“Vaccine Danger” and “Covid Danger”: “Paragraph 22” of the “zero risk” ideology
"Catch 22" ("Comma 22"), the satirical novel by Joseph Heller, is one of those books that never gets old; certainly it does not age in its representation of the contradictions and short circuits in which in the end, without even realizing it, but causing unspeakable damage, an ideology can get stuck.
A "paragraph 22" is the stalemate in which the only possible way out of a problem is through a solution that is itself denied by an intrinsic circumstance of the problem.
What we are witnessing these days on the “ Astrazeneca case”, with the suspension decided by AIFA and other European agencies, is very similar to him. The short summary is that it is too dangerous to "go back to life" without the vaccine, but at the same time you cannot get vaccinated because it is… too dangerous.
The decision of the drug agencies follows increased concern among the population, following the spread of some news on a possible correlation between some deaths and the vaccine of the British-Swedish house.
Many "insiders", in the previous days, had even expressed a certain scandal towards the frightened reaction of various people to possible adverse events related to the intake of the vaccine – attributing this attitude largely to ignorance, naivety and various theories " conspirators ".
In reality, the skepticism of many towards anti-Covid vaccines should not be ascribed to ideological "fringe" phenomena such as "no-vax" , but rather to the abuse that mainstream culture and politics have done in recent years. of the "precautionary principle", raising it as a guideline in an increasing number of fields, to the point of justifying, in the name of a principle aversion to risk, inefficient, if not in some cases openly irrational, policy choices.
After all, it is the cultural model that led to face the coronavirus emergency according to the ideology of "zeroing" risk and the "absolute" primacy of life and health. If even a single Covid death is "too many", then it goes without saying that no price to pay to avoid it can be too high – and it goes without saying that anyone who takes a different view and wants to base public decisions also on other factors must be morally and anthropologically disqualified even before refuted on the merits.
Those who are surprised today by the resistance of many citizens in the face of vaccination believe this outcome "in opposition" to the "work" that has been carried out with zeal in the last year to create the "right level of fear" of the pandemic.
In reality, the "vaccine phobia" is not the opposite of the " Covid phobia", but is largely based on the same and increasingly prevalent "zero risk" ideology. That is, it is based on the concept that it is possible to “expunge” the risk from our lives and that, in the name of this objective, any type of sacrifice and renunciation is not only acceptable, but also highly moral.
Just as every single death of / with Covid becomes an unsustainable burden for modern conscience and makes the most drastic confinements ethically justified, in the same way every single death of / with vaccine obliges us, regardless, even in this case, to put in act "severe" responses. In either case, cost what it costs.
But risk is an inseparable component of human existence. It can never be canceled, but only mitigated and, almost always, the choice that arises is not between risk and the absence of risk, but between two different types of risks.
In spite of what the many variations of the "politics of fear" and the "culture of fear" want us to believe, we must learn to live with risk. This requires, in every field, that the possibility of "adverse events" (whether it is a vaccine reaction, a death from Covid or perhaps a nuclear accident) is actually evaluated in its real probability and not on the basis of emotional reflections. And it also requires understanding that there are no values that are "absolute" in themselves – to the point that for them one must automatically renounce everything else. Not even "health"; not even "security"; not even "life" itself. These values are reconciled and balanced with many others – including freedom, economic prosperity, cultural and spiritual elevation, the expression of one's personality, even, why not, entertainment – to determine, in overall terms, the quality and the same sense of human existence.
If we claim zero risk of not dying from Covid and zero risk of not dying from the vaccine, the only solution is to arm ourselves indefinitely at home – a solution that could, however, also bring other positive externalities, such as the zero risk of drowning in the sea or of die in a car accident.
If, on the other hand, we want to start living worthily again, it is necessary to be ready to make a mature and rational reflection on the relationships between benefits and risks and between benefits and costs, both of individual choices and those of public policies – whether we are talking about vaccines, lockdowns or of other topics that were fashionable when it was still possible to leave the house, such as the environment. And to do this, you need the ability to have a global vision of the complex dynamics of life and society and not limited to the topic that wins the race of emotions from time to time.
Only in this way will it be possible to break the chains of the "paragraph 22" that holds us prisoner.
The post “Vaccine danger” and “Covid danger”: the “Comma 22” of the “zero risk” ideology appeared first on Atlantico Quotidiano .
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Atlantico Quotidiano at the URL http://www.atlanticoquotidiano.it/quotidiano/pericolo-vaccino-e-pericolo-covid-il-comma-22-dellideologia-del-rischio-zero/ on Tue, 16 Mar 2021 04:57:00 +0000.