Who was that unmasked idiot?
As a professor, I can attest that people except for a very few are not inherently stupid. They work at it. It's a matter of choice. They choose to suspend intelligence and reasoning in large parts of their lives, but can be coerced into mindfulness if need be. They tend to be intellectually lazy, but can muster great bursts of energy when it comes to defending their ignorance and their biases. In most of those defenses, they display a commitment to stupidity.
Human culture has evolved a system of education to teach people not to be stupid. It is a process that faces tremendous inertia. Many people avoid the state of sentience when possible. They only submit to it when great disaster befalls them. Of course, most great disasters are the result of people avoiding sentience.
The matter of wearing masks during the coronavirus pandemic is a defining occasion for revealing stupidity at its most stunning. Whether to wear a mask or not is not a matter of personal choice. It's a matter of intelligence, Only the irredeemably stupid make the choice not to wear a mask, no matter what reason they may supply. A reason may be malice, but malice is a form of stupidity.
We live in a time when most of us understand pathogens and ways to avoid them. Wearing masks to limit the transmission of breathe-born pathogens has been a medical practice since the 1860s as scientists applied their knowledge of germs to the prevention of disease. Masks filter the air we breathe. When we are in a pandemic with pathogens flowing through the air all around us, we can put on masks for the same reason we would put on masks in the military when someone shouts out the warning "gas!" It's a matter of staying alive. And so is wearing a mask when pathogens have invaded our breathing space. .
Except for some people. They are the special ones. They are the ones who think being stupid is a display of character. They are the ones who won't let anyone tell them what to do. Rather than comply with a reasonable request for the sake of public health, they will regard the request to put on a mask as a violation of their freedom.
The problem here for public disease is not so much avoiding the pathogens but the idiots who masklessly spread them. Stay away from the bare faces.
3 comments:
Recently I asked the masked woman cutting my hair if she had been able to score a vaccine. She responded: She was young and healthy and thought she would wait to see how things panned out. I did not mention that this virus doesn't care about age or health. Moreover, youth might keep people out of the hospital, but it can mess up their lives long term. I did avow that if the vaccinated pool doesn't become significantly larger the possibility a variant that would render the current vaccine ineffective concerned me.
I realize people are suspicious of a vaccine produced in special circumstances by an administration legendary for it's inability to walk and chew gum, but the mRNA technique has been around for awhile so there's that. As for the lack of the longitudinal studies that would expose the 'exceptions to the rule', when the house is on fire it's mayhap unwise to suggest the source of the water should be tested for purity. As for the anti-vaxxers and the partisan zealots, I swan a direct communication via a burning bush and a booming voice from the sky will not convince them they've fallen from the top of the stupid tree, hit every branch on the way down, climbed to the top, and repeated the exercise.
They Survived Covid. Now They Need New Lungs.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/29/opinion/covid-19-lung-transplants.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage
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