Month: February 2021

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Masks as the hollow talisman of a new fundamentalism

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Wonderful new article in The Critic: Faith Mask, that questions whether medical masks serve more as symbol of a new religion rather than virus-blocking medical device:

“Will we throw off our masks in 2021? Some public health officials, our new priests, want us to keep them, perhaps because they are true believers in the protective power of the mask, or perhaps because masks symbolise our obedience and compliance to the new creed: public health policy. If you don’t wear a mask, or point out the scant evidence in favour, you are labelled a Covid-denier. The implication will be you do not care. There are fines for such heretics. There is also public shaming.

Masks symbolise values that go far beyond science, a new creed we are finding the words for. They emblemise a nascent “religion” in which the moral code is based upon extending life, not securing your place in the afterlife. But in this liminal time, before we have the words and authoritative codification, make no mistake about the symbolism. 

Masks are the vestiture of the faithful, signalling belief and, importantly, obedience. Handwashing and sanitising are daily baptisms, washing away our innate human infectiousness just as the Christian baptism washes away our innate sin. 

Cathedrals play host to mass vaccinations in a powerful intersection of the old and new religions. Spaced congregations of the masked elderly wait, listening to organ music for their modern miracle, the rite of biomedical transubstantiation. As with all religions, your priests demand obedience and piety.”

 

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