Laughing at the anti-vaxxers
Better to show malice towards none, with charity for all
We left Paris for the countryside recently. The City of Light has grown a little dark. It feels like it must have done during the German Occupation in the early 1940s. People gathered at café tables, wondering what the government would do next, and exchanged forged documents. You have to show “your papers” wherever you go. People over 65 are required to have the vaccine and a booster or they aren’t allowed into restaurants.
Why? Jupiter (France’s president, Emmanuel Macron) says the country is “at war”. People have to make sacrifices. And, as in any war, most people go along with their leaders, wave the flag, and hate the enemy. The press has abandoned its post and no longer asks tough questions on behalf of the public. Instead, it gives out “correct” views on behalf of the elite. Without opposition, the ruling elite becomes corrupt, incompetent and dysfunctional. And with no honest press to watch over the proceedings, the court fills up with kangaroos.
In France, as in the US, the press not only cheers on the government, it signals that anyone who disagrees is deplorable, a subject for ridicule, even in death. In The LA Times, for example, Michael Hiltzik argues that mocking the death of “anti-vaxxers” is
“ghoulish, yes… but necessary”. Necessary? Hiltzik’s thinking is that “those who have deliberately flouted sober medical advice by refusing a vaccine… and end up in the hospital or the grave, can be viewed as receiving their just deserts”. When you have The Truth, why mince words? Why not call a spade a spade and whack your enemies over the head with it?
The trouble is that The Truth is slippery. It comes to light in opposition, not submission. In a civilised society, people make their own choices. Some turn out well. Some not so well. They follow their hearts, their minds, or their leaders. They are in thrall to some god, some guru, some great idea. Who are we to know whom to ridicule? Abraham Lincoln spoke “with malice towards none, with charity for all”. We prefer his approach.
“Anti-vaxxers,” of course, are not the only ones to die. With the majority of the population now vaxxed, the majority of the corpses are also vaxxed. They don’t die “with Covid-19”. They die “with vaccine”. How many of them drove too fast? Used drugs or alcohol? Failed to eat their veg? Countries with high levels of obesity have ten times as many Covid-19 deaths. They fill up the hospitals and die early. Shouldn’t they be mocked too? Or should we rather honour them as we once honoured our war dead, as fellow human beings, caught up as we all are, in an incomprehensible web of lies and fantasies, and blessed, only occasionally, with glimpses of truth and beauty? No, we don’t laugh at the shades, we’ll all soon be among them. And they may laugh at us.
“The Truth comes to light in opposition, not submission”