A TON of reasons to follow masking, physical distancing, & safety protocols but one that's often overlooked (imo) is that it helps prevent shaming the sick if an outbreak occurs.
As w/ most things, there are multiple levels to Covid safety: preventing spread, honoring govt guidelines, seeking common good over personal preference, etc.
But there's also a Q of how to maintain morale & unity of group in face of external threat.
One of surest ways to destroy the unity of your org is giving in to human temptation to find someone to blame when bad things happen. Find the spreader & pin everything on him or her.
When safety protocols are left to personal choice, sickness becomes associated w/ personal choice, increasing shame associated w/ it. In this scenario, contact tracing becomes an exercise in assigning guilt rather than simply stopping spread.
ISTM that personal guilt & shame associated w/ being a spreader will increase when individuals are given choice about safety protocols. Enforcing uniform expectations may actually protect individuals from community turning on them if/when they contract virus.
Obviously, there's potential for community policies to become legalistic & be used to shame individuals into compliance. I get that. But what I'm suggesting is stakes are much lower in this situation.
If you're a leader of an org like a church or school, please consider that leaving safety protocols up to individual choice as a way to maintain unity in this moment may actually be a greater risk to long-term unity.
This sends message that sickness is an individual or private matter, increasing the likelihood of blame, anger, & shame when someone eventually gets sick & introduces it into the community.
W/ uniform protocols, however, fighting viral spread is positioned as a group effort. Insofar as everyone is doing best to follow them & people *still* get sick, the virus becomes the enemy rather than fellow community members.
(PS- If this doesn't make sense to you, see: Lice outbreaks & protocols in schools & camps.
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Bedford (pop. 3200) was home to a National Guard unit serving in Company A in 1st Battalion in 116th Infantry Regiment of 29th Infantry Division. Of the 35 soldiers from Bedford, 19 were killed on Omaha Beach. Another 4 “Bedford Boys” would die before the end of the campaign
Bedford suffered the greatest proportion of losses of any town in the US that day. Everyone knew someone. Everyone lost someone. A little, quiet town in rural VA decimated by the events on a faraway continent & the actions of evil men.
This is beautiful & reminds me that I've had an essay brewing for a couple years about link btwn male loneliness/depression & cultures that prioritize male comfort & privilege.
TL;DR: Excusing men of their responsibilities to women & children robs them of purpose & the very ties that bind them to community.
The shape of modern Western life is already deeply individualistic so loneliness is a constant threat. But there's a sense in which men are *more* at risk of falling thru gaps b/c male embodiment does not naturally force a man to be bound to others in way female embodiment does.
On this fine Saturday morning, a few thoughts re: Alistair Begg...
*cracks knuckles*
(For unaware, Begg is a conservative evangelical pastor who holds traditional views of gender & sexuality but who recently advised a congregant to attend her grandson's marriage his trans fiancé. Despite conservative backlash, Begg is standing his ground.)
In the ensuing debates, marriage traditionalists are divided on Begg's advice. Some have cancelled Begg while others have agreed to disagree. Begg himself names it as an example of the difference btwn US evangelicalism & UK evangelicalism (Begg's Scottish) & yes... but also...
In response to this article, someone asked me why mid-tier leaders prop up abusive rulers. Are they being blackmailed? Do these leaders have dirt on them?
I cannot reiterate this enough: The mediocrity is the point.
So much political & ecclesiastical corruption can be explained by simple fact that people are lazy & consumptive. They want to live like little kings over little kingdoms & have no higher ambition for life than indulgence. Sloth, greed, gluttony are deadly sins for a reason.
It's the nature of authoritarian leaders to remain happily ensconced in failing societies as long as they get to be at the top & indulge their base appetites. They create worlds of fiction & surround themselves w/ folks who are also content w/ a just small piece of that pie
Don't underestimate how much of authoritarian parenting is a survival mechanism against personal internal chaos. Folks who experience internal disorder will often try to order their environments & the people in them instead.
Sure, authoritarianism is a power grab but to what end? Simply to have power? More likely to use that power as a way to protect/stabilize self--including stabilizing self in the new, unpredictable role of parenting. It's a survival technique.
So even tho authoritarian parenting often comes w/ a coolness that's named "emotional maturity," it's more likely a form of detachment from self & others. This detachment is necessary to survive the complexity & variability of human relationships.
Repressing emotions is like taking the batteries out of the smoke detector when it goes off. The warning might signal a fire & the need to flee or it might simply be burnt toast. But only the foolish think the alarm is the problem.
Teaching children to ignore & repress their emotions is especially dangerous b/c they need these responses to keep them safe in the world. Rather, we teach our children how to recognize, define, & articulate their emotions while helping them engaging with reality around them.
Emotion maturity does not mean repressing or ignoring our emotions--shoving them down until they "go away." Emotional maturity means learning to interpret the breadth of our God-given emotional responses & walking in wisdom.