"The existence of idiots who resist masks and dismiss the virus as a hoax is lamentable. But while making up your mind to be the opposite is better than that alternative, it is also a way to make yourself into a cruel person, cruel and self-satisfied and righteous. It is a way to trade on other people's misery to attain some sort of momentary social standing in an exchange which should never have been a contest in the first place. The restrictions we are enduring as a response to Covid are devastating. The human costs of lockdowns are immense. People die due to lockdowns. People miss their last opportunities to see their loved ones during lockdown. Children and teachers struggle through compromised schooling. Battered wives and neglected children are forced by the circumstances of lockdown to stay in dangerous environments. And the things we are locked out of, the restaurants and bars and museums and ballgames and concerts - these things are the stuff of life, the stuff of human social life, the kind of things that we endure the grind for."
The longer this goes on, the more prescient this is. I'd say it's now gone one step further - beyond simple realism to cruelty. People grasping - misguidedly in some cases, sure - for going "back to normal" occupy the same headspace in the Realist as any number of stereotypes: the fat, bigoted, slack-jawed yokel who must be cleansed by hook or crook ("oh, let it be the hook, I've just sharpened it!"). Tracking statewide figures like his fantasy football league to chucklingly apportion blame on those who lack his care, his sophistication, and were so foolish as to go to the store or not have a work-from-home sinecure, or worse yet, go to an Event! With other People! Ha, they had it coming, right? They made the choice to die when they chose to live on the earth's surface.
I'm on a group text with my liberal friends, and my word, the bloodlust they show when certain public figures announce they've got COVID is eye-opening. These are people who do literally the same things as them: get vaccines, are upwardly-mobile office-dwellers, and go to events (only right-thinking events, of course), but because they are insufficiently pious before the COVID Gods, it's a laugh riot when someone gets mildly sick. I'd like to think that I can get past this, and recognize that over the years I've no doubt said and done some things that cause them to think badly of me, but that they have let it go, yet in this case I'm finding it very hard. I don't think we should be shouting harsh laughter at people for the crime of getting sick after receiving a vaccine. I think that's the wrong thing to do. Yet I'm seeing it more and more, and I think it comes from the same place of Knowingness that you so deftly diagnose in your articles. "They were insufficiently melodramatic in their public pronouncements, they want people out and enjoying life, therefore fuck 'em!" Not good, not good.
“I'm on a group text with my liberal friends, and my word, the bloodlust they show when certain public figures announce they've got COVID is eye-opening.”
Literally in the same situation. Very frustrating to read all the preachiness and sanctimony and vicious schadenfreude. It’s poisonous.
I'd be somewhat more understanding if they weren't living in very similar ways to those whom they castigate, but everyone involved in this is vaccinated and out doing stuff. It's so weird. It's like the people who fly business class everywhere complaining about "science deniers" in global warming - sure, the Global Warming Realist might produce more carbon emissions than five of these benighted morons put together, but he knows he's doing it, so it's alright.
I’m late to this but yikes… I feel like crying at every story that says “ha! They didn’t take the vaccine and on their death bed they’re miserable!” The cruel realist sees this as necessary info to get the unvaccinated dummies to get their shot. But does it? Or is just cruel and makes everyone’s hearts darker and civil discourse worse and public health less respected? (Mostly I’m upset about thr cruelty and heartlessness.) How can people I generally like and respect rejoice with anyone’s sickness- and just to prove a point?!! That’s what it feels like! I have very strong feelings on vaccines— take them already!!— but I don’t think my disagreement on that means I should feel even a fleeting sense of self satisfaction when any human, dumb or brilliant or average, gets a scary illness. I’m trying to think these cruel realists are just so so scared, and give them grace, but they are the “smartest” and at the top of the food chain in American life and I can’t believe they don’t know better.
given the experience of israel and australia (ninety five percent of those in hospital with covid in victoria, australia, have at least one shot and seventy eight percent have two) those vaxes don't seem to protect people much if at all. israel just said two vaxes are the same as none. got to have the booster. probably not the last booster. hardly what was previously understood as a vaccine.
and merck is about to bring out its merckermectin to actually do something for those in hospital who basically are waiting to get better on their own or intubated and often die. look at the map of africa that shows covid cases/deaths and note the safe range in central africa where ivermectin is routinely distributed to combat river blindness (the parasitic worm of the black fly). pretty amazing. don't see that map much on television or in the new york times.
