Monday, March 30, 2020

The virus and the plague of moral superiority

If you follow current events you will notice that this virus has become politicized. Republicans take it less seriously than Democrats. Religious less than Secularists. The young less than the old.

It seems that people think this is a punishment primarily against the deviant other. Thus religious Jews continue with minyan, weddings etc because they are protected by Torah and the absence of the sins of Internet, homosexuality,abortion and sheitel - and besides they give to the right charities..  Republicans are protected by loyalty to Trump and rejection of Clinton, Leftists and CNN and the New York Times. Submersion in Fox News is believed to be  a very strong weapon against the virus.

The young view this as a process of getting rid of the previous generation which restrict their lives.

Trump has stated that the hysteria is a Democratic and Media hoax directed against his reelection

As the mayor of Bnei Brak stated "people need to wake up" and realize the virus ignores religious and political affiliations as well as loyalties and information preferences.   As the Rambam notes hasgocha protist only is releavant for the few tzadikim who are truly davek with G-d. The majority of people live their lives according to the reality of Nature,Science and Medicine. Therefore if you don't listen to the doctors there can be bad consequences.  And to firmly believe this virus is only against the sinful is going to lead to something unpleasant.

7 comments:

  1. Weird oversimplifications. I'm a Trump supporter and took this virus seriously from 2 months ago no matter what Trump or anyone else said about it. Until the end of February, it was the mainstream media downplaying this and claiming the yearly flu is worse. Then they reversed themselves and in hindsight attempted to revise history.
    Again, if Democrats are the ones taking it seriously, why did Deblasio tell New Yorkers to continue life as normal as recently as March 2nd? Why did he say to dine out in restaurants as late as March 11th? The NYC health commissioner urged everyone to still take the bus, subway, go to the parade in early February. They took this seriously?
    In the US, most young people affiliate as Democrats. Check the voting demographics some time if you don't believe me. The Democrat candidates get disparate support from the youngest voters. So if young people are not taking it seriously, that's an awful lot of democrats too.

    The only ones being "punished" by this virus are the ones who do not listen to the advice of health officials and do not take precaution to mitigate risk, along with the other ones these selfish people infect.

    Why would anyone in their right mind believe a virus will only infect certain groups/types of people? Where did this corrupted thought process originate from?

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  2. There is much truth to this statement - and it is perhaps part of human or cultural nature to find someone else to blame for all ills.
    It is possible that the fanatic frum people, and not exclusively one group or other see themselves as protected - hence even Druckman was permitting mini minyanim when this thing began.

    And here the Rambam's rationality comes out again as showing frum people they can still think rationally and be frum. That said, in the moments when I'm not taking preventive measures, I am trying to deepen my fatih and try to see where Hashem is leading us when this thing is over.

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  3. virus = hoax

    Proof:
    The liberal Left seems to discount, if not deny entirely, the Will of G-d as expressed in His Torah. They rely on the guidance of their experts in fields like medicine, science, economics, etc. who build their models for prognosticating the future without taking into account the spiritual impact of human behavior and speech.

    Religious people, at least some of them, believe G-d "sees" and "hears", and that G-d saw and heard what goes on here on Earth and sent us the virus to remind us that he sees and hears.

    So, the idea that the President presents that we can defeat the virus without repenting is not going to work. The idea that the virus is merely a physical "scourge", as the President puts it, is a hoax.

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  4. So would an effective vaccine also be a hoax, and would you refrain from having one?

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  5. If it has fetal cells in it, I'll have to think about it.

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  6. The whole world has come to a stand-still, and the economy is on the brink of being devastated. So clearly we are all punished by the virus.

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  7. Well, that is correct. What I mean to say is "the only ones being punished additionally" with higher rates of disease in their communities than there otherwise would be. No one can truly escape from this mess.

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