The Vaccine

John is surprised when one of his friends and one of his family members do not want to get the COVID vaccine. 

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Transcript

Michael Lee: [00:00:00] When We Disagree is a show about arguments, how we have them, why we have them, and their impact on our relationships and ourselves. When you want to persuade someone, you have a few different strategic options, a few different cards to play. One of those emphasizes the role of the arguer more than any other tool.

That is, the arguer says, you should believe me because I have special training, like an advanced degree or years of experience, because I have a unique vantage point, I saw something with my own eyes. Or perhaps you should believe me because I'm a good person, or I have your best interests in mind. In the 4th century BCE, Aristotle called this persuasive approach ethos, which is frequently reduced to appeals to personal credibility.

But ethos covers so much more than that. Including trust and branding, even simple state statements like, because I said so are really ethos [00:01:00] appeals because I said so means both I'm in charge and I could do something to you that you really wouldn't like. Our guest today is John Thomas the third assistant professor of political science who's originally from Nashville, Tennessee.

John, tell us an argument story. 

John Thomas III: Yeah, so, um, once we were talking earlier, um, I'm from Nashville, I lived in Chicago for 15 years, and so at the, not quite at the height of the pandemic, but towards the, the tapering off the pandemic, we were still doing social distancing, we were still doing, um, masks, more or less.

Um, but by that point, vaccines were out. Um, a good friend of mine came to visit and, um, he was on his way to visit someone else and he came to visit me. And, um, we were talking about, um, you know, vaccines. He was like, yeah, I'm not vaccinated. And I was like, It gave me some pause because, you know, um, being African [00:02:00] American, um, being involved in the church of Chicago, I had like seen umpteen, you know, rollouts of, you know, why you're supposed to get vaccine, hearing it from you, like the pulpit, hearing it from, you know, health officials, my mom, who was a nurse, and then for, A very dear friend of mine to tell me that he didn't, wasn't gonna get vaccine, get, did get a vaccine as we're sitting, you know, eating giordano's because, you know, we had to do Giordano's of course, for, for the, for the tourist value.

It just kind of gave me pause and so we, we, we were talking about it. Um, and it just, it, it, it just really, um, I think he. He, and he was part of a union, the union negotiated, you know, that they didn't have, by this point, it wasn't mandated for them to be on site to get vaccines. Some jobs, you had to be mandated to get a vaccine.

It wasn't mandatory. I [00:03:00] was, it just gave me pause. I had not run into an anti T vaxxer within my, Um, so here was one of my best friends from way back, way back when telling me he wasn't going to get a vaccine. Didn't want to hear it, wasn't going to do it, had all these arguments against it. Now he wasn't using Invermectin, thank God.

Um, he wasn't getting the vaccine. And then, um, I, I went to visit my, my family in Barbados. Um, and 20 2020, wow, let's see, 2022 was still, you know, middle of vaccine time and COVID, you still needed a COVID card to get in and out of the country. And um, uh, my, my, my uncle was basically like, you know, you need to get a vaccine to get out of here, but I ain't getting no vaccine.

I haven't gotten a vaccine. Don't plan on it. And I'm like, how, again, so a [00:04:00] best, a good friend of mine in Chicago and my uncle, but just hearing. The, the conversations about why they didn't want to get vaccine really gave me pause because these are people who I consider to be, you know, who are smart, 

Michael Lee: intelligent.

Did you think that they made any good arguments? 

John Thomas III: No, there was no good argument for not getting, for getting a vaccine. There was no good argument, but to hear the, the, the, The, um, the media spiel about why you shouldn't get vaccine coming from these people's mouths. Well articulated, everything from, we don't know what the government's doing, or people haven't died, or whatever, whatever.

I'm like, Oh my God, you were spitting me these, these, these things from the, from the friends and y'all don't want, it was like, wow, I felt like I was listening to like a Republican national committee video. I was like, what is this? I was in shock and these were like a family member and a good friend, you know, so it really was jarring.

And these are [00:05:00] not 

Michael Lee: members of the RNC I take it? 

John Thomas III: No, no, no. These might be, it's just, just, but they were like, I mean, and then reflecting on, you know, because. One of the things that's happened, you know, in discourses, these echo chambers, you know, you, you talk about stuff, you talk about some of the fact that my uncle had died from COVID very early on in New York before, you know, he was one, he was, he was older gentleman, 80, 80 ish, and you know, he was in New York and New York was ground zero.