Glad this was revived in today’s digest. The Covid scolds are living through the same pandemic I am. We have both taken the same precautions to protect ourselves and others. I was one of the absolute first to lockdown even before the mandates, long before the Covid scolds displayed the first signs of being animated by this unprecedented (in our lives) opportunity to compound miseries. The difference is that I’m optimistic and not crushed by the status quo and look forward to when it’s over. The difference is that the quality of my life is still high, due to nothing other than my outlook and attitude. The scolds are free to be miserable all they like. Let them alone pay the price for their shitty outlook. They are a virus of the soul. Inoculate yourself against this virus with the same discipline and resolve you apply to staying safe in a pandemic. Your mental health is as important as your physical health.
so, so glad i live in florida. the virus may not be a hoax but the vaccine is turning out to be more than a bit of one. not to say the suppression of the success places like india and central africa have had with ivermectin. this whole shebang is blowing up in the faces of the revanche covidians and mark a turning point in the attitude, especially trust, of most u.s. citizens, eventually included a good number of democrats (i was one before obama's first term), toward their government, the mockingbird state media, the medical establishment, and particularly big pharma.
so, so glad i live in florida. the virus may not be a hoax but the vaccine is turning out to be more than a bit of one. not to say the suppression of the success places like india and central africa have had with ivermectin. this whole shebang is blowing up in the faces of the revanche covidians and mark a turning point in the attitude, especially trust, of most u.s. citizens, eventually including a good number of democrats (i was one before obama's first term), toward their government, the mockingbird state media, the medical establishment, and particularly big pharma.
It's gotten so much worse since the time Freddie wrote this. Due to some toxic combo of legitimate frustration and despair, self-righteousness and vindictiveness, the Covid scolds have moved from lecturing to gravedancing. And though the worst offenders are, as usual, on social media, I'm seeing atrocious opinion pieces in The Nation, WaPo and the Miami Herald.
What really frustrates me is that so many of the people who worshipfully cite scientific experts when it comes to Covid and the vaccine choose to ignore the expertise of public health educators who have been warning for months that shaming, blaming and ostracizing will only entrench Covid/vaccine skeptics. Self-gratifying but socially destructive polarization reigns. At this point, I don't know what breaks my heart more, the devastatingly mutating onward march of Covid or the sanctimonious sadism that is helping rip the threadbare social fabric to shreds.
Well said! When they were so worshipfully citing those experts, they'd only ever do so when it was convenient to the game they were playing, which was a sadistic one. So glad to be on the other side of this hshit.
Not dying is not the same as living. It should be okay to talk about this. Thank you.
"The existence of idiots who resist masks and dismiss the virus as a hoax is lamentable. But while making up your mind to be the opposite is better than that alternative, it is also a way to make yourself into a cruel person, cruel and self-satisfied and righteous. It is a way to trade on other people's misery to attain some sort of momentary social standing in an exchange which should never have been a contest in the first place. The restrictions we are enduring as a response to Covid are devastating. The human costs of lockdowns are immense. People die due to lockdowns. People miss their last opportunities to see their loved ones during lockdown. Children and teachers struggle through compromised schooling. Battered wives and neglected children are forced by the circumstances of lockdown to stay in dangerous environments. And the things we are locked out of, the restaurants and bars and museums and ballgames and concerts - these things are the stuff of life, the stuff of human social life, the kind of things that we endure the grind for."
The longer this goes on, the more prescient this is. I'd say it's now gone one step further - beyond simple realism to cruelty. People grasping - misguidedly in some cases, sure - for going "back to normal" occupy the same headspace in the Realist as any number of stereotypes: the fat, bigoted, slack-jawed yokel who must be cleansed by hook or crook ("oh, let it be the hook, I've just sharpened it!"). Tracking statewide figures like his fantasy football league to chucklingly apportion blame on those who lack his care, his sophistication, and were so foolish as to go to the store or not have a work-from-home sinecure, or worse yet, go to an Event! With other People! Ha, they had it coming, right? They made the choice to die when they chose to live on the earth's surface.
I'm on a group text with my liberal friends, and my word, the bloodlust they show when certain public figures announce they've got COVID is eye-opening. These are people who do literally the same things as them: get vaccines, are upwardly-mobile office-dwellers, and go to events (only right-thinking events, of course), but because they are insufficiently pious before the COVID Gods, it's a laugh riot when someone gets mildly sick. I'd like to think that I can get past this, and recognize that over the years I've no doubt said and done some things that cause them to think badly of me, but that they have let it go, yet in this case I'm finding it very hard. I don't think we should be shouting harsh laughter at people for the crime of getting sick after receiving a vaccine. I think that's the wrong thing to do. Yet I'm seeing it more and more, and I think it comes from the same place of Knowingness that you so deftly diagnose in your articles. "They were insufficiently melodramatic in their public pronouncements, they want people out and enjoying life, therefore fuck 'em!" Not good, not good.
