Buck The Binary: Refuse To Choose A Side

“I’m not picking a side, and you can’t make me.” – me, since at least 1984. 

In a society where every viral talking point is black or white, good or bad, right or wrong, Left or Right, Republican or Democrat, I am choosing to pop a Tamiflu and dip before the conversation makes me sick.

As a chronic illness patient, I’m already sick enough, thank you. I don’t need you nuance-averse, binary-pushing bitches making my challenges any harder…

And yet…

A young man shot up the Centers for Disease Control this month. The CDC was on lockdown, everyone was terrified, and an officer and the gunman both lost their lives.

While details are sparse, those who knew the gunman claimed that his motivations had something to do with either distrusting the COVID vaccine, or from having been harmed by it.

As anyone who follows my work knows, my chronic illness was the result of Adverse Drug Reactions (ADRs), so my social media feeds since the shooting have been relentless “takes” from two, binary “camps” on the issue.

Camp 1: we believe that folks who claim that medications and/or vaccines aren’t safe are crazy conspiracy theorists; there are adequate patient protections in place; aberrations (like Erin Greer) erode trust in the system and lead to the rise of polarizing figures like Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and, worse, tragedies like the CDC shootings.

Camp 2: we believe the U.S. healthcare system is inherently dangerous; it’s purposefully lying to, poisoning, and killing people; you should therefore avoid medications, and never get a vaccine or register to donate your organs. If you do, you (Erin Greer) are contributing to a corrupt system and should be ashamed of yourself.

“You have to pick a side,” each black/white, wrong/right binary Camp insists. “After all, this isn’t a disagreement over something arbitrary, like favorite color. This issue has life or death implications. You have to pick a side, and if you don’t, then you are bad, immoral, and personally bear collective responsibility for any and all health-related travesties until the end of time.”

Yowza.

That escalated quickly.

In their respective quests to be right, neither camp seems to recognize that their behaviors – performative righteous smugness and attempts to shame/blame dissenters – are shining examples of the political Horseshoe Theory, and completely lacking in nuance. 

And that’s a problem.

Especially with regard to healthcare, where individual experiences are as varied and nuanced as human bodies themselves.

See, Camp 1 is right. There are protections in place for patient safety. Most folks in healthcare have good (or, at least, not nefarious) intentions, meds and vaccines probably won’t injure most people, and they do work. But Camp 1’s stance makes no room for people like me. And there are hundreds of thousands – by some estimates it’s millions – of people like me. In fact, according to the American Society of Pharmacovigilance, ADRs are the third leading cause of death in the United States. That’s a pretty glaring omission by Camp 1.

Camp 2 is also right: There are people – lots of them! – who’ve been harmed or killed by medications and vaccines. There have been instances of proven healthcare corruption and cover-ups (The New York Times just ran a polarizing article about the frightening and unethical practices of some organ donation organizations, for example). Big Pharma does have a lot of power, and people who are harmed are often scoffed at or completely ignored by our healthcare system. But it’s also true that millions of American lives have been saved by modern medications and vaccines. Some diseases have been mostly eradicated because of them. That’s a pretty glaring omission by Camp 2.

If you point out these glaring omissions, as I have? Well, pack up your sleeping bag and tent, because you won’t be getting invited back to either camp.

Not that that stops the other camps from trying to recruit, of course. Not a news cycle goes by without the media, socials, teachers, parents, or friends all demanding that you pick a side. On everything. 

Republican or Democrat? Unfettered immigration or mass deportation?
Protect the environment (big frogs) or promote big business (big jobs)? Oil or electric? Democratic Socialism or Free Market Capitalism? 

Hell, I’m now being asked to make some sort of binary moral choice about ads for blue jeans. 

And you know what? 

No.

Just…no.

I’m not gonna do it.

I’m not gonna acquiesce to your binary black/white, wrong/right, good/bad boxes for human existence.

Because binaries refuse to acknowledge or “make space” for countless factors and outcomes that don’t fit neatly into a one-or-the-other box: in healthcare, in politics, in day-to-day life, and in the totality of human experience.

They fail to account for the fact that two opposing ideas can be true at the same time. Or that, often, a third, fourth, and fifth thing can be true at the same time.

The world is not binary. Human existence is not binary. And truth is not binary, no matter what that one-minute, surface-level, performative, smug, binary TikTok told you. 

Acknowledging that there are very real risks in healthcare doesn’t make me a “crazy conspiracy theorist,” just as telling people they should probably still consider getting recommended vaccines doesn’t make me “complicit in the disability and death” of people like me. 

Buck the stupid binaries. 

I’m not picking a side; and you can’t make me.