandra says on national broadcast that she doesn’t use the COVID tracer app and doesn’t scan in at locations, so she gives her a chance to fix it and say she’ll try and do better in future, being mayor of a town that’s scared and looking for guidance and all that. Can you guess what Sandra says? You already know the answer.
I listened to an interview with Mike Lee on RNZ talking about some of the reasons people avoid vaccines from his research and his first point was about wellness woo and religion. The idea your body is perfect you just have to eat healthy or believe in god enough and you’ll never get sick. This is a problem people like myself with chronic illness such as autoimmune disease face all the time. People don’t like to believe that it’s possible to become unwell even if you’re doing the most. I call it the “perfect body” theory and it’s what drives a bunch of discrimination against people with chronic illness and disability. I’m stoked to be double vaxxed finally, and ooh boy it was so much easier than the weekly injection of cytotoxic immune suppressant I have to do to control my disease. People place so much moral value on health and it’s fucked. I could ramble about it for a long time. My brain-wormed anti-vax mum has even told me I have autoimmune disease because of “taking vaccines” although she can’t decide if it’s my childhood vaccinations or the yearly flu jab. Needless to say I’ve not disclosed my covid vaccine status to her yet. If anyone knows what the academic term for the idea that “you just have to be healthy/and or believe in god enough you will never face illness” that would be great so I can read some academic research about this frustrating phenomenon and have better ways to combat all the wellness woo and “advice” people give me about what I should do to cure my incurable disease Hahahha.
There primary academic term that springs to mind for what you’re describing is the ‘Just World Hypothesis’, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-world_hypothesis which can be roughly summarised as wanting to believe that bad things don’t happen to good people. The troubling part is how easily it can veer into subtle (and not so subtle) victim blaming https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victim_blaming when people are confronted with it’s falsity.
Of course, lurking under the just world hypothesis is an attempt to avoid confronting existential terror i.e. it’s veiled death anxiety.
Yalom in his masterwork on Existential Psychotherapy https://www.amazon.com/Existential-Psychotherapy-Irvin-D-Yalom-ebook-dp-B085P24DDQ/dp/B085P24DDQ/ notes that the two common strands of defence against death anxiety can be summarised as either believing in an ‘ultimate rescuer’ who will save you from personal extinction (e.g. religion and an afterlife) and the second is a sense of ‘personal specialness’ i.e. other people might get ill or die but I’m more careful or clever, etc. so I’ll avoid it.
The just world hypothesis sits with the second strand.
OMG, this - yes! There is so much health privilege in the anti-vax camp - and I think it's not going to be until they suffer themselves or have sick loved ones that a lot of them are really going to be able to empathise and start to consider the perspective of others. I got my autoimmune diagnosis in 2010 but it wasn't until my mother's own health started to deteriorate fairly recently that she could actually understand what it was like for me and didn't just blame it on "not enough exercise", "eating badly" etc. I'm really happy to be double-vaxxed now and feel so much safer and protected outside now that masks have become more acceptable and seen in public, so if nothing else the Delta variant reminds us that we are all being affected by this.
This sums up exactly what a friend and I were discussing last night. The irony is a lot of these people also talk about working on themselves to lose the ego but a lot of their actions are doing exactly the opposite. They definitely seem to feel morally superior. I don't know if there's a term for it but I'm going to start looking into it.
Yes, the “I (privately/unconsciously) believe I’m ‘personally special’ because of how ego-less I strive to be (publicly/consciously)” is quite a paradoxical stance. At;s it extreme it turns into what psychotherapists call ‘Covert narcissism’. https://www.mindbodygreen.com/0-29648/the-most-dangerous-narcissist-youll-ever-meet.html
Yeah... so many who talk about the ego a lot have SO MUCH EGO.
*spew emoji*
It is so refreshing to visit a space where people are experiencing the same feelings and talking sense. This describes my mother so accurately.
Every time I hear "I trust my immune system" as an argument against the vaccine, I want to scream. They completely lack the basic understanding of how a vaccine works with your immune system, not against it.
