6 ms·

It still boggles my mind how we managed to make it so politicized. I mean, there's really no clear reason I can pinpoint. I was wearing a mask early on in the

It still boggles my mind how we managed to make it so politicized. I mean, there's really no clear reason I can pinpoint. I was wearing a mask early on in the SF Bay Area. Back when the health authorities were saying that there's nothing to worry about and that masks don't help anyway. I remember so many people giving me the stink eye for no reason. I guess my behavior was the "anti-science", tinfoil-hat stance back then. Then it all flipped on its head pretty much overnight. And when later, having been vaccinated and having had COVID, I stopped wearing a mask out in the open, I remember the same people getting angry at that. But if you traveled 50 miles outside the SF Bay Area, the reactions were exactly the opposite. It just bugs me so much that we find ways to turn every single thing into a culture war. We go out of our way to find reasons to lash out against others. I'm not sure if social media is the source of it, but it sure provides a positive feedback loop.

jeffbee 3y ago
> no clear reason I can pinpoint. The virus has been naturally selected to make people this way. It's like cat owner brain parasites.
- jeffbee 3y ago
  Cat parasites: Outrage! Downvote! Cat people: We exist to serve.
- thinkingemote 3y ago
  There's some (very weak and contentious) evidence that the flu virus makes people more social and outgoing. So in theory Corona might encourage people to spread itself (and therefore not mask) before they get too sick. Getting any type of evidence and research on this theory is impossible ethically and socially and even something like "are cat parasite infected humans more likely to oppose masks" is something that is impossible to test for even though its probably a factor because there's too many other strong social factors. It's a fun science fiction theory at least and worth a think about how infections effect human behaviour.
johnnyanmac 3y ago
It's even weirder because in Asian cultures it's been perfectly normal pre-pandemic to wear a mask when the feel sick (or if they under no circumstances want to risk getting sick. e.g. Right before a big exam). So it's not like such behavior and recommendations are a radical idea in the world. I guess this is another result of an individualistic culture? A lot of Americans really don't like being told what to do, wear, or say. Even if it's in their best interest to do so.
- wrs 3y ago
  It’s actually a very weird combination. Many Americans won’t wear a mask even though they know their individual risk is greater, because they don’t want to appear as if they’re part of the wrong collective. Americans are very individual and very tribal at the same time. Hostility can come from either not respecting their right to individuality or by asserting your own right to individuality if your behavior conflicts with their in-group. [source: several decades of being American]
  - swed420 3y ago
    We were also lied to by capitalist mass media and both political parties of capital, which helped people double down in their cognitive dissonance to their own detriment: https://www.thegauntlet.news/p/how-the-press-manufactured-consent https://www.thegauntlet.news/p/how-the-press-manufactured-co...
- dfee 3y ago
  In America, wearing a mask is a political statement. For a while it was: “we don’t like Donald Trump”. But now, it’s basically, “we want to protest something, we don’t want to show our faces, if the situation gets out of control we’ll be unaccountable”. There are plenty of others I see (admittedly less so, but still daily in the affluent Bay Area) who drive around in their cars, alone, with masks on (non-Uber) and people who show up at the gym everyday wearing a mask while walking on a treadmill. I toured a preschool earlier this week where the teachers were all still required(?) to wear masks in the classroom (a bilingual Chinese immersion Montessori program). Admittedly, I’m pretty anti-mask, and for those reasons: it dehumanizes interactions. That said, (for those still reading) I wish masks were a norm for when people were sick and carried no additional activist messaging. I fully support that use case and appreciate my fellow humans who wear them in those circumstances. But then also, I’d expect those interactions to be rare, because if you’re sick you shouldn’t be hanging out with others, but self isolating.
pierat 3y ago
> It still boggles my mind how we managed to make it so politicized. Having been raised by 2 Republican extremists, I can tell you exactly why it was so politicized: 1. "YOU CANT TELL ME WHAT TO DO!" Is the refrain of government telling people what to do or not. And remember, that corporations are legally people, so the same applies. 2. Higher education leads to 'librul ideas', with things like gay people should have the same rights as straights, racism is still a thing, and other higher thinking. And this 'education' is seen as indoctrination. 3. Because of disdain for higher education (which is seen as indoctrination), comes the idea that "My upbringing is worth just as much as your book knowledge", throwing away bodies of evidence. Journals are equivalent to scribbles.
- lurking15 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - pierat 3y ago
