"The way we respond to the disappointments, dangers, and defects of the present helps determine our political affiliations. If you think the answers lie somewhere in a future condition we've yet to achieve, then you may be persuaded by progressive politics; if you think the resources for rescuing society lie somewhere in the past, you may be attracted to conservative politics."
"This general pattern helps explain the recent alignment of conservative politics and the anti-vaccine movement, despite its long-standing association with crunchy, left-ish causes. Today, the two tendencies have joined in mutual agreement about the wholesomeness of natural health versus modern medicine, indulging in nostalgia for a world before the widespread use of vaccines. The past does contain its share of treasures, and it can be hard to accept that a world so rife with pain and despair"
"But the idea that the past held a secret to health and happiness that we've lost somehow-especially with respect to infectious disease-is a fantasy with potentially lethal ramifications. Read: The neo-anti-vaxxers are in power now Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the vaccine-skeptical current secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, originally shared politics with the older anti-vaccine advocates, back-to-the-Earth types who themselves demonstrated a conservative impulse in their search for a primeval Eden."
Responses to present disappointments, dangers, and defects influence political affiliations. Belief that solutions lie in an attainable future tends toward progressive politics. Belief that rescues lie in a recovered past tends toward conservative politics. That dynamic explains the recent convergence of conservative politics and the anti-vaccine movement, which now shares nostalgia for natural health and skepticism toward modern medicine. Romanticizing the past can obscure historical suffering and promotes fantasies about lost health practices. Those fantasies can carry lethal public-health consequences. Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s political trajectory illustrates a shift from environmental advocacy toward vaccine skepticism and other controversial positions.
Read at The Atlantic
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]