What everyone knows is that the conflicts surrounding our current understanding of COVID are legion. Generally speaking, it has become clear that there are two sides, two methods for dealing with it. Each side, naturally, has more or less extreme versions within their camp, but by and large there are two sides, and these two sides each think the path of victory is through seeing the championing of their particular viewpoint.
But as a phenomenon of political conflict, what can be gleaned from observing these two sides? In other words, What can be observed of the two sides - while not at the same time entering into agreement or disagreement with either? Can this approach afford any helpful insight? I would say so, and I would like to take the next few paragraphs to explain why I think this is the case.
Phenomenologically, what can be observed is that there are two sides, two sides reflecting on and commenting on the nature of a disease. Thus, we are immediately confronted with the significant but simple fact that both sides are centered on the same problem. That fact is both a help and a complication. It is a help because it means the argument is shared, but it is a complication in that the problem can’t be removed by simply clarifying that both parties are talking about a different subject.
Now, in addressing the problem presented by this disease, both sides see hosts of consequences that are extremely critical. Here, however, is where the complication may in fact become helpful, which will be made clearer below. Both sides are submitting empirical arguments for their respective cases. Empirical arguments and hypotheses suggest a realm of fact, which ought to take the debate out of the realm of personal opinion, but here is where a certain temptation arises.
The temptation for each side is natural enough: to win their argument by making the better, stronger case. If one can resist this temptation long enough to observe the fact that both sides are citing the same types of sources, such as doctors, scientists, medical studies, and scientific research, then one will observe that this is not a settled scientific or medical argument, a situation unlike the debate of whether the earth is round or flat. This is significant because it indicates that both sides are seeking to be responsible and relevant, respect the same kinds of sources, methods, etc. Neither is arguing their case by referring to irrelevant or outdated sources.
This is the complication that ends up being helpful, because its very intractability will end up meaning that neither side ought to be legislated at the political level. Politicians are neither doctors nor scientists, and to side with one group at the expense of the other points to an arbitrary use of power and therefore an inherent injustice. Legislating unconfirmed science is to use the power of the state to force an unconfirmed conclusion, a political act which could very well cause far more harm to the cause of discovering the actual solution through peaceful and multi-faceted debate and research.
It is a mistake to use the political sphere to decide matters of science, or force into public practice unverified conclusions and hypotheses. The strength of both sides thus indicates that the question cannot as of yet be settled. Like pulling rocks out of a rock slide that traps people underneath, the idea of “just doing something” is obviously folly, for to pull the wrong rocks risks the greater harm to those trapped underneath. In other words, to side arbitrarily in such a medically controversial case risks the possibility of magnifying the problem beyond all proportion, even if non-action would also cause (unconfirmed) problems.
The outcome of this present dilemma therefore means that the complicated and empirically oriented medical and scientific arguments are pushed into the arena of individual persuasion, which is to say personal belief, even if that personal belief is backed by expertise and (admittedly incomplete and controversial) medical research. Too many experts disagree in diametrically opposed ways. People are confusing belief about a medical situation with political legislation and policy advocacy. Involving the machine of politics means that what is fundamentally a matter of scientific and medical inquiry becomes a matter of political force.
Both sides have abundant support for their positions; both sides see their positions as preventing doomsday scenarios; both sides are trying to act out of compassion; both sides are trying to avert injustice. This fact being observed indicates that the only viable political action is to remain politically neutral until there is greater medical and scientific consensus. Legislating the belief of the experts on only one side of an issue necessarily creates havoc, for politicizing science and medicine in this way creates political ramifications unrelated to the science and medicine, even obstructing their progress.
This is the hard middle. It is not a via media, but an attentive neutrality, which is to say it responds to the controversy by stating there is not yet enough agreement in order to move to either side. Here one must remain firmly in the middle, refusing the temptation to seek to legislate a one-sided inclination.
-Fr. Joshua Schooping
