I posted the following on Twitter the other night, shortly before bed. I didn’t think much of it — I post my thoughts about the pandemic and the response to it all the time. I was about to sign off but I could see the post was blowing up because usually the engagement trickles in, and this was pouring in. So I stayed up to engage in some back and forth.
What interested me most here is the introspection about the root of your anxiety and why you fear a sheeplike compliant populace. No doubt that exists and can be exploited.
However, I live with a sort of mirror image fear: the growing number of people who have entirely lost the concept of participation in public, communal life. These are the folks who mistakenly conflate unfettered self-interest with freedom. People for whom the very concept of public good is some kind of pussy, left-wing fairytale.
Five decades of right-wing drum beat on the evils of big government has eroded the very concept of good government and citizenship and left us with a wide swath of people who really believe that liberty means being able to do whatever you want, whenever you want regardless of its impart on others or the society at large.
I own two grocery stores, so my pandemic experience was impacted much more by non-compliant maskers and a constant battle that at times was fueled by politics. I have been verbally abused and physically threatened.
My fear is that it is not compliance that leads to a soviet style think police and a tyranny of the majority and cancel culture. My fear is that civic duty, inclusiveness, collective good, in my mind, the real heart of America, is being replaced by an ideological America that worships self-interest as the highest good.
To me, this is the worm from which a Facist, totalitarian state grows. These people are just waiting for a leader to promise them what they want and there is nothing and nobody they won’t destroy in defense of “the real America.”
American media gets our dumb asses to fall in line with the Chinese Social Credit System and the government does not even have to get involved. I appreciate your voice.
Well said. I think you addressed a lot here in a very small space. I had some concerns and responded on Twitter and made it known that I will sometimes wear a mask outdoors to show kindness to others, understanding fully the very limited risks outdoors, and not in an attempt to blindly comply with the state. I probably felt that you were really getting at the problem of mask shaming, but you didn't explicitly state that, rather using hyperbole to make start a discussion. I'll post a few more thoughts on here to get your response because you're clearly acting in good faith here and I see some room for disagreement which is much more interesting than agreement, for me.
What interested me most here is the introspection about the root of your anxiety and why you fear a sheeplike compliant populace. No doubt that exists and can be exploited.
However, I live with a sort of mirror image fear: the growing number of people who have entirely lost the concept of participation in public, communal life. These are the folks who mistakenly conflate unfettered self-interest with freedom. People for whom the very concept of public good is some kind of pussy, left-wing fairytale.
Five decades of right-wing drum beat on the evils of big government has eroded the very concept of good government and citizenship and left us with a wide swath of people who really believe that liberty means being able to do whatever you want, whenever you want regardless of its impart on others or the society at large.
I own two grocery stores, so my pandemic experience was impacted much more by non-compliant maskers and a constant battle that at times was fueled by politics. I have been verbally abused and physically threatened.
My fear is that it is not compliance that leads to a soviet style think police and a tyranny of the majority and cancel culture. My fear is that civic duty, inclusiveness, collective good, in my mind, the real heart of America, is being replaced by an ideological America that worships self-interest as the highest good.
To me, this is the worm from which a Facist, totalitarian state grows. These people are just waiting for a leader to promise them what they want and there is nothing and nobody they won’t destroy in defense of “the real America.”
American media gets our dumb asses to fall in line with the Chinese Social Credit System and the government does not even have to get involved. I appreciate your voice.
Well said. I think you addressed a lot here in a very small space. I had some concerns and responded on Twitter and made it known that I will sometimes wear a mask outdoors to show kindness to others, understanding fully the very limited risks outdoors, and not in an attempt to blindly comply with the state. I probably felt that you were really getting at the problem of mask shaming, but you didn't explicitly state that, rather using hyperbole to make start a discussion. I'll post a few more thoughts on here to get your response because you're clearly acting in good faith here and I see some room for disagreement which is much more interesting than agreement, for me.