“I'm on a group text with my liberal friends, and my word, the bloodlust they show when certain public figures announce they've got COVID is eye-opening.”
Literally in the same situation. Very frustrating to read all the preachiness and sanctimony and vicious schadenfreude. It’s poisonous.
I'd be somewhat more understanding if they weren't living in very similar ways to those whom they castigate, but everyone involved in this is vaccinated and out doing stuff. It's so weird. It's like the people who fly business class everywhere complaining about "science deniers" in global warming - sure, the Global Warming Realist might produce more carbon emissions than five of these benighted morons put together, but he knows he's doing it, so it's alright.
I’m late to this but yikes… I feel like crying at every story that says “ha! They didn’t take the vaccine and on their death bed they’re miserable!” The cruel realist sees this as necessary info to get the unvaccinated dummies to get their shot. But does it? Or is just cruel and makes everyone’s hearts darker and civil discourse worse and public health less respected? (Mostly I’m upset about thr cruelty and heartlessness.) How can people I generally like and respect rejoice with anyone’s sickness- and just to prove a point?!! That’s what it feels like! I have very strong feelings on vaccines— take them already!!— but I don’t think my disagreement on that means I should feel even a fleeting sense of self satisfaction when any human, dumb or brilliant or average, gets a scary illness. I’m trying to think these cruel realists are just so so scared, and give them grace, but they are the “smartest” and at the top of the food chain in American life and I can’t believe they don’t know better.
given the experience of israel and australia (ninety five percent of those in hospital with covid in victoria, australia, have at least one shot and seventy eight percent have two) those vaxes don't seem to protect people much if at all. israel just said two vaxes are the same as none. got to have the booster. probably not the last booster. hardly what was previously understood as a vaccine.
and merck is about to bring out its merckermectin to actually do something for those in hospital who basically are waiting to get better on their own or intubated and often die. look at the map of africa that shows covid cases/deaths and note the safe range in central africa where ivermectin is routinely distributed to combat river blindness (the parasitic worm of the black fly). pretty amazing. don't see that map much on television or in the new york times.
That pretty much described my entire relationship with my parents, well written and applies to many situations and people
Glad this was revived in today’s digest. The Covid scolds are living through the same pandemic I am. We have both taken the same precautions to protect ourselves and others. I was one of the absolute first to lockdown even before the mandates, long before the Covid scolds displayed the first signs of being animated by this unprecedented (in our lives) opportunity to compound miseries. The difference is that I’m optimistic and not crushed by the status quo and look forward to when it’s over. The difference is that the quality of my life is still high, due to nothing other than my outlook and attitude. The scolds are free to be miserable all they like. Let them alone pay the price for their shitty outlook. They are a virus of the soul. Inoculate yourself against this virus with the same discipline and resolve you apply to staying safe in a pandemic. Your mental health is as important as your physical health.
so, so glad i live in florida. the virus may not be a hoax but the vaccine is turning out to be more than a bit of one. not to say the suppression of the success places like india and central africa have had with ivermectin. this whole shebang is blowing up in the faces of the revanche covidians and mark a turning point in the attitude, especially trust, of most u.s. citizens, eventually included a good number of democrats (i was one before obama's first term), toward their government, the mockingbird state media, the medical establishment, and particularly big pharma.
so, so glad i live in florida. the virus may not be a hoax but the vaccine is turning out to be more than a bit of one. not to say the suppression of the success places like india and central africa have had with ivermectin. this whole shebang is blowing up in the faces of the revanche covidians and mark a turning point in the attitude, especially trust, of most u.s. citizens, eventually including a good number of democrats (i was one before obama's first term), toward their government, the mockingbird state media, the medical establishment, and particularly big pharma.
It's gotten so much worse since the time Freddie wrote this. Due to some toxic combo of legitimate frustration and despair, self-righteousness and vindictiveness, the Covid scolds have moved from lecturing to gravedancing. And though the worst offenders are, as usual, on social media, I'm seeing atrocious opinion pieces in The Nation, WaPo and the Miami Herald.
What really frustrates me is that so many of the people who worshipfully cite scientific experts when it comes to Covid and the vaccine choose to ignore the expertise of public health educators who have been warning for months that shaming, blaming and ostracizing will only entrench Covid/vaccine skeptics. Self-gratifying but socially destructive polarization reigns. At this point, I don't know what breaks my heart more, the devastatingly mutating onward march of Covid or the sanctimonious sadism that is helping rip the threadbare social fabric to shreds.
Well said! When they were so worshipfully citing those experts, they'd only ever do so when it was convenient to the game they were playing, which was a sadistic one. So glad to be on the other side of this hshit.