COVIDIOTs, Darwin Awards, and alleged vs actual learning moments

On Twitter, on MeWe, on Hucksterman, and on a private Fuckbook group, I posted a blog taeoffs about someone who I said already seemed to be the grand champion for the 2022 Darwin Awards. Original story from the Beeb is here, but, as you'll see below, the blog post is my takeoff. All quoted material, unless otherwise noted, is from the blog.

Here's the background on the story of Czech folk singer Hana Horka and her death:

A well-known Czech folk singer has died after intentionally exposing herself to Covid-19 in a bid to gain greater access to venues and events.

Her family has shared her story as a cautionary tale...

Here's the Darwin Award details:

Horka, a well-known Czech folk singer, died after a short but difficult battle with the virus. 

Horka’s son, Jan Rek, reported that his mother intentionally exposed herself to him and his father, Horka's husband, when they were sick with Covid-19 in order to obtain a recovery pass.

This pass would allow Horka to access venues and shows that she would otherwise be barred from due to her vaccination status.

Though her husband and son were vaccinated, Horka had no plans to get the vaccine and wanted to get a recently-recovered certificate to bypass vaccine regulations. ...

Rek also discussed his mother’s decision not to get vaccinated, saying, “Her philosophy was that she was more OK with the idea of catching Covid than getting vaccinated. Not that we would get microchipped or anything like that.”

OK, you can read the rest of the story at the link. That's a good stopping place right there. Per the son's last comment, it appears he was saying his mom wasn't one of "those" COVIDIOTs, as in she did NOT believe in conspiracy theories. 

(But, in reality? Sorry, son, but she DID believe in something besides science. And the Beeb says she didn't believe in "some of the more bizarre theories." She apparently did believe in so-called "natural immunity," and touters of that usually believe in BigPharma type conspiracy theories.)

There's one other point, lower in the story, to take note of, re the "alleged vs actual learning moments," that ties in with the cautionary tale above, and that's this editorializing by story author Dan O'Reilly:

This isn’t a time for “I told you so” or demeaning comments. This should be a learning moment so that we can stop needlessly losing grandparents, parents, spouses and children.

Someone in the private Facebook group quoted that and chided me. Because it's private, I'm not telling you the name of the group, person, etc.

I noted two things.

One? Per the old adage, "You can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink," in today's world, we have, "You can present a person a learning moment but you can't make them learn."

That's especially true with the son's observations. 

Pre-vaccination, but after the reality of COVID was apparent six months in, a poo-pooing relative got sick. That's all I'm going to say to note that I have personal experience on this.

Had said relative, 14 months later, done what Ms. Horka did (not that most US states have the same restrictions as most EU countries), and died, I wouldn't have personally mocked him. But, if he was famous enough for this to become a story, I wouldn't object to other people making Darwin Awards cracks.

This also leads me to the difference between liberals and leftists (well, non-horseshoe theory ones) in dealing with larger American societal issues. I was prompted to think of Arlie Russell Hochschild, her listening tour ideas and her book about that.

(Given that O'Reilly has verticals for "zodiac" and "horoscope," and yes, two separate ones, on his website, I'll classify him as liberal, woo world.)

As a leftist, I note there's no "reciprocal altruism" behind Hochschild's ideas. Short of a semi-sensibile national conservative opiner who writes for The Bulwark, or somebody like that at the local level, no conservative, even if not full wingnut, is going to reciprocate. 

In fact, I consider her listening tour touting to be virtue signaling as much as anything. I gave her book 4 stars rather than 3 primarily because of what it told me about her. Per the above paragraph, I explicitly cited Charles Murray and "The Bell Curve" as an example of a winger sociologist who didn't do listening tours.

So sue me.

And, sidebar? I don't think Hochschild did a listening tour of Blacks in Cancer Alley in Louisiana after doing one with White wingnuts in the same state. She might have gotten even more of an eye-opener had she done so.

Back to Horka and COVIDIOTS, and contra my respondent? The Daily Mail's piece on her death sums it up:

Half of American adults who were unwilling to get vaccinated against COVID-19 in spring 2021 said that nothing could change their minds, according to survey data released in November.

Couldn't say it better myself.

But, I don't want to end there. 

Let's go beyond COVID to the whole idea of Darwin Awards.

To me, laughing at the foibles of human stupidity that end in death are no worse for one version of foibles than another, in general. Those disagreeing on this, especially as good "librulz," are the subset of liberals that make the stereotype of liberals as humorless look more like a generalization and less like a stereotype.

Don't like that? Well, too bad. That said, not that I need his agreement, but LA Times columnist Michael Hiltzik basically agrees with me. Per Hiltzik, I think the likes of Lee McIntyre may cherry-pick their success rates on "converting" science deniers. Contra Hiltzik, I reject his blanket dissing of the lab-leak hypothesis and told him to read Jamie Metzl.