What’s the big deal about being required to wear a face mask in public?

How has a small swatch of cloth with elastic straps suddenly become a symbol of intolerable hardship, tyrannical government and God knows what other dark forces?

In the wake of the deadly COVID-19 pandemic, which has claimed over 100,000 American lives in the U.S. in less than three months and which threatens to spread further and faster as the U.S. economy reopens, it would seem entirely rational for everyone to be wearing a mask in public. Until a vaccine is perfected, a mask (in tandem with social distancing) is the best defense against transmission of this airborne disease, and it should be treated as a symbol of patriotism and unity — like the “V” for victory sign or Rosie the Riveter image during World War II.

I’ve been puzzled, therefore, as why just the opposite seems to have occurred in Maine and throughout the country.

We will probably have to await a raft of social science research for the answer to that question, but I can at least offer some possible explanations.

The first explanation is that Americans are not known for their willingness to practice sustained self-sacrifice in the interest of the common good. President Harry Truman, with his trademark blend of folksiness and bluntness, once remarked that the American people supported him at the start of a crisis, “but when there is a long row of corn to shuck, they want an easy way out.”

Maine Gov. Janet Mills’ latest pandemic executive order, which went into effect last Friday, provides that places of business accessible to the public must “post readily visible signs notifying customers of the requirement to wear cloth face coverings where physical distancing is not possible” and “allows them to deny entry or service to a person not wearing a covering.”  An earlier executive order of April 29 first required that Mainers “wear cloth face coverings in public settings where other physical distancing measures are difficult to maintain,” and defined “public settings” to include “indoor spaces … accessible to the public such as grocery stores, retail stores, pharmacies.”

But try going to local supermarkets and other retailers to see how many shoppers are paying attention to face-mask and distancing requirements or how many stores are insisting they do so.

A May 31 Maine Sunday Telegram article reported, based on visits to 20 retail stores within an hour’s drive of Portland, that there was widespread non-compliance by customers and that one unmasked shopper had even spit at a reporter who asked him why he wasn’t wearing one.  My wife has returned from numerous grocery shopping trips to Hannaford and Shaw’s supermarkets in Auburn, complaining that many customers were not spacing 6 feet apart, that a half or more were not using masks, and that store managers and personnel were making no effort to deny them entrance or ask them to leave.

Is this symptomatic of an unwillingness to endure hardship?

Perhaps, but then how do you explain the remarkable stoicism of millions who persevered through months of being shuttered in their homes, deprived of their livelihoods and businesses, and severely limited in their social contacts?  There was almost no social unrest in the U.S. during the shutdown. Compare that with the rioting and looting which erupted last week in a number of American cities over the unjustified killing of a black man, George Floyd, by a white Minneapolis police officer.

Besides, although masks can be unpleasant to wear, they hardly qualify as a hardship. As a lawyer, I recently got a sense of the pluses and minuses of wearing one in public.

On a hot, humid day in late May, I handled a Protection from Abuse case at South Paris District Court. Protection hearings are one of the few types that have been conducted in person since the Maine Supreme Judicial Court began issuing its own pandemic emergency orders in March.  However, masks are required for all who enter a courthouse, a rule strictly enforced by security personnel.

I was in the South Paris court for only about two hours and in the courtroom for less than one, but the experience was a frustrating one. I found that I had trouble breathing (my deviated septum and the mask teamed up to limit my air supply), seeing (my glasses fogged from the mask), and hearing (the mask muffled the voices of the parties and the judge).  Still, the mask allowed me to do my job without unduly endangering my own health or the health of others in close proximity to me, so I took it in stride.

The second explanation, and, I believe, the more plausible one, has to do with a fundamental principle of psychology.

Scientists who study human behavior have concluded that people will often adopt and cling to irrational beliefs, even ones that make little sense, clash with observable reality, or constitute a threat to their own wellbeing, if those beliefs preserve their sense of identity and group belonging.

As cognitive psychologist Steven Pinker explains it, “To express the wrong opinion on a politicized issue can make one an oddball at best – someone who ‘doesn’t get it’ – and a traitor at worst. The pressure to conform becomes all the greater as people live and work with others who are like them.”

Masks have been become a politically charged symbol, thanks largely to President Donald Trump (who has stubbornly refused to wear one in public).

They’ve become associated in the minds of many with the state-government ordered shutdowns, the acute economic pain they’ve caused and, by extension, governmental overreaching that infringes on individual liberty.  And because Democrats have been generally more supportive of prolonged shutdowns and social distancing requirements than Republicans, masks have become a flashpoint of political tribalism. In short, masks have become identified as a form of “fake news” being propagated by members of the other tribe.

It doesn’t matter that these associations have nothing to do with the reality of masks, which are simply convenient tools to slow the spread of the virus and which will, in fact, facilitate a quicker reopening of the economy and enhance individual freedom by promoting safer person-to-person interaction.

Face coverings have thus become political propaganda symbols in a culture war without end, and this war will cost more than public civility. In the words of a social media post, “If you don’t like wearing a mask, you’re really not going to like a ventilator.”

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