Saturday, August 25, 2012

Vaccination

I was surprised to see a mention of the anti-vaccination crowd in CS Lewis, as far back as the early 40's.
The man who "just feels" that total abstinence from drink or marriage is obligatory is to be treated like the man who "just feels sure" that Henry VIII is not by Shakespeare or that vaccination does no good. ("Why I Am Not A Pacifist" 1940)
 There is a good deal of interesting material in that talk to a small pacifist society, and I hope to get back to it.  I keep saying that, I know.  One can generalise its principles to many other grand liberal schemes - Lewis in fact does so at several points.  A paradox: he skewers the actual reasons liberals put forward to justify their ideals; yet he gives them back a separate set of reasons by which they might ethically pursue much of their program - reasons conservatives should be interested in.

6 comments:

s said...

Generous guy, C.S.

Anonymous said...

"as far back as the early 40's"

What do you mean "as far back"? Vaccines came out hundreds of years ago and that time-- when they first came out-- was when anti-vaccination was at its height. By comparison, the kooky Autism-vaccination conspiracy theorists of today are practically nothing.

Assistant Village Idiot said...

I knew that the cowpox-smallpox connection was late 19th C, but never heard anything about opposition to it, nor intuited that such a thing would likely occur. It makes entire sense, I just never knew it.

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soft said...

"as far back as the early 40's"

What do you mean "as far back"? Vaccines came out hundreds of years ago and that time-- when they first came out-- was when anti-vaccination was at its height. By comparison, the kooky Autism-vaccination conspiracy theorists of today are practically nothing.

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