COVID-19 and the Morality Wars
October 27 2020: Can we disagree with someone without feeling superior to them?
Well… who are you?
Spiritual warfare is real, and it is going on all around us at the moment.
Wars over ideas. Wars over political ideology. Wars over identity. Wars over culture, and/or cults.
And perhaps most viciously, wars over moral superiority.
This became obvious to me, when I saw this picture of a Government billboard from the United States. It made things quite clear: your morality at this moment in history, at least as far as they would like to have you believe, is determined by your willingness to properly wear a mask.
I wrote previously that I am quite happy to wear a mask if mask advocates are happy to more stridently denounce child trafficking and pedophilia, somewhat to the extent that they do for masks. It seemed like a reasonable compromise, and I still think it is. I tried to offer the peace deal as humbly as possible, because I know the type of moral propaganda that people are currently being exposed to, and I know how effective this propaganda is.
And the fact is, child trafficking and pedophilia is barely covered in the mainstream media. Obviously it’s dark, and not the kind of stuff you can just whack at the top of the 6pm news. But it’s real, and everyone (I assume by this point) knows it is there, just simmering at the edges of our discourse — the question that seems to be at play is how extensive it is and who is involved. At the edges, at least, until very recently, when the mass media pile on of Qanon has (quite conveniently, thanks to all concerned) brought it to the forefront.
I am almost certain that the discourse will very quickly be shifting away from outrage over masks and social distancing to outrage over the aforementioned blights on society, although it doesn’t matter what I think, and right now we are where we are.
And where we are is a battle over morality that is inherently tied to one’s informational intake. If you sincerely believe that people flaunting their nude faces or getting close to enough to feel other people’s auras within a public space are a danger and menace to the wellbeing of your community, then of course you are going to judge the morality of that person to some extent, and even engage with them directly in this ongoing war.
That is assuming you come from the understanding that they are aware of the danger and menace they are posing, but are simply too selfish to care. But we don’t have to do this.
Maybe some people are that selfish. But for everyone one of those, I like to believe there are a handful more who are doing it because they simply do not believe that their actions are posing any such risk to their fellow humans. And they do it happy to wear the brunt of any judgement because of it, happier than they are to simply put on the damn face covering.
This doesn’t mean they are right. But is does matter if they genuinely and sincerely believe it. Because if they do believe it, especially while engaging in an act of protest over a cause they believe to be more harmful to their community, then they are simply acting out of a morally obligation to their cause.
One of the nicest and most well meaning responses I have ever received on Medium was from an individual who responded to a comment I had made, committing what may be the arch sin on this website of providing a qualified defence of Qanon (or at least aspects of it). It seemed this gentleman was genuinely concerned about my wellbeing, given my apparent descent into this online cult, and he attempted to reach out in the hope of pulling me out.
I always try to engage with people in the tone they have set through their writing, and I felt obliged to sincerely thank him for his sentiments, even while trying to (likely forlornly) reassure him that I was quite fine.
It was somewhat jarring to be a part of an exchange between people who disagree fundamentally with each other but that did not descend into a morality battle. It is a shame that, when it comes to issues surrounding Covid, and Qanon, and Trump, and almost anything important in 2020, that this is so rare.
On both sides, for many soldiers, advocating for one’s chosen cause feels like it has become as much about flexing one’s own virtue as it is about trying to bring about meaningful change for that cause.
I promise to be better — even, as FLOTUS so succinctly put it, to Be Best — as I navigate the Great Morality Wars of 2020.