A polite request

(TRANSCRIPT) My wife and I were sitting and talking at lunch today and we were talking about someone we know who expressed some reluctance to get vaccinated and we were speculating about why and so forth and I sat and listened and became increasingly upset in a way, but in a good way, upset in a good way, like I have to speak the truth about this, like I’ve been thinking about this. And I realized I have a great audience of relatively, well, it’s an audience, big or small, of people who’ve heard my voice over the last 20 years and are cognizant of what I have to say and who appreciate it. And I have been thinking, well, my audience, everybody is pretty smart and pretty together so you guys don’t need to be persuaded to get vaccinated and wear masks because of the pandemic. Right? So, that was a little bit erroneous. Because I didn’t think about the fact that, as true as that is, it’s probably also true that each and every one of you knows somebody who is hesitant to get the vaccine and those are the people who are stalling the fight against this terrible disease. So as my wife and I were talking, and as we had our espresso after lunch, at some point my old activist political mindset came to the fore and the old passion that I felt for direct interpersonal struggle over issues of life and death came to the fore. It’s just as clear as day to me now that each one of us has a moral obligation not just to coddle those who for one reason or another are not comfortable with the idea of getting the vaccine or want more information, etc., but to engage in principled moral and political struggle.
That is to say, “Look, you and I, friend, colleague, relative, whatever the relationship is, we have a difference of opinion, but this is not the polite realm of political differences of opinion. This is the difference between you being socially harmful or not. This is the difference between you carelessly risking the lives of others. This is like you driving drunk. This is like you waving a loaded gun around in a house full of children. This is like you dancing on the edge of a cliff—dancing with somebody else on the edge of a cliff, just for the sheer fun of it.
This is life or death. I think it’s time that we stopped trying to be polite and understanding and we started engaging in fierce, honest, personal struggle with people. I think that’s what’s required now, that morally there is no other choice, that morally it’s wrong to be accomodationist, to accommodate, to say it’s OK, everybody has a choice. You know? I just can’t accept that anymore. I’m not talking about state coercion, I’m talking about personal testimony, personal moral testimony, saying what we really feel, and struggling, pushing, risking acrimony to make the case as clear as possible, to beg, to plead, to look for a solution to this. So there are many ways, I thought about it, I think each of us who has been vaccinated and has been touched personally by this disease—as I have, you know, I almost died of this disease, so I’m not really appreciative of people who blithely walk around potentially spreading it. I am conscious every moment that even though I am vaccinated and recovered I may still have gotten the virus and I could still pass it on so I still wear a mask to protect other people from what I might have picked up.
So in my personal evolution on this, I was lucky enough the other day to get a letter from somebody, a guy who wrote to me about my 2006 “What’s the most painless method for a suicide?” Column, which is still being widely read. This guy wrote to me and said thank you for that column, framing it as a bad bet, I hadn’t thought about it like that, I was really looking for a method to kill myself, and your column helped me change my mind. That’s the sort of thing I think many writers would live for and I’m very lucky to have that. So I thought, hmmm, maybe I can be persuasive to a few people. So, if that’s true, I would be derelict in my duty just as a citizen, as a member of society, if I didn’t try to persuade others to do what is right and what may save lives.
So if you think about it, you may pass this disease on to someone you don’t know but who might be someone important to you. You might be a killer basically. And if you’re willing, for whatever reason—because you don’t have enough information, or you’re scared, or you don’t like doctors offices and don’t like needles, or you don’t want to go through a couple of days where you might be under the weather—you’re faced with a moral choice of the utmost importance. You’re faced with the chance of being responsible for somebody else’s death. You’re faced with the choice of being responsible for somebody else’s debilitating illness. And that’s not a chance that you are allowed to make, in my estimation. I mean, it’s a moral question, and there’s a clear right and wrong.
There’s no force on earth, currently, that can compel you to take the vaccination. But neither was there any force on earth that could compel people during the Vietnam War to change their opinions about whether it was a just or unjust war, and yet, person to person, family to family, sometimes stranger to stranger, people were persuaded that the only moral choice was to press for an end to the war. I watched that happen, in a historical period. And I saw that what seemed impossible was not really impossible. People’s opinions changed. And the reason a lot of those opinions changed was because there were people, myself and my friends included, who were dedicated to interpersonal struggle over this moral and political issue.
