Now that H1N1 vaccinations are underway, many of us are considering whether or not we should get vaccinated. There are those who think it’s our moral duty to get vaccinated since we may be putting the lives of others at risk. There are also those who feel that this may just be a large scale money making agenda on the part of the pharmaceutical industry. Whatever the case, there is definitely a lot of fear going around.
I’d like to propose we take a step back and look at the big picture. Humans have survived for tens, hundreds of thousands of years without anything such as vaccinations. How is it that within the last several decades, we have come to see something so artificial as being essential to our survival?
In the book Ishmael by Daniel Quinn, we are presented with a portrait of the human race from an evolutionary perspective. The story goes that about ten thousand years ago, a group of humans called the takers began attempting to conquer nature. These takers had forgotten that in fact they were part of nature and inseparable from it. The leavers are those humans who continued to live in acceptance of their role as equals amongst the rest of nature. The story leaves the reader with the grim conclusion that our human race is headed for disaster ever so rapidly, fueled by this fundamental flaw in our perception that we are not animals and that we are somehow superior to the rest of nature.
Indeed, we observe that in nature everything balances itself out. If we have made nature our enemy then we are setting ourselves up for a battle we can never win. We ARE nature. If we tamper with ourselves, we are tampering with nature. We are tampering with evolution itself.
The scary part is that if you think about it, the successful evolution of our species requires that the strong survive. This is how humans have evolved to become what we are today. So what makes us think that all of a sudden, now we have to start tampering with our evolution? If people are surviving and reproducing who might otherwise have died without vaccination, are we setting ourselves up to become ever more dependent on vaccinations for our continued survival? By contradicting the “will of nature” that some people must die so that the strong can survive, are we weakening ourselves as a species? Is it becoming that our only strength is in our abil
ity to manipulate nature? If so, we could be facing a much bigger issue of responsibility than most people would care to think about, let alone deal with.
What if instead of focusing all our efforts on outrunning death, we took steps towards learning how to better accept it? After all, it is our fear of death that gives the pharmaceutical industry so much power. Buddhism has long taught the virtues of accepting death, and in general accepting the external things that you cannot change.
Author and teacher Caroline Myss points out in many ways how Americans have developed a sense of entitlement that is completely unrealistic. In her recent interview with Laurie Nadel, she points out how as a culture we have completely forgotten about the need for sacrifice. I couldn’t agree more. I see this as in fact one of many side effects of the fact that we have forgotten that we are part of nature. It’s as though we think we are “special” and somehow different from the rest of nature. We are entitled to our 52 inch TVs, and our vaccines to keep us alive so that we can keep watching them.
I am not getting myself vaccinated. I trust that if I die, it is for the greater good. I am okay with death. Besides, I am going to die sooner or later. In the meantime, I’m going to spend my time and energy on the stuff that makes life truly worth living.
Nice Jer. Well written and well thought out. I like the way you take life’s confusions in stride.
I may, from my own perspective, point out that, though it’s true we have existed without vaccinations for about 200,000 years, these viruses haven’t been around that long. Diseases have, but most of these viruses are relatively new, introduced with domestication about 10,000 years ago.
Speaking to the evolution part of your discussion, we have evolved, in the last 200,000 years, only in a cultural sense. There is little evidence to point to any substantial evolution of our brains or bodies, since anatomically modern humans appeared in Africa 200 millennia ago. However, we have made leaps and bounds in cultural evolution. With our flexible social structure and ability to learn, adapt and reevaluate, we have colonized every part of this world. It is our cultural evolution that has given us our glories and our tragedies. I would argue that vaccinations are another in along line of cultural responses to new pressures; whether for good or ill, it remains to be seen. As well, our rapid increase in population, especially in the last few generations, and the increase in global transportation has allowed these viruses to evolve and change as much as our responses to them have.
But that little ramble was just because it’s the part of humanity (our long duree) that I’m interested in. Your comments on fear, sacrifice and a sense of entitlement are all incredibly important, especially when we think that humanity has never been on a strait course of evolution, cultural or other-wise, and that our ability to learn, evaluate and change our lives and our future, is humanities best, (and worst) feature.
