How masks became a religious symbol

It ain’t supposed to make sense! It’s faith; faith! Don’t you know that? Faith is something you believe that nobody in his right mind would believe in. – Archie Bunker

For reference purposes, in Tuesday’s column I wrote:

In the end, I find this consternation over cloth masks that don’t work, well-ventilated classrooms which don’t spread the disease, and children who have virtually no COVID risk, to be one of the strangest forms of group insanity I’ve ever witnessed.

Most of you don’t understand the manner of semi-autistic brain fallout that befalls me whenever I can’t seem to get to the heart of an issue. It drives me nuts, and as my longsuffering wife likes to add, “That’s not a very long trip.”

Until yesterday, I couldn’t begin to fathom how normally rational people could insist upon clinging to the notion that useless cloth masks are somehow going to save us despite their vast misuse and the indisputable evidence of their ineffectiveness.

Really? Wearing a mask 15 feet into a restaurant only to take it off with ten of shoulder-to-shoulder best friends at the table? Per the great Mr. Bunker, “Nobody in their right mind would believe that works.”

So, my eminently basic philosophical question boils down to this, “Why are so many people so fervently clinging to pointless COVID mitigations, despite the fact that they’ve been a “cure” much worse than the disease.” Now, thanks to an insightful friend I always reserve as my last I-can’t-figure-it-out resort, I have my answer.

Why do I tend to save her for last when I’d likely get the correct answer by going to her right away? Because the mental process of examining all aspects of these issues is just as important as coming up with an answer itself.

Initially I thought the whole mask – anti-mask thing was a result of the persistent Trumpers versus progressives manufactured mien. I’m certainly no fan of the Cheeto Supreme, but the fact these folks would reflexively say “up” whenever Trump said “down” makes them a little worse than he was.

But Trump is gone and he won’t be coming back, so he can’t possibly be the core issue.

Another oddity is a scant nine states have mask mandates and five are about to drop them. So, it can’t be boiled down to some sort of overarching national issue, either though it feels like it’s larger than Illinois.

Though the pasty resistance has gotta be, for all intents and purposes, Pritizker’s mask mandate doesn’t exist. Walk into any locally owned business and no one’s wearing a mask. The employees at the chain stores may be wearing ‘em, but they’re certainly not thrusting the mandate upon their customers.

Here’s what I don’t get. If you’re fully vaccinated and you generally wear a mask, you’re as safe from the plague as you can possibly be. So why would you want to worry about what anyone else does or doesn’t do in that regard?

Fear doesn’t fully answer the question, but it’s clearly the basis of everything we’ve discussed here. Some form of mass hysteria must always precedes a rush to abandon personal liberties and embrace the kind of false “cures” that only provide us with some sense of control. And fear is rife right now with the pandemic panic porn prone press announcing every bleepin’ death and promoting the worst COVID case scenarios at every turn.

So, considering all those caveats, what sage solution did my eminently perceptive friend finally put forth? She told me, just like shaking hands or asking “how are you?,” Illinois mask wearing has taken on all the trappings of a social norm. And we all know that when you refuse to shake hands or don’t immediately answer “fine,” it leaves us with a lingering dislike for that person, despite the ultimate insignificance of those slights.

It’s an ego thing. We don’t like people who we perceive to not like or care about us.

With my friend clearly onto something there, I took her thought a step further.

While her answer clearly covered the frequent antipathy for non-mask wearers, it didn’t explain the fascinating mythology that’s sprung up around a useless cloth face covering. As a national medical expert recently declared, “Cloth masks are little more than face decorations.”

That’s when satori finally hit and I suddenly realized this meager article of cloth had become an article of faith. It had taken on religious overtones, and once you put the Illinois mask wearing battle in terms of “believers” and “non-believers,” it makes it so much easier to understand maskers absurd animosity towards non-maskers.

We’re the insidious “infidels!”

An once something becomes a “religious” symbol, as Mr. Bunker so eloquently put it, that “faith” swiftly becomes “something you believe that nobody in his right mind would believe in.” That means that no amount of logic will ever dissuade a mask wearer from trusting in its magical powers.

Of course, every religion requires an ardent preacher and Governor Pritzker happily assumed that role by falsely extolling the virtue of these useless contrivances at every turn. And his progressive and teachers union congregation would shout “Amen!” whenever the preacher spoke.

But just as preachers are driven by the weight of the collection plate, with his poll numbers in peril of plummeting, the Governor is desperately trying to regain control of the masked monster he eagerly created. But it’s too late! If he abandons his “flock” by dismissing the mandate now – particularly in schools – those “congregants” will turn on him just like the biblical Jews on Jesus. And unions aren’t renowned for their forgiving natures.

The irony is it no longer matters what Pritzker does, because even if the Appellate Court overturns the recent ruling, with the cat out of the bag for almost a week now, there’s no way anyone’s gonna coax him back in. And you can’t send half pf the student body home for ignoring the new old rules without sparking some sort of civil war.

In the end, as it is with all false prophets, Pritzker is done. He’s foolishly inserted himself between Scylla and Charybdis and no one can mount an effective campaign when they’re placed themselves on a long and ever narrowing tightrope.

So, I want to thank my perceptive friend for getting me over the philosophical quandary hump by coming up with such a simple, but elegant solution. Sadly, the fact that we better understand this strange dynamic will in no way help us resolve it. Like all cults, it will have to die a slow and ignominious death.

What do they say about religion and politics? And the mask question has become both.