Couldn’t agree more. I think it’s in large part to the fact that most people around today have grown up in a world where if you get sick, you go to the doctor and you get well. and THAT’S IT. There are very few people left who lost childhood friends to preventable illness, because with the advent of vaccines, that does not now (frequently) happen. I’ve talked to my mum about this a lot. She was a nurse in wellington in the sixties and remember nursing what must have been the last (ish) child with polio in NZ, he was in an iron lung. It was rare and unusual then. Her thoughts are that there are several generations living now who have no memory of this type of thing because it HASNT HAPPENED IN OUR LIFETIMES. We can trust our immune systems because we were not alive to see what happens to healthy unvaccinated people with “strong immune systems” during times of widespread and completely common health danger. We think we’re alive and well because we do yoga and eat salads, not because of several generations benefiting from the wonders and care and science of modern medicine that have allowed us to reach this point. Perhaps if we had all lost childhood friends to polio, rubella, whooping cough, measles and everything else, perhaps these dolts would realise that our immune systems really haven’t had a whole hell of a lot of hard work to do thanks to science.
Yeah, idiocy eh. Uneducated silliness.
Fuck you're cool Sibby. It must drive you WILD to listen to this health and wellness nonsense. Again - so much of that coming from a place of total (often white) privilege. I'd be curious to hear more about your take on this - I don't know if you'd ever be open to penning more thoughts, but if you ever were, drop me a line: davidfarrier@protonmail.com
Thank you for holding space for all of us who have horror stories of churches, as well as so many others. Evangelical churches in particular have a lot to answer for, although I also remember my only Catholic communion as a Catholic School kid . . . that was pretty stunningly bad also.
Thank you for every single thing you write, too. It's always well thought out and powerful and I appreciate it very much.
Please be gentle with yourself, and take space when you need to cope with it all. The abuse and the horrors will always be waiting in your inbox, but I hope you are able to put them aside sometimes and just have moments of peace.
I do not believe in any higher power any more, but the power of myself, and others. With enough of us pulling together, each in our own way, we can make a difference. Every drop of power, of courage, of honour, of kindness, of gentleness, every one will make a difference to the world.
I want to echo Jay - thank you David for holding space for us who have experienced this. Thanks Jay. So well put - we can make a difference together.
Much aroha. Really.
Thanks Jay. Heaps.
Extremely excited that Scott Kennedy, the Deputy Principal at Manukau Christian School, must clearly support abortion now. I guess I will see him at the next march? Seriously though, what a way to tell on yourself. I haven't ever cried except for this one time I was inconvenienced in an extremely minor way. Proof that none of these anti vaxxers have faced true challenges in life - like say, standing in the ICU over your child, who you can't touch because they have a machine breathing for them. I'd say my husband and I didn't stop crying for about six months then.
Emily - you nailed it, just how insanely melodramatic this all gets. Like: really? Crying? It almost feels disrespectful to real trauma. Whether it's real or imagined, it's the fucking pits.
Totally. I have not met one anti vaxxer who has had a child in ICU or has a medically fragile child. I said this once and an anti vaxxer told me her child had a vaccine injury so she did know what we (parents of very sick kids) have been through, I apologised to her and asked if there’s anything I could do to support her - she said it’s ok as “in the end we didn’t have to go to hospital”. Her child had nappy rash. Which she attributed to a vaccine. And she compared this to having a medically fragile child. 🥴 Like don’t vaccinate then, but don’t use the trauma of all our our kids as a cover for being a selfish toe rag.
I grew up in a third world country that didn't have access to vaccines. I saw first hand the effects of polio. I read an opinion piece recently that summed up my thinking; "It is truly privileged upon privileged to not only live in a country that has more than sufficient supply of vaccines while others have no access, but also to choose not to get vaccinated."
Ohhhhhh yes. I like this headline. Accurate.
I get so much hope from reading this. There are so many people who do care about the common welfare who quietly go about their business being of service to others and the greater good. I see it in the folks that comment here and when I am looking I see it in my daily life. The problem is the other opinions are SO LOUD. I have to remember that LOUD does not mean that is the majority.
I also don't think the NZ media in general has anything to be proud about at the moment in terms of balance - it seems to be all about blame blame blame - not just holding those folks to account. I have to very much limit what outlets I read as the headlines, notifications and 'pundit' pieces seem to be bordering on hysteria at the moment.
Anyways thank you again for the webworm and for all the folks who comment - weirdly though topic is disturbing - it does give me hope
Fuckin A. Thanks, Kathleen.
