The Hatred Scale
The Hatred Scale
Let me introduce the Vaccine Hatred Scale:
(0) X is a saint. If you disagree you are a devil.
(1) X is a good person and by default I trust everything they say.
(2) X may have good intentions but their rhetoric sits uneasily with their pretensions to be an authority.
I wonder about their judgement more generally.
(3) X may have started out with good intentions, and still believe themselves honest, but they are now compromised by special interests etc.
It is unwise to take their assertions at face value.
(4) X is knowingly corrupt and by default I distrust everything they say.
(5) X is a devil. If you disagree you are a devil.
The Hatred Scale And Communication
If you hold a position at (0) or (5), there is no point in anyone talking to you. You are (by definition) incapable of any objective judgement, so your conversational partner knows what you will say in advance - you won't give say anything interesting to them, so why should they bother talking to you? To make you even more boring, you're unable to change their minds because you can't process information that does not confirm your current position. If you occupy this position on the Hatred Scale about pretty much any issue, it's worth having a look at how you engage with people about it.
I personally avoid putting people in (4) if at all possible - partly because it is very hard to move them back out again (since it is so painful to even think about them), and partly because I believe that very few people are knowingly corrupt in any case.
In practice it is difficult to have a conversation with people bridging more than 2 levels on the scale. For example, if I currently stand at (1) I can manage some degree of common perspective with people at (0), (1), (2), (3).
Specific Advice For Vaccine Debates
As soon as you accuse someone of acting in bad faith with vaccine issues, you are essentially accusing them of being a baby murderer. Best avoided.
This means that (4) is a trap in vaccine debates. As soon as you accuse someone of lacking good faith, you are surrendering any claim to be taken seriously as an interpreter of their communications.
This applies equally to:
- Pro-orthodoxy people saying Andrew Wakefield is corrupt (rather than sincere, but wrong)
- Vaccine sceptics saying Paul Offit is corrupt (rather than sincere, but wrong)
- Pro-orthodoxy people saying people who don't vaccinate are selfish (rather than having a different take on risks and/or rewards)
- Vaccine sceptics saying governments are allowing children to suffer and die to save money (rather than making the best tradeoffs they can on complicated public policy problems)
All of these people will be passionately convinced but utterly incapable of analysing the subject of which they speak rationally. When was the last time you managed to think about a baby-murderer in a cool. calm, collected, rational fashion?
So
- Don't listen to anyone on any topic where they say the people on the other side aren't acting in good faith
- Try yourself to avoid framing people on the other side as not acting in good faith
At the end, the main reason why I am personally such a firm believer in the vaccine orthodoxy is that the vaccine sceptics seem to base their arguments on governments etc acting in bad faith.