The Answer, My Friend...

-


Following on from yesterday's post about the curious idea of individual autonomy, one obvious concomitant of the concept is particularly apposite during this plague year. Some feel that vaccination against pandemic disease to be an infringement of their personal human right to that autonomy; and whilst I might just [just] entertain the idea of objection to it on religious,  and certainly on particular medical grounds; the notion of objecting to it because of some notion of individual freedom of expression is just plain barmy, given the pickle the world is in at the moment.

People of my age have grown up in an era when the myriad of childhood diseases that cut short the lives of many, many of our forebears prior to mass vaccination programs no longer hold sway, at least in the developed world. But the success of these programs relies on the participation of as many, if not all, of the current cohort to work. If you were born in the mid-fifties as I was, you were literally on the cusp of that inoculation revolution: certain diseases still killed and scarred for life, many children and adults.

One such illness that was still having a major impact during the years of my early childhood was polio. We were born at the time when the first effective vaccine was being rolled out. Not all of our generation were lucky and caught the disease before the vaccination programme was completed - at least two friends of mine were affected by it; but subsequent generations of kids have been spared from this horrible disease by standard inoculation at a young age, effectively eliminating polio from the cohort.

But it, and many other like diseases could simply return if people start refusing to get their children vaccinated. We've already seen the effects of the scepticism regarding MMR: Measles, Mumps and Rubella - they might sound comical, even benign, but these were not fun to get: I had them all as a child as the vaccines for them hadn't yet been developed. I was lucky and got fairly mild cases of all of them - but my sister could so easily have died from measles, as she wasn't so lucky and developed a full-blown case which was truly awful.

My point is, that we aren't individuals living in some glorious [no, horrendous] autonomous isolation. We can't exist outside [some form of] society, it simply isn't possible. We depend on others as they, in turn, depend on us and I really don't know at what point in our recent history we lost sight of that simple human fact; but if you are tending towards the notion that you are an island entire of itself, then it would be instructive to take time out and watch this guy talk about his life. Just don't ask for whom the bell tolls: you already know the answer, my friend.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Of Feedback & Wobbles

-
Image
Many years ago I came up with an analogy for poorly damped feedback loops. The feedback loop that prompted this frankly tart analogy was indeed a horror. Anyone who remembers shame-faced their first attempts at clutch control resulting in the good old kangaroo launch across the lights only to stall in the middle of the crossroads will have some idea of the kind of data transfer lag involved in said system. The analogy I made was that of a large blancmange. Untouched, a model of stasis and eminently stable and predictable; but prod the bugger and the resultant chaotic behaviour needs a very complex physical model and some very decent computing horsepower to predict its outputs, if at all. The system in question was a large and complex audio-visual display at what eventually became 'The Electric Mountain' in Llanberis. We were ultimately contracted to maintain the thing having been witness to and peripherally involved in its installation. Certainly not involved in its des
Read more

A Time of Connection

-
Image
I was just reflecting on the vacuum of continuity that's left behind when someone dies: that sudden sense of disjoint, of fracture, in one's personal history that takes one completely by surprise at the oddest moments. These pinch-points in memory can often yield some surprising revelations of fact about periods in one's past. One such occurred to me tonight, tending my rather lazy meal of pizza in its journey from shrink-wrap to mouth via the oven. Al's recent demise still catches me out from time to time: the space he left bounded by forty plus years of friendship. But the thing that struck me tonight was just how much change was happening on a personal and social level in the very early years of our acquaintance. Between moving here from Birmingham in September 1980 and our buying our first proper house eighteen months later, all manner of things occurred that would chart the course of our lives to the present day. At around the time of our meeting Alan & Irene [
Read more

Sister Ray

-
Image
Ray Keats - aka Ann Key - local artist & family friend, died this morning. She'd been ill for some years, but never let it get in the way of her work or of tending to the massive network of friends, colleagues and fans she had accumulated over the decades. Her house on the High Street of Rachub, just below where we live - a former cockle factory(!) - bought many years ago when she and her late husband Ronald moved here from Manchester to set up home in Yr Achub, is currently still home to her paintings and drawings, and the front window displays her work, including the last drawing she made in hospital, just days before she died. Her good friend Colin has been a diamond in her latter years, looking out for her and just being there when she needed him. She will be much missed by this tiny community of ageing bohemians up here in the hills, but suffice it to say, George, her cat, will be well looked after now she's gone.
Read more