To Mask or Not to Mask

I have a confession to make: I don’t think wearing masks has anything to do with keeping us “safe” from a virus. I do, however, think it has to do with keeping us “safe”—but from what?

 

I am on academic leave this term (Autumn 2020) and next (Winter 2021), so I am not scheduled to be in the classroom on campus again until Spring 2021, by which point I am confident that it will have become clear that masks are irrelevant to fighting the so-called pandemic that shut down 2020.

I’ll wait.

I know, it’s ridiculous. Do you remember March 2020, when we were told the lockdown was going to last for two weeks, so as to flatten the curve and enable the hospitals to set up sufficient emergency wards for patients with the “novel” coronavirus that had descended upon us like a bat? That was a lifetime and more ago, and we are still trying to “flatten” the curve. 

Except that the curve flattened, the emergency rooms stood empty, and everybody is still wearing masks, including those who were never at risk in the first place of dying from a virus less deadly to the general population than the vaccine that is being touted as our new hope for return to “normal.” (I am certain I don’t need to give you links to any of this information—you have all been glued to the John Hopkins and CDC sites for months, right? Right?)

We are never going back to “normal.” NORMAL is what the masks are designed to “protect” us from.


I have for the most part been able to avoid wearing a mask for the past nine months. I have flown twice, once to New York City in June to talk about statues with Milo, once to Texas a month ago to be with my mother while my stepfather is in hospital (empty, other than the nurses and doctors who have been attending him. There are almost no patients, and even fewer visitors. My stepfather has not been conscious for days, but they tested him for coronavirus yesterday, just to make sure—I will let the full horror of that procedure sink in; he tested negative). I wore a mask on the airplane (mostly empty) and in the hospital when I went to say my goodbyes (see above), but otherwise I have managed to avoid situations in which masks are mandated for “safety.” I am loathing having to go into the classroom and face my students masked—for a lie.

Why would a “free” people subject themselves to mandatory masks?


Over in the corners of social media I inhabit with my Telegram dragons, we are well-versed in the conspiracy theories about what is really going on: the lockdowns are a way to destroy our local economies so that the globalists can take over (prove me wrong—after you count the number of small businesses that have closed for good in your neighborhood); the vaccines are a way to sterilize whole populations so as to bring the world population down to 500 million, the carrying capacity of the new digital currency the globalists want to institute (prove me wrong—after you finish counting your change, if you have any); the microchips are in effect the Mark of the Beast, intended to enslave us to our new world leaders (prove me wrong—as soon as you take that tracking app off your phone). 

Are you as revolted as I am at the thought that “normal people” don’t care?


I shared this meme on my Facebook page the other day. One of my “liberal” friends congratulated me for (finally) getting something right: “You got that right. Brava!” I know he meant it ironically—except it isn’t ironic for him. In his mind, it is normal for people to want to cover their faces and never see their family and friends. It is normal to put on a mask so as to protect others by hiding one’s face, keeping distance, never touching, never being in contact with anybody in person ever again. It is normal to be afraid of other human beings. 

Doubtless he will tell me I have all of this wrong—he is not afraid of anybody; he is only afraid of hurting other people by accidentally infecting them with a virus that he doesn’t even know he has, most people’s symptoms are so mild—so mild that you might wonder whether it even exists unless you “test” for it by sticking swabs up people’s noses to scrape the membranes around their brains. (Remember: the doctors just did this “test” on my stepfather, who is unconscious and dying of complications from a spinal injury he sustained four years ago.)

And my “liberal” Facebook friend calls me the conspiracy theorist? How “compassionate” would I have been if I had been too scared to get on an airplane and come here to be with my mother this past month? 

Let me remind you again: my stepfather (aged 82) is not dying of coronavirus. And the hospitals (yes, plural—they kept moving him around from emergency room to rehab to hospice) he has been in these past four weeks have been empty. No overflowing wards. No corridors crowded with the dying. 

Could it be that wearing a mask is more about training ourselves to be compliant to authority than it is about protecting us or our loved ones from illness? Could it be that “social distancing” is a form of “social control”? Could it be that covering your face in public is intended as a way of wiping out your identity and convincing you not to talk? Could it be that masks worn over the mouth are muzzles, designed to make human beings into sheep?

Prone as I am to believe that the masks are intended to produce trance states (and almost certainly do, thus their pacifying effects when worn over the mouth), I think the reason that people are so willing to wear them is much simpler: they are afraid, and the masks make them feel safe—not from a virus I doubt most people believe they will catch, but from each other, and from the horror that is our current civilization.

