The summer before my freshman year of college, I sat in my doctor’s office and calmly explained why I would not be getting the HPV Vaccine.

My argument was simple:

I was abstinent and staying that way, and therefore, I did not need a sex-related vaccine.

The doctor frowned at me.

“I was like you,” she said, shaking her head. “I went to college thinking I wouldn’t go out and party or drink, but things change. You need to be safe.”

“No thanks.”

She rolled her stool over to me. “Sarah, I’m serious. You could be raped.”

I must have had an unimpressed look on my face because she proceeded to tell me sexual assault was all but a guarantee, and that if I didn’t get stabbed in the arm right then and there, rape and cervical cancer were coming for me.

I didn’t find her at all convincing.

Besides, I’d been prepped the year prior by a real, live FBI agent on what to do if someone tried to touch me in a way I didn’t like.

Grab the groin.

Squeeze the groin.

Wring that sucker out like a washcloth.

Gouge the eyes.

If someone came at me, I was confident I would be fine.

“I don’t need the shot,” I said again.

She sighed, pure exasperation in her eyes, no doubt thinking I was going to get cervical dysplasia and die.

“You don’t understand,” she said, producing a pamphlet and shoving it in my hand.

Now, if you know me, you know I love to read, so a pamphlet was right up my alley.

However, I also hate needles, so I was not about to get stabbed unnecessarily.

Fearmongering pamphlet notwithstanding.

As if sensing she was wasting her time, the doctor huffed, looked up at me, and delivered her closing line:

“Well, what happens if you sit on a public bus seat that’s covered in semen, and you’re wearing a dress without underwear on?”

…

…

…

Friends, there are a handful of things I know I’ll never forget, and that question is one of them.

Truly.

It could be my epitaph:

“Here lies Sarah Christine, a girl who sat, sans-underwear, on a semen-coated bus seat.”

C’est la vie.

But seriously.

Having lived in D.C. for three years and ridden public buses regularly, I can say with certainty that no seat I’ve encountered has ever been adorned so…

Indecorously.

Not to mention that I went to a high school where we wore kilts everyday so I know full well that underwear is not an accessory.

It is a necessity.

And yet…

I gave in and got the shot.

I know! I know!

I should’ve held the line.

But friends, I don’t know if you’ve ever gone toe-to-toe with a physician on a mission, but let me tell you, it is a fight.

Because they are convinced they’re 100% right and are prepared to insist to the point of ridiculousness that they know exactly how to proceed.

And sadly, under the force of their insistence and sesquipedalian degrees, many, including me, simply give in and cede defeat.

I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately.

Like, a lot–a lot.

Because as far as I can see, the physician on a mission mentality has spread like a contagious disease.

Indeed, there are many in our society today who are prepared to insist that they know just what you and I need–not solely in the realm of sex-vaccines–but in everything, and I look at those people with an enormous sense of unease.

See, I think Princetonian J. Gresham Machen said it best when he wrote almost a hundred years ago,

“It never seems to occur to modern legislatures that although ‘welfare’ is good, forced welfare may be bad.”

Amen.

Amen. Amen. Amen.

And so today, friends, I thought it would be a good idea to discuss how politici–

Excuse me.

I mean, physicians on missions operate, so that we are prepared on appointment day to, if necessary, go toe-to-toe with them and say,

“No. Thanks.”

Physician On A Mission Step One: Sincerity

I recently read Iris Murdoch’s essay collection The Sovereignty of Good, (which, if you haven’t read it, you really should) wherein she says,

“It is significant that the idea of goodness (and of virtue) has been largely superseded in Western moral philosophy by the idea of rightness, supported perhaps by some conception of sincerity.“

If you revisit the anecdote above, you will see the good doctor practically oozed sincerity.

She sincerely believed that a sex-vaccine was something I’d need based on her personal experience and professional expertise.

I sincerely disagreed.

The fact that we were at odds in our sincerity should be a good indicator that sincerity is not, itself, a great, good thing.

Rather it is a morally neutral thing made laudable or contemptable by the content of its associated belief.

If the belief or end is malformed or diseased, holding it sincerely is not a great, good thing.

In fact, in those cases, sincerity can actually worsen matters.

Significantly.

Because, in its worst iteration, sincerity does a few things.

It makes you think no reasonable person could disagree.

It keeps your conscience squeaky clean.

And perhaps most worryingly, it leads you to think that those sincerely held ends justify any and all means.

Which ultimately leads to tyranny.

In “A Humanitarian Theory of Punishment,” C.S. Lewis writes,

“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their conscience.”

“They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time are likelier still to make Hell on earth. This very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be ‘cured’ against one’s will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and animals.”