And literally his whole, there was a group of got older men who got together to, um, play dominoes. They were all wiped out, all wiped out, you know, it was gone. I mean, and remember and go and remembering, you know, my, my, my cousin not being able to go into the hospital, you know, having to have a doctor call like back in the early, early days where none of these protocols existed, you know, having the doctor having to call her on the cell phone.

And then my [00:06:00] mother. Struggling to get, you know, a burial plot because they couldn't bury people because of the law. I mean and then to To to run into a good friend and my family member who were like, well, no, we didn't get a vaccine I'm, like what what but but did you did you? I, it, it was it. I did not understand.

Michael Lee: You say it gave you pause, and I've been in similar situations as well. Can you spool out what that means for you in terms of giving you pause? In other words, how did it feel? Did it make you question the relationship? Did you, did it make you curious about them? 

John Thomas III: I did not expect that to come out of their mouths.

Because we had similar values. Because this was a friend of mine, going over, you know, decades. Because this was a family member, an uncle. My, my, my, my, my, my, like, Yo brother died in the hospital, in the hospital, New York. You're not getting a vaccine? What is this? He's sitting on the island like, nope, I don't need to do that.

And, um, it. [00:07:00] It just, I mean, one, because, you know, like I said, shared values, relationships, but on this very important public health issue, y'all have a different stance, a very different stance, which is, you know, like, wow, I did not expect that coming from you. It's sort of like, you know, when you find someone voted for, you know, um, a candidate, a political candidate that, that you like, I would have never thought that you would have done that.

That's interesting. 

Michael Lee: So it's both surprising in the sense of your relationship because you had built a rapport obviously over many years, even your whole life with your family members. And so you think you understand who they are and then they go and violate that expectation. And also, You think and I agree that they were doing something dangerous by not putting themselves at risk.

John Thomas III: Yeah. Putting me at risk. I'm sitting in a restaurant like this man ain't got a vaccine. I mean, behind you, we're still like, you know, I mean, I've been doubly vaccinated, but the vaccine only, um, attenuates the [00:08:00] symptoms. It does not. And getting COVID, I mean, even, I mean, even today, even though it's come down to where it's basically Feels like it is a type of influenza type of viral infection.

You still don't want to get COVID. I mean, I finally ended up getting COVID when I was here in my first semester. I had avoided Chicago, avoided it in Chicago, avoided it during grad school, moved to Charleston, teaching these students at CFC and within my first semester here, I got COVID. It is not so, I mean, it.

I had all the vaccines in the world, you know, and I, but I still got it. And I mean, it still wasn't a nice thing to get, but I mean, it's, but I'm like, I can only imagine what would happen if I hadn't gotten a vaccine. 

Michael Lee: Tell me about your persuasive efforts in relationships like this. Let's say you disagreed over something trivial like sports or something massive like vaccination and life and death.

Are you the type of person to kind of stand forth and try to be persuasive and really make the case? And, Even in an event as a one [00:09:00] time thing, say no, we're going to do this here, right here, right now, or as a process, keep banging the drum, keep banging the drum to bring them over to your side. Or do you just say, All right, well, you're going to do you and move on with your life.

John Thomas III: Well, see, and you said something earlier, the relationship. Now, again, this is why. I, I, I, I, this story stuck with me because of how I reacted and how I am. You know, I'm, I'm, I, I'm a college professor. I teach political science. I spend at least twice a week. I'm in a classroom talking about, you know, politics.

Politics is the articulation of powers, how power is articulated and how it is used. I, Listen to students with arguments. I'm also teaching classes where I'm trying to explain, you know, how things happen and especially in this environment where we're in where, you know, we see norms being shredded in front of us, you know, um, what is a, a, a, Oh, what is a different disagreement we could have versus a [00:10:00] disagreement?

We should not be having. Okay. We can disagree about, you know, Okay. policies. But then if your policy is, if you implement this, I die. That's not a disagreement. That's a death sentence. You know what I mean? Like for instance, discussions over slavery in the United States in the 1860s. You're talking about my liberty.

That, that's not a policy debate. You know, and nowadays, you know, the discussions we're having about, you know, um, one candidate is saying, you know, we're going to, you know, throw up the walls. We're going to go after all these, I'm like those. These are general policy debates. If they ever existed, they're always people's lives in place.