Women, how many of you enjoy being the object of the male gaze? To judge from the success of feminism on college campuses, not many. How many of you enjoy being encouraged to wear more and more revealing clothes so as to prove yourself “liberated”? How many of you enjoy the stress of being in public, unprotected by men whom you trust? Conversely, how many of you enjoy having to wear a mask so that no one can see your face other than those with whom you live?

I thought so.


There are layers and layers of irony at play in how quickly Western women and men were willing to mask up this past year, surrendering our individuality, freedom of association, businesses, social interactions, religious services, and voices in order to keep ourselves “safe,” but I do not think it was an accident that it was women, a.k.a. Karens, who led the effort to shame people into keeping themselves masked.

What was the best-selling trilogy among women of a certain age not so very long ago? What did it promise them? Masks. 

I am still anxious about having to teach while covering my mouth—consider that irony—but I am thoughtful now about what it means to have to veil myself in order to carry out my public role. Perhaps it would be better if all our women were permanently masked—properly protected from the gaze of strange men.

Without masks, who knows what dangers we might find ourselves in?

Comments

  1. As a healthy male senior citizen, I do miss seeing the uncovered faces of women. Maybe I'm just typical of my age group.

    Robert

    ReplyDelete
  2. I'll admit, I'm a bit freaked out about this entire pandemic. The timing is also highly suspect to me, with it being a presidential election year...and the economy was doing really great! I wonder how much it would hurt to have a COVID mask tattooed on my face. With some sort of saying like: "Stay back! It's real!"

    ReplyDelete
  3. I am a teacher of middle school students and am completely saddened by the affect this is having on them. I spend my class periods looking at colored circles with the first letter of their name in the center. The main reason they give for not turning on cameras is dislike of their appearance. The only way I know that they are even there is if I ask a question and they respond in the chat. Several never respond. We are ruining the next generation of leaders, turning them into cowering wimps who will comply with the powers that be.

    ReplyDelete
  4. In families with liberals, the liberals are hard at working to police their family members on wearing masks and eventually getting vaccines. Pro-choice liberals have made choices for the rest. There are others who trust CDC and media. They go along with the whole deal blindly. Many of them are youth and young adults.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I saw the mortality stats for Florida last week, the virus had a .2% mortality rate there in that age-heavy population. Other locations generally range between .02% and .08% mortality, so Florida was fairly high!
    By their fruits you shall know them. Vox (and Hans-Herman Hoppe) point out that the result of the World Wars was the destruction of monarchies and aristocracies, and the creation of democracies. So while we all puzzle about what the WW1 was about, we can see from the result what its effect or purpose was.
    I agree 100% with your article and observations of the corona-chan issue facing the world. The cost of this is the destruction of the lower end of the economy and loss of freedoms.
    We are at war on many fronts.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. mrpinks-Is the .2% mortality rate in Florida since COVID hit the U.S.? I looked to see what is being reported-it looks like 19,713 people have died due to COVID. .2% of the Florida population count of 21.48 million people is 42, 960. The numbers never seem to add up-so to speak. I'm not saying you're incorrect, but that the "updated" data is always different. Also, has anyone heard anything about the flu this year? How bad is it? Is the flu vaccine spot on-or off?

      Delete
  6. Being a professor of history apparently doesn’t translate to even a rudimentary understanding of basic scientific concepts, it appears.

    The anecdotes about empty hospitals are the exceptions that prove the rule, because it’s easy to look up the actual statistics nationally showing that many hospitals are at or near capacity right now.

    https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/covid-hospitals-near-you.html

    Has the study of the Middle Ages caused some people to reject all modern science? Are we back to treating disease with leeches? I think perhaps people should stick to their core competencies, because just about every musing regarding the coronavirus here shows a total lack of comprehension.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You missed my primary argument. Funny that. I am assuming you are fine with having strange men be able to see your face?

      Delete
  7. I, too, have managed not to own or wear a mask AT ALL during this time. It is helpful that I retired just before the shutdown, so don't really need to go anywhere except to fulfill basic necessities. Even that was curtailed as the mask panic hit heavily in July, so I have to order my groceries online and go pick them up. I enjoy sitting in the lobby of the grocery store unmasked and watching all the sheep parade by in various degrees of compliance.
    I have been warning people for a long time about The Mark of The Beast and buying and selling--but not many believe me. They have their Fitbits and Global GPS and Alexa, etc, and think nothing of it. I have also encouraged many to read The Handmaid's Tale, as this seems more possible day after day, also. There's a (conspiracy?) theory out that the vaccine contains birth control and that Bill Gates is behind it. Who know any more?
    Our faith in God is more and more important in these uncertain times, and I pray the conspiracies are NOT true and that we will soon be mask-free.

    ReplyDelete

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F.B.

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