The Covid Mask as a Virtue Signal
Can you believe that Covid was only 6 years ago? To me it seems like it was almost forever ago, certainly not just 6 years.
So for the past 6 years we all have been seeing people in grocery stores and Walmart wearing those Covid masks, not so many now but still more than enough to make you wonder why they insist on doing it especially since it is generally understood that they don't do any good. How could they? They collect all the germs in the air you breath in and all the germs in the air you breath out and concentrate them on a thin surface of fabric through which you inhale. How can that be healthy? Then you walk into a restaurant wearing the same mask and breath out through the same filthy germ-infested thin layer of paper blowing those germs everywhere.
Some people even wear them when they are driving alone in their car. We've all seen them. That's just the thing, though. We see them doing it. They know that we can see them doing it. They don't seem to care that we see them either.
What gives?
It dawned on me last night (not that it might have dawned on me before, but it did last night) that they wear these masks to prove to themselves and to everyone who sees them that they are virtuous people, that they are good and trustworthy and obedient. It doesn't matter to them if the masks work. The masks mark these people as virtuous.
Virtue signaling works because people condition their minds to release dopamine whenever someone can see that they are virtuous.
Wearing Covid masks is a form of virtue signaling, nothing else, just a little dopamine hit whenever someone sees how superior you are.