Tenderlysharp

A rational explanation for irrationality...  Why did I laugh when Ayn Rand said she liked the phrase "god bless you" even though she didn't literally believe in a god, she liked what the phrase means. When Ayn Rand said she never met her match in a debate, it seems like she was talking about the olympian exercise of developing her entire body of work.  The Galt speeches are her conscious human identity grappling with the parts of herself and the collective she had to push back to become more fully human.  

I can imagine how emotionally painful it could be for some performers to not be able to perform. A number of successful performers have also died of the coronavirus, which is something like the public lights that were snuffed out by AIDS before the scientific rescue came through (still no vaccine). I wanted to mention also that regular churches and synagogues suffered greatly in religious feeling during the shutdowns. The getting together in person with their fellowship in a common faith and ceremony of worship is a really big part of many who are religious. Internet viewing would just not cut it.
After the first couple of months, I got bored of all discussions, often politicized, about covid-19 and the various approaches to suppressing infection, keeping ICU in enough supply, shutdowns, and so forth. Poltiticalization occurred also in connection with AIDS. At my sister's church (1984), in a discussion group, it came out that some members thought no research should be done on it because in the US the infection was associated with being gay, which God condemned (and they condemned), and the right way was to let them die as punishment. (For the first couple of centuries of European law in North America, the earthly punishment for homosexuality was execution. That was still the case and continued when "the land of the free" was born.) Then too, there was the flocking of libertarians to theses of the cell-researcher Peter Duesberg who denied that HIV was the cause of AIDS, that taking the one medication that had been developed against HIV to that point, together with too much nightlife and recreational drugs, was the cause of people losing the immune defenses in the syndrome called AIDS. I wrote to the editor at LIBERTY magazine, which had carried the Deusberg line on its pages, told them what I knew and had experienced first hand, that the concern of this libertarian flock was political (no research money for AIDS), not a concern for preservation of my life, and that I was going to continue to follow my doctor in his recommendation for anti-HIV medications as they came up for test. To his credit, the editor followed up with an expert writing against the Duesberg views.
During those first couple of months of the online discussions of the Covid-19 pandemic, I did a little digging and learned what all had happened during the 1957-58 pandemic of Asian Flu. Eisenhower had gotten some funds for ramping up production of the vaccine which had been developed before the infection hit America and swept across the country in spring of '57. The higher production rate was able to save lives in the fall of that year. The administration considered shutting the schools, because children were especially susceptible to this disease. But the government agencies assessed that it was going to spread so rapidly, that little if any good would be done. So decisions went to local administrators and individual families. Some school districts closed, often because attendance had stopped. Even if your child was not sick, you might call in the child as sick, in order to protect your child. At that time, the country overall, as I gather from the NY Times in those years, was very concerned that our armed forces personnel should not be knocked down with this communicable disease. Ike did not direct closure of businesses. That was correct in my view. Let the chips fall there, like in the schools. One problem in the recent pandemic with closing work places by the federal/state government is that having prevented people from working, you have something of an obligation to compensate them. If they lost work instead from individual decisions, well, then it would just be the usual deal that nature is a giant.

Those who took their lives here, were often but not only, some actors, performers and musicians (some known personally) who had lost their incomes, social/family pursuits and more than anything, to alone creative types - their work.
Not directly as result of Covid, but the evil of the inessential and inhumane, universal lockdowns.

I love objectivism, yet feel ill equipped to keep up with the tremendous amount of words there are to sift through, I appreciate each of you who invest your time and attention to respond.  I read this forum for hours, without posting my loosely organized thoughts and responses, then put it down for a few weeks.  
The majority of my mental real estate is dedicated to visual infomation.  Here is one of my tumblrs I have used as catharsis and energy, I have posted more than 7000 masks from all the cultures and times I can find.  I hope some of you find value if you take the time to scroll through.  I recommend zooming into the images, I use 'COMMAND+++' on my mac to see the tumbnails more closely.  
https://submittothemask.tumblr.com/archive 

Jonathan Haidt links plumeting teen mental health to social media
 

I definately see the effects in my 14 year old son, I wont use him as a pawn to fight the school directly, so I work to help him adapt.  Humans have been using masks and plague scares as part of dogma leverage for thousands of years, the individual always has to develop a set of tools that help return to your values and priorities.  I have an almost supernatural belief in the ability of an individual consciousness to transcend the collective.  

If we hadn't realized before the profound effect facial masking has on interpersonal communication, I shudder to think what the implications for multiyear masking of children will have on their development. I think we inadvertently by acquiescence just broadened ' the spectrum'. 

