There's an article in the NY Times today about Enid, OK.
We could have been having responsible conversations about public health over the last two years. For instance, when a government elected by the people, decides to impose, or not impose, a mask mandate - it should be because they are weighing different freedoms against each other. There is the freedom to wear, or not wear, what you want on your face. And there's the freedom to go out in public areas and not have to breathe everyone else's unmitigated exhaust during a deadly pandemic. Both of these freedoms exist, but we have to weigh them carefully. Before vaccines were widely available, I supported the mandates because I thought they led to greater freedom. But I wasn't glib about it - I take any public mandate pretty seriously as a drastic step.
Anyway, this is the responsible way to talk about these issues. When we differ, it's most often about balance. But idealogues don't like this. It's just not sexy enough to fight about balance - even though we certainly can and should have strong feelings about the proper balancing of different freedoms. No, idealogues - like Enid's Wade Burleson - have to believe that masks don't really work to help slow the spread of this disease. They don't want governmet mandates on vaccines (something I'm not sure about personally), but that's not strong enough, so they have to believe that folks who've had Covid already, and others, shouldn't even get vaccines. They cherry-pick through the dozens and dozens of studies to find the one or two that are more ambiguous. They cherry-pick through thousands of experts to find the few who disagree with the consensus.
Imagine going to 100 doctors, with a pain in your side, and 97 doctors say it's appendicitis, but 3 aren't so sure - and, coincidentally, those 3 are all anti-surgery in principle - so would you say "doctors disagree"? Or would you get your appendix out??
Why turn to this technique of misreprentation? Of breezing past the legitimate issue to use illegitimate means to "strengthen" one's argument? One of my many theories is that religious thinking colors all this. In conservative religion, one tends to decide what one thinks first, and then go hunting through theology and Scripture to find proof-texts. Then, because you have to believe the Bible is written in one voice, you read all the other texts that seem to be in conflict through the lense of your "proof-text".
To be fair, we all do this. We feel something strongly first, and then create reasons to justify our feelings after the fact. But conservative religion does this on steroids. Why? Because religion is an almost infinitely flexible post-hoc reasoning system. To his credit, Wade argues for more women leadership in the Southern Baptist Church. But if you read him arguing with more conservative Baptists, he interprets their anti-woman-leader clobber verses through the lens of his pro-woman-leader theology, and other Scriptures, that support his feelings on the matter. But he doesn't afford this extensive hermaneutic technique to our gay friends and family. Although he probably does extend it to rich people - "let's talk about what all the Scriptures about rich people REALLY mean.....it's not what it simply says...."
If you like something in the Bible - that's what it plainly says! If you don't - ah, it's obviously symbolic. If something good happens, it was thanks to God. If something bad happens, he moves in mysterious ways. And if we selectively interpret Scripture and religion to create post-hoc reasons, why not do the same with scientific studies and expert opinion? Then anything in the world can be interpreted into exactly what we want it to be.
I am not anti-religion, we need vehicles through which to explore our deep thoughts and feelings about this existence we share, but I am pretty anti-conservative, overly-literalistic religion. I think it can indulge our most dangerous tendencies - to privilege our ignorance over another's education, to justify our inclinations, and to condemn another's, by appealing to religious authority.....which might just be our personal feelings in search of a justification.
I hope we can do better.