    When you say "DEI is an indoctrination theory", I read instead that you are against treating people with respect and dignity. That's basically what the whole of DEI actually is. And if treating people of all walks of life is "radical leftist politics", I'd hate to know what your politics are. I have my guesses. And that "critical theory" you also espouse? Yeah, it's called history. And yeah, history is 'uncomfortable', especially when talking about oppressors/oppressed, like wars, apartheid, Jim Crow. Basically, this is just republicans wanting their own 'safe space' when they bemoan how the lefties want their safe space.... Except the republicans demand that their safe space is anywhere they are. Arrogance at its finest, really. Then again, I grew up with the traditional Republican brainwashing crap. If you can't teach yourself, nobody can help you.
    - lurking15 3y ago
      [flagged]
      - pierat 3y ago
jfengel 3y ago
A lockdown is going to be controversial no matter what. Sides were chosen because almost any response would cause an economic slowdown, which looks bad for the party in power. They'd get no credit for lives saved. And if they had been right that it would vanish all by itself, like a flu season, they'd improve America's financial state compared to countries that took the economic hit. Once the sides were drawn, American polarization kicked in. There's no room for mere difference of opinion. The other side must be evil, stupid, and intent on destroying America. I'd argue that that's especially true for the party in power at the time, though you have to take that with a grain of salt since I'm on the opposite side.
- amluto 3y ago
  > And if they had been right that it would vanish all by itself, like a flu season This always seemed rather optimistic. Flu rates are seasonal, and COVID could have been seasonal. But pandemic flus and particularly nasty flu strains also fade away because enough people either get them or get vaccinated that they are usually no longer so significant the following year. COVID lockdowns largely prevented this. If the vaccines had worked anywhere near as well as an optimistic interpretation of the trials suggested, the lockdowns would probably have looked better in hindsight. (Which isn’t to say that lockdowns didn’t have some value. If nothing else, they bought time for the vaccines to roll out and they may have contributed to a lot of people getting Omicron instead of earlier strains. It seems like Omicron was a decent amount less nasty.)
sneak 3y ago
It doesn’t boggle my mind. It was explicitly used as a tool of cultural differentiation during an election year. Masking/not masking became an overt way of signaling tribal association, and it was no accident whatsoever. Predictably, it caused untold numbers of unnecessary deaths. One takeaway from all this is how willing and fervent people are to signal their group membership, even at the expense of personal life safety.
- silverquiet 3y ago
  I wore one as a barrier against airborne particles. I’m sure it’s imperfect at that but also better than nothing. I also wear one when working with power tools that kick up dust that may be harmful to me. I can’t say that I feel particular political allegiance to anyone when I do so.
dividefuel 3y ago
My feeling is it became politicized because the left saw it as a chance to expose Trump, and the right downplayed it to avoid impacts on Trump's reputation. Like because one side took one stance, the other side inherently had to take a different stance. The right started out as "Covid is bad, but so is crashing the economy to prevent it", which turned into "Covid isn't that bad, wearing a mask is excessive", which became "The vaccine is more harmful than the disease". The left went from "Causing people to die is worse than any economy hit" -> "You should do everything possible to prevent it" -> "You should wear a mask at all times in public". I often feel the left would have taken reversed stances if the right had taken the pandemic seriously. If Trump had advocated shutting things down and pushed strongly for vaccines/masks, it seems pretty likely the left would have called this an authoritarian overreach and/or highly questioned the safety of the vaccines. In short, I think our culture is so highly polarized that as soon as something becomes a major topic, people immediately divide into separate 'sides' on it. EDIT: follow-up question -- was the pandemic as polarizing in other countries besides the US?
- swed420 3y ago
  Both parties of capital have handled this pandemic terribly: https://www.thegauntlet.news/p/how-the-press-manufactured-consent https://www.thegauntlet.news/p/how-the-press-manufactured-co...
- gojomo 3y ago
  Doesn't seem to have been as durably polarizing elsewhere, as far as I can tell. EG: even European countries that were more draconian earlier in the pandemic returned to relative normalcy, with less fear/debate around school reopenings, mandatory testing, mandatory masking, etc, sooner than the US. In the US, sticky "showy extreme COVID vigilance is my essential identity as a good citizen" or "showy nonchalance is my essential identity as a free person" partisanship lingers.
- TMWNN 3y ago
  >it seems pretty likely the left would have called this an authoritarian overreach and/or highly questioned the safety of the vaccines. Biden, Harris, and Pelosi all said in September 2020 that they won't trust any Trump vaccine. <https://www.newsweek.com/anti-vaccine-covid-trust-skepticism-democrat-politicization-1535559 https://www.newsweek.com/anti-vaccine-covid-trust-skepticism...>

jeffbee 3y ago

> no clear reason I can pinpoint. The virus has been naturally selected to make people this way. It's like cat owner brain parasites.

