Vaccines and Vehemence

 

 

vehemence

/ˈviːɪm(ə)ns/

noun

noun: vehemence; plural noun: vehemences

Great forcefulness or intensity of feeling or expression. "the vehemence of his reaction".

 

Last year, the rupture of what I had considered a resilient friendship deeply upset me. There are three reasons for that:

 

1. The rupture was predicated on a misunderstanding that could have been “sorted”.
2. I had the, and I now think naïve, view that a friendship, particularly the length of this one, should be able to withstand misunderstandings, at least to the point of agreeing to disagree.
3. The rupture was so abrupt and complete that I questioned my judgement in forming the foundation of a friendship with this person.

 

I have calmed down now and moved on. But it got me thinking. Was that event symptomatic of a wider malaise infecting our society? 

Are we so stressed out even a minor and previously thought insignificant issue attains wider ramifications and consequences—without the possibility of atonement?

I hope that is not the case. I fervently do. But it appears to me that New Zealand is becoming increasingly polarised on a far broader range of issues and that polarisation is now exhibited with far greater exactitude and vehemence.

 

And nowhere in my world is that more obvious than the pro-vaccine v. anti-vaccine debate. 

Fryday won’t contribute to the debate; this post is not about vaccines. It is about the vehemence in which the argument is being waged and what it says of whom we may have become.

 

My starting point is that I have the elective right to make my own decisions, provided I am not breaking the law or intentionally harming someone. You—and I mean a collective you— have the right to arrive at your own decisions under the same adjuncts. You also have the right to persuade me to your opinion if you have a view contrary to mine.

 

No problem.

 

However, there is a problem in that some in this debate ignore the aspect of not intentionally harming someone.

I can cite three examples from my neighbourhood:

 

1. An elderly lady allegedly approached children in our town, telling them they would die if “Mommy and Daddy” forced them to have a jab. That lady has been reported to the police. I believe I know who she is.
2. People waiting in their cars at vaccination centres have been accosted by placard-wielding anti-vaxers so aggressively that they intimidated the occupants and frightened the children. Again, the matter has been referred to the police.
3. One woman in the small, gated community my wife and I live in sent a message to us claiming DHB staff and the military were going door-to-door asking residents whether they were vaccinated—and should we (the community) lock our gate to keep them out.

 

That last one, more naïve than harmful, recognises a factor present in all three examples. People are so intense about this issue that they cannot allow people to have an opinion opposing theirs. Why is that? Why the evangelical zeal? Why has one side in this argument turned into a Latter-Day Saints visit? And why, in extreme examples, is it necessary to target kids?

 

I have no answers to those questions. But the questions themselves worry me. I have never seen the likes of this venom in New Zealand—at least not on this scale. I am uncomfortable with it; I don’t like it and, whilst there is room for passion and zeal, there is no room for this crap.[1]

 

To use a well-worn phrase: this is not who we are or, for most of us, want to be.

 

PostScript:

I was naïve last year in thinking a friendship could withstand a disagreement, particularly one based on a misunderstanding; I am perhaps being equally naïve this year in hoping we can all pull back and show a little common sense—and courtesy.

 

 

[1] It can be argued that the 1981 Springbok tour forged the same intensity and did divide the country. But that was for the most part attacking an issue (apartheid)—not targeting individuals and certainly not children.