And what precisely gave us those vaccines in the first place? And what is it that is making them so rare these days?

The answer to both is conviction, and not to mention an inverse property, namely lack thereof. Since the 90s, we've lived in Fukuyama's end of history, and endured an age free of doctrine and ideas. Turns out it was also the end of democracy in any functional sense of the word.

Where you can no longer abide conviction, but rather broker power in its most starkest of forms. Now I ask you, how precisely is this better than religion? When a radical Islamist blows himself up for some afterlife I can see logic there, but when a secular US Marine slaughters a village of Iraqi civilians in order to "get even" for 9/11 then I see a regression.

Animals do not pray, or imagine, or find higher purposes, they also act on such baser instincts. I think the situation is far more dire than simply the death of ideas, and convictions, and religion, I think it is a symptom of a far more dire prognosis. We live in an age where we see the death of poetry. Where, in some dystopian notion, we think acting according to realism is the same as acting according to reality.

The metaphysical veil which separates us has been replaced with a rather dour substitute, where intelligence is jaded and cruel. Where creativity, imagination, determination and agency is replaced with the disillusioned surrender to power.

Where every two bit nihilist can fill his pockets by proclaiming that no thought is higher thought, that to be silent is to never be wrong about anything, and I think that last time Europe was in such a fervent and postmodern state of affairs, we witnessed the rise of fascism.

And as it turns out, the extremists and the fanatics and the madmen of such an age are people we today refer as partisans, and we owe our freedom to their willingness to think.