Why Masks Will Never Go Away Completely

On one of the evil, no-good, misinformation-dispensing forums on Reddit, someone asked if mask pushers will ever stop trying to mandate their use. The question was raised in response to the LA Public Health department asking workers and students to start the new year wearing masks for ten days.

My response listed several possible reasons why mask pushers will never stop. Here’s an expansion of that list.

False Sense of Security

Masks give you the feeling that you’re “protected” when you venture out into the scary, virus-filled world. Of course, masks do nothing of the sort. This false sense of security is actually dangerous, because it can lead to people who are truly vulnerable, such as the aged and frail, putting themselves into risky situations. (“My friends are sick, but I can still visit them because I’ve got a mask.”)

Pleasurable feeling of civic virtue

We’ve been programmed to believe that “my mask protects others”. Therefore, wearing a mask gives you the heart-warming feeling that you’re doing a Good Thing for your community’s health. The implication is that if you don’t wear a mask, you’re not interested in protecting others, so you’re a bad person with murderous intent.

External virtue signal

It’s not enough to feel that warm glow of virtue inside oneself, all by your lonesome. It feels even better to show the world that you are good, caring person, and the mask provides that signal in a highly visible way. It’s even better than getting an experimental gene therapy injection, which doesn’t show (unless you’re one of the unlucky ones who is visibly harmed by the injection).

Tell the world to keep being afraid

By wearing a mask, you’re demonstrating that “Covid is not over” and that we all need to keep being afraid and vigilant.

This particular function of masking sometimes has a downside, though. Some venues require you to wear a mask if you are sick. In those situations, you may want to stay away to avoid being seen as an unclean plague rat.

I’m doing something

We can’t bear feeling helpless when faced with something we’re told is the Worst Disease Ever. So masks make us feel like we’re doing something, instead of twiddling our thumbs in abject fear while waiting to die.

Mark of compliance

By wearing a mask, you’re demonstrating that you’re willing to comply with edicts issued by unelected government bureaucrats and business owners.

This implies that those who don’t wear masks are the equivalent of domestic terrorists. Their non-compliance could encourage others to distrust government institutions, which would be a danger to our democracy.

Last resort

Nothing else we’ve tried (lockdowns, distancing, experimental injections) has worked. So we fall back on masks in the hope that they will somehow succeed, even though they, too, have utterly failed.

Stopping would mean admission of wrong

If we were to stop wearing masks or mandating them, that would be an implicit admission that we were mistaken about masks from the very beginning. It’s almost impossible to admit an error when so much investment of time, money and energy has been invested in the erroneous activity. This is also known as the “Sunk Cost Fallacy”.

Can’t be soft on safety

Stopping masks, after advocating for and using them for nearly three years, would open one up to accusations of being “soft on safety”. This is known as the Ratcheting Effect, as previously exemplified by the airport security theater after 9/11. Security measures like this are almost never retracted, and usually only increase in the future.

The “out” for mask pushers is they they can offer occasional relief from mandates by citing reduced “cases”. But you can be sure that at any sign of increased “cases” (which studies show are now positively correlated with booster shots), the mask mandates will be pushed again.

For these and other reasons (such as incessant propaganda and gaslighting dispensed by the mainstream media), the mask situation seems hopeless. However, the problem could be solved instantly if everybody simply refused to comply one day. Whether this will happen is anyone’s guess. For now, it seems that masks aren’t going away, especially in medical settings and government offices.