Not every controversial, contentious or cultural occurrence in our world is a binary choice between right and wrong. 

Certainly, there are some exceptions. One’s view of the immorality of the Holocaust, for example, would be well suited to such unnuanced terms. However, most social and political questions facing our world have far more allowance for complexity.  

Unfortunately, much of our public discourse has been reduced to a simple “Us vs. Them” narrative where ideological diversity and skepticism—even that which is well-founded or well intentioned—is maligned, rather than explored. 

Examples of such disdain for opposing opinions isn’t difficult to find in our modern world. Pretty much any political fundraising email seems especially crafted to capture this precise phenomenon. 

However, the absurd levels of self-righteous indignation displayed between ideological opponents in the era of COVID is an ongoing demonstration of how such binary thinking has made reasonable policy discussions a rare occurrence. 

The facts behind the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s new guidelines (and Nevada’s new mandates) are simple enough: There is a new, far more contagious, variant of the novel coronavirus—and vaccinated individuals are capable of contracting and even transmitting it to one degree or another. 

However, the interpretations of those facts, and what government should do about it, are more complex than the facts themselves. For example, given that anti-vaxxers have already tried to subvert CDC data to discredit the vaccines themselves, it seems likely that rising infection rates among the vaccinated could pose a messaging problem for government. 

In truth, however, vaccines are remarkably effective—the emergence of the Delta variant notwithstanding. In addition to being far less likely to contract the virus in the first place, the odds of a vaccinated individual being hospitalized due to the virus is less than 0.003 percent, and the death rate among the vaccinated is 0.0005 percent—or, slightly lower than being struck by lightning. 

Given the actual efficacy of the vaccine—and the need to persuade more Americans to get the jab—it seems quite reasonable to criticize public policies and government messaging that might undermine confidence in it. And, yes, that might just include criticism of mandates that require vaccinated individuals to mask up. 

Discussions about the epidemiological, behavioral and political wisdom of public health policy, however, seems increasingly verboten nowadays—with each ideological faction racing to delegitimize the others. According to the partisan narratives on social media, you are either a mask-loving authoritarian shilling for a bleak dystopian future or a troglodyte unwilling to comprehend the basic nature of viral spread. 

However, as with most things in public policy, health care and behavioral economics, nothing is quite as binary as keyboard warriors would like us to believe. 

To be fair, there are seriously irreconcilable differences between some ideological approaches to reducing the risks associated with COVID and its variants—however the cultural insistence among each side that they own the patent on scientific empiricism, and that their opposition is comprised entirely of conspiracists leading the world into another dark age, is a decidedly destructive political outlook. 

And it’s not happening only among armchair-epidemiologists. 

On virtually every political question, the indignation displayed by those who discover divergent points of view are greatly agitating already deep fault lines within our political and popular culture. Virtually any public discussion seems susceptible to the grift of self-declared ideological puritans ready to crucify those who dare to blaspheme—and as a consequence, Americans are growing increasingly intolerant of those with whom they disagree. 

That’s not to say that every opinion or perspective should be taken with equal sincerity and respect. After all, as many people have erroneously credited Mark Twain with pointing out, debating an idiot is often reputationally hazardous. However, criticisms and skepticism of most varieties deserve to be evaluated in good faith before being righteously strewn aside as ramblings from unserious contrarians. And, increasingly, such good faith considerations are not taking place. 

The sooner we learn to explore the perspectives that have led large swaths of the population to craft opinions divergent from our own, the sooner we will be capable of emerging from the plague of intolerance gripping American political and cultural discourse. 

A public response to a global pandemic is an inherently complex undertaking—rooted in science, behavioral economics, social theories and political realities. As such, we shouldn’t expect opinions about the proper course of action to divide neatly into cartoonishly binary trains of thought. 

Acting as if they do, will only antagonize the cultural divides that are already making progress so difficult in the first place. 

Michael Schaus began his professional career in the financial sector, where he became deeply interested in economic theory and the concept of free markets. Over a decade ago, that interest led him to a career in policy and public commentary—working as a columnist, a political humorist and a radio talk show host. Today, Michael is director of communications for the Nevada Policy Research Institute and lives with his wife and daughter in Las Vegas. Follow him on Twitter at @schausmichael.