This Week in Viewpoints, as we rapidly approach the end of the semester and what is (hopefully) shaping up to be a summer of mask-free frolicking in the park, we once again take a look at the best opinion/non-news journalism that I’ve read this past week.
First, an opinion piece from NPR entitled “Doctors Should Be More Candid With Their Patients,” by Maria Gordon. The title was striking because…well…I had hoped doctors would be as candid as possible with their patients.
Gordon’s piece focuses on her experience deciding to get a COVID vaccine as a pregnant woman, and how medical professionals were more comfortable sharing their recommendations with her in a personal capacity than as doctors. In other words, doctors were reluctant to tell their patients definitively that they should be vaccinated while pregnant, but if their friends asked the same question they would give them the straight and honest recommendation that they do so. While some patients attribute this to doctor’s wanting to avoid malpractice suits (and I’m certain there’s an element of that), she also explained this as part of modern medical culture’s anti-paternalism. As she explains:
I actually think the reason most doctors are hesitant to tell patients what to do has altruistic roots. Avoiding paternalism is a crucial ethical principle. However, in the last few months, I’ve come to worry that our attempts to respect autonomy sometimes leaves patients in the lurch.
Because my friends and colleagues took the time to talk through my fears and questions about the vaccines, their pointed advice afterward didn’t feel like paternalism. It felt like respect and transparency.
Thus, her conclusion that doctors should be honest with patients in the same way that her doctor-friends were up-front and honest with her rather than hedging their recommendations in the name of patient autonomy.
From the outlet Fifty-Two which collects journalism and essays from the Indian subcontinent, Supriya Roychoudhury weaves the tale of “Hathi,” the Indian elephant that the New Delhi government gifted to the Afghans before the Soviet invasion, and how the story of elephants in Afghanistan reflects the close cultural ties between India and Afghanistan and the exhaustion of the Afghani people with decades of war. I found the essay extremely touching and tenderly written. One of the more striking passages displaying that closeness between the two nations reads:
Outside of official channels, the bonds of Indo-Afghan friendship remained strong. Nambiar told me about his barber, who was extremely knowledgeable about Indian classical music. “One time, as I was getting a haircut, I could hear music coming from his transistor radio. He saw me shaking my head to the tune, and asked me, ‘Do you know whose music this is?’” A lively conversation about the nuances of Indian classical music ensued. “I mean, he taught me about the tabla traditions of North India,” Nambiar said with a laugh.
He recounted an instance when he invited his barber to attend a classical dance performance at the Indian mission along with senior dignitaries of the Afghan government. “He arrived well in time,” Nambiar remembered, “and without the slightest inhibition occupied the best seat in the front row next to the Vice President of the country.”
At any rate, if you will only read one essay about an elephant in your life… probably you should read Orwell’s “Shooting an Elephant” instead. But if you read two, make this one the second.
Finally, Bari Weiss, in exile from the New York Times, penned a recent missive on her Substack, Common Sense, entitled “What Should Be Done to Curb Big Tech?”
It’s a question lots of people are asking these days. While I won’t quote to widely from the article, I did particularly like her breakdown of the current political dynamic as it regards Big Tech, Section 230, and censorship.
Progressives are supposed to be against corporate power. And yet on this subject, they are the ones pushing for more of it. They are enraged that these companies don’t crack down harder on “disinformation,” arguing that the Zuckerbergs and Dorseys of the world put profit above principle when they allow groups like QAnon to run wild on their platforms. Sure, President Trump was banned, but only after he lost the election. Why didn’t it happen earlier? Private companies are not hamstrung by the First Amendment, so why do they hesitate to ban dangerous people whose online words lead to real-world violence?
Conservatives are supposed to be for small government and allergic to sweeping intervention. And yet some of the country’s most prominent Republicans find themselves arguing against free enterprise. The crux of their argument, pushed most passionately by Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri, goes like this: The law is handing Big Tech companies a ridiculous and unfair advantage. Section 230 grants companies like Twitter protection from the kind of legal liability that makes a traditional publisher, like a newspaper, vulnerable. Why should tech companies have that privilege, given that they obviously make editorial decisions? Fairness would begin with a repeal of Section 230.
At any rate, it’s a good overview of the phenomenon and, as she points out, some heavy hitters like Justice Clarence Thomas have been signaling willingness to renew the politico-cultural war on this issue.
I hope this reading list keeps you busy over the weekend, but not too busy, finals being a week away and all. Merry reading!
