States of mind

There are many things that one takes for granted in life, often unconsciously. And sometimes in a twist of fate, or "a learning moment" we discover the assumptions we had relied on, often as a rude surprise. It could be mundane, too, like that the laundry doesn't do itself. Or dramatic, when you discover that you are not invincible and levelled by sickness. Such things are on a personal, individual level but, of course, groups of people can have this, too. And it is often in extraordinary times, such as the Covid period before us, that some of our collective assumptions are brought into a stark light. 

In my twenties, I thought a lot about the social contract, which is, in a word, the written or unwritten agreement people have to live in a society. At the time, I had some resentment about rules and expectations that I felt I hadn't consented to - I took myself as an individualist and a libertarian and felt that we should be able to have some liberty to choose for ourselves. However, logically I agreed that there had to be some bottom-line mutual understandings. An obvious example would be that taxes and council rates make sense: roads don't build themselves; there needs to be services and support to those who have lifequakes, etc. so I could support the idea of unemployment benefits and public health services. Maturing and having a greater view of the challenges of staying together as a society made me buy more into the importance of a social contract, and if anything I would have wanted the agreement to be more explicit, subject to education and clarification. 

There is always a tension between individual liberty and social or community well-being. Traffic safety is a fruitful source of examples: Seatbelts and speed limits are both compelled upon individuals by the authorities and by-laws. A great driver with 20/20 vision, insured, driving in perfect conditions with a recently warranted and serviced vehicle might want dispensation to drive faster or, more likely, presume it and speed; and may also anger when they are "caught out". Speed limits are calibrated based on the community, not individuals. An individual would have more enjoyment and time for the things they love by speeding safely, but it is not allowed. 

It comes to mind as we are making our way to the end of a social dilemma around vaccination. The vaccination of an individual provides a degree of protection to one's own health, albeit with a small risk. For those in middle age or older, for whom Covid-19 infections causes far more problems, it is a no-brainer: benefits in protection grow exponentially over the risks of vaccination. But for younger people and people who consider themselves free of "co-morbidities", who are healthy and active, the risks and the benefits are similarly small and there is no urgency to take the risk.

But vaccination is a national campaign because there is a multiplier effect when there are more and more people with immunity for others' safety (AKA herd immunity). On top of that, there are other societal benefits such as protecting healthcare system capacity and reducing the disruptions caused by clusters of cases and the follow on effects on productivity. Similar to tax or the speed limit, there is a huge benefit in having everyone complying, including those with little risk. 

Naturally, there cannot be forced vaccination upon anyone despite the strong social good in having the vast majority including the disinclined and not-at-risk vaccinated. And that is the dilemma: we are relying on individual choices to achieve what is a collective good. Around the time of the Vaxathon many of the vaccinated and unvaccinated resented that people were being bribed into getting the jab. But that is the cost to hasten and encourage those individual choices to happen to get closer to the goal of 90% double vaccinated.

And now the mandates and the implications of the traffic light system are coming in to stimulate further vaccination. Mandates are not forcing people in the physical sense but are very blunt tools and often thought as compulsion. It should not have come to it, really, but here we are having passed the US, Israel and about to pass the UK in our vaccination push. Yet still we will almost certainly be short of Singapore's effort and may, if we don't have some restrictions, be met with a similar "opening wave" to what they had. 

The protests against the mandates, while probably stirred up by disinformation, should have been a moment to contemplate how we understand our mutual social responsibility, that there is a balance between social and individual rights and responsibilities because, after all, many of those people may also agree that a society needs to have concessions for a civil society as part of the social contract. But they also might have a different understanding of statehood, and even those who support mandates should reflect on their base assumptions, one of which is that anyone who believes in mandates is a "statist" and that not everyone is. The opposite of a statist would be an anarchist, but there are many shades of the two in between. There are topical groupings like ethno-nationalists, libertarians and communists who are all statists with consistent logical beliefs but who would not be the best bedfellows. Tribal groupings, nomadic groups and anarchists are not statists, but worldwide they are in the vast minority.

In past blogs I have spoken of JC, who I came to know in a professional capacity and who incidentally is an antivaxxer and along self-identified anarchist. He posts and re-posts screeds about many things, much more in this pandemic but generally a lot. One of his more delightful series is on the topic of anarchy. It has two columns "When the government does it" and "When anybody else does it" (it's written from a USA perspective so has a few that don't pertain to New Zealand):

The point of course is that, but for a statist belief, the government literally is performing daily insults, injuries and crimes upon those who are not statists. That is not to say that avowed statists would say they agree with everything that is listed on the left, and would say that governments or authorities should be restrained by written constitutions and systems of laws to prevent the corruption of the intent of the actions on the left becoming of the same nature as the equivalency on the right. And in the assessment of our states, we should always look to see how the intentions of the right are in fact preserved and not insults, injuries and crimes. Historically speaking we know that they are truly not sustained.

Older now as I am, I am an avowed statist. When you are growing up you can imagine your own autonomy and liberty being all you need, or that all you need is you and your group, and dropped in the jungle that is true. But it isn't a surprise that people no matter where in the world they developed, as the number went up city-states, then states arose. States, and the concessions to individual liberty that comes with being in them, fulfil the need to organise humanity. But I think that times like the mandates do help us challenge either our assumption that they are a left-side function and for those who think it's a right-side offence to challenge their beliefs, too.