Up in Arms

Where there is power, there is resistance.

― Michel Foucault

On Easter 1680, Louis XIV visited Saint-Riquier, where he touched 1,600 of his subjects, certain his "royal touch" would protect them from scrofula (the disease we call TB).

The royal touch today is administered not by a king, but an underling; and not in a cathedral, but a convention center.

And it's a tad more likely to work.

But, as French philosopher Michel Foucault said, where there's power, there's resistance.

AP yesterday reported that vaccinated Americans accounted for only 0.1% of the 853,000 Americans hospitalized for Covid-19 last month.

That means 99.9% of the Americans hospitalized were not vaccinated—"a staggering demonstration of how effective the shots have been," AP concludes.

CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky told AP that nearly every case of Covid-19 last month was "entirely preventable” and that the 18,000 deaths due to the virus were "particularly tragic."

But, even though 603,000 Americans have already died from Covid-19, as of today 37% of American adults remain unvaccinated. 

The vaccine-resistance movement comprises the nation's most bone-headed Republicans plus a creepy coalition of comparable nincompoops (including Nazis, New-Agers, New Black Panthers and Nation of Islamists).

Personally speaking, I have no problem with these folks' foolishness.

Thanks to them, the medical device stocks I own are on fire (up nearly 36%). 

If an epidemic breaks out, I'll laugh all the way to the bank.

But the sociologist in me wants to know why these fools resist the royal touch.

The answer, I believe, is obvious.

They think that they're they're victims of government overreach; that they live unrestrained by chemistry, physics, history, and the law; and that their non-compliant gestures should earn them a merit badge.

More to the point, they think they're important.

"The world is full of contention and contentious people," John D. MacDonald said.

"They will not tell you the time of day without their little display of hostility. It is more than a reflex. It is an affirmation of importance."

These self-important fools do not understand biopolitics.

Norms govern us today, not kings. That's biopolitics.

Norms restrict our freedoms for the sake of society.

Norms dictate we don't double dip; spit in the punchbowl; pee in the pool; poop on the sidewalk.

Norms mean we submit to hygiene control.

From the biopolitical point-of-view, the Covid-19 vaccine is merely an element of hygiene control. 

It's merely another norm.

Complying with norms isn't being servile; it's being normal. 

It isn't a surrender of civil rights; it's a surrender to civility. 

And if you consider our six-million-year barbarous past, civility is pretty goddamn non-conformist.

Maybe it's the civil people who deserve the merit badges.

So, if you want to flout the norms of hygiene control, act like an ape, and risk your family's and your Republican neighbors' lives, go ahead. Don't take the shot.

I say more power to you.

I'll use my dividends to buy more stock.