You were having this illness in February 2020, if I've gotten this right. I attended the conference of the American Philosophical Association in that month in Chicago. I recall having a mask in my pocket and putting it on once during part of a session someone nearby was coughing quite a bit. I'm afraid we weren't yet really fully aware of the risk of the new germ in the air. That particular session was a packed room with overflow sitting on the floor. When I took the train home to Lynchburg, there was not yet any social distancing or masks against that particular infection. I hope you are having no bad effects by now.
I never got the infection, and we are being vaccinated now. The crummy thing I've noticed about wearing the mask at public places like the grocery store these many months, is the great obstacle it brings to full, sensitive communication to people you speak to, especially to friends you encounter. We can see only eye expressions to supplement voice. I don't think I realized before how important full visible face is to rich personal communication.
Nietzsche has a few wild thoughts on the subject: "Every profound spirit needs a mask: what's more, a mask is constantly growing around every profound spirit, thanks to the consistently false (which is to say shallow) interpretation of every word, every step, every sign of life he displays." (BGE 40)

Yamasee War
The tribes joined together to fight a common oppressor. To suggest that 10,000 years created a dominant trait of indomitable volition brings to mind an inverse of the use of breeding to domesticate livestock. 
European tribalism and north American tribalism developed different moralities, stemming from different driving mythologies, or "primitive philosophies". 
The Yamasee War is not something I recall from school. It popped up in a search for slave trade, native american, to flesh out a better understanding of your propositions.

Next, in a totalitarian state, spreading ideas will be actionable. (Oh, wait ...) Is there a face mask to protect against a thought pandemic?
The irrational is the insane or the impossible, I believe Rand said, Michael.
Try to prove in court that it was my germs you caught off a door handle. Then, that it was my negligence or malice at fault.
If anyone wants, who and what stops them from going round masked their whole day and every day of their lives? Just leave me out.

Aristos has highlighted/promoted these artists:
Frederic Church

 
Thomas Cole

 
Anthony Waichulix

Jason Brady

 
Jean-Léon Gérôme

 
Léon-Joseph-Florentin Bonnat

 
Théodule-Augustin Ribot

 
Maria Oakey Dewing

 
Lawrence Alma-Tadema

 
 
 

Look around your home.  Is there anything there that gives you energy?  Validates your consciousness?  Reminds you of the unique manifestations of your identity?  Any song, book, film, tactile object that resonates with the possibility of a goal worth aiming toward?  Is there something you could put on your wall that will add a spring to your step, or release the tense confusion of a recent argument because it resonates with a problem solving mindset? 
As one works toward building a solid foundation in reality, aesthetics is where humanity has a chance to evolve creatively through the contribution of each individual.  It takes a great deal of personal resilience to create something that is true, to the epic depths of your mind, regardless of whether another person might recognize some universal appeal.  

How is it that a year ago it was much more common to feel derision toward germaphobes and hypochondriacs?  
Humans die without contact, I wouldn't trade anything for my 4 year old niece jumping my lap and giving me a kiss on the cheek with her booger face.  I get a tissue, clean up her face and tell her she is adorable.  A germ or virus is nothing compared to human consciousness.  Why teach children to feel overwhelming helplessness in the face of something you absolutely have the intelligence to adapt to?  

Look around your home.  Is there anything there that gives you energy?  Validates your consciousness?  Reminds you of the unique manifestations of your identity?  Any song, book, film, tactile object that resonates with the possibility of a goal worth aiming toward?  Is there something you could put on your wall that will add a spring to your step, or release the tense confusion of a recent argument because it resonates with a problem solving mindset? 
As one works toward building a solid foundation in reality, aesthetics is where humanity has a chance to evolve creatively through the contribution of each individual.  It takes a great deal of personal resilience to create something that is true, to the epic depths of your mind, regardless of whether another person might recognize some universal appeal.  

Look around your home.  Is there anything there that gives you energy?  Validates your consciousness?  Reminds you of the unique manifestations of your identity?  Any song, book, film, tactile object that resonates with the possibility of a goal worth aiming toward?  Is there something you could put on your wall that will add a spring to your step, or release the tense confusion of a recent argument because it resonates with a problem solving mindset? 
As one works toward building a solid foundation in reality, aesthetics is where humanity has a chance to evolve creatively through the contribution of each individual.  It takes a great deal of personal resilience to create something that is true, to the epic depths of your mind, regardless of whether another person might recognize some universal appeal.  

One of the bizarrest forms of ovine behavior that I've seen is people driving all by themselves, wearing the diaper. I wonder if they are afraid of infecting themselves.

An app available for 'smartphones' has metrics of less than six feet in conjunction with a time-span of over 15 minutes, an interesting juxtaposition to superpose with an encounter generated by mere walk in a park, sans a face diaper.

