The Life of Zealots and the Refusal to Play Well with Others
Quotes from the Clark County Commission Meeting to discuss the county efforts to respond to the COVID variant infecting those who have chosen to avoid vaccination:
"God is calling us to awaken the truth, not listen to evil agendas from principalities that wish to control us."
“We will flee from Clark County ... even if we have to be poor and give up our riches, the way our patriot forefathers had to.”
"If we want to take on the responsibility and possibly die of COVID, that's my choice ... It's not up to you, and I realize that you guys all think that we're a bunch of nutballs ... but guess what? You need to look into our eyes and see our grandeur."
There's this thing called the social contract theory. Originated, by name, by Jean-Jacques Rousseau in his 1762 book Du contrat social ou Principes du droit politique, the idea is that, in order for society to expand beyond the Hatfield and McCoy model of micro-tribalism and attain a larger function, each individual must agree to forego certain freedoms for the benefits an overarching societal model.
Without the social contract, the United States would have no roads, no bridges, no post office, no interconnection of services and hospitals and FEMA. There would be no FDIC guarantees on banking. There would be no unifying principles behind our laws across state lines.
Social contract theory is an examination of the human condition absent of any political order (called the "state of nature" by Thomas Hobbes) wherein individual actions are bound only by personal power and conscience. The social contract theories seek to explain why rational individuals would voluntarily consent to give up their natural freedom to obtain the benefits of political order.
Hobbes said that in a "state of nature", human life would be "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short". In the absence of political order, everyone would have unlimited natural freedoms, including the "right to all things" and thus the freedom to plunder, rape and murder; there would be an endless "war of all against all". Thus, free men contract with each other to establish civil society through a social contract in which they all gain security in return for being governed.
Locke and Rousseau argued that we gain civil rights in return for accepting the obligation to respect and defend the rights of others, giving up some freedoms to do so.
It isn't surprising that this information isn't at the top of the minds of so many citizens of our ridiculously optimistic experiment in self-rule. The last time ethics and government were taught in public schools was when Ike was president so the idea that some ambitious high school social studies teacher is holding court about Enlightenment political philosophy is just silly.
Clark County, Nevada is hardly the only place with folks unwilling to play well with others. According to reports, COVID is creeping back in Arizona, Oklahoma, and Mississippi. It's also popping up significantly in Florida, Georgia, and most of the east coast. More than 160 million Americans are fully vaccinated—applying allegiance to the social contract—and of those 160 million, only around 4,000 have contracted the virus. 97% of those hitting hospitals today are not listening to evil agendas from principalities that wish to control them.
It's easy to look at the sheer stupidity of it and leave it at that. Only truly stupid people would refuse to get vaccinated from a brutal, highly contagious disease, right? Only a pack of fucking morons would cleave to their fealty to an authoritarian asshole like Donald Trump. It must be that half the country is just a bunch of fucking idiots.
Except that isn't the case.
While a Facebook internal analysis reported in August 2020 found millions of followers across thousands of groups and pages, even if there are 10 million people who subscribe to the ludicrous conspiracy theories (sorry—anyone who genuinely believes that a cabal of Satanic, cannibalistic pedophiles run a global child sex trafficking ring and conspired against former President of the United States Donald Trump during his term in office is a mental dwarf) this does not account for the 150 million other Americans who either refuse to vaccinate or claim a lack of vaccine availability.
So what do we do to enforce the social contract in America? How do we deal with zealots and those who refuse to play well with the rest of us?
We standardize behavior required for inclusion.
The nation, as a whole, in the 1950s decided that public schools that segregated white from black students was no longer acceptable. In Brown vs The Board of Education, the Supreme Court made such practice unconstitutional. Schools in parts of the South balked. Ike sent in the National Guard and enforced the will of the nation bolstered by the SCOTUS ruling.
When seatbelts were introduced in automobiles, people went apeshit. No compliance, some cut them out of their cars. That is, until the federal G decided to give you tickets if you weren't wearing one. All of a sudden this infringement on personal power and independence became overwhelmingly standard.
Driver's Licenses. Fishing Licenses. Gun Licenses. You don't have them and continue to drive, or fish, or own guns, there's a good chance you're getting punished for it.
I understand why the federal government (and state governments, for that matter) are hesitant to require vaccination. It opens up a need for enforcement that we simply cannot impose. That said, as NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio urged last week, private businesses can and should require prove of vaccination for their employees and their customers.
"Feel free to refuse to abide by the social contract, gang. We see the grandeur in your eyes. But we'll see that grandeur from inside a restaurant as you are barred from entering." we can say.
Let's quit fucking around and require vaccine passports to go to gyms, casinos, banks, grocery stores, movie theaters, bars, and any public gathering place. Inclusion in society is a privilege, not a right and you only get the privileges if you play well with others.
