The Covid-19 pandemic has claimed not only the lives of many people but also something else. It has rapidly begun to wash away the moral and ethical foundations of society and continues to do so at a frightening pace.
There is no doubt that people's desire to be vaccinated should be encouraged in various ways because it is vaccines that best protect against Covid-19 and the complications of this disease. Fortunately, we live in a time when vaccines are freely available to everyone. The fact that, despite the availability of vaccines, some people do not want to be vaccinated for various reasons is another matter. Everyone has their own reasons, and it is not the purpose of this article to analyze them. It is also understandable that the public wants as many people as possible to be vaccinated so that the virus has less chance of spreading. The question is how to increase the proportion of vaccinated? In this situation, unfortunately, the once-popular but for some time lesser-heard call in our latitudes, to drive everyone to paradise with pitchforks, is heard louder and louder. If not quite with pitchforks, then with some other modern analogues.
This is another example of it. It is especially sad because it was expressed by a professor at the University of Latvia. A man who should theoretically teach humanity and empathy to the new generation. Instead, this man preaches insensitive misanthropy. In the discussion organized by the news portal Delfi, UL professor Ivars Austers, without blinking an eye, urges to treat Covid only for a fee. "It would only be fair if unvaccinated people would have to pay for the treatment themselves after a while," says Austers.
When conjectures have to be heard in the 21st century that we should sort the sick by making some pay and treating others for free, it becomes easier to imagine the horrors that people had to face during pandemics in earlier centuries, when people were generally considered to be ignorant, less tolerant and less humane. But perhaps the belief that modern people have more love for fellow humans is really just a myth?
Listening to Austers' misanthropic conjectures raises legitimate questions about this. Moreover, Austers is not some backwards redneck. He is a university professor who was invited to the program as a representative of the academic environment. He is even known as a left-wing teacher, and the left always loves to pretend to be preachers of inclusion and tolerance, advocates of the different. But only a year has passed with Covid and there is not much left of all the great "love for fellow humans" of the left. Only undisguised hatred of those who think differently and a call to treat them only for a fee.
The speed with which yesterday's humanists, human rights activists, preachers of inclusiveness and tolerance, the defenders of the different turn into aggressive haters, fascists is simply scary. In addition, without the slightest resistance from close circles. Even more. These proposals are being discussed as if obvious - if a person is afraid of the vaccine, then he can be treated for his own money. Why do I have to pay my taxes for his treatment? A person does not feel the next step in this logic at all - which ones will we exclude from health care next? Alcoholics, drug addicts, suicidal people, smokers, obese people, those who do not exercise each morning, those whose work is not socially important, those who are stupid, who think wrong...? The list can go on for a long time, and the world has more than once experienced what is the end result that this sorting leads to. This might be unknown to some low-skilled worker. But this cannot be missed by a university professor. But he doesn't seem to understand.
Unfortunately, yesterday's "humanists" take a similar position by quietly ignoring, or even supporting in some cases. The dominant idea - we will break everyone who thinks otherwise. Namely, as usual, the far left comes to power by shouting loudly about the poor oppressed in the beginning, but as soon as they come to power, they are ready to brutally oppress anyone who dares to resist this violent herding to the promised paradise.
The horrific tragedy of the Holocaust opened the eyes of the world community to just how ends such sorting of people into right and wrong, good and bad. In order not to repeat a tragedy of this magnitude, in the second half of the 20th century, a fierce struggle against all forms of segregation took place around the world, as it became clear that any type of sorting of people would lead to tragic consequences. It just seems that this lesson of the last century has been quickly forgotten, and the new herders to paradise are resuming their devilish sorting rituals.
If one thinks that this is something completely different, and what has been in the past cannot be compared to today's light version, then it should be reminded that this is only the beginning of the road. It doesn't matter what are the intentions for starting to sort people, because they always seem bright to the sorting enthusiasts. It is about the similarity of the road. About where it starts. And it starts with the fact that certain groups of the population in the same society differ in some way, and some are allowed what is not allowed to others. Some may, while others may not sit on a bench or walk on the sidewalk; enter the restaurant and sit next to the chosen ones. Some are treated for free, while others are charged.
However, if we touch on the segregation of the vaccinated/non-vaccinated, the most accurate analogy is segregation according to religion. Questions about the attitude to the pandemic and everything related to it have long since moved from the rational aspect to an irrational one and have become an ideological matter or a matter of belief. Like all ideological clashes, they unfortunately release the beast of aggression in people.
The most dangerous thing about this unpleasant Austers' story is that the practice of misanthropy is preached by a seemingly educated person, a university professor. If a similar opinion was expressed by a less educated person, then it would hardly pose a danger to society, because it is not these people who form the public opinion. It is another thing when those who are well-read, understand several languages and pretend to be intellectuals start to sing such dark songs. As the 1917 precedent shows, the consequences can be dire.
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