i meaninglessly gave up 2 years of my life to give obese, above-life-expectancy boomers an extra 5 months to live and that’s the truth of it
forced to get a shot that made me sicker than I’ve ever been in my life, only to have that shot not do anything against an infection 6 months later. the ironic cherry on top of having to constantly wear a dehumanizing talisman of mystical protection at work and at school
Free will vs determinism, and empathy vs. anger, both rely on reifying a self who is being centered in these debates. When there is no action to be taken, it's all just unresolvable feelings. I think the more interesting, lived answer arises in crisis situations in which there is no good choice, so you do something, and you live with it, and can maybe justify it but also must see your self as no less fallible and ensnared in karma / interdependent co-arising than anyone else. Then true compassion begins.
An interesting example is the invasion of Korea in 1592. Korea had no standing army and was overrun, with resulting atrocities. The head Zen Master So Sahn traveled the country and created an army of monks, who broke their vows and killed Japanese soldiers to defend the country. In the histories, the monk armies were notable for their humane treatment of prisoners, unheard of at the time. But they had to bear the heavy burden of breaking their precepts, and potentially losing their human rebirths, because the alternative was worse. (Though according to Zen, if one breaks the precepts for the sake of others, in order to alleviate suffering, then there is no breaking of precepts. But that can only be verified in one's own heart and mind, and can't just be a justification post-hoc.)
So we as socialists can view others as making decisions arising out of material cause and effect, and yet still have a sense of needing to stop or punish them, without contradiction, so long as it seems, to the best of our knowledge, to be for the greater good. And this will necessarily be a judgment in flux, and open to grave error.
the reason that resistance to COVID mitigation has been conflated with resistance to socialism/communism or what have you, is that virus mitigation is necessarily a collectivist endeavor. that is, in order for any of the shit to work, everyone has to be on board and willing to deprioritize their interests to the interest of the common good.
instead, from the exceptions and carve-outs, to willful disregard, nowhere ever saw anywhere near the amount of collective participation required for effective mitigation short of the more insane Asian countries. and even then the fatigue driven by the need for economic restarting has broken that resolve.
we are lucky that COVID is only slightly worse than the average respiratory virus. if it had twice the death rate -- which would still be a low OVERALL percentage of the population -- it would be catastrophic. everyone would know someone in a real way who died of it, most likely, even pmc freaks like me whose mostly lib cohort got their shots and wore their masks and hashtag Stayed Home.
but as it is, a lot of these people you're talking about are seeing their friends and neighbors get killed by this thing and just think "yeah but im different" or worse, that those people were somehow uniquely susceptible to this pathogen. or they are making up their own headcanon about what the vaccine is and does in order to rationalize their own resistance to collective action.
that leads to exhaustion and resentment like the other comment ITT about losing years of your life and getting a vaccine side effect for people who don't give a shit and just die of the fuckin thing anyway. then that gets directed at the feckless dorks in power who just kept mashing the button of technocratic intervention without any mitigation of the knock-on effects at other ends.
i meaninglessly gave up 2 years of my life to give obese, above-life-expectancy boomers an extra 5 months to live and that’s the truth of it
forced to get a shot that made me sicker than I’ve ever been in my life, only to have that shot not do anything against an infection 6 months later. the ironic cherry on top of having to constantly wear a dehumanizing talisman of mystical protection at work and at school
Free will vs determinism, and empathy vs. anger, both rely on reifying a self who is being centered in these debates. When there is no action to be taken, it's all just unresolvable feelings. I think the more interesting, lived answer arises in crisis situations in which there is no good choice, so you do something, and you live with it, and can maybe justify it but also must see your self as no less fallible and ensnared in karma / interdependent co-arising than anyone else. Then true compassion begins.
An interesting example is the invasion of Korea in 1592. Korea had no standing army and was overrun, with resulting atrocities. The head Zen Master So Sahn traveled the country and created an army of monks, who broke their vows and killed Japanese soldiers to defend the country. In the histories, the monk armies were notable for their humane treatment of prisoners, unheard of at the time. But they had to bear the heavy burden of breaking their precepts, and potentially losing their human rebirths, because the alternative was worse. (Though according to Zen, if one breaks the precepts for the sake of others, in order to alleviate suffering, then there is no breaking of precepts. But that can only be verified in one's own heart and mind, and can't just be a justification post-hoc.)
So we as socialists can view others as making decisions arising out of material cause and effect, and yet still have a sense of needing to stop or punish them, without contradiction, so long as it seems, to the best of our knowledge, to be for the greater good. And this will necessarily be a judgment in flux, and open to grave error.
the reason that resistance to COVID mitigation has been conflated with resistance to socialism/communism or what have you, is that virus mitigation is necessarily a collectivist endeavor. that is, in order for any of the shit to work, everyone has to be on board and willing to deprioritize their interests to the interest of the common good.
instead, from the exceptions and carve-outs, to willful disregard, nowhere ever saw anywhere near the amount of collective participation required for effective mitigation short of the more insane Asian countries. and even then the fatigue driven by the need for economic restarting has broken that resolve.
we are lucky that COVID is only slightly worse than the average respiratory virus. if it had twice the death rate -- which would still be a low OVERALL percentage of the population -- it would be catastrophic. everyone would know someone in a real way who died of it, most likely, even pmc freaks like me whose mostly lib cohort got their shots and wore their masks and hashtag Stayed Home.
but as it is, a lot of these people you're talking about are seeing their friends and neighbors get killed by this thing and just think "yeah but im different" or worse, that those people were somehow uniquely susceptible to this pathogen. or they are making up their own headcanon about what the vaccine is and does in order to rationalize their own resistance to collective action.
that leads to exhaustion and resentment like the other comment ITT about losing years of your life and getting a vaccine side effect for people who don't give a shit and just die of the fuckin thing anyway. then that gets directed at the feckless dorks in power who just kept mashing the button of technocratic intervention without any mitigation of the knock-on effects at other ends.
it's dark shit man.