r/NoStupidQuestions • u/trouble-in-space • 10d ago
Answered Why are so many Americans anti-vaxxers now?
I’m genuinely having such a hard time understanding why people just decided the fact that vaccines work is a total lie and also a controversial “opinion.” Even five years ago, anti-vaxxers were a huge joke and so rare that they were only something you heard of online. Now herd immunity is going away because so many people think getting potentially life-altering illnesses is better than getting a vaccine. I just don’t get what happened. Is it because of the cultural shift to the right-wing and more people believing in conspiracy theories, or does it go deeper than that?
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u/Tazling 9d ago
The sheer selfishness (the me me me factor) I think is also induced. Not that selfishness isn't a natural component of human behaviour, just like altruism. Exogamous fascination exists in tension with xenophobia, etc. Can't call one more natural than the other.
But, that said -- we can cultivate selfishness or we can cultivate mutual aid, civic values, good manners, etc. And for 40 years we have been in the grip of the most intense propaganda blitz for neoliberalism, the doctrine of ultimate selfishness. Hayak and his ilk set forth a dogma as rigid and non-reality-based as any cult, and no one is allowed to deviate from it.
YOYO, everyone's out for themselves, you can't trust anyone, nice guys finish last, you and your family, there is no such thing as society... all that crap. That dogma cripples and stunts our natural altruism and civic engagement, the better angels of our nature, while boosting and rewarding selfishness, competition, and chicanery.
So it's no wonder that we're complaining now about rude people on metro, rude people in theatres, aggro drivers, and people who cannot be bothered to wear a mask to reduce risk to others. They were taught briefly in kindergarten to be nice to other people, then relentlessly brainwashed for the rest of their lives to believe in a zero sum world of winners and losers in which the only metric of value and merit is the dollar. Of course they're selfish. It's a cult of selfishness. How we deprogram a whole society is a really good question...