Covering your face, as a primate, is not a natural thing to do. Our brains have huge areas dedicated to recognition of subtle differences in facial features. We're literally wired for facial recognition. More than almost any other feature of our bodies, our faces define us as individuals.
Assuming that obscuring the face has zero cost is clearly wrong. I honestly can't believe I have to say this out loud.
>Covering your face, as a primate, is not a natural thing to do.
1) Neither is wearing pants or a shirt. 2) Something being 'natural' doesn't make it right.
>Assuming that obscuring the face has zero cost is clearly wrong.
It doesn't need to have zero cost in order to be the correct thing to do. The question is whether or not the trade-off is worthwhile. Let's saying masking always under all conditions is too much of an imposition, are there restrictions we can place that make the trade-off better?
For instance: Is masking in high density communal areas during respiratory disease seasons with an X drop in disease propagation worth not seeing people's faces in that setting for that time period.
To extrapolate this back to the pants/shirt distinction; human life would end in a generation if we weren't ever able to take off our pants and shirt as we would never have sex again, but the intolerability of that restriction doesn't make it socially accepted for me to rub my bare ass onto a bus seat.
We can't have a discussion about how best to adopt masks, pants, or shirts as a technology if the only way they'll be accepted is if they're always a pure benefit in any situation.
> It doesn't need to have zero cost in order to be the correct thing to do. The question is whether or not the trade-off is worthwhile.
I don't dispute this. You're more than welcome to continue doing whatever you want and make that trade-off for yourself. I won't be participating, because to me, the value of seeing human faces vastly exceeds the benefit of avoiding a cold (assuming that is even achievable, which I don't grant).
But the metaphor of "pants" is absurd. I wear pants because they keep me warm and protect my soft bits and make me look snazzy, not because someone else is making a moral judgment about my choice of clothing being "the correct thing to do".
Yes that's the point. It's a reductio ab absurdem. The pant metaphor is obviously absurd for the same reason that the initial position you posited is absurd. In order to salvage your initial position, you need to differentiate the logic or premises from the absurd argumentation.
Pants and Shirts aren't symbols of fear and control despite being mandated in most areas of public life, but shackles, prison garb and other elements of clothing certainly would be. Therefore there's an element other than being mandated that makes clothing a symbol of fear and control. This is what the pants metaphor shows.
>I won't be participating, because to me, the value of seeing human faces vastly exceeds the benefit of avoiding a cold.
This is also reductive (not the personal choice aspect, but rather how it ties into the original discussion of masks as symbols of fear and control); would you agree with the faces over mask rule during a surgery with patients susceptible to infection? Would you consider hospital rules that OR staff wear masks during such surgeries to be authoritarian overreach?
I think if you're willing to admit that 1) there are public health concerns associated with the COVID-19 pandemic and 2) that there's a trade-off to be made, then "I won't be participating" is a bit too absolutist to flow from the remainder of your beliefs. Certainly you can try refining a condition like "masking in high density communal areas during respiratory disease seasons" to be more or less restrictive rather than ignoring the issue altogether.
If we can do that, we can have a more meaningful discussion about where masking could be appropriate, rather than discussing whether or not it should occur at all.
You still need to clarify how having to wear pants and shirts is not an instance of control over you. Because it is, and you only don't mind that control because you agree that you should do it. Use the same principle here.
Btw idk about others but I wear a mask indoors with strangers, like in public transport or shops. I get to see all the faces I want to see and show mine outdoors or when video calling or if they are close friends or cohabitants.
Wearing a mask in public has only one cost for healthy people: a dirty mask can make you sick so you must have a clean mask, and that costs either money or time spent washing (and chance of washing it wrong)
I think you are overstating your case. The eyes are the important thing. You can cover someone's mouth without affecting recognition performance, but you can't cover their eyes. Lots of research available on this, starting with https://www.jstor.org/stable/1421414
Secondly, your primate brain also wants to look at the genital area, but, again: pants.
Covering your face, as a primate, is not a natural thing to do. Our brains have huge areas dedicated to recognition of subtle differences in facial features. We're literally wired for facial recognition. More than almost any other feature of our bodies, our faces define us as individuals.
Assuming that obscuring the face has zero cost is clearly wrong. I honestly can't believe I have to say this out loud.