I’ve sort of lost where we’re at here. I don’t think it’s ever really “justified” to wish suffering on anyone, but I also don’t see the point in hand-wringing over what are natural human reactions to provocative situations. People that post like “FREE THINKER” circles over photos of themselves looking serious on Facebook fucking piss me off, and I find those guys having CTE-inducing collisions with the middle linebacker of reality funny. I’m better off acknowledging this than I am denying it. It’s just how I’m built as a human being. The problem comes if I try to pretend like this has some justification to it other than being an emotion that I’m experiencing.
People work backwards like this all the time. This is how anti-vax sentiment actually works. My girlfriend’s sister is a COVID anti-vaxxer and I know her fairly well and know exactly how this would have happened. She would have been scared of the vaccine, being one of those sort of natural, anti-chemical types in general. Then she locates scary information about the vaccines, because that enables her to justify her emotions. That’s how people work, emotion first, rationalization later. It doesn’t have to be like that. I can acknowledge I have emotions without needing to pretend they’re somehow justified. I can just be like, wow, being a human being is complicated and comes with all sorts of feels.
You’re straying into the realm of deterrence here rather than retribution. Retribution that has no deterrent effect can never really be morally justified, but it’s still OK to acknowledge that you find the idea of retribution appealing. It’s better to do that than find the idea of retribution appealing but repress and deny that.
I dunno, I have conflicted views about this that are probably way off in left field for this thread. Suffice it to say, I think there are utilitarian benefits to punishing people for anti-social behavior that go beyond just deterrence of future wrongdoers and that (not coincidentally) overlap a lot with retribution.
I agree with this (sorry to clip your good post like this, I know that’s a bit obnoxious on my part). I also think this is very much an argument that antivaxxers, and conservatives more generally, should be held to account for the terrible damage wrought by their decisions and actions. Human brains are generally hard wired to feel threatened by mandates, because mandates imply loss of autonomy, and that perceived threat triggers powerful fight or flight responses in people. I am not totally without understanding and empathy here. But what is morality if it is not doing the hard work to suppress the instinctive reactions and behave more civilized? This is actually basically the argument that @bobman0330 is making, but I think he’s badly misreading the psychology behind mocking the deaths of COVID deniers. He’s reading it as taking delight in their suffering, but that’s not it. It’s taking satisfaction in seeing selfish people suffer a personal consequence for their selfishness. This is especially relevant because so many of the antivaxxers just so happen to be the same selfish proudly ignorant conservative assholes that have been getting everything they want for years and years and still complain nonstop about it and never seem to suffer a consequence for their abhorrent behaviors because of white supremacy. It is seriously reductionist to boil all this down to “indulging in the vice of enjoying the suffering of others”. Context exists and it matters.
You’re assuming your conclusions again. I am not congratulating myself for it. I’m saying it’s a morally defensible position. No on deserves medals for it. And you don’t get a medal for pretending that you are morally superior to those of us that see antivaxxer COVID deaths as the obvious partial justices that they are.
Can’t find the link, but I saw a poll mention that about half of people who were vaccine hesitant did so because lack of knowledge, can’t take time off, transportation, etc. Now how many of them are making up bs reasons I don’t know.
You are right that unvaccinated does not equal antivaxxer. That is sometimes forgotten.
Should we feel and/or react differently when one of those people die vs. when Angry Facebook Freedumb Hero that has been smugly and proudly spreading antivaxxer and COVID denial lies on their social media for 18 months? I think so. Otherwise, what’s the point in even acknowledging the difference?
All of our life we’ve watched assholes, cheats, and idiots somehow manage to get ahead in life without any ramifications for their decisions. This is the first time I can remember where these people are getting punished for their ill behavior, and quickly. Remember those thousands of people that attacked the capitol and likely would have killed congress people if they had the chance? Very few of them were punished.
No we get to revel in these idiots actually being punished. I’m not going to apologize for it. I know that it probably makes me a slightly worse person but fuck it. These people deserve what they’re getting and they deserve to be mocked, too.
The value of negative partisanship is derived from the first-past-the-post nature of American politics. The game of politics is a zero-sum game under those rules. Republican hyper-partisanship allows the to win more than they should electorally despite being the minority.
I am explicitly post-Enlightenment. I reject the notion of a universal and unifying rationality. The Enlightenment salon is not a viable model for politics. The left has a need for political shock troops driven by instinct and emotion rather than reason. The othering of anti-vaxxers is one way of developing those people.
Can you or one of the people who liked your post send me a list of the bad persons in this forum? I want to be careful but the list seems to remain hidden.
What is blamed or praised is a big part of the socialization process and explains a lot about why culture in Iceland is different from culture in America
Obviously so, but there’s a difference between national GOP star spreading anti vax propaganda for fun and profit and some rando who said something on Facebook.
I sometimes wonder whether this account is a highly committed social experiment to see if you can take assorted Stalinisms and fascist slogans wrapped in a thin veneer of partisan identification and gain acceptance in a progressive community.