jeffbee 3y ago
Cat parasites: Outrage! Downvote! Cat people: We exist to serve.
thinkingemote 3y ago
There's some (very weak and contentious) evidence that the flu virus makes people more social and outgoing. So in theory Corona might encourage people to spread itself (and therefore not mask) before they get too sick. Getting any type of evidence and research on this theory is impossible ethically and socially and even something like "are cat parasite infected humans more likely to oppose masks" is something that is impossible to test for even though its probably a factor because there's too many other strong social factors. It's a fun science fiction theory at least and worth a think about how infections effect human behaviour.

johnnyanmac 3y ago

It's even weirder because in Asian cultures it's been perfectly normal pre-pandemic to wear a mask when the feel sick (or if they under no circumstances want to risk getting sick. e.g. Right before a big exam). So it's not like such behavior and recommendations are a radical idea in the world. I guess this is another result of an individualistic culture? A lot of Americans really don't like being told what to do, wear, or say. Even if it's in their best interest to do so.

wrs 3y ago
It’s actually a very weird combination. Many Americans won’t wear a mask even though they know their individual risk is greater, because they don’t want to appear as if they’re part of the wrong collective. Americans are very individual and very tribal at the same time. Hostility can come from either not respecting their right to individuality or by asserting your own right to individuality if your behavior conflicts with their in-group. [source: several decades of being American]
- swed420 3y ago
  We were also lied to by capitalist mass media and both political parties of capital, which helped people double down in their cognitive dissonance to their own detriment: https://www.thegauntlet.news/p/how-the-press-manufactured-consent https://www.thegauntlet.news/p/how-the-press-manufactured-co...
dfee 3y ago
In America, wearing a mask is a political statement. For a while it was: “we don’t like Donald Trump”. But now, it’s basically, “we want to protest something, we don’t want to show our faces, if the situation gets out of control we’ll be unaccountable”. There are plenty of others I see (admittedly less so, but still daily in the affluent Bay Area) who drive around in their cars, alone, with masks on (non-Uber) and people who show up at the gym everyday wearing a mask while walking on a treadmill. I toured a preschool earlier this week where the teachers were all still required(?) to wear masks in the classroom (a bilingual Chinese immersion Montessori program). Admittedly, I’m pretty anti-mask, and for those reasons: it dehumanizes interactions. That said, (for those still reading) I wish masks were a norm for when people were sick and carried no additional activist messaging. I fully support that use case and appreciate my fellow humans who wear them in those circumstances. But then also, I’d expect those interactions to be rare, because if you’re sick you shouldn’t be hanging out with others, but self isolating.

pierat 3y ago

> It still boggles my mind how we managed to make it so politicized. Having been raised by 2 Republican extremists, I can tell you exactly why it was so politicized: 1. "YOU CANT TELL ME WHAT TO DO!" Is the refrain of government telling people what to do or not. And remember, that corporations are legally people, so the same applies. 2. Higher education leads to 'librul ideas', with things like gay people should have the same rights as straights, racism is still a thing, and other higher thinking. And this 'education' is seen as indoctrination. 3. Because of disdain for higher education (which is seen as indoctrination), comes the idea that "My upbringing is worth just as much as your book knowledge", throwing away bodies of evidence. Journals are equivalent to scribbles.

