[Max Goodman]

Mark,

Your "thinking aloud" on this thread clouds the issue with a tu quoque fallacy. That we all fall at an imperfect spot on the continuum between selfishness and generosity hardly makes us hypocrites to be angry with those who refuse to make even small personal sacrifices for great public good.

It's also a false analogy. My refusal to give away all my money doesn't prevent you from doing good with yours. My spreading this virus makes useless yours and everyone else's attempts to avoid spreading it to the people I've given it to, and the ones they will give it to.

[Mark McDonnell]

I didn't mean to suggest people here were hypocrites, Max, and if I did it was only in the sense that everyone is a hypocrite to some degree. It was prompted by my own shock at the disconnect between my distaste at the article and my sudden realisation that I haven't been wearing a mask. My own hypocrisy. I brought woolly philosophising into a debate about life and death issues, which is probably never a good idea. And I wasn't making an analogy with Reno's life choices, I really was thinking aloud much more generally. About human nature. I think some degree of hypocrisy is almost inevitable in all of us, even the most well-meaning, given the nature of the incredibly complex world we navigate. I didn't mean to cloud anything. I think people are absolutely right to be angry with Reno's stance. I've said pretty clearly three times what I think of him for taking it.

[Matt Q]

Originally Posted by Kevin Rainbow

You must really have something against this person

Hi Kevin,

You'd be right in thinking there was some background to the antipathy expressed in this thread towards First Things and its editor. The reason for that may become clear if you do a search for past threads with "First Things" in the title.

best,

Matt

[Martin Elster]

Originally Posted by Mark McDonnell

I'd be interested to know how many US Spherians wear masks as soon as they step outside, and how much this is influenced by the particular laws in their city/state. I'm not sure how it works over there.

I have not been to a grocery store in over a month now. I've been ordering all of my food and essentials. But around two weeks ago I had to go to the doctor's office, the next day to a lab to drop off a urine sample, and then the day after to a pharmacy (CVS) to pick up some medicine, and everybody was wearing masks in all three places, including myself.

Incidentally, there were two young people (one in the lab waiting room and one in the pharmacy) who did not adhere to the protocol. Not only did they not wear a mask, but purposely got very close to me, which made me uncomfortable. (I think people who act that way are from another planet.) I jumped away from them. I am taking this world crisis seriously and don't like taking chances with my health or other's health. I live in a large apartment building, and all the residents, staff, and maintenance crew wear masks in common areas like the hallways, lobby, laundry room, elevators, and near the mailboxes. (I mostly use the stairs, avoiding the elevators as much as possible. Six flights! I do admit that I don't usually wear my mask while climbing those six flights, unless I see or hear someone else on the stairs, which is rare) It is apparently working, since nobody has tested positive for COVID-19 in my building (so far).

I hope this answers your question, Mark.

[Max Goodman]

Originally Posted by Mark McDonnell

I'd be interested to know how many US Spherians wear masks as soon as they step outside, and how much this is influenced by the particular laws in their city/state.

When I go for a walk, I leave my mask off and am quick, when I see someone coming my direction, to cross the street. The responsibility of keeping distant is higher on those of us not wearing masks.

I do all the shopping for our five-person household. I go once every two weeks. I wear a mask and go to a place that does a great job of helping customers maintain social distance (one of several places I went weekly before the pandemic). The store has six-foot spaces marked for us as we stand in line, which we do because they let only a safe number of customers in at a time. Inside, I have yet to see anyone without a mask. The check-out practice has been evolving. Currently, the customer waits at a distance until the groceries have been rung up and bagged (my reusable bags are for the time being prohibited) then comes forward to pay, which, for those of us with credit cards, can be done without physical contact. They also sanitize the shopping carts between uses. I shop there because I can so without much risk of bringing the virus home to my elderly father or of spreading it to anyone else.

You ask about local laws. Local guidelines are for masks in public indoor places (the nonessential ones being closed at least until next month). Compliance with the guidelines seems to me pretty high, though I suppose those of us following the guidelines don't have much opportunity to observe. Though I've heard of "COVID chicken," my experience on walks is that if I'm not REALLY quick to cross the street to avoid approaching pedestrians, they'll beat me to it. We seem to be competing in being as courteous to each other, as observant of the guidelines, as possible.

