By Scott Shephard
I woke up today wondering why I can’t shop naked at Walmart. Of course, in a South Dakota winter there are practicalities - when going from vehicle to store, my knees, navel and other delicate parts might suffer. But I could wear my robe into the store and disrobe after selecting my shopping cart. People would stare. But would I care?
I also wondered why I automatically put the crook of my elbow up to my mouth when I sneeze. If I were invited to dinner at your house and sneezed across the breadth of the table (laden with food and clean China) without covering my mouth, would you wonder about my upbringing? More than that, would you wonder about what I might have contaminated?
This kind of wondering this morning took me down a bottomless rabbit hole. Why do I wear seatbelts? Why do I switch the breaker off when I work on an electrical circuit? Why do I drive on the right side of the road? Why do I need to wear bright orange when pheasant hunting? Finally, why can’t I sample LSD, mushrooms and heroin and share those drugs with my grandchildren?
All of these wonderings are about freedom and personal liberty. And didn’t the Founding Fathers give citizens of the USA a guarantee of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness?”
Though the examples are about freedom and liberty, they are all restricted or proscribed. As I see it, they can be put into 3 categories:
1)They are against the law (public nudity, not wearing seatbelts, driving on the wrong side of the road and taking and sharing certain drugs) or
2)They protect others from me or me from others (sneezing at dinner, wearing bright orange) or
3)They protect me from myself (working on a live electrical circuit).
In the USA we have formed a social contract which says that we agree to give up some of our natural liberties (taking LSD and practicing public nudity, for example) in exchange for something better - safety and security, to name two. The philosopher Thomas Hobbes said that before the idea of such a contract, “life was nasty, brutish and short” because we were driven largely by self-interest. In our country individual self interest is important but we are aware of and constrained by the interests of our neighbors or even the interests of the stranger and her children (on whom we avoid sneezing or to whom we refrain from showing our delicate and private parts). We also respect the rule of law.
So, do you refuse to wear a COVID-19 mask on the grounds of personal liberty? If your answer is “Yes” and if all that I have said has seemed logical, you need a better reason. If your reason concerns the efficacy or risks of masks, consider what the renowned Mayo Clinic has to say. (Spoiler alert: they say they work.)
The fact is that your mask protects you a little bit and it protects those you encounter a lot. My mask protects me but it protects you more. We should both wear one. It’s totally consistent with what the American social contract would expect or even demand of its citizenry. It’s kind of like covering your mouth when you sneeze, isn’t it?
If you don’t agree with this, then you should also consider shopping naked at Walmart. But don’t forget your COVID-19 mask - the sign outside the door says “masks required.” (But it says nothing about wearing clothing.) And, if you don’t like the mask requirement, you can take your “business” somewhere else. That’s how our brand of personal freedom and the social contract work.