Mandated altruism is not altruism as any sensible person knows

I like Nicholas A. Christakis and have enjoyed his work in the past.  He takes his arguments too far but at the core there is almost always a good empirical insight.  He has suffered outrageously at the hands of the Woke mob and deserves sympathy for that.  

But this article?  It is not worthy of a thinking many of Christakis's stature.  From Sometimes Altruism Needs to Be Enforced by Nicholas A. Christakis.  Writers cannot usually be held responsible for ridiculous headlines attached to their work but in this instance the headline accurately reflects Christakis's argument.  Despite the pretty obvious point that coerced altruism is no longer altruism.

Christakis's argument is that people should knuckle under and accept mandated vaccination for the good of everyone else.  This is regardless of natural immunity (from prior infection), regardless of the emerging evidence that the vaccines have a much shorter effectiveness life than anticipated, regardless of impossibility of herd immunity, regardless of the counter evidence from Israel, Sweden and the UK, and regardless of the law.

We can be pretty certain that vaccination will not bring Covid-19 under control, it will continue to wreak havoc on a seasonal basis, that breakthrough events are becoming routine and that there is no conferred immunity when vaccinated.  

The fact that fewer people died in 2020 when when we were faced with a novel virus, we had a virgin population, we had no vaccine, and we had little comprehension of the viral paths than have died in 2021 when we have multiple vaccines, where vaccination rates in most developed countries are in excess of 50% and frequently 70%, when the most vulnerable populations are almost universally vaccinated, when we know about the viral paths, when the most vulnerable populations were already carried off in 2020, should be cause for contemplation.

The fact that Christakis acknowledges none of this collapses the integrity of his argument.  His argument would still be disputable on legal and moral grounds were the vaccine 100% effective at protection and containment.  His argument is self-defeating when those conditions are not met.  

Christakis comes across as just another authoritarian wanting to dictate to the populace what to do with little evidence supporting his own position.  And then dressing his edict up in the flowery language of altruism when the concept is entirely moot when we are discussing coercion.

Ann Althouse links to the article and her commenters have a field day with Christakis's hypocrisy and poor rhetorical showing.  From Owen:

Owen said...

I feel a diminishing quantum of sympathy for Nicholas Christakis, who (with his wife) was badly treated by the feral undergraduate crybullies and then by an invertebrate administration at Yale several years ago. But it seems the longer-term effect is Stockholm Syndrome. His argument in this instance is all very pretty but it rests on nonexistent science and a willful ignorance of the law. Biden and his minions have no legal or Constitutional authority to impose this mandate and deputize private employers to do their bidding. And they have no science to justify the strategy of massive vaccination —among those with immune deficiencies (whom it may injure) and those who have acquired immunity from previous infection (whom it will not help).

I would have expected better of Christakis.