lurking15 3y ago
[flagged]
- pierat 3y ago
  When you say "DEI is an indoctrination theory", I read instead that you are against treating people with respect and dignity. That's basically what the whole of DEI actually is. And if treating people of all walks of life is "radical leftist politics", I'd hate to know what your politics are. I have my guesses. And that "critical theory" you also espouse? Yeah, it's called history. And yeah, history is 'uncomfortable', especially when talking about oppressors/oppressed, like wars, apartheid, Jim Crow. Basically, this is just republicans wanting their own 'safe space' when they bemoan how the lefties want their safe space.... Except the republicans demand that their safe space is anywhere they are. Arrogance at its finest, really. Then again, I grew up with the traditional Republican brainwashing crap. If you can't teach yourself, nobody can help you.
  - lurking15 3y ago
    [flagged]
    - pierat 3y ago

jfengel 3y ago

A lockdown is going to be controversial no matter what. Sides were chosen because almost any response would cause an economic slowdown, which looks bad for the party in power. They'd get no credit for lives saved. And if they had been right that it would vanish all by itself, like a flu season, they'd improve America's financial state compared to countries that took the economic hit. Once the sides were drawn, American polarization kicked in. There's no room for mere difference of opinion. The other side must be evil, stupid, and intent on destroying America. I'd argue that that's especially true for the party in power at the time, though you have to take that with a grain of salt since I'm on the opposite side.

amluto 3y ago
> And if they had been right that it would vanish all by itself, like a flu season This always seemed rather optimistic. Flu rates are seasonal, and COVID could have been seasonal. But pandemic flus and particularly nasty flu strains also fade away because enough people either get them or get vaccinated that they are usually no longer so significant the following year. COVID lockdowns largely prevented this. If the vaccines had worked anywhere near as well as an optimistic interpretation of the trials suggested, the lockdowns would probably have looked better in hindsight. (Which isn’t to say that lockdowns didn’t have some value. If nothing else, they bought time for the vaccines to roll out and they may have contributed to a lot of people getting Omicron instead of earlier strains. It seems like Omicron was a decent amount less nasty.)

sneak 3y ago

It doesn’t boggle my mind. It was explicitly used as a tool of cultural differentiation during an election year. Masking/not masking became an overt way of signaling tribal association, and it was no accident whatsoever. Predictably, it caused untold numbers of unnecessary deaths. One takeaway from all this is how willing and fervent people are to signal their group membership, even at the expense of personal life safety.

silverquiet 3y ago
I wore one as a barrier against airborne particles. I’m sure it’s imperfect at that but also better than nothing. I also wear one when working with power tools that kick up dust that may be harmful to me. I can’t say that I feel particular political allegiance to anyone when I do so.

dividefuel 3y ago

My feeling is it became politicized because the left saw it as a chance to expose Trump, and the right downplayed it to avoid impacts on Trump's reputation. Like because one side took one stance, the other side inherently had to take a different stance. The right started out as "Covid is bad, but so is crashing the economy to prevent it", which turned into "Covid isn't that bad, wearing a mask is excessive", which became "The vaccine is more harmful than the disease". The left went from "Causing people to die is worse than any economy hit" -> "You should do everything possible to prevent it" -> "You should wear a mask at all times in public". I often feel the left would have taken reversed stances if the right had taken the pandemic seriously. If Trump had advocated shutting things down and pushed strongly for vaccines/masks, it seems pretty likely the left would have called this an authoritarian overreach and/or highly questioned the safety of the vaccines. In short, I think our culture is so highly polarized that as soon as something becomes a major topic, people immediately divide into separate 'sides' on it. EDIT: follow-up question -- was the pandemic as polarizing in other countries besides the US?

swed420 3y ago
Both parties of capital have handled this pandemic terribly: https://www.thegauntlet.news/p/how-the-press-manufactured-consent https://www.thegauntlet.news/p/how-the-press-manufactured-co...
gojomo 3y ago
Doesn't seem to have been as durably polarizing elsewhere, as far as I can tell. EG: even European countries that were more draconian earlier in the pandemic returned to relative normalcy, with less fear/debate around school reopenings, mandatory testing, mandatory masking, etc, sooner than the US. In the US, sticky "showy extreme COVID vigilance is my essential identity as a good citizen" or "showy nonchalance is my essential identity as a free person" partisanship lingers.
TMWNN 3y ago
>it seems pretty likely the left would have called this an authoritarian overreach and/or highly questioned the safety of the vaccines. Biden, Harris, and Pelosi all said in September 2020 that they won't trust any Trump vaccine. <https://www.newsweek.com/anti-vaccine-covid-trust-skepticism-democrat-politicization-1535559 https://www.newsweek.com/anti-vaccine-covid-trust-skepticism...>