Friday, September 13, 2013

On Inoculation

This is a rant post because I saw two stupid things on the internet today. One was an article about measles. Apparently there will be a jump in instances of measles this year to match mid-90s levels in the US, and apparently this is caused by those who do not vaccinate their children. The other was a comment on a blog in which the commenter said public intellectuals should be licensed just like brain surgeons and architects.

The logic is the same: inoculate/control/safety.

But, of course there is a cost to inoculation. First, there is the danger brought by the inoculating agent. Second, there is the danger posed by necessity. Vaccines, for instance, have inherent dangers which only pale at the level of public health (and only in the short term). On the individual level, it is almost always more dangerous to expose oneself to the vaccine (the problem is that we cannot control if/when we might be exposed to measles, for instance). Also, when you inoculate an immune system, you circumvent the normal function and adaptation of that immune system. A human race constantly inoculated will become increasingly vulnerable to disease in the absence of the vaccines that are propping them up. Thus, vaccines become necessary. It would almost certainly be better to adapt, especially when those who know know that measles is only the tip of the pathogen iceberg. We would be stupid to think that we can inoculate ourselves against the world, that we can increase our chances of survival if we weaken our immune system.

I suppose that covers my opinion on vaccinations. I get a lot of flack for that opinion, but I haven't really heard any good reasons to the contrary. Similarly, my commenter friend seems to think that we should inoculate ourselves against people who, thinking publicly, are unlicensed and spread viral ideas. His solution is to have institutional inoculating agents that control the spread of noxious thought.

The same problem persists here too. The mind becomes dull because it is only served approved thoughts. You don't have to judge what you're told, because the experts have already approved it all. Just consume, consume. Mindlessly, consume.

This, of course, creates necessity. If we lose our experts, what happens then? What happens when we let them wipe our asses and we forget how?

The world I believe in, that I desire to live in and for my children to inherit, is a world of sharp objects, noxious substances, and stupid ideas (there are also soft things, sweet things, and beautiful ideas, but that's not the point). I don't make my house completely safe for my toddler, not only because it's impossible to do so, but also because he must learn to navigate, to think, to have common sense. Some things we avoid, but somewhere a line must be drawn (and we ought to draw it individually as households). There will come a time when I stop wiping his ass, too. If the experts really love us, they too, will be in the business of making us think for ourselves, of diminishing the difference between "them" and "us". They won't secure their role through the logic of perpetual inoculation, that is, if they love us.

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