This Christmas will be awkward for many families. We all seem to have at least one close friend or loved one who has refused the Covid-19 vaccine.
Some of those people will approach the holiday season newly jobless due to a vaccine mandate at their workplace, or unable to enter a restaurant or take a flight because they can’t produce a vaccine certificate.
They might be angry at the world, and at you, for failing to support their stance. I’m thinking about what I’m going to say to the people in my orbit who fall into the anti-vaccine camp.
I’m not going to try and convince them of the safety of the Pfizer vaccine or the evidence, or lack thereof, for Covid treatments touted as alternatives to the vaccine. I’m seriously hoping no-one brings up 5G conspiracy theories.
Studies show that loading people up with more facts isn’t very effective in persuading them to change their mind. Instead, I will tell them that I love them and that I’m concerned for their wellbeing. But I’ll also ask them – Are you willing to embrace a post-truth world?
Because that’s a world where we have little shared understanding of reality, where facts don’t matter, where hyper-partisan ideology reigns supreme. It’s a world where charismatic figures will tell you what you want to hear. They will stoke your fears and doubts.
It might be comforting and empowering to inhabit your own version of reality, cherry-picking the facts to suit you. But it is ultimately a bleak world.
A lot of people in this country are contributing to that post-truth world. I came across a group of them while walking to the supermarket in Wellington recently. They were spread out across a street, blocking traffic.
Some had signs carrying anti-vax slogans. Others waved Trump flags. There were farmers and bikies, people young and old. There was no coherent message, just a lot of cynicism and misinformation.
The pandemic has shown us just how disillusioned many people are with the institutions of society. I get that. Governments are printing trillions of dollars to prop up their ailing economies.
We just signed up to a climate deal in Glasgow that is probably unachievable. Some experts have labelled the hasty introduction of the Covid traffic light system a “constitutional disgrace”.
We should be sceptical. We are right to be dissatisfied. But now is not the time to tear down those institutions. Now is the time to strengthen them, make them fit for purpose.
Science isn’t immune from corruption or political interference. But it remains the best system society has to determine objective reality as best we can. It saved millions of lives during this pandemic.
It gives us a firm basis on which to make important decisions. We may not agree on what those decisions should be. But if we can’t agree on the facts themselves, we have bigger troubles than awkward Christmas dinners to worry about.
Originally published on Stuff.co.nz
Photo credit: Maurizio Pesce, Razer OSVR Open-Source Virtual Reality for Gaming
PETER GRIFFIN 