WELCOME THE CONFLICT

In this text, I am going to relate the topics "organ donation" and "vaccination" to each other.

It holds so much more in store than what I am going to cover. But as to make the reading experience not too long, I will reduce myself to what I think is the essence of it.

In my opinion, the current communication conditions amount to a massive public moral coercion to declare oneself willing to donate organs post-mortem. In this situation, to establish a duty to declare with the official message that everyone is of course allowed to say no and does not even have to explain this further - that is the epitome of a double message. The most reasonable people react mimosically to double messages. I therefore suggest that before any obligations are established to increase the number of organs, the public and political debate should first clarify whether people still have respect for non-donors, and if so, why.

This is just as appropriate for the vaccination issue.

Do people still have respect for non vaccinated ones, and if so, why?

I think the question of why someone has respect for someone who does not get vaccinated is much more important than the common impulsive assumption behind the question "Why don't you respect my negative decision to vaccinate?" After all, that only leads to the person who wants the other person to get vaccinated looking for reasons why they feel a lack of respect and, as it were, also having to take the question as opening up why they think that way. But it would be much more important to ask the question in the way suggested here.

The (Ethics) Council does not clarify why it is operating in favour of holding on to the right to self-determination. The Council obviously does not want to protect any reason for refusal under this heading: not disinterest in the suffering of others; not violations of the Golden Rule; not unwillingness to deal with the subject; not reverence and peace of the dead, which it regards as compatible with donation; not criticism of the brain death criterion, which it regards as obsolete. Why then actually, according to the Council, no obligation to donate organs?

If you look through the press releases of the last few weeks, you get the impression that some do not want to discuss the idea of compulsory organ donation mainly because they fear public resistance. Some also recommend such caution for the opposition regulation, which is closer to the so-called politically enforceable, and even for the obligation to speak out.

As I understand the author of his publication, political actors are squirming to say clearly what they think would be the right thing to do.

There is a difference when a chancellor expresses that "vaccinated people should get preference over unvaccinated people" or whether she says: "We want and will enforce vaccination as a dictate." (That was at a time before the last elections in Germany took place).

The former gives the impression that she sympathises with those who have already been vaccinated and that they should not now suffer any disadvantage because of their decision. For those who have decided otherwise, this statement clearly lacks respect. That is why the recent decision in the Bundestag not to make vaccination compulsory for the whole population, for me, is not a sign of respect. (Also, they made it mandatory for some).

It is the preservation of the appearance of democracy. One pretends that this is taking place in the interests of the people, while public opinion has in fact been and is to be trained to the contrary.

Like a host who tells his guests "feel quite at home in my house and do as you please in your rooms",

which he has given them as private.

But when they do just that, this host complains that it "cost me so much work to get the rooms ready and now something has been changed there by you."

In truth, the host does not want his guests to do what they want. But he shies away from saying, "My house, my rules." This would possibly trigger a debate and he would have to reckon with resistance from his guests, who do not see themselves as his subjects.

Not only does he not want to respect their free actions, he also wants them to voluntarily not violate any rules he has set up, but not only leaves his guests in ignorance of exactly what those rules are, but even says, on the contrary, that they could "do what they wanted". In other words, his guests are supposed to voluntarily do something that is actually based on involuntariness.

One could ask this host the same question:

Do you actually respect my self-determined actions? And if so, why?

The invitation to "do what you want", in this context, turns out to be lip service to being liked by the one who receives it. It suggests "Hey, I'm tolerant, I'm easy-going. Feel comfortable here!"
But the invitation ends at the very moment the guest loosens up and feels comfortable. He should NOT do what he likes, but what the host likes (him to do or not to do).

"So that we can all be free again"

is the message behind which the moral coercion is entrenched, according to which the critics of vaccination seem to be interested in unfreedom and are virtually taking hostage those who can already smell this freedom for themselves.

Willingness to donate organs should not be imposed, said Rösler ... Even requiring everyone to decide for or against organ donation on their insurance card would create emotional hurdles. The German Medical Association is also cautious. Already the debate about the objection regulation reinforces existing resentments."