And I think one of the misnomers we have in American politics, especially is that, you know, Oh, this debate around policy, policy is lives. And when people's lives are at stake, we really. You have to understand, you know, what the, the, how one side can say, can get to the point where what you're being emotional.

No, you're talking about [00:11:00] whether my people live or die. So having said that, and these debates, you know, my best, the good friend with my uncle, you listen. I was like, I reminded my, I gave the story, but my uncle said, well, you know, I had a member, a family member who, who died of COVID. So that's why I got vaccinated.

And that's why I will always tell that story because I, I experienced a death firsthand and you know, my man and several good friends of mine died of COVID in the early days when we didn't know what it was or when there was no way to treat. And, um, and so, you know, my friend was like, yo, I respect that, you know, by my, I ain't getting no vaccine.

And then there comes a point. When you value a relationship that you have to agree to disagree, or you have to say, you know what? You know, this is, this, this is, is, this is a different than if I'm, you know, standing on a Senate floor arguing, agreeing against a proposal that could cut millions of funding to people [00:12:00] that would mean their vengeful death.

This is me talking to a friend who's been a friend for years. We've been through lots of things together, and I'm not gonna let the disagreement over a covid vaccine destroy that friendship. Now, I definitely. Okay, bro, that's, uh, you went to an interesting place on this one, but at some point you have to say, okay, you have to look at what, what's the relationship and, you know, like, just like in, in, in relationships with, with better romantic, there are clean ways to fight.

And there are dirty ways to fight. Um, this, this, this, this, this, this is my friends with therapists talking. And at some point you have to say, you don't know, you know what? We're not going to fight this, but I'm not going to hold a disagreement. I know you don't agree with me. I do not agree with you. So we'll just agree to disagree on this and move on to the next thing, which is what we did, because I mean, it wasn't important.

It wasn't important to me to keep coming back [00:13:00] to that on that issue. Now, if it was something else. That might have, and I don't know if people have had friendships ended over, you know, did you get a, I've seen people that did you get a vaccine? Did you vote for Trump? Uh, did you put, keep a Confederate flag in your car?

I mean, I know families that have been torn apart because of people who, you know, rolled up into DC or we're, we're, we're, we're, or we're looking at QAnon and that's messed up families. I thankfully haven't had that discussion, but I can understand why, you know, at some point you may have to say we can't.

for the good of, we can't keep this relationship. But in my instance, it was like, okay, this, this is, we, we can, we can, I, I can, I can just let this one go, but I am going to go get a COVID test when you get back on that plane. 

Michael Lee: So the lesson sort of going forward, forward for you, it sounds like there's at least two.

One, just the sheer shock and surprise that you would be in a [00:14:00] relationship with this person would be so amazed by the conclusion they've drawn on an issue that seems so obvious to you in a life or death. But then secondly, it sounds like at least the message going forward in these kinds of circumstances with you was stay in a relationship.

Yeah. Don't, don't necessarily accept the other person's point of view or even tolerate it. But stay in relationship. 

John Thomas III: And that's the only thing that works. So, you know, again, how do Democrats and Republicans, how did, um, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Anthony Scalia go to the opera for years at some point, they were able to have relationships beyond their policy differences.

And I think that's one of the problems in our discourse today, people don't have relationships beyond the differences. We have nothing. To bind us, all we're hearing is the red meat you're throwing at your, at your people in a different time period. AOC and Marjorie Taylor Greene may not have been the best of friends, but there might have been a [00:15:00] passing civility because we're both congresspersons.

We don't have that in this political landscape. And in fact, one person, um, I was watching yesterday, um, a Republican was talking. He said, you know, we have these people in Congress who are more, who they don't want to govern. They won't, they want to be on Fox news. And that is not helping our party, which I wholeheartedly agree because American democracy doesn't work.

When you have one party that's hijacked by people who care more about clicks and rates and likes than about actually the business of government. 

Michael Lee: John, thank you very much for being on when we disagree. 

John Thomas III: All right. Thanks for having me. I'm glad to be here. 

Michael Lee: When we disagree is recorded at the college of Charleston with creator and host Michael Lee recording and sound engineering by Jesse Kunz and Lance Laidlaw.

Reach out to us at when we disagree at gmail. com.