I so agree with you! I was listening to Drew Barrymore on Armchair Expert today and she said “insecurity is loud and confidence is quiet” and that made me think of this situation and then again when I read your “LOUD” comment 😊
"Protecting the innocent (immuno compromised, elderly, chemotherapy patients etc etc) from the evildoer (virus)" um yeah, this bit means get the vaccine you plonker
Stop being selfish. That's it. Its okay to be scared and to have questions. It's not okay to hide behind bullshit to self serve and encourage others to do the same- certainly not in the name of philosophies based on kindness and supporting others.
That line you quote leapt out at me too.
Brings to mind the scene from Pulp Fiction, Jules reviews his use of Ezekiel 25:17. Starts out with "The path of the righteous man..." ends with " The truth is you're the weak. And I'm the tyranny of evil men"
(Find it here https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/pulp_fiction/quotes/) Hmm must be time to watch that movie again.
Double webworm weekend? Oooooh.
My girlfriend’s stepdad is a New Zealand mayor and I’m always flummoxed at how considerate and good he is - his politics are left out of his role. I’ve known him for almost three years now and I don’t even know what his politics are. He just wants to make sure everyone is okay at all times. The attitude of this anti-Pfizer mayor in the news is upsetting because it will influence others around her.
The MAGA hat wearing teacher is about to say something stupid and I’m excited to read about it.
This is deeply encouraging. About the mayor, not MAGA hat child
All this anti vaccination sentiment must be so exhausting for them. It’s making me so angry that I have decided to unfriend, unfollow (but always read webworm) and simply remove myself because the inner rage I have is messing with my sleep. I took every vaccine available when I went nursing (still nursing and still getting vaccinated) and then when travelling and of course you couldn’t get in to some countries without yellow fever so we took that and never questioned it. Still alive and kicking.
Thanks for being here, Libby. And I think unfriending/unfollowing/blocking is one of the best things you can do for your mental health.
The thing that puzzles me about the whole "They need to be able to decide before God whether or not to get a vaccine" argument, is how do that know that God hasn't sent them the vaccine? Maybe he guided the scientists? And maybe it's a test - one that only those who truly love their neighbours as themselves and get vaccinated pass?
This is a great point and seems to WHIZZ over their heads
Great piece, David - you have managed to articulate everything that has been sitting uncomfortably with me about this whole "personal choice" rubbish. I kind of get the whole need to feel like you have some level of personal autonomy... but Covid vaccinations are not about that. At all. The lack of empathy is astounding!
As a side note, I'm a relatively new Webworm convert and have been really enjoying it so far! So many fascinating topics to read up on... many of which I wouldn't usually dive so deeply into. Anyway, just wanted to say thanks and you're great!
Thanks heaps for being here! So much in the archive now.. it's a little terrifying how much typing I have done over the last year or so. Glad you are digging the variety. I just follow my nose. My main worry is that I get too preachy.... but this vaccine stuff has me wound up. Thanks for being here.
This was sent to me by a reader and I really like it:
"Disappearing into a fog of “rights rhetoric" is a familiar tactic, but such people should be made to unpick George Bernard Shaw’s famous question:
How can the smoker and non smoker be free in the same railway carriage?
The answer is, of course, that they can’t both be free because all rights eventually bump up against other rights and so the real question is how we arbitrate between them. This becomes a pragmatic issue about balancing the benefits/harm to each party and society decides this based on the facts as they see them at the time.
There is thus no golden sky hook that rights hang from – although religious people might see the hand of god holding the sky hook. However religion flourishes as a safe haven from reason so that is another battle in another place.
Personally I have always followed my grandfather’s advice – when you meet a man who talks about religion, keep your hand on your wallet."
"As a Christian, my theology of government is derived from the Bible and not from pragmatics or social convention." oh, this bit really rubbed me the wrong way... A school principal ignoring social contracts to substitute his own theological conventions, yikes...
Anyways, I've thought about this a lot recently and there happens to be a really good episode from the Adam Conover podcast "Factually" this week who talks to I believe a journalist. She details the history of anti-vax movements and how it has changed. I recommend you give it a listen, she gives a lot of advice on how to talk to anti-vax friends and family, it's really good.