Tagesspiegel of 30 August 2010
^{Tagesspiegel is a German newspaper. "Rösler" is the health minister from back in time of the year 2010.}

The author comments:

Such statements paint the picture of a population that tends to distrust the system despite all efforts at enlightenment, whose mimosa-like willingness to donate is better stimulated with newspaper reports about prominent donors than exposed to conflict-laden discussions about possible changes in the law.

What is shied away from here, I agree with the author, is conflict.

"There is no 'conflict'!" - Darth Vader to Luke Skywalker

(Episode VI - Return of the Jedi, Chapter 39)

For those who want to rule, the conflict shall not exist because they do not want it to be true. He shies away from debate, he shies away from the honest exchange of arguments, he shies away from the challenge, if he accepts the conflict, of emerging from the situation as the one who "loses" it. Because he only thinks in these categories, he wants to avoid coming out the loser at all costs.

In this sense, even Darth Vader has more honor in his body than those who prevent a good fight.

Moral coercion also consists of denigrating someone as a monster who shows a disinterest in the suffering of others. This is such a great coercion at the moment because the media are pregnant with disaster news and phrases like "suffering of innocent people". The enlightened person should, if possible, be interested in "the whole world", not just "himself".

Not only does it deny the fact that man is never, ever capable of being interested in and engaged in all the world's suffering, it also ignores the already existing fact that we humans do just that every day:

we are disinterested in ninety-nine percent of all earthly events because this is simply beyond our scope of comprehension and capacity.

Such disinterest is not only not offensive, it is legitimate. To the extent that people who want to care about the whole world eventually threaten to resign themselves to their own grief over the many sufferings "out there". Which leads exactly to the opposite of what the morally coercive person wants you to believe: to make a difference.

Is it permissible for a doctor - as happened after the report of affected parents - to introduce the conversation with the sentence: "Your son was a social person, wasn't he?", after the Ethics Council has also stated that post-mortem organ donation is a practical demonstration of the solidarity owed?

Questions upon questions. The reason for this: the Council does not make clear why it opts to stick to the right of self-determination.

There is much similarity here to the vaccination conflict.

The representatives of democracy owe this information. They do not say why they think self-determination on the vaccination issue is right. So this statement has been made in places but not substantiated, the question must be repeated.
It would be good to repeat it as often as possible.

Now, please give me the courtesy and spare me the answer that all politics is corrupt, we are ruled by evil entities and then leave me alone with this desperate reply. I am a human being who is not immune to those kinds of replies.

Those of us who cannot talk to politicians directly, or do not want to, can talk to people from their private spaces on a horizontal level.

I published this text because I found the question extremely helpful and hope to put it forward when a situation arises where it is wise to have it in mind.

Also, I found myself guilty in taking a break from direct confrontation towards those, I have a hidden conflict with. Though in the moment I say so, I can start to forgive myself to have taken a break in contact. There are times I spoke for myself and took confrontation and there are times, when I don't.

Source:

The author I have quoted here has submitted his view to the German Ethics Council and that is the reason why I was able to find and study it in the first place. The operators of the Ethics Council website have made this publication accessible. One can argue that the official institutions only exist in appearance and call on the public to participate, but one can also pretend that this is the case until it becomes quite clear that it is not.

It would be premature to throw in the towel out of anger about the blocked communication channels.

You can think about this in much the same way as you think about advertising.

It is effective, although most people seem to believe that they are unreceptive to advertising. One can use this receptivity for oneself by exercising participation, even and exactly there and then, where one already believes it to be lost.

Now, the last, less convenient question to all of us who don't want to stay in echo chambers, also would have to be:

Do people still have respect for the vaccinated ones, and if so, why?

I could answer right here and now, but hold my own answer back in order to offer a blank page first to you readers.

Thank you for reading.

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Sources:
https://www.ethikrat.org/fileadmin/PDF-Dateien/Veranstaltungen/fb_2010-10-27_referat_luebbe.pdf

https://www.ethikrat.org/suche/?tx_indexedsearch_pi2%5Baction%5D=search&tx_indexedsearch_pi2%5Bcontroller%5D=Search&cHash=7fbc671c5c328720bcb0290c97ebc712

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Title picture:

Photo by Joel Filipe on Unsplash