[Mark McDonnell]

Thanks, you two. Your description of the store and people's general courteousness and observing of social distancing is similar to what I've experienced, Max. All except the mask thing. We seem to have been very slow for that to become the norm over here, at least that's my experience. And it hasn't been made mandatory yet. Probably a huge mistake, as our late lockdown certainly was and our early relaxing of lockdown no doubt will be. The UK is currently fourth in terms of deaths relative to population.

https://www.statista.com/chart/21170...ate-worldwide/

BTW how do you only shop once a fortnight? I'm the main shopper and I'm going twice, sometimes three times a week for our family of four, including 2 hungry teenagers, and the old guy next door. I know I should only go once a week but we don't have a very big freezer. Don't you run out of bread? Milk?

[Quincy Lehr]

There is a crucial, obvious moral distinction between, say, not wearing a mask due to lack of availability (a major issue early on and still a recurrent issue for the medical-grade ones) or misinformation (that taking basic safety precautions has become, to a significant extent, a culture war issue indicates the uselessness and stupidity of the American media), and doing what Reno has, to wit:

1. Choosing not to abide by safety precautions despite clearly understanding why they are in place and raising this to a moral stance.

2. Clearly having at least at one time been an asymptomatic COVID-19 carrier and showing no remorse for this, much less changing any of his deliberately risky behaviors. I get apologetic if there's a reasonable chance that twenty-four hour sinus thing my wife has resembles the twenty-four hour sinus thing I had two days ago. Because I'm not that much of an asshole. (Yes, I'm an asshole, but there are limits.)

3. Denouncing those who abide by the safety restrictions as "cowards" (as Reno did on Twitter).

I'd always kind of assumed a general Lawful Evil NPC profile for First Things based on its authoritarian, ultramontane leanings, but this is full Neutral Evil blackpilled stuff, even if Reno remains an NPC.

[Julie Steiner]

I'm not really representative of US practices in general, for two reasons:

1) My husband and one of my daughters are immunocompromised, so we were pretty germ-phobic and have always taken a lot of precautions anyway: avoiding touching doorknobs, pressing elevator buttons with our elbows, lots of hand-washing, etc. People in our church already knew that we weren't going to shake hands with them: smiling and bowing with one hand on our heart was all they were going to get from us, and after looking taken aback the first few times, they adjusted and would always just smile and bow to us instead of putting their hand out.

2) I live in a very Asian neighborhood--full of sci/tech workers like my husband (who, like he, happen to Asian). Wearing a face mask if you go out while you have the sniffles is the norm here, just as it is in many Asian countries. People in the aisles of my local grocery store would turn around and give a lot of distance to anyone who coughed or sniffled in public and wasn't masked, even before the current pandemic.

I think that for most people, both sorts of non-confrontational peer pressure--offering an alternative to shaking hands, conspicuously ostracizing people who seem not to care about others' health--is more effective to change behavior than government pronouncements and policing. Unfortunately, that sort of social pressure won't work on people who not only take pride in rejecting conventional wisdom, but who actually seem to enjoy going out of their way to upset people with whom they disagree, just for spite.

For those like Reno who say that opening up the economy is more important than protecting people's health, I ask why it has to be either/or. Why can't we loosen the lockdown and still keep reasonable precautions like mask-wearing in place? I don't understand how "courageously" refusing to wear a mask, as Reno advocates, is going to help the economy in any way. Making people sick unnecessarily hurts the economy, too.

[Quincy Lehr]

Julie’s points about social peer pressure are well-taken and certainly present in Los Angeles, where I live, and where masks are the norm (on the rare occasions I have to shop, I add latex gloves). In the ‘burbs (more space, more Fox News), it’s less common. In Galveston, Texas (where my mother, who’s in her late seventies and not in the best of health, lives), Mom has strangers give her crap about wearing a mask with some frequency, including threatening to forcibly remove it. Store employees get threatened over trying to enforce basic protocols with some frequency. Reno’s more eggheaded than the TV shouters, QAnon weirdos, and AR-15-wielding moist, round men who want nothing more than to chug unlimited free refills of soda at Applebee’s once more, but his operational points are exactly the same.

[James Brancheau]

My mom's in her late 70s, too, and worry about her quite a bit. That's just some freakishly brain dead shit. The number of assaults because people were asked to put masks on? I can't comprehend this mentality. And it doesn't cross my mind to try. There is no moral ambiguity here. You're either a nut cake, or you're not.