I honestly don’t know who to believe.
There are experts, so-called experts, and loud-mouthed non-experts on both sides of this issue (as with most issues).
Here’s one thing I know, though: Wearing a mask in public spaces is no longer just about individual nor collective health.
Wearing a mask or not wearing a mask has become a symbol for whose team you support. It’s become yet another divider in our already divided society.
It’s a Dallas Cowboys jersey. But are you sitting in AT&T Stadium or Lincoln Financial Field?
Here’s the teams how I see them.
Team Safety (Team “I’m Better Than You Because I Care”)
Are you part of the “they” for whom wearing a mask shows your empathy, your care for those around you, and your high regard for mankind in general and those you love specifically?
Or are you part of the “they” for whom wearing a mask shows you agree that this is serious, that any method of cutting any risk (perceived or real) is worth it, and that safety is the highest principle upon which we should rest all of our decisions?
Team Freedom (Team “WTF”)
Are you part of the “they” for whom not wearing a mask shows your individualism, your defiance of the herd, and your support for the freedom principles upon which the United States was founded?
Or are you part of the “they” for whom not wearing a mask shows you’re not afraid and won’t be ruled by fear, that we need to build individual and collective immunity, and that nobody has yet provided definitive evidence that it helps anyway?
Where Does that Leave You and Me?
I guess I have to pick a side, just like you. And the side we pick inevitably and publicly puts us on a team.
Which means you and I have to coalesce our internal narratives and decide what “people like us” are supposed to do.