I don’t know about you, but I see many people today who, impelled not by goodness or virtue but sincerity, are prepared to forcefully “cure” people like you and me of things which we do not regard as disease.

And that…

That should worry us.

It certainly worries me.

However!

We need to take care not to let our worry run away because it does us absolutely no good to be afraid.

In fact, fear actually aids politi–

Eh-hem.

Physicians on missions.

Let me explain!

Physician On A Mission Step Two: Fearmongering

I recently re-watched Tangled (AKA one of the best Disney movies of all time) and was struck by the song “Mother Knows Best.”

Below are the relevant lyrics!

Mother knows best!
Listen to your mother–
It’s a scary world out there!
Mother knows best!
One way or another
Something will go wrong, I swear!

Ruffians, thugs, poison ivy, quicksand!
Cannibals and snakes, the plague–no!
Yes! Also large bugs, men with pointy teeth and –
Stop, no more, you’ll just upset me!

Mother Gothel’s use of scare tactics is, shall we say, relevant?

Because, ultimately, what she is trying to do is frighten Rapunzel into compliance.

Which is exactly what the good doctor tried to do to me.

Doctor knows best!
Listen to your doctor–
It’s a scary world out there!
Doctor knows best!
One way or another
Something will go wrong, I swear!

Sexual assault, cervical dysplasia!
HPV and rape, guaranteed-no!
Yes! Also, read this, cancer, cancer, can-
Stop, no more, you’ll just upset me!

Frankly, I might’ve been more inclined to agree if she’d serenaded me.

But that’s neither here nor there.

My point is that physicians on missions are not above using fear.

Now to be clear!

They may well be correct in saying there’s something scary out there, but we should also understand that Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan was correct when he wrote,

“The person making such a statement [a proclamation of impending doom] is asking that the power someone else has be given to him or to her.”

Mother Gothel wanted Rapunzel to stay in the tower indefinitely.

That doctor wanted me to agree to get an unnecessary sex-vaccine.

Fear was a tool they used so that their goals could be achieved.

You see, the language of existential emergency whether it invokes cannibals, snakes, the plague, imminent rape and cancer, or some other iteration of “the sky is falling!” is often disguising pure and simple demagoguery.

The person using it is asking you to give up and give them all authority.

And that…

That should make us leery.

So the next time you hear a politic–

Pardon me–my fingers keep slipping.

A physician on a mission that seems intent on making everything sound oh so scary, consider these two questions:

Why are they trying to scare me?

And!

Does what they’re saying portray the situation accurately?

Because, as we shall see, physicians on missions have a tendency to misrepresent reality.

Physician On A Mission Step Three: Misrepresenting Reality

A little over a year ago, I was watching a 60 Minutes interview wherein the person (who happened to be a politician) being interviewed said this:

“There’s a lot of people more concerned about being precisely, factually, and semantically correct than about being morally right.”

Friends, when I heard those words, a chill went down my spine.

Because, at bottom, what was being said was that as long as you believe you are “morally right,” it’s no big deal to fudge the facts to ensure people agree with what you prescribe.

In essence, you can lie.

Now, beyond the simple fact that lying seems, to me, to be itself a sign of moral deficiency, misrepresenting reality, even benevolently, has deleterious effects on individuals and society.

See, when the good doctor told me that all I’d need to do to contract HPV was sit underwear-less on a semen coated bus seat, she was pragmatically misrepresenting reality.

It was a hypothetical extreme and, frankly, an absurdity.

But at the time, I believed doctors were inherently trustworthy, so even though I didn’t think I was truly at risk for HPV, I agreed to get the vaccine.

Now, the doctor likely counted my quiescence as a victory.

No doubt she clapped herself on the back, thinking she’d done the “morally right” thing by protecting another naïve girl from getting HPV.

But I’d argue it was a pyrrhic victory.

Because here’s the thing.

I walked away from the doctor’s office that day knowing two things.

1. I’d gotten a vaccine I did not need and
2. The doctor had manipulated if not outright lied to me.

She was no longer trustworthy.

And see, I think the loss of that trust is more significant than giving me a vaccine I did not need.

And yet!

From what I can see, many, many people have adopted the belief that they can misrepresent reality with impunity so long as they’re doing the “morally right” thing.

And they wonder why trust in institutions has fallen precipitously.

Eventually people see.

We see through the sincerity.

We see through the fearmongering.

We see through the blatant misrepresentations of reality.

And the end result is far from pretty.

So…

For my mission-minded politici–

Physicians out there.

Unless you want to be told “No thanks” come appointment day.

Now might be a good time to reassess how you operate.

That’s all for this week!

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P.S. This is not meant as an indictment of vaccines or doctors! If you want a more straightforward take on what I’m trying to say please read G.K. Chesterton’s “The Medical Mistake.”