By David Marcus | New York Post
The masks might be forever. We have to come to terms with
the fact that a large chunk of the US population will be wearing masks in
public for years, maybe even decades to come.
Even if we unquestionably achieve herd immunity, even if
100 percent of the population is vaccinated, even if COVID cases nationwide
drop to zero and even if the coronavirus by some miracle learns to communicate
in a human language and tells us, forthrightly, “Well, you beat me,” some
Americans, especially those in blue metropolises, will continue to cover their
faces — and shame you for not going along.
It’s a massively depressing thought.
For more than a year, public-health authorities
have urged
us to put up with temporary inconveniences, always with the soothing
promise that it will be only a little while longer. But recently, NPR cheerfully reported
about the growing number of people who see masks as a source of Permanent and
Absolute Safety.
Flu and other respiratory illnesses are down this year
owing to our ubiquitous face coverings, our state-run news agency tells us, so
maybe we should just keep wearing them. Meanwhile, the
rapper Will.i.am and Honeywell have introduced a super-duper smart mask that runs $300.
The “Xupermask” allows the wearer to chat on the phone or listen to some dulcet
music while signaling her virtue.
None of this should give anyone the slightest bit of
confidence that the days of ubiquitous mask wearing will soon be behind us.
Yes, masks reduce the transmission of airborne illnesses.
You know what else reduces transmission? Staying in a protective plastic bubble
in your living room and never venturing into the dirty, filthy, infectious
outdoors. And even if it makes sense to wear a mask in tight indoor
quarters, it is utterly unscientific and, yes, moronic to wear them outside,
and yet blue-state denizens insist.
Sigh. The mask fanatics — some of whom hold
advanced degrees that make them no wiser as human beings — can’t
be reasoned with.
The awkward moments with double-masked parents at kids’
birthday parties, the ridiculous restaurant rituals, the seething public
glares from masked to maskless on our streets — all will continue. They
will say it’s but a small price to pay for Health Most Holy and Sacred Safety.
Huge swaths of Americans will literally be lost to our sight and recognition.
It’s a sinister phenomenon that runs radically counter to
our cultural history.
Many cultures embrace face covering. Western culture,
however, isn’t among them. Western culture revels in the human face and form.
That is why “Westernization” is so often associated with immodesty in the East
(often unfairly, for celebrating the face needn’t entail baring the backside or
plunging décolletage).
A future in which millions hide behind protective masks
as they wander around is a steep departure from the Western ideal, rooted in
both the Greco-Roman celebration of the human form and the Genesis teaching
that God formed man and woman in his image.
The typical conservative reaction — to blame government —
doesn’t quite apply here. It’s mainly cultural forces that promote masking in
needless places. And private actors have lined up eagerly, with Big Tech
actively suppressing science that questions the efficacy of mask-wearing.
Yet we still can resist the phenomenon.
We can fight against this faceless future with our own refusals. We can proudly
display our lipstick, smile at a passerby and even be understood clearly when
we speak. Put simply, we can go back to a normal past, when people’s faces
brightened our day instead of terrifying us.
Of course, there is some marginal safety upside to
wearing a mask; there always has been. But in the more sensible recent past, most
people realized that such small protection wasn’t worth hiding our faces night
and day.
We should treat with compassion our fellow citizens who
sheepishly embrace the forever-mask regime — but not too much compassion. Those
of us who value things like basic human interaction shouldn’t feel shy about
mocking those who cling to the facial security blankets or who don high-tech,
celebrity-endorsed visage eviscerators. It’s OK to acknowledge that a world
without faces isn’t one we want to inhabit.
So let’s bare our faces to the nice, fresh air, pucker
and smirk at every available opportunity. Don’t be daunted by the masked
masses. Plenty of us want to see your face.
Twitter: @BlueBoxDave
https://nypost.com/2021/04/13/the-mindless-mask-regime-might-be-here-to-stay-unless-you-resist-it/
