I guess this is another result of an individualistic culture? A lot of Americans really don't like being told what to do, wear, or say. Even if it's in their best interest to do so.
https://www.thegauntlet.news/p/how-the-press-manufactured-co...
There are plenty of others I see (admittedly less so, but still daily in the affluent Bay Area) who drive around in their cars, alone, with masks on (non-Uber) and people who show up at the gym everyday wearing a mask while walking on a treadmill. I toured a preschool earlier this week where the teachers were all still required(?) to wear masks in the classroom (a bilingual Chinese immersion Montessori program).
Admittedly, I’m pretty anti-mask, and for those reasons: it dehumanizes interactions. That said, (for those still reading) I wish masks were a norm for when people were sick and carried no additional activist messaging. I fully support that use case and appreciate my fellow humans who wear them in those circumstances.
But then also, I’d expect those interactions to be rare, because if you’re sick you shouldn’t be hanging out with others, but self isolating.
I’m about as liberal they come, and so are many in my circle. But not one person wore a mask for the sole purpose of not liking Donald Trump and then using a mask as a statement. That’s a bizarre take.
https://news.gallup.com/opinion/gallup/354938/adults-estimat...
It may have been absurd how quickly masks were given up in red areas (don’t know; wasn’t there), but our laggard approach in Santa Clara county certainly was and felt reactionary.
I wear a mask when out in public and my reasons, which are multiple, include but are not limited to "I have an immune compromised family member and don't want to be the one who kills them" and "I myself have been sick only once in the last 4 years and I'm pretty happy about that".
That being said, there are many situations where it still makes sense:
- Feeling sick and on your way to pick up someone else
- Just dropped someone off and haven't taken it off yet
- It's not easy to take on and off so you just leave it on
- You're only driving for a minute and will need it when you get out.
So they're still wrong, but I see why they said it.
The right started out as "Covid is bad, but so is crashing the economy to prevent it", which turned into "Covid isn't that bad, wearing a mask is excessive", which became "The vaccine is more harmful than the disease". The left went from "Causing people to die is worse than any economy hit" -> "You should do everything possible to prevent it" -> "You should wear a mask at all times in public".
I often feel the left would have taken reversed stances if the right had taken the pandemic seriously. If Trump had advocated shutting things down and pushed strongly for vaccines/masks, it seems pretty likely the left would have called this an authoritarian overreach and/or highly questioned the safety of the vaccines.
In short, I think our culture is so highly polarized that as soon as something becomes a major topic, people immediately divide into separate 'sides' on it.
EDIT: follow-up question -- was the pandemic as polarizing in other countries besides the US?
EG: even European countries that were more draconian earlier in the pandemic returned to relative normalcy, with less fear/debate around school reopenings, mandatory testing, mandatory masking, etc, sooner than the US.
In the US, sticky "showy extreme COVID vigilance is my essential identity as a good citizen" or "showy nonchalance is my essential identity as a free person" partisanship lingers.
https://www.thegauntlet.news/p/how-the-press-manufactured-co...
Biden, Harris, and Pelosi all said in September 2020 that they won't trust any Trump vaccine. <https://www.newsweek.com/anti-vaccine-covid-trust-skepticism...>
Once the sides were drawn, American polarization kicked in. There's no room for mere difference of opinion. The other side must be evil, stupid, and intent on destroying America.
I'd argue that that's especially true for the party in power at the time, though you have to take that with a grain of salt since I'm on the opposite side.
This always seemed rather optimistic. Flu rates are seasonal, and COVID could have been seasonal. But pandemic flus and particularly nasty flu strains also fade away because enough people either get them or get vaccinated that they are usually no longer so significant the following year. COVID lockdowns largely prevented this.
If the vaccines had worked anywhere near as well as an optimistic interpretation of the trials suggested, the lockdowns would probably have looked better in hindsight.
(Which isn’t to say that lockdowns didn’t have some value. If nothing else, they bought time for the vaccines to roll out and they may have contributed to a lot of people getting Omicron instead of earlier strains. It seems like Omicron was a decent amount less nasty.)
