When we naively believed we could spy the pandemic's demise stumbling over the horizon of 2021, we took to entertaining some spectacularly premature questions-for example, should we keep these wretched masks on our faces, though the disease itself might recede? Did we gain anything beyond a first line of defense against COVID - anything good and otherwise unobtainable - by finding ourselves forced to don these hot, moist, suffocating... things? If so, what is this rare, and otherwise unobtainable, upside? Perhaps concealment from the probing gaze of the other; distance in that concealment; safety in that distance; and finally, relief in that safety - relief from the psychological discomfort that can arise when we look upon other people, and especially when they look upon us.
The British newspaper the Guardian published a piece on the matter, entitled, "The people who want to keep masking: 'It's like an invisibility cloak". Masking, the article's author, Julia Carrie Wong, informs us, protects against more than disease. It protects too, against unease. "It's about the fact that there are more things that can hurt [us] than viruses," Wong says, “including the aggressive or unwelcome attention of other people - or even any attention at all." But it's not obvious that remaining masked absent a literal mortal threat like COVID is the right choice to make - by which I mean the morally right choice.
Denne historien er fra August/September 2022-utgaven av Philosophy Now.
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Denne historien er fra August/September 2022-utgaven av Philosophy Now.
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The Two Dennises
Hannah Mortimer observes a close encounter of the same kind.
Heraclitus (c.500 BC)
Harry Keith lets flow a stream of ideas about permanence and change.
Does the Cosmos Have a Purpose?
Raymond Tallis argues intently against universal intention.
Is Driving Fossil-Fuelled Cars Immoral?
Rufus Duits asks when we can justify driving our carbon contributors.
Abelard & Carneades Yes & No
Frank Breslin says 'yes and no' to presenting both sides of an argument.
Frankl & Sartre in Search of Meaning
Georgia Arkell compares logotherapy and atheistic existentialism.
Luce Irigaray
Luce Irigaray, now ninety-two years old, was, among many other things, one of the most impactful feminists of the 1970s liberation movements - before she was marginalised, then ostracised, from the francophone intellectual sphere.
Significance
Ruben David Azevedo tells us why, in a limitless universe, we’re not insignificant.
The Present Is Not All There Is To Happiness
Rob Glacier says don’t just live in the now.
Philosophers Exploring The Good Life
Jim Mepham quests with philosophers to discover what makes a life good.