Vaccines work. If you
don't think they do, then there's no reason to oppose vaccines. You'd be just as fulfilled by the self-destructive pleasure of not getting them. You oppose them because they work, they cause something to the persons
who do get them. You oppose vaccines not because you don’t believe it works,
but because others believe it does. And that is what you don't like. Persons
who get the vaccines declare their faith on medical science, and that offends
you. When authorities make vaccines widely available to the public, you view
that as an attack on personal liberty. Therefore you see government as the
enemy and not the deadly virus that's actually killing people. This is
fundamentally what is wrong with the antivax movement. It takes up a minority sentiment
and uses it as an advocacy to defeat the greater good, wrapping it with
arguments premised on ignorance.
Of course in a democracy
like ours, everyone is free to ingest any poison he wants. More than that, it
is politically incorrect to prevent someone from exercising his personal
liberty even by doing something harmful to himself.
But what antivaxers do not
quite understand is that by depriving themselves of proven medical protection, they
are lowering the level of protection for everyone else. And while they have the
right to choose death as a possible consequence of their mistaken belief, they
don't have a right to superimpose that choice on the rest of us. Put in another way, you can kill yourself but
you may not take me along with you.
You see, it is not
possible to win the war against COVID19 partially. If we don’t exterminate the
virus completely, the remnants of the species can develop a tolerance to any
vaccine we have created and come off stronger, more virulent and deadlier than
their ancestors that we have only managed to marginalize--but not eliminate-- when we did not vaccinate
everyone.
This leaves us no choice
but to vaccinate everyone, including antivaxers against their will. Isn't that
a violation of their freedom? Yes, it
is.
However, we must
understand that belonging to society is totally about losing your freedom. Every
individual surrenders liberty for himself in exchange for a code of behavior
binding on everyone. That way we don’t have to clobber each other for dominance
of good intention. If we didn't have
laws for everyone, then we would have to
contend with the tyranny of the strongest one among us. That's how it
was in the state of nature, where the most powerful individual dominated
everyone else unwilling or unable to challenge him. But even the strongest one
is not safe for he can be murdered in his sleep, to be replaced by the next
bolder one, and by the one who comes after him. It’s an oxymoron that the attainment of the
ultimate good intention can only be pursued with the worst violence. No one can be safe unless everyone is rendered
harmless, that is, until everyone is stripped of his power to prevail over
another. Ultimately nobody wins until
everybody is willing to lose.
That is the essence of the
Social Contract which is at the very heart and foundation of modern society. We all agreed to surrender our rights in favor
of a centralized regulation of our lives by an indefeasible sole central powerholder
called the State.
Therefore, when the State
acting through the government has legitimately and validly determined what is
good for the greater number, opposing its mandate is insurrection and sedition,
plain and simple. It’s a futile repudiation of an irrepudiatable covenant—the
Social Contract.
Vaccination works for the
greater number and therefor can be imposed on the totality of society, through
the irresistible coercion of the State. It is what it is. Being irreversibly
integrated in society, you don’t have a choice but to go with the flow.
Unless you can figure out
a way of resigning from the human race.Ⓒ 2021 Joel R. Dizon
Joel R. Dizon - PARABLES AND REASON
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