Read on Twitter
I keep seeing posts asking why/how people can possibly choose not to wear masks, why they can be so callous and careless about others' health and well-being. The only answer proffered usually is just that, callousness or wicked impunity. Are there other possible answers, though?
This seems important to ask 1) if we want people to mask, since mask-shaming is unlikely to be very effective and 2) if we want to be present to people's real choices rather than painting them as bad or irredeemable individuals.
I know that maintaining my subjective sense of Covid and the reality of the crisis requires some work, as I no longer listen endlessly to the sound of death and instead see life starting to return around me. This isn't about what I think, but what I feel.
Politically and ethically (a word I notoriously dislike), it's incredibly important to me not to learn to see other people as disease vectors with whom any contact carries danger, *even when that's possibly true at the moment*. [Possibly, because of course most people aren't.]
But mask-shaming without considering the wider context of the pandemic and its utter mis-handling, the effect of different access to information, and the mistakes made by mask wearers and promoters is, I think, politically and ethically wrong as well as ineffective.
It's not just that we were explicitly told, for a long time and at the height of the crisis, not to mask. Nor that evidence for masking's effectiveness remains mostly indirect. Nor that in some places like the Northeast, community transmission remains comparatively low.
And in places where it's growing, it's sometimes also low as well as less deadly, probably because more vulnerable and older people are shielding more. It's also that nothing has been done to make this time more livable for most people. Almost no support for needs or life.
Instead, we get moralization and shaming, including of that notorious Ozarks picture which (spoiler) did *not* so far lead to a notable increase in cases despite liberals and leftists basically levying charges of murder at the people in the photo: https://twitter.com/dwallacewells/status/1274317352524484608
So why might people choose not to mask? They may not know they should. They may be taking advantage of a period where transmission has been notably lower due to the effects of lockdown. They may find it uncomfortable and difficult to remember.
They may not believe the evidence. They may RIGHTLY mistrust expertise in this case, where expertise has failed almost everywhere. They may not want to make efforts individually where our sociopolitical networks of support have failed so utterly.
They may themselves be essential workers who are already exposed and who figure that a bit more exposure doesn't matter. (Yes, I know mask wearing is to protect others.)
But I also think there's something much more basic at work here. One is the longterm unsustainability for most people of crisis-feeling and acting. Another is the reality that this situation never offered any good choices but the United States made almost all the worst ones.
There's also a disconnect, however, between the ordinariness of certain actions and their possible consequences. Most times cishets have unprotected sex, no one gets pregnant. Most times someone drives over the limit, no one dies. And so on, for all kinds of real risks.
[Perhaps a less controversial analogy: most times I ride my bike, I don't get hit by a car.]
We have to create networks of support, care, and mitigation that make certain actions easy and habitual. It would also help if we showed any concern whatsoever for people's quality of life during this time, rather than assigning any desire for human communion to sheer nihilism.
Physical distancing sucks. Wearing a mask isn't that great either. The fact that there are realities that are much, much, much worse than these doesn't make the experience of them good or pleasant.
More than one thing can be bad at once! When we shame and don't offer offer creative solutions for how people can be together, or find bodily well-being during this time, I think we risk isolating just one aspect of a very bad situation and turning it into a morality tale.
It's tempting because this situation is so out of all our control in itself, and also sucks, and has also been made worse in truly wicked and evil ways by truly wicked and evil actions, so the morality tale isn't entirely wrong [but, I think, not well targeted].
We need to start from what people actually do, feel, think, and experience. We need to acknowledge limitation and failure regarding the evidence, and also recognize that people make individual decisions that have cumulatively bad effects all the time.
Supporting another outcome will require a creativity that can meet people where they actually are, both when it comes to encouraging masking and in finding ways to let people be together as much as possible, as safely as possible, in circumstances where no real safety exists.
