In a spectacular 5:4 ruling this week, the US Supreme Court judged that freedom of worship should not be restricted in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.
This decision is a first climax in the dispute about how much restriction of our freedom is worth saving human lives.
Two different worlds collide on this question. On the one hand there are those people who accept these restrictions of the pandemic in order to not endanger others. They do this for the benefit of people they don’t even know personally.
On the other hand, there are those people who do not want to accept this “imposition”, as German Chancellor Angela Merkel calls it. They refuse to give up their individual freedoms in favor of others.
Basically, two completely contrary views of the world face each other in this question. Some see themselves as part of a larger whole, for which they also sacrifice their own rights in an emergency. The others see themselves as individuals, for whose freedom society has to give up its supposed security.
A consensus in this conflict is difficult to find, because each party denies the other party their maturity. Each argument of the other is nullified by invalidating the base of their arguments. The alleged “science believers” are diametrically opposed to the alleged “conspiracy theorists”. A decision in this matter can therefore only come about with great difficulties – up to the question of compulsory vaccination.
Last year, I summarized such a conflict between (medical) reason and (religious) unreason in a short dramolet. When one doesn’t understand the other any more…
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Vienna Calling 