At breakfast today I sat near this group. Three tables pulled together to make one long Wayne Manor-ish table, filled with five nuclear families. The parents were millennials, and it may have been the first time in some time that they had all gotten together.
I didn't track all their conversations, of course, but I did notice when they started talking about school. One woman asked why, at this point, her kids have to wear masks in school when the teachers don't. It's a good question. If I were a teacher―and I have friends who teach at both elementary and secondary levels―I'd want to get in front of this question.
I'd also take from this exchange and a few others I've noticed that women aren't necessarily that taken in by safetyism. That may be women's role in institutions, but on their own they're just as likely to seek balance between safety and other values.
2 comments:
While it's very easy to find the masking guidance on the CDC, it's difficult to find when it stopped. The latest from the CDC from last winter:
Effective February 25, 2022, CDC is exercising its enforcement discretion to not require that people wear masks on buses or vans operated by public or private school systems, including early care and education/child care programs. CDC is making this change to align with updated guidance that no longer recommends universal indoor mask wearing in K-12 and early education settings in areas with a low or medium COVID-19 Community Level.
RI Dept of Health end Aug 2022:
Whether or not you’re vaccinated, you're still required to wear a mask:
* If a healthcare setting, business, private school, camp, or other entity requires it
* In public K-12 schools or institutes of higher education as required by the town, city, or school administration.
You'll note the CDC is passing the buck (low or medium community level). Next it appears that the rule is up to the interpretation made by RI schools - different in different counties. Everybody is passing the buck in order not to be blamed (safetyism transference?).
There are people who are eager to submit to the powers that be and some who rationalize their masks as perhaps doing no good but certainly doing no harm - a mere precaution. The harms are actually real and plentiful. The masks deprived young children of seeing human faces for over a year, and it's still painful to watch toddlers and school children out for a stroll dressed like burn victims. Measures taken to control the uncontrollable - the idolatry of fear is very much like a cargo cult.
At the same time it appears that people are becoming aware of what's been going on and are finding reasons among themselves to challenge the system. It's good to know there are rumblings.
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ps: Here is that Greer article from 2014. You might not feel like reading it right now but it's worth bookmarking.
The transportation masking requirements are a story in themselves. Many states and localities--Rhode Island included--enacted them in 2020. Then early in 2021 the Biden administration federalized them. Then there came a federal court ruling that they didn't have the authority, under the circumstances, to do that. I don't believe that it's actually been taken to the Supreme Court. Someone, in a rare burst of sanity, must have realized that expending political capital on a burdensome restriction that hadn't really made a difference anyway would not help them.
The effect of masking on developing children is the most upsetting thing. If somebody who's reached adulthood wants to virtue signal or genuinely believes they have to cover their face to stay healthy, well, it's a personal choice. Kids who are still learning about the world and other people are harmed in ways we haven't even calculated yet. And the Orwellian attempts to hide these facts, even changing old reference materials, are even more obscene.
I am certainly glad there's more of a widespread resistance. Of course we're being taken for a ride on even more fronts now.
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That's another cool article by Greer. Economically and psychologically, people of the world aren't prepared for a deindustrialized world, but it might not be as bleak as all that. The idea of low-tech shortwave radio sounds like it could be fun.
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