I wear one when required, out of respect for the fact that a private business is required to enforce the mandate. I never decided on a consistent policy to use in situations where I have a choice. I go for walks in a public park and don't wear one, even though it's required as far as I know, because no one is around to enforce. I'm not interested in wearing one without having a good medical reason to believe they actually work. If this premise were somehow proven, and this was communicated through a source I respect, I would be more interested in wearing one, but right now I feel like this is subjugation with unproven quackery at the hands of health authoritarians. 

If it were only a matter of individual rational behavior, that's easy. How hard can it be to be courteous, amenable and aware of others or even of others' grandmas back at home? One doesn't derive moral kudos from these. (Many do). So one can be flexible to different situations where other people are. And of their rights. The trouble is (the non-issue of) masking is all to do with group behavior, on the macro scale, not one's own acts. Your life isn't your own to choose. What's expected, demanded and/or mandated from one for the sake of the general, abstract, 'other' and their well-being is paramount. By governments and 'society' pressure.
Predictable and evident, any citizen runs short of good will under these circumstances, and gets a resentful but vague sense of his sacrifice to others, particularly where his 'selfish' livelihood, etc., is being hurt - but lacks the necessary ethics to explain how morally right he is. 
Compulsory blanket masking and social distancing that over-ride one's personal assessments and choice, are just an extension of lockdowns. We are released on condition of good behavior, comparative to prisoners wearing ankle bracelets who know they can be returned to gaol at the least arbitrary slip. E.g. "Ten" are allowed to gather, but twelve? decreed unlawful and harmful by the science bureaucrats and politicos who calculate and enforce these things. Even these social metaphysicians reluctantly grasp that they need the economies to recover and -some- human activity to return. Sorry to be the grouch...  

I’m my normal friendly and outgoing casual shopper and even more conspicuously, consciously while wearing my Trump 2020 mask. 

How many masks do you wear?
I chose to present and ponder this topic as a Metaphysical and Epistemologcal exploration of identity.  
This thread is not so much to argue the benefits and safety of the mask.  Another thread seems to do a thorough job in favor of the mask: https://forum.objectivismonline.com/index.php?/topic/34048-rebloggedit-is-not-self-interest-to-take-illness-lightly/&tab=comments#comment-368272
I wear the mask every day, I had Covid in February, never been more sick in my life... I definitely don’t want my three grandmothers in their 90’s to die from it, and I miss hugging them terribly.  I've been seriously trying to figure out how I might be able to quarantine for two weeks just to have the privilege of being in the same room with each of them.  
You can submit to the mask and still hate it and still speak out against how dehumanizing it can be.  As well as give careful attention to the ways opportunistic power struggle groups seize upon fear.    
The Chinese Congress spent $2 Billion for covid in the U.S.  That is $40M in each state… Money from China is slave labor money.  The money seems to be spent on social media ad campaigns promoting their agenda. You can spot the underlying theme in a deluge of memes that try to alienate, belittle, polarize, dehumanize, take for granted, and intellectually cripple America for respecting freedom and success.
If you are faceless, what identity do you have?

This mask (etc...) debacle has ironically made me friendlier to the general populace. I wear a mask begrudgingly only as required by businesses, but I find myself being nicer and smiling genuinely more to people, whether they're wearing the muzzles themselves or not. I think friendliness is very important right now. However, I have no tolerance or sympathy for tattlers or do-gooders, and if they stop me they get a sharp dismissive reply.

What metaphysics? Nobody is in full contact with reality (poorly substituted by the pallid, rehashed 'reality' from TV and our e-devices), and what epistemology, anyway, where little rationality could be sustained in this non-real, under-active dream state? And what "identity", one's human, physical self-identity and 'other'-identity, that distinguishes one from the crowd - when individuality is hidden behind a face covering, you can't hardly recognize an acquaintance, struggle to hear their muffled voice and are not permitted to touch each other? If this infection were a plot hatched by an evil alien genius to conquer Earth without resistance, he read human nature exactly right and will succeed. Many will give up freedom for a little bit of safety. You mean I need more than one mask, Tenderly!?

Faceless. As in one's mouth and nose obscured by a mask (as has been typically been observed.)
The opportunity to express one's self to others still transcends this protocol. At this stage, our eyes and ears are not obscured.
My daughter and her husband expressed the fact that they had likely contracted CoViD-19. The symptoms, thus far, have been relatively mild. She, being in the nursing field, indicated that her two boys were to develop their immunity to CoViD-19 over the Christmas holiday—should they contract it— changing the usual course of the last 15 years of our historical tradition of having gotten together for this holiday season.
I respect her decision, and conversely, she respects mine.
 

Faceless? As in selfless? or Faceless like: no eyes, nose, mouth etc.
In both cases you're dead. Dead is your identity.