Let’s start here, with the cover of the Toronto Star from Thursday:
The story on page 2 discussed the lack of empathy that some feel for the unvaccinated. The public editor walked back the cover the next day after backlash from the readership, but their point stood.
People hate the unvaccinated, and blame them for the continuing ordeal.
You see this online every day. Doctors on Twitter saying that unvaccinated individuals in the hospital should be moved to the back of the line for treatment, if treated at all. Arnold Schwarzenegger saying in an interview “screw your freedom” and that the unvaccinated should “go f*** themselves”. Op-eds in newspapers stating the unvaccinated should start to pay taxes and surcharges for their choice.
I want to be very mindful of not “nut-picking” — choosing the worst representatives from one side of an argument and arguing as if they represent that whole side. But I believe that there’s enough people I see making this argument that it's worth talking about.
There’s been a religious undercurrent to all of this from the last several months, that those who have gotten the vaccine are the righteous and those that haven’t are apostates. Therefore, those that get COVID while unvaxxed are reaping their just rewards, while those that get COVID while vaxxed are paying the price for their neighbors’ sins. Hence why those who have gotten COVID and recovered must still get the shot, to expurgate their sins and cleanse themselves from unrighteousness.
In Leviticus 16, the concept of the scapegoat was introduced. Aaron chose two young goats. He would symbolically place all of the weaknesses, iniquities, and sins of the people on the heads of both goats. One he would sacrifice, and the other would be set free to roam in the wilderness. Similar rituals were in other ancient cultures such as Greece and Syria.
It meant that a symbolic creature could make the sacrifice in place of any in the tribe. In prehistoric times, tribal violence was a danger for everyone. A feud between warring tribes — or worse, within the tribe — could lead to bloodshed, splintering of the tribe, and potential death for everyone. No further violence need occur if the goat could be make to stand in the stead, and no one needed to be banished from the tribe.
Ultimately, Christ became the scapegoat for us all. This is both a sacrifice for us eternally, and immediately. His sacrifice on our behalf is intrinsically tied to the concept that we are all equals in humanity. We are all sinners, but because Jesus took our sins on his head, we are all forgiven. We all deserve the same amount of empathy.
Here’s my fear. Now that culture is secularizing, our primitive programming is returning. Hate for the Other is back in fashion. As long as we can place all of the blame for our current predicament on someone else, we can sleep easy knowing that “we did the right thing, it’s all those other jerks who are wrecking it for everyone.”
Can we point to why the vaccinated aren’t blameless?
Gibraltar has vaccinated every resident over 18.
San Francisco has vaccinated 72% of their adults.
Can we at least admit that it’s more complicated than “get vaccinated and everything will go back to normal”?
One of the great insights of George Orwell’s 1984 is that political tribalism dictates that people need a common villain to work against. The Two Minutes Hate against Emmanuel Goldstein provided a consistent point to rally the people, to focus their ire, and point them in useful directions.
There’s increasing evidence that the unvaccinated are the new Emmanuel Goldstein, the object of our Two Minutes Hate. The pandemic of the unvaccinated means that they deserve everything that’s coming to them, including loss of job, family, and life.
I don’t see this heading anywhere good. There will be more angry news media stories, more insults, more wedges driven between us. But when we can collectively realize that vaccination is a personal choice and we are all humans deserving of empathy and respect, then maybe we can start moving forward.
Thank you so much for writing this important essay. It's my wish that all sides would take a deep breath, sit at a table with a talking stick, and each person can explain his/her thinking in detail. Then, everyone goes through a critical thinking exercise... Thank you for bringing up Jesus, who spent a great deal of time loving the shunned and healing the sick. I look forward to your next essay because this one brings up several good points that could be elaborated on. What's most on my mind is the question, which you brought up here: What mitigation strategies work... and don't work and to what extent? (stay inside, mask, social distance, vax, plastic barriers)... Keep up the great work!