Why Some Believe Vaccinations are Dangerous

Dialogue: Topic—Vaccinations
Me: I see that the coronavirus is spreading. I am worried about it—I think it is causing a lot of death in China and it could potentially be quite bad here. Unfortunately, they are saying that a vaccine is still a year away.
Friend: Even if they had a vaccine ready to go today, I would not take it. Who knows what is in those things?
Me: You would take it for your children, though—no?
Friend: If they came for my children and wanted to shoot them up with vax, they would have to do it over my dead body. I’m not stupid, I see what those things do to kids. SIDs? Are you serious? You think babies just suddenly die? Sudden infant death syndrome was not a problem until the vaccine industry got started and they started injecting babies with that stuff. Or look at the rate of incidence of autism in this country over the past decade or two. Through the roof! And the rise of autism correlates perfectly with the rise in the amount of vaccines they are giving to kids now. No way would I ever trust anyone in health care with my kid.
Me: Hm. Do you think that there could be another explanation for what you’re describing?
Friend: Like what? Do you have one?
Me: No. Maybe it could be coincidence.
Friend: I don’t believe in coincidence.
Me: Or maybe we just don’t have all the information.
Friend: Get informed, pal. Read up on all the toxic stuff they put in vaccines.
Me: If that were true, why doesn’t everyone get sick from them?
Friend: What’s that? I don’t know—maybe it only really affects certain people with a particular make-up. I don’t know.
Me: So—see—there’s more information that we don’t have that we could use.
Friend: Right, well, I have enough information now to know better than to trust the vaccination industry.
Me: My nephews and nieces have all had their shots. They wouldn’t be allowed in school without them. What are you going to do with your children when it is time for them to go to school?
Friend: We’ll look around. There are places. Won’t be sending them to public school, but that’s fine.
Me: What if the coronavirus came here? What if it was mandatory?
Friend: Like I said, I think we’d be safer without the vaccines. I think they do more harm than good.
Me: Hm. Well, I want you to be safe, and I want your kids to be safe. I’ll have to read up on this literature that you’re recommending. Do you have any of it handy?
Friend: I can email you a link to a video on YouTube—if it’s still up, that is. YouTube has been deleting accounts that dare to tell any bit of truth these days.
Me: Really! That’s interesting. I would like to see it, for sure. I have also been watching videos on YouTube about this subject.
Friend: Be careful! There’s some crazy stuff out there.
Me: Yes, I can believe it. Would you like to see what I have been watching? Maybe you can help me to understand what the issues are.
Friend: Send it to me. I’ll tell you everything wrong with what you’ve been watching.
Me: That would be most helpful! I would really appreciate that. But let’s do this, so that we can be completely fair. Let’s take notes on the videos that we send each other, and then compare them with notes that we ourselves take. We will see what things we both picked out from them before we start to dissect them. I would like to see what we are both picking out and focusing on before we get into the dissection stage. You know what I mean?
Friend: I think so. Like do a critique of the video?
Me: Yeah—watch the video you’re going to send me and take notes on it. Then I’ll watch it and take notes on it. Then we’ll compare notes. And we’ll do it with the video I send you, too.
Friend: Sounds interesting.
Me: I think it would be a good exercise in objective analysis. I like to be as objective as I can when I’m thinking about new topics. I’m aware that I can get a little too wrapped up in my own head at times and I start seeing everything through a prejudiced lens.
Friend: A prejudiced lens?
Me: Yeah—you know—my own personal bias colors everything I look at so instead of seeing things as they really are, it all gets filtered through a kind of lens that distorts the reality. I try to remove whatever bias I may have up front. Actually, what we should do before we take notes is state our own personal beliefs at the top of the page. This is a good way to get whatever bias we might have out of the way.
Friend: How does that work?
Me: By stating what you believe up front, you can be more aware of how preconceived notions might be affecting your outlook. I do it whenever I start investigating something I don’t know much about but ask myself what I believe about it.
Friend: Sounds interesting. Okay, let’s do that and meet up next week to talk more.
Me: Great!
The “self” has an essential function in dialogue. Without skillful management of ourselves, we are at the mercy of our unconscious operating systems. To upgrade our operating systems from \"thought- or memory-based\" to be more creative and \"awareness-based,\" as both dialogue theorist W. B. Pearce is suggesting, we need to learn how to make this change at the moment. While the change is simple in nature, it can be challenging in practice.
For the first assignment, the idea is to shift from assumptions to mindfulness and awareness of our communication with others.
To make this shift from unconscious conversation into conscious dialogue, Assignment 1 is to identify a topic where a strong belief is held.
Assignment Instructions
Part 1: Choose a subject that is meaningful to you and has opposing viewpoints. For this assignment, you will have a conversation with a colleague or friend where the other person has a different view than you. Topic