Civics and Shame in New York’s Age of the Mask
Every day when I walk my dog to Tompkins Square Park, we are first greeted by this memorial, updated daily; a constant reminder of both the global and local challenge of COVID-19.
While perhaps some of it might have been unstoppable, the scale and scope of the current global pandemic, and certainly its impact in the United States is a painful indictment of many public institutions. It is a systems failure that needs a community response. It’s certainly not the fault of any single citizen, but it’s taking all of us, and then some, to pull through.
One of the most visceral flash points of collective responsibility are masks. They may not be as large a part of the solution as competent governance and scientific breakthrough, but they are a highly visible and individual component. Everyone can, in theory, wear a mask. It is actually something we can all do, and when most everything feels out of our control, its role in our collective imagination is magnified that much more. We can’t do a lot, but if we all do this, we’ll all at least do something.
But somehow, despite that, despite that we are uniting in response to catastrophe, a lot of what we’re exhorting to each other isn’t a fortifying cry of “let’s do this together” but rather a shame-filled invective of “stop being the problem”.
It’s true that in other parts of the country, masks have turned from public health considerations to political acts. And while I’m not interested in commenting on whatever is happening in Michigan, there is a strain in our language around masks that is similar to our language around politics and voting. We’re wielding shame to socially police civic action.
I’ve spent a couple years now researching and understanding people who aren’t likely to vote. And one of the things that struck me about the discourse of civic responsibility is how much of our language and culture of voting is built around shame. It is considered shameful to not vote. And yet, for most elections, only 60% of Americans do vote. It is so shameful, that it’s difficult to even understand the problem. People lie about voting in polite conversation and in academic research. Our culture of voting is rife with shaming. And quite obviously, it doesn’t work.
Not surprising really, in that, for pretty much any human behavioral change, shame doesn’t work. It turns out what’s true for weight loss, exercise, smoking, and even adolescent behavior is also true for civic engagement. Trying to make people feel ashamed and guilty for not voting isn’t a way to convince an already unlikely voter to vote.
Why would we expect it to work for mask-wearing? Certainly it’s easier to identify someone who isn’t wearing a mask than someone who isn’t voting. Though it is hard to imagine the rare individual who, after deliberately not wearing one, will change their mind because another’s finger pointing (and certainly, no New Yorker has yet to change their behavior just because of someone yelling). Moreover, the frustration can’t immediately change their behavior — no one is yelling and offering a mask. As I even observed at the park, when the social distance ambassadors offer people masks, many do take and put one on.
But what’s more, in a civic context, shaming mostly undermines the people doing it. For voters, shame culture is what leads to the guilt of not having done enough, and people bashfully wishing they donated more, volunteered more, even voted more (“I voted, but I really didn’t get it together for the primaries”, “I really could have done more”). Never minding how much effort it takes to plan, register and get out and vote and even, for too many, the many extra barriers there are to each part of that process. The pride of an effortful civic action is quickly replaced by shame and guilt.
For masks, the case is even more striking. Most civilian masks are mainly helpful in preventing us from infecting others. Wearing a mask is about us protecting each other. But if we let shame inflect it, wearing a mask turns into our protection from each other.
I get the impulse for shaming. It’s almost impossible to not have a lot of pent up rage and frustration with the current situation. With the failure of so many leaders and institutions, we want someone to scream at. And when we’re in a fog of rage, seeing an unmasked cyclist triggers this:
My roommate remarked as we watched: “How bad a place must he be in to want to do that?”
To be clear, those cyclists really should have worn masks.
There are many idiots worthy of our ire in this climate. But in many cases, we’re building up rage and frustration and exhaling it at those who are available to us, those who are proximate, and those who are trying just as hard to make it through this moment.
None of this is easy. Getting out of bed isn’t easy. Mustering up the courage to go outside isn’t always easy, and running was never easy. One thing that is true of this experience is that life is just really hard for everyone. If ever there was a moment to earnestly feel compassion for each other, now would be that time. We all face different personal adversities, but this one we share. If ever there were to be some transformation in our community, it will come from our acute experience of our own vulnerability, and then seeing that same vulnerability in all those around us.
It might be retorted that it shouldn’t be praise-worthy to do such a basic thing. I’d ask you to reconsider. For some (like my elderly neighbor) it’s challenging to breathe in them, for others, it’s a challenge enough to go outside, and yes, sometimes while running you need to breathe too. Not to mention the issues of access and equity that have run rampant with supply scarcity.
Nonetheless, the truth is, most people are trying. When the city does distribute masks, people line up and the masks are gone in hours. At East River Park, over 50 folks lined up before masks were handed out at 10am, and the 2,000-plus masks ran out almost immediately.
This is not to say everyone who isn’t wearing a mask has a challenge, reason and need. And I get especially infuriated when I see someone who very obviously has the means and ability to wear a mask but is choosing for whatever reason not too.
But, much like voting, to get caught in moral upbraiding is to miss a part of the power of this civic exercise. When I spoke to voters as they left the polls, they felt proud of their good deed. No one mentioned it as solely an obligatory action, nor out of the need to transmute shame into decency. They spoke about the head nods they shared with others wearing the Voted sticker. That nod wasn’t about passing some bar of minimum civic decency, but one of a job well done, a shared collective pride.
Practicing public shame doesn’t make for stronger ties, it builds wariness and distrust. But community pride does. This lesson in togetherness is something we’re all learning with renewed vigor. From emergent mutual aid networks, guerilla food banks , donating to support restaurant workers, even clapping our hands at 7; these acts energize and inspire. Wearing a mask at one’s own inconvenience to help protect others should be the same.
There may be some better ways to enforce and support mask-wearing. Ambassador and distribution programs can go a long way. But if our social impulse is to follow the habitual pattern we’ve established with civic duties in the past, if we choose civic shame, it both won’t work, and it will reinforce the wrong habit. The systemic rot exposed by this pandemic is also exposing our civic needs. We need communities to be grounded in compassion and collective pride.
So wear a mask, please, and encourage others to do the same. But in doing so, let’s build a civic muscle that has the strength to uplift. We have given up much in the city, from hugs to happy hours, and soon those will return. But let’s leave this impulse to shame behind as another relic of a time when even as our systems collapsed, our communities managed to grow.
