The Art of Counter-Persuasion

in which the people-shaped things get very very angry again

It’s happening again, and so is the response. It’s becoming our one persistent cultural cycle.

During the first availability of the Covid-19 “vaccines” — which don’t prevent transmission or infection, but we changed the meaning of that word, so shut up shut up shut up — I did what I usually do: I thought about the past to try to make sense of the present. If we’ve instantly produced safe and effective vaccines for SARS-CoV-2, I wondered, why didn’t we do the same for SARS-CoV-1? It took less than five minutes to answer that question:

So scientists did come up with a vaccine for SARS-CoV-1, but when they gave it to animals, it made the animals extremely susceptible to severe illness when they were “challenged” with the virus again — “suggesting hypersensitivity to SARS-CoV components was induced.” And so, the authors of that 2012 paper argued, “Caution in proceeding to application of a SARS-CoV vaccine in humans is indicated.”

Because I believe in science, I followed that advice, and I told my doctor that I was following that advice — and that I wasn’t terribly concerned about Covid-19 anyway, so whatever. I would be cautious about injecting a novel medical product into my body: I would wait, calmly. She assured me that there was no scientific shortcutting at all in the development of the vaccines for SARS-CoV-2, which were absolutely known to be 100% safe and effective, but she also agreed that there was nothing wrong with watching and waiting for a few months.

I meant it. At that point, I hadn’t refused the vaccines — I had just decided that I would wait for a bit to see how they played out once they’d been injected into a few billion human lab rats.

And then the shaming started. I was uninvited from a family event, and ordered to stay away — and then, after a short pause, repeatedly shamed by email as a disgusting selfish pig who made the family sick with my ignorance and selfishness. (Distant family, thankfully.) The public sphere came alive with this message, and Joe Biden let me know that his patience was wearing thin for my kind. Social media was a daily fear bath, and consumed with shaming rituals.

It was exactly that message that turned my skepticism, my preference for watching and waiting, into a flat and permanent refusal. People said they were talking about science — in a vicious flood of hyperemotional shaming language, the hysterical tone and substance of which made it clear that they weren’t talking about science at all. They were talking about their fearfulness and their weakness; they were talking about their cowardice, and about the shame they felt at finding their fear of the air wasn’t shared. The shaming made me contemptuous; it secured my commitment to resist.

So now comes a new flood of shaming messages, assuring people that mere political disagreement is a sure sign of monstrous cruelty and hate. Charlie Crist doesn’t want your vote, so just go away and be alone with your hatred:

The Post Millennial @TPostMillennial

Florida Gov. candidate Charlie Crist on Gov. DeSantis supporters: “Stay with him and vote for him and I don’t want your vote.”

Even more boldly, Kathy Hochul doesn’t want you in her state at all if you disagree with her:

Breaking911 @Breaking911

NY GOV. HOCHUL TO TRUMP SUPPORTERS: “Jump on a bus and head down to Florida where you belong, ok?! Get outta town.”

Meanwhile, here in Wokeville, some parents expressed hope that our school district would tone down the Covid hysteria, and a neighborhood wokescold offered the expected response:

Josh @JalbyMD

@albinowitz @MayInLAC @Suv2015 I agree. You totally should leave South Pasadena.

You disagree with me, and you say so, so you shouldn’t live where I live. Brittleness personified.

This messaging is the expression of weakness, and it’ll do what it always does: It will inspire contempt and resistance, and work against the people who are demanding ideological compliance. Caitlin Flanagan: “Whenever a society collapses in on itself, free speech is the first thing to go. That’s how you know we’re in the process of closing up shop.” A society is collapsing in on itself: If you’re Republican, the governor of New York orders you into exile.

And yet they stay, and it becomes pretty clear whose shop is actually closing.