I’ve had the H1N1 flu a month ago. It lasted two weeks overall and hit hard 3 days in the centre of it. It blistered my throat, which was painful, but in the end it was no worse than a bad cold without the congestion. Ignoring the politics and the overall use of vaccines in general, it is insane to be vaccinating people when a large percentage (probably a third of us) have been already exposed. If your body is already struggling to contain germs within it and you give the germs a boost, you will be much sicker than if you had not had the vaccine. Articles on CBC have pointed out that those who have been getting the vaccine have become more ill than others. The hype and panic is crazy. A co-worker who has already had it wants to pay to get the vaccine, which totally underlines how little intelligence or understanding is being used in public reaction.
Jay makes an interesting point that these viruses haven’t been around that long, and that it’s arguable our vaccines are a valid cultural response to this new predator that threatens the human race.
I would again draw attention back to the fact that we are making a judgement call about whether it’s right or wrong to attempt to “outrun nature”. The “taker” mentality and its accompanying sense of entitlement can be so deeply embedded in our unconsious assumptions that we don’t even realize it.
What if nature knows what it’s doing? What if these new viruses are just what the earth needs to rebalance everything? Who are we to be making this judgement call?
I know that it gets to be very philosophical/spiritual at this point. It comes down to whether you think that we have the right to tamper with factors affecting our own survival and evolution. For the first time ever we have the power to manipulate such things, but are we morally prepared for such responsibilities? We are taking things into our own hands that until now have always been in the hands of “God”.
Did Nature create H1N1, or did we? Is Nature something we can not act within to change?
One could argue that we create these viruses, by packing livestock in too close and allowing these viruses to mutate, but I think it all boils down to a simple question with a very complex answer: What is natural?
At what point did we leave Nature behind?
Is it when we began to control it, manipulated it and rearrange it to achieve things we want? If that’s the case, then dogs aren’t natural, neither is Quinoa, Teff or any other of the ‘natural foods’ sold in today’s health conscious society. For that matter, either is cooked meat, which we have consumed since before we were even human.
Or, is everything we do part of nature, since, no matter what we as a species do, we are a ‘natural’ product of life on this planet. And, consequently, everything we do is ‘natural’.
To quote George Carlin
“The earth probably sees plastic as just another one of its children. Could be the only reason the earth allowed us to be spawned from it in the first place. It wanted plastic for itself. Didn’t know how to make it. Needed us. Could be the answer to our age-old egocentric philosophical question, “Why are we here?” Plastic…a**hole.”
These aren’t arguments, these are unanswered questions. I have no idea where the division between Nature and Unnatural exists. I’m not even sure there is one. It’s something I am constantly at odds with, especially given my research into how humans have interacted with natural resources in the past.
Perhaps our hands are “God’s”. Perhaps every choice we make is the same as natures, and we are not at odds with it. Modern society may not exist in opposition to nature, but rather as just different than what used to be.
I find it uplifting; we have the power to change things, to make every day decisions that can result in a more enjoyable, honest and clean world. I try to reduce my carbon footprint, not because I no longer want to exist in opposition to nature, instead I do it because I think that choice will result in a better existence for me and those I love.
However, to follow on Ken’s point, I only feel this way when i’m not feeling depressed about “how little intelligence or understanding is being used in public reaction”.
That’s a great point… perhaps there is no line between what is natural and what is not. If beaver dams are natural, then so are vaccines.
This raises another issue. Does more natural automatically mean more right? More pure, good, and virtuous? If not, then what is our guiding principle?
I think of how we have all but forgotten the importance of reverence for life. You could have been born a rock, but no you are human, and look at all you can do! Like Jay said, it’s uplifting because we have so much power to change things. This is a great honour and gift that is not to be taken for granted.
So perhaps the real problem has more to do with how we have lost our bearings on what is really important. Pumping ourselves with more vaccines so that we can continue to live an ever more meaningless existence? No thanks.
Reverence for life is something I can get behind! Well put Jer; vaccinated or not, we can all benefit from more acceptance in our lives.