CAMP: It’s Not Your Job To Persuade Unpersuadable People

It’s difficult to live a modern life and not encounter a certain kind of person. This person has opinions about everything, and their opinions aren’t developed with keen reasoning upon the study of scrutinized evidence. No, their opinions are emotionally charged threads wrapped around pushpins on a mental corkboard. These people aren’t amenable to any amount of data or reason. They are unpersuadable.

The COVID-19 pandemic has served to sharpen the line that separates those who allow their opinions to be challenged with rational argument and new information, and those who will not. It has also revealed a contingent of unpersuadables who were previously lurking in the blur unseen.

COVID-19, which originated in China’s Hubei province, has infected more than 3.3 million people across the world, and led to the deaths of over 241,500 as of publication, according to data from the Johns Hopkins Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) Global Cases map. In the United States alone, the virus has sickened over 1.1 million people, leading to the deaths of more than 65,600.

Severe cases of COVID-19 sometimes require patients to be intubated and placed on a ventilator in order to provide sufficient oxygen to their bodies. Other cases appear to be much less critical, presenting with flu-like symptoms, which abate after a few weeks.

The reason that numerous states ordered lockdowns was to ostensibly forestal the initial wave of critical patients that could have overwhelmed various health care systems. Such a tax on the system could have had deadly consequences, not only for those with the virus, but for those with other conditions who might not have had access to proper care given the influx directing resources elsewhere.

This is a sickness for which we have no herd immunity and no vaccine. For those who are young and healthy, the chances of requiring critical care are infinitesimal. However, for the elderly, the immunocompromised, and those with comorbidities such as obesity and diabetes, this illness presents real danger. This is why some states have required the wearing of masks or facial coverings when in public places, as the virus is less likely to spread through the air if the mouth and nose are covered. The social distancing and hand-washing guidelines are in place in part because asymptomatic carriers could transmit the virus to a vulnerable person unknowingly via saliva droplets or through shared surface contact.

65,600+ Americans and counting have died as a result of this virus, and it’s only the beginning of May.

As a society, we largely acquiesced to the initial shutdown orders because the evidence we had at the time was such that isolation appeared to be the best way we could stave off a tidal wave of infections. When you shut down the economy, however, there are consequences. Nearly 30 million people have lost their jobs, unemployment has been overwhelmed as applications flood the system, multi-trillion dollar relief packages have been passed to buoy the economy and provide some relief to the American people.

Despite the measures taken by the federal government, millions of Americans are greatly suffering.

After more than a month of lockdown, and with the surge of initial cases largely behind us, many Americans believe that it’s time to wind back up. People need to work in order to buy food, pay their mortgage and rent, and more broadly avoid poverty.

Additionally, because of the inconsistent and sometimes heavy-handed nature of the lockdown orders in various states, many Americans have come to the conclusion that their state governments are behaving in an authoritarian manner. This has led to growing protests across multiple states.

These lockdowns are likely to leave a devastating legacy, the very worst of which could include substance abuse, physical and sexual abuse, depression, suicide, and starvation, among a host of other horrific consequences. The economy isn’t just a nebulous concept unrelated to our real lives. The economy is people, and people need to work in order to survive.

Many people understand that while we need to begin the process of opening up the economy, such a process must be done with extraordinary caution, and in such a way that we do not end up with a new spike in COVID-19 cases, leaving us back at square one.

However, there are two groups of people who fall outside this reasonable line of thinking.

There are those for whom any talk of opening up the economy is tantamount to saying that new COVID-19 deaths don’t matter as long as money is being made. Cries of “greedy capitalist!” and “you don’t care about human life!” come to mind. This set of people suffer under a misunderstanding of proportionality as it relates to the increasingly severe human cost of a crippled economy.

For this group of people, the COVID-19 crisis is measured on a simple dual-weighted scale. On one side is money (the economy), and on the other is human life (COVID-19 deaths). There is no third dimension to their analysis, no third plate onto which the idea that a functioning economy is intrinsically tied to the sustaining of human life can be weighed.

Then there are those for whom talk of beginning to restart the economy with continued safety protocols such as mask-wearing and social distancing is akin to supporting tyrannical government overreach. This is a “scamdemic” being perpetrated by the media and the Democrats, the COVID-19 death count is being deliberately inflated to make it look worse than the flu, and officials (including doctors and nurses) are lying about the severity of the disease in order to frighten people into the arms of big government.

While the first group is unable or unwilling to understand proportionally, this contingent suffers from a kind of inflated ego. These people rely on uncorroborated blog posts and conspiratorial YouTube videos from alleged “insiders,” as well as their own gut. No volume of data is sufficient because all the data is “fake.” No expert analysis is valid because all the experts are “bought and paid for.” There is no realm in which they would ever accept any data or expert opinion because it’s all “Leftist lies.”

These people (the first and second groups) often happen to be the most vocal on social media and in real life, and it’s easy to be baited into an argument with them because their posts and comments are often inflammatory. These arguments are long and winding, and after many hours, they end right where they began. You have not persuaded them to reconsider their position. No matter how sound your data, no matter how airtight your reasoning, you will never convince them to examine the situation through any lens other than their own.

There are those who are willing to engage in thoughtful and intelligent exchanges of ideas, and with those people you can have healthy and fulfilling debates. Then there are those on whom you waste hours of your energy and your time, and get absolutely nothing in return aside from seething frustrating. These are the unpersuadables, and it’s not your job to make them see the light.

It can be tempting to reach out and offer your two cents because no one could possibly be so unreachable. Yes they can, and it’s perfectly acceptable to let those people go. Liberating yourself from the arguments of the unpersuadables will save you time, it will save you mental distress, and it will allow you to pursue a life less agitated.