You know, you get in people’s faces. You just tell the truth. How upset you are about it. How it affects you personally. How it’s just clear as day. You beg people, do it. Please. For me. Whatever it takes.
So I, in this role, I can be persuasive, I have people who respect what I say, so I suggest to all of you, who are much like me, look around you at those you may know in your own family or close to you and take that extra step to engage in fierce, personal moral struggle. Make it clear how urgent this is, how important it is to you personally to make your views known, how clear it is to you that it’s simply unacceptable for a person to choose not to get vaccinated. The choice is so clear! And I really think that what’s needed is a change in attitude, to impassioned involvement, to impassioned speech, because I’m also suffering Post Traumatic Stress Disorder as a result of my stay in the hospital, and I have a deep reservoir of feelings of sadness. A lot of tears. That’s OK. If it comes to that, bring it on, the tears, the rage, the incomprehension, whatever it takes.
Put somebody in a car. Drive them to a vaccination site. Just make it happen. You probably know a lot of people who are hesitating. If you just speak to one that’s not enough. We are all going to have to speak to as many people as possible, making it clear also that there is a price involved in terms of your continued friendship and tolerance, that there are certain things you just can’t abide, that maybe we just can’t be friends if you can’t make this certain moral leap. If you can’t find it in yourself to have compassion and love for all those innocent people who are going to die, and suffer from this disease, because of people who make this choice not to get vaccinated.
That includes “you,” the person you’re talking to. Not you directly. Maybe though! I mean I’m sure, if it’s 10 percent, or 5 percent, of the population then 5 percent of the people I’m talking to probably are people who have hesitated.
So I implore you to take the leap for mankind, for the rest of us, just take that leap, take that chance, just go in and get it done. Just let it happen, for the benefit of mankind. Just join with us who have either suffered this disease and know how awful it is and are terrified of seeing it continue its ravaging of the planet, join with us who, maybe we haven’t had it yet ourselves but we’re afraid and we don’t want it, and we don’t want our children to get it, or our parents to get it.
So I would invite you to join with us. To steel yourself against whatever personal inhibitions or thoughts you may have. Struggle within yourself to let those thoughts go and just go and do the right thing. Just put your feet one foot in front of the other, get in the car, get on the bus, get on the train, get in the taxi, get in the Uber, get in your friend’s car or your mother’s car, get on your bicycle, put your shoes on and walk. Go to a place, present your body. Put your body there and say:

“Here is my body. Put the thing in me so that I don’t inadvertently kill other people. I would prefer—in spite of whatever objections I have—I would prefer not to be inadvertently killing and sickening others. I would prefer not to have their suffering on my record. I would prefer to be clean. I would prefer to have a good conscience and to have some pride in the fact that, whatever my fears and reservations, I took this step for the good of mankind.”
OK? That’s my plea. That’s my plea coming from somebody who almost died of this, and who is still recovering and still feeling the effects some seven or eight months later.
I’ve struggled with this for a long time. I didn’t really see it clearly, and it’s clear to me now. It’s not up to the government. It’s not up to all these spokespeople on CNN and the CDC. It’s not.
They’re not persuasive. But each of us can be persuasive to those others we speak to one on one. And so I’m calling on you guys. I’m begging you. Be, you know, be soldiers out there for the good of mankind.
Put it on the line, and stop letting people off the hook just because we believe in the freedom of choice etc. This is bigger than that. This is bigger than that! This is about watching people die, and watching doctors and nurses burn out, watching families grieve, watching funeral pyres. That’s bigger than “freedom of choice.”
If your choice is the wrong choice, you deserve at least the opportunity to have somebody put it in your face and make it clear to you, and maybe jog you out of your whatever it is, your complacency. You know?!
There’ve been times in my life when I was complacent and somebody needed to shake me out of it, to be right in my face, and to make clear to me what was visible to the outside but was invisible to me. I wouldn’t want any more sickness and death to be on my conscience. That’s more important than whatever, you know, nicety, whatever friendship I might think I have with someone.
This is what’s important.
And so, shit, that’s all I’ve got to say. Thanks, That’s it. Bye.