In the midst of the COVID pandemic, we have seen the full spectrum of human response: obedience, indifference, and resistance. The reasons for each response are varied, of course; nothing is a monolith. However, the dominant theme in resistance has been a rejection of tyranny, some patriotic duty to uphold the neoliberal ideal of doing literally whatever we want. Elected officials attempting to enforce the bare minimum of public safety have been deemed tyrants attempting to snuff the flame of . This is, of course, a confusing and incoherent stance for a number of reasons.
Let us ignore, for the moment, the profoundly anti-social mentality of refusing to sacrifice anything for public health on principle. Actually, let’s not ignore it. Let’s start there. It is perfectly rational (and actually encouraged by the teachings of this church) to evaluate the cost of the requested sacrifice against the proposed benefit. In this case, the sacrifice is the mild inconvenience of wearing a piece of cloth on your face and avoiding large gatherings for a while, and the benefit is saving hundreds of thousands of lives. If someone refuses to even consider the cost/benefit ratio and consider any attempt at protecting public health an imposition of tyranny, they are fundamentally irrational. If they consider this tradeoff honestly and decides that the sacrifice is too great for the benefit, they are fundamentally irrational or dangerously anti-social.
That said, let us skip over the other undercurrents of the “anti-mask” protest movement, including the anti-science and anti-intellectual sentiments and the frankly deranged conspiracy theories that the virus doesn’t exist or it’s a scheme by Bill Gates to embed us with microchips and make us all 5G hotspots or something. Both of these are impediments to self-salvation, but we can revisit these topics later.
The main point of consideration for this discussion is the perverted concept of “tyranny” itself. The American mythos is founded on a notion of rugged individualism, of pioneers and cowboys who set out all alone and sculpted this great land with their bare hands. Immigrants pursuing the American dream must be self-made, just like all the great titans of industry in America’s history. Similarly, in the face of a deadly and highly-contagious virus, it is your own responsibility not to die from it, now get out of my way.
Conservative ideologies, and the American right in general, want America to be a savage and ruthless nation. It is the foundation on which their entire philosophies are constructed. It’s still the Wild West, and guns are the only thing preventing us all from raping and murdering each other. The reductionist argument is that capitalists want to condition the masses to perceive society as cruel and uncaring so that it will seem natural and proper that companies are cruel and uncaring. I think that is one element of it, but the roots of this ideology go deeper into fascism than simple corporate capitalism.
Fascism can be defined many ways, but a core tenet is hierarchy. Hierarchies, by definition, demand inequality in power. It goes without saying that the conservative masses are just as powerless as their progressive counterparts in the bigger picture, but this idea that they are all lone wolves enduring the hardships of this life solely on their own strength makes them feel powerful, and therefore higher in the hierarchy than the feeble masses who want to cooperate and take care each of each other.
And so, this train of thought somehow merges neoliberal individualism with paleo-fascist hierarchical constructs. The inconsistencies in these ideologies are glaringly obvious, but we’ll leave that for another day.
The broader point is that anti-maskers represent such a radicalized form of individualism that they are willing, nay, are eager to sacrifice the good of society, under the belief that their accomplishments are solely the result of their own hard work and that they owe society nothing.
Most of the protestors are who you’d expect: white suburbanites in the lower echelons of middle class. The lives of relative comfort and stability afforded by neoliberal democracy have entitled them to never be inconvenienced. I don’t wanna wear a mask, and I want a goddamned Trenta Frappe right now. Any new rule that encroaches on these daily routines and whims for instant gratification? Tyranny. The tens of thousands of rules they otherwise adhere to everyday? Well, those are obviously fine.