I've also come to believe that, although I am firmly pro vaccine and pro mandates in certain at-risk professions like healthcare and schools, it's definitely a privilege to be able to confidently walk into a random clinic, roll up your sleeve and be injected without worry or anxiety. There's definitely been over the centuries groups that have been, at best, ignored and at worst harmed by the medical institution and it's not difficult to imagine the extra hurdles it puts in front of them when it comes time to follow government advice.
Very much agree that some groups have reason to be suspicious due to historic treatment. Very valid. And why it's even more annoying when privileged white people who have it all are the ones moaning.
Thanks re the Conover podcast, that sounds interesting enough for me to go have a nosey......and yea, its a bit rich isn't it? The schools deliver a school curriculum mandated by Govt and no doubt require kids to stay home if they have measles, or chicken pox, but pick and choose when it comes to what types of vaccines they get for themselves. Damn right they should lose their jobs. I hope the door doesn't hit them on their arse on the way out.
Schools make unvaccinated children stay home to stop the spread of measles etc. My youngest stayed home for two weeks in year 10, he wasn't fully vaccinated, up to date with his immunization schedule due to health issues when he was younger. He's fully vaccinated now and going for his second Covid on Monday.
Yet clearly, some teachers and principals think they are exempt from the same process when it comes to covid, which is a far more serious virus in general. Stupidity and entitlement seems to be more endemic than covid, some days.
Factually podcast: https://omny.fm/shows/factually-with-adam-conover/how-the-anti-vaccine-movement-went-mainstream-with
Thanks for this linky....
"As a Christian, my theology of government is derived from the Bible and not from pragmatics or social convention."
Right. Like any other religious extremist. So they complain about other extremists, turn around and spout the same crap?
yep! The rabbit holes all seem to be very similar.......
I get so frustrated with ppl like this mayor and I just don't know how to get through to them. She's so entrenched in her opinion now, she really doesn't care about considering other points of view and she won't "back down" because that would be capitulating to her detractors. I'm sure she thinks of herself as a "pro-choice", "anti-authoritarian", and "honest" martyr, and that's the hill she wants to die on. It's a bit like debating with anti-abortion activists - they've put some much investment into identifying with this belief system that to change their minds now is unthinkable. I think the only way to get through to them is if someone they respect/trusts has a quiet word with them - the rest of us can shout til we're blue in the face and they won't care.
Correct, She’s not that different from Tamaki and Mortlock in that respect. It’s not about the religious beliefs, more the character style.
The phrase "theology of government" just caused me to experience spontaneous combustion.
Yeah, Separation of church and state is such an important principle, especially because the history of most religions included being a persecuted minority which often gets ‘acted out’ in later generations by becoming a persecutory majority when they achieve state power, such as the enactment of Sodomy laws https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodomy_law in the 13th century due to Roman Catholic influence.
Wow, how do you know something about everything!
In my state, here in the nation of separation of church and state, the sodomy law was only repealed last year. And we generally vote liberal here, despite currently having a conservative governor who did not sign the repeal bill.
*sigh* Love your neighbour' 'Love one another' is kind of Jesus 101. This bodily sanctity in terms of medical care above the wellbeing of others is in direct opposition to the Xian prime directive. Very weird. I don't get it. I'm pretty sure if there is a god, he has been facepalming hard, well, more so than usual, for the last 18 months. I often think when I encounter both established and cult Christian organisations the salient points of Jesus' life flew clean over their heads.
If you are working with the general public, kids or vulnerable people the vaccine should be mandatory. It is not unknown for certain roles to demand vaccination, when I started nurse training in the 1990's we had to have a number of vaccines, there was absolutely no debate. It protected us and everyone we cared for. Win/win.
Hope you are bearing up against the unpleasantness in your DMs, you have rattled their cages for sure.
Gosh I was wondering why she rang a bell. Probably that same medieval bell they would ring when the village was under attack. She was “off grid, I’m off grid” when Coromandel had a COVID scare on the first day of the outbreak, nobody could reach her, then she climbed a hill and Lisa Owen from RNZ was the first to get her on the phone. Lisa’s shocked when Sandra says on national broadcast that she doesn’t use the COVID tracer app and doesn’t scan in at locations, so she gives her a chance to fix it and say she’ll try and do better in future, being mayor of a town that’s scared and looking for guidance and all that. Can you guess what Sandra says? You already know the answer.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/audio/player?audio_id=2018808640
Ugh.
Also: the medieval bell line made a laugh. Thank you.