Don't Think For Yourself
I was listening to the Jacobin Sports Show recently, and their discussion of the Kyrie Irving/vaccine situation really helped clarify things for me. It’s definitely worth listening to the episode in full, but the essence of Matthew and Jonah’s point was that Irving’s “personal decision” represents the kind of hyper-individualistic choice that is inherently reactionary. Recent anti-vaccine protests at the Barclays Center, where people holding “I Stand With Kyrie” signs tried to break into the stadium, seemed to highlight this, although I’m not sure how fair it is to blame Irving for protests he did not plan or participate in.
What makes Irving’s decision reactionary is not that it aligns him with right-wing conspiracy theorists—political alliances can often lead to strange bedfellows. But Irving’s behavior sanctifies the concept of a “personal choice” in such way that will inevitably undermine class solidarity. This is what makes his choice politically dangerous: the way it emphasizes individualism at the expense of the collective.
Before now, I had not quite been able to put my finger on exactly what bothered me about the “doing my own research” line that people like Kyrie Irving have been so quick to employ. Liberals, of course, love to dunk on this phrase because they love credentials. When they say things like “Believe science,” they generally mean “trust experts,” even if those experts have often proved to be dishonest or incorrect about the pandemic. Even Jeff Van Gundy felt no problem ripping the idea of independent research on the air.
But I do not share this kind of contempt for non-experts. I like skepticism about the conventional wisdom, even if it veers into the conspiratorial. Sometimes “they” really are lying to us! Still, the research line bothers me…
Eventually, I realized that it reminds me of the OTHER context in which I hear people insist on doing their own research: political organizing. If you’ve ever canvassed for a political candidate, or a piece of legislation, or any other political cause, then surely you have encountered someone who tells you they need “do their own research” before they can commit to lending their support. Of course, on some level, this makes sense—you shouldn’t just accept what some stranger who knocks on your door tells you. You should, in fact, do your own research.
But when you have enough of these interactions, you realize what you are dealing with is not always just a healthy skepticism. In some cases, you encounter a kind of resentment at the idea that you would try to persuade them of anything. These are the people who will be polite and take your literature, but recoil or make faces if they are asked how they might vote or what their own opinions might be. For them, “research” is not just a way of verifying facts, but part of their own, intensely private way of coming to an opinion. For these people, politics is an atomized, individualized experience, to be considered in the privacy of their own home or a voting booth. It is not to be shared with strangers.
In other words, it is precisely the attitude of Kyrie Irving, who has been infuriatingly reticent to discuss his reasoning on the vaccine issue, except to tell people to think for themselves. But politics is NOT about thinking for yourself—it’s about thinking, and acting, collectively. There certainly are personal decisions where you should think for yourself, and I’ve written before that I think getting the vaccine is one. But the vaccine mandates that Irving is objecting do are NOT personal decisions—they are policy decisions that can only been addressed politically, by engaging publicly.
If you try to turn every political decision into a personal choice, then you inevitably end up serving the interests of the capitalist class, who would love to deal with people as a mass of disparate potential consumers, instead of as an organized collective. This is why capital supports the conservative movement, which tries to turn every question into a personal choice, whether it’s buying a gun, choosing health insurance, keeping your carbon footprint down, or bargaining with your boss. But to seriously address these problems, solidarity is needed, which means subordinating your personal choices.
Sometimes, when canvassing, you run into people who get this. During this year’s New York City Council elections, I knocked a woman’s door and asked if she had decided who she was voting for. In her thick Jamaican accent, she just said, “Whoever the UFT is supporting.” This shut down the conversation, since the teacher’s union had backed the establishment-friendly candidate in the race. I suppose I should have wished she would do her own research, so that I might persuade her. But she understood that power doesn’t come from a million people doing their own research (which, nine times out of ten, amounts to little more than a few minutes of Googling). It comes from people agreeing to act as a bloc, which means letting someone else do your research.
Unfortunately, most workers are not unionized (and most unions are really too politically captured to be helpful), and so establishing solidarity is rarely that easy. But for Kyrie Irving, it really could be that easy. He has advantages most workers can only dream of. He’s an active member of a powerful union. He has money and a public platform. If he were really interested in organizing against vaccine mandates, he could do so. But he’s merely interested in demonstrating his own status as a freethinker, so it’s no wonder his decision has been seized on by the far right. The politics of individualism only succeed when it benefits the capitalist class.
To what extent does it matter to you the substance of what the bloc is pursuing and the consequences of that choice? The UFT example suggests maybe not that much: while you weren't happy with her choice of candidate, her bloc solidarity was what was most important.
Let's say one of these states that currently bans localities from having mask mandates were eventually to prohibit anyone from taking the vaccines. Let's further say it's a state where the vast majority of the public is supportive of the policy. Under your logic above, why isn't it just as problematic for someone who "believes science" wants the vaccine in that state to violate the state law and get it anyway (and further say this is is someone who's on the more reserved side who isn't interested in organizing in opposition to the policy)? Aren't they defying the bloc?
Here, as in your previous Irving piece, you barely speak of the obvious rationale behind a vaccine-mandate: the more people that are vaccinated, the more the spread of Covid curbed, and the less risk to everyone's health Covid poses. To what extent does that---that the Covid mandate has immense public health benefits--matter to your argument here?