Another day, another exchange on social media.
I’m embarrassed to live in a country where people refuse to wear a mask 😷
Seat belts save lives – it doesn’t take super intelligence to understand that. Why is it so hard to understand that wearing a mask in public will SAVE LIVES and get our economy back up and running faster!!
why are you embarrassed when the science doesn't support it?
I guess what I’m getting at here is that I would wear a purple top hat if there was even a slight chance it could spare another from becoming ill or possibly dying. What embarrasses me is that some people don’t really operate from that place of love, respect and care for others. I’m not saying that is you. I have seen some angry people on the news really hating on people who wish they would wear a mask. The hate is embarrassing and that each and every person from this country of freedom wouldn’t want to do ANYTHING that might possibly help another human being.
All said with love and respect.
For my part, I think being embarrassed by other people’s behavior indicates some sort of enmeshment or codependence with them where one feels undifferentiated in some way. Thus, if I feel embarrassed when a friend does something, it indicates to me that I believe my identity is at stake or on the line in some way because of something I can’t control: their actions. In my experience, this attitude can destroy my sense of self worth because I have abdicated my center and let it live outside of me in someone else’s choices. I had to work hard to be able to watch other people do things that are uncomfortable for me while standing independently in my choices knowing their actions are theirs to author, not mine, and coming to terms with this has empowered me greatly.
More deeply within that comes a sense of understanding that my identity is not defined by their actions or even my own actions. This of course is a philosophical question about who are we? and what does it mean to have a Self? Personally, I don’t see the Self as being a byproduct of actions so much as that which is. Our Beingness exists regardless of the actions we choose and it isn’t, as I understand it, threatened by choices we make. Now, choices we make may speak to our character, but it may not, since life is a series of complex interrelated choices. We may choose actions in one context that seem, abstractly, to be horrific or generous yet, contextually, are not nearly so easily defined. 
For example, if I said, “a mother left her baby to burn in a building” one could draw all kinds of conclusions from that singular action about the mother. Those conclusions would not change who she is however. If I then said, “the mother was able to gather her 4 other children who could all walk and help them get to safety before the fire got out of control, forcing her to leave the baby to burn in the building” it drastically changes how one might perceive the first sentence because of the surrounding context. Either way, who she is remains the same, regardless of perception or value judgments attached to her actions.
All of that is meant to address the embarrassment part. Although I suspect — perhaps incorrectly — it may be less embarrassment and underneath it, what’s more accurate, is a deep sadness that humans are so… human that they would and “allow” other humans to die when a simple action could prevent that. Sadness about humans humaning makes a lot of sense to me. It’s empathetic, sympathetic and compassionate. I have found myself wallowing in that place, so I do get it, even if that isn’t what’s there for another person.
Beyond that, however, at least for me, is the crux of the conflict: liberty. Some people think others are obligated to behave in certain ways for the so called “greater good” while others do not. In my world view, neither is more right than the other. For some who believe in various forms of the social contract, I’m a monster and “how dare you, you murderer!” (While this particular poster did not engage in such accusations,) I have literally been called a murderer for expressing these views which is an inaccurate use of language designed to emotionally manipulate — the appeal to emotions fallacy — and I for one won’t tolerate it and prefer to laugh at people when they communicate that way. Calling me a murderer for having a different idea is not likely to get me to want to help someone else. In fact, it’s likely to make me want to help everyone else before them because that tactic is, to my aesthetics, gross, imprecise, manipulative, self centered, lacking in self responsibility, undermines mutual respect, and as a result, tears at the fabric of civilized society.
Those are pretty extreme oppositions: I have no responsibility to anyone else but myself vs you’re a murderer if you have no responsibility toward anyone else. None the less, that is the liberty conflict I see at play here.
Back to the comment above, I’ll fess up: I am one of the people described who doesn’t believe I should take an action to change someone else’s feelings, which, if one believes the science linked above, is the only reason to wear a mask. No scientist or doctor I’ve seen argues that the virus itself can go through the cloth we’re using. Thus, it occurs to me that the request is that everyone subordinate their liberty to make other people feel comfortable and/or pretend to feel safer. Essentially, this is an ask to acquiesce liberty in service of other people’s feelings.
I can understand why one holds the philosophical believe that they “should” do something for other people. I don’t share that view. Personally, I’m sick of doing things for other people. I have literally invested in thousands of people only to have hundreds of them turn around and stab me in the back. Cancel culture is real and after being on the receiving end of that experience, I care less and less about humanity as a whole and more and more about my cohort since that is a place where my actions matter and where people will have my back. Given my experience watching humans, many of whom I don’t like, has me not want to bend over backward and do something that:
- I do not believe does anything to help anyone and may in fact hurt. This is based on not only the science provided in the video above, but countless other doctors saying the same thing in countless videos I’ve watched as well as this piece in the New England Journal of Medicine — the relevant excerpt being this part here: “We know that wearing a mask outside health care facilities offers little, if any, protection from infection. Public health authorities define a significant exposure to Covid-19 as face-to-face contact within 6 feet with a patient with symptomatic Covid-19 that is sustained for at least a few minutes (and some say more than 10 minutes or even 30 minutes). The chance of catching Covid-19 from a passing interaction in a public space is therefore minimal. In many cases, the desire for widespread masking is a reflexive reaction to anxiety over the pandemic.”
- If one believes in the golden rule of “do unto others as you would have them do unto you”, I am in fact living by that rule. 100% of humans in all of history so far have died. Death is normal and in fact probably the thing that is most similar about our collective experience on this planet. Personally, I’m in right relationship with my death and I’m willing to die and don’t expect anyone else to do anything for me to prevent me from dying, if that is even possible which is not always the case. Thus, I am treating others not only how I have been treated, but how I want to be treated. Which is to say that…
- I don’t think my health is your responsibility just like I don’t think your health is mine. As someone considered high risk in this pandemic, it seems to me I’d be foolish to expect the other 7.7 billion people on the planet to change their behavior for little old me. It’s narcissistic, self centered, not their job, there’s no evidence it helps, and worst of all, it is me abdicating responsibility for my health and putting it in the hands of someone else which is the least empowering choice I could make to support my own health and well being. And finally…
- The fact that 8.2 million people have survived this so far (if you believe the numbers) indicates that exposure isn’t the actual thing that kills people. Which means it’s an abstraction to blame potential exposure for someone else’s death since it takes two people to make exposure happen. To blame the other person not wearing the mask when the two people have to be close to each other puts the blame solely on the other person rather than putting the responsibility for exposure where it belongs: on both party’s shoulders. If you don’t want to be exposed, you need to shelter yourself from exposure, not rely on other people. Furthermore, and more importantly to my measure, what kills people is their body’s lack of capacity to keep them healthy. There is literally nothing anyone can do to change someone else’s body’s capacity or their immune health. With such a high survival rate and such a low morality rate by my measure — which is subjective and a view with which you may not agree — to even be having this conversation seems like escalating an issue that doesn’t deserve the level of outrage it has achieved.
For perspective, in the middle of a pandemic, we are gaining more humans on the planet by the thousands each day than we are losing which, factually speaking, means this isn’t an extinction level event and therefore isn’t fundamentally threatening to our species. 100-150K people die daily in the world. That means fewer people died in the past 7+ months of this pandemic than we lose in a week on the planet. I personally have a hard time getting emotional about those numbers from a species level perspective.
Sure, it’s terrible when we lose our loved ones and that is utterly devastating and painful.
And, that loss will happen for all of us eventually.
Wishing you ease in these challenging times.
Graphic compliments of AllSides.com