Masking/not masking became an overt way of signaling tribal association, and it was no accident whatsoever. Predictably, it caused untold numbers of unnecessary deaths.
One takeaway from all this is how willing and fervent people are to signal their group membership, even at the expense of personal life safety.
Having been raised by 2 Republican extremists, I can tell you exactly why it was so politicized:
1. "YOU CANT TELL ME WHAT TO DO!" Is the refrain of government telling people what to do or not. And remember, that corporations are legally people, so the same applies.
2. Higher education leads to 'librul ideas', with things like gay people should have the same rights as straights, racism is still a thing, and other higher thinking. And this 'education' is seen as indoctrination.
3. Because of disdain for higher education (which is seen as indoctrination), comes the idea that "My upbringing is worth just as much as your book knowledge", throwing away bodies of evidence. Journals are equivalent to scribbles.
It's hard not to see higher ed as indoctrination when employees are forced to pledge DEI statements which are based in radical leftist politics.
DEI is an indoctrination ideology and it's spawned from critical theory depts in academia primarily.
And if treating people of all walks of life is "radical leftist politics", I'd hate to know what your politics are. I have my guesses.
And that "critical theory" you also espouse? Yeah, it's called history. And yeah, history is 'uncomfortable', especially when talking about oppressors/oppressed, like wars, apartheid, Jim Crow. Basically, this is just republicans wanting their own 'safe space' when they bemoan how the lefties want their safe space.... Except the republicans demand that their safe space is anywhere they are. Arrogance at its finest, really.
Then again, I grew up with the traditional Republican brainwashing crap. If you can't teach yourself, nobody can help you.
You're reading that wrong then. Seems like leftists will often interpret disagreement as evidence of evil.
> And that "critical theory" you also espouse? Yeah, it's called history.
This is an incredibly supercilious attitude that's far too common on the left. "Reality has a liberal bias", etc. that doesn't even offer the possibility of reasonable disagreement.
Sorry if your upbringing was bad, but you've somehow replaced it with something far worse, close-minded & intolerant.
> You're reading that wrong then. Seems like leftists will often interpret disagreement as evidence of evil.
You didn't even define DEI. I summarized a definition, as "treating people with respect and dignity".
I'd be glad to hear your definition and/or a summary of what "diversity, equity, inclusion" means.
Cause so far, you attack it because that is the programmed Republican/conservative response. It's basically a conditioned 2 minute hate ala 1984.
> This is an incredibly supercilious attitude that's far too common on the left. "Reality has a liberal bias", etc. that doesn't even offer the possibility of reasonable disagreement.
I never said anything about 'reality has a liberal bias'. What I did say was that Republican/closed minded types have a real problem with studying history and for seeing evidence of how things happened.
Historians also vehemently disagree with each other. And many a times, new evidence is found that changes what we thought the history was. Again, this is science, not some liberal indoctrination ground.
> Sorry if your upbringing was bad, but you've somehow replaced it with something far worse, close-minded & intolerant.
Closed minded? Yawn.
Can we at least get away from the usual Republican vs Democrat yell-at tropes? If I wanted that, I'd have stayed at Xitter.
The virus has been naturally selected to make people this way. It's like cat owner brain parasites.
Getting any type of evidence and research on this theory is impossible ethically and socially and even something like "are cat parasite infected humans more likely to oppose masks" is something that is impossible to test for even though its probably a factor because there's too many other strong social factors.
It's a fun science fiction theory at least and worth a think about how infections effect human behaviour.
I was wearing a mask early on in the SF Bay Area. Back when the health authorities were saying that there's nothing to worry about and that masks don't help anyway. I remember so many people giving me the stink eye for no reason. I guess my behavior was the "anti-science", tinfoil-hat stance back then.
Then it all flipped on its head pretty much overnight. And when later, having been vaccinated and having had COVID, I stopped wearing a mask out in the open, I remember the same people getting angry at that. But if you traveled 50 miles outside the SF Bay Area, the reactions were exactly the opposite.
It just bugs me so much that we find ways to turn every single thing into a culture war. We go out of our way to find reasons to lash out against others. I'm not sure if social media is the source of it, but it sure provides a positive feedback loop.