Defying
Logic
“Logic
is the beginning of wisdom, not the end of it.”
Leonard
Nimoy
I find
myself trying to make logical sense of what is going on in the world right now—for
instance, why so many people refuse to be vaccinated against covid when it used
to be ordinary to get vaccines, and boosters. In fact, I had to have them from
the time of live polio virus on a sugar cube to go to school. When my sons went
off to college, they had to show proof of vaccination, including the Hepatitis
series. Logically, it’s a no brainer. But somehow, it fell into the hole of “my
rights” and now it’s a thing beyond logic. Those of us who welcomed vaccination
as the pandemic spread around the world, watch the anti-vaxxers and try make it
rational, when it simply isn’t.
Leonard
Nimoy was a smart man, and not one who was always logical. In fact, he was
quite the liberal thinker and would have been, I think, just as perplexed as I
about the resistance to vaccines and masks. Here is a beautiful quote by him: “Because
I have known despair, I value hope. Because I have tasted frustration, I value
fulfillment. Because I have been lonely, I value love.” Not the sentiments
of “Spock” are they? There is so much wisdom that has nothing to do with logic.
Any mother can tell you by the sound of her baby’s cry what is wrong. Any lover
can read the signs of disinterest in their mate. Trying to apply reason to those
two things is futile. They’re arrived at through the gut, not the brain.
That
being said, there is a time and place for logic and for rational thinking. And
science lives there. Scientists don’t know everything, but they do know how
viruses operate and spread. They have laboriously worked out vaccines to protect
us against many diseases that once killed people as efficiently as covid does. To
refuse protection from a murderer does not make sense.
Here is
a final quote from Leonard Nimoy—I think it applies to this situation: “Without
followers, evil cannot spread.” Neither can covid.
In
the Spirit,
Jane
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