Why can't the anti-vaccine (aka "vaccine safety" or "informed consent") movement win with its evidence?
Because vaccination isn't a science. Vaccination is a ritual, and ritual trumps data, facts and evidence.
What ritual does the anti-vaccine movement offer in place of vaccination?
Anti-vaxers can’t win because their evidence can’t “break through” because of the cultural narrative that vaccines are good and because vaccines are a ritual.
You don’t question huge cultural stories, and the story is always the same: ‘This is how we do it. We didn’t always do it this way, but we learned to do it this way, and now we live in the best of all possible worlds.’
Despite disease outbreaks in highly vaccinated populations. Despite diseases caused by the ingredients of vaccines. Despite autism. ‘We live in the best of all possible worlds.’
Their side gets all the support they want because the entire media operation, the church, the government believes this. No one is going to admit that we don’t live in the best of all possible worlds. And this is the most crucial point that nobody talks about: the anti-vaccine side doesn’t know what to offer in the place of vaccination.
There is something to the power of cultural narratives. Any cultural anthropologist will tell you that.
Vaccination is nothing if not a ritual. It is a religious, ritualized act. A ceremony. You go to someone with a white coat, who you trust implicitly, who is smarter than you, who has had more training than you. They gain your trust by telling you it’s going to hurt a little bit, and then the hurt is going to be over.
Of course, they’re talking about a simple prick of the skin, not vaccine injury. They’re just priests. They’re not students of what the ingredients are doing to your body, or they wouldn’t be doing it. They are hallowed for enacting this ritual.
It is very significant to go to a place where you have no control, to give yourself up to authority, to let them do a ritual in which you are a participant. It makes you feel like you are part of something. You will become a member of a society that accepts a tribal ritual.
The anti-vaccine movement doesn’t have a ritual to offer. They have nothing that says, ‘You can bring your child to this non-vaccine center and we’ll bless your child with the holy oil of oregano. We’re going to do all of this as a ritual. An anti-glyphosate, anti-vaccine, anti-sugar, anti-poison ritual.’
We don’t have anything like that. We can’t compete.
People who are asking for logic in medicine are missing the fundamental aspect of medicine: it is a religious ritualistic practice.
We are a far more tribal species – a far more mythology-driven, psychologically-driven species – than we are a logical species.
Ginger Taylor and Kim Stagliano liked to define the term “Vaccinianity” as:
"The worship of Vaccination. The belief that Vaccines are inherently good and therefore cannot cause damage. If damage does occur, it is not because the Vaccine was bad, but because the injured party was a poor receptacle for the inherently Good Vaccine. For example, Hanna was hurt when she came into contact with Vaccine, not because the Vaccine was harmful, but because her DNA was not on par or because her mitochondrial disorder was to blame. Vaccine is presumed to have rights that supersede the rights of the individual, while the human person’s rights must defer to Vaccine."
John Rappoport explains further:
"Today, as a revival of ancient symbology, vaccination is a conferred seal, a sign of moral righteousness. It’s a mark on the arm, signifying tribal inclusion. No tribe member is left out. Inclusion by vaccination protects against invisible spirits (viruses).
The notion of the tribe is enforced by dire predictions of pandemics: the spirits of other tribes (from previously unknown hot zones in jungles) are attacking the good tribe, our tribe.
Mothers, the keepers of the children, are given a way to celebrate their esteemed, symbolic, animal role as 'lionesses': confer the seal on their offspring through vaccination. Protect the future of the tribe. Speak out and defame and curse the mothers who don’t vaccinate their children. Excommunicate them from the tribe."
