Most People Are Themselves All the Time, but the Culture Makes them Put on Masks

American culture is the opposite of what claims to be

Reading reactions to Bari Weiss’s appearance on Bill Maher, I was struck by the incongruity of the audience’s behavior.

The hard-left audience cheered every attack on the CDC’s recommended guidelines regarding Covid. Second, they cheered Maher’s reality check of the non-efficacy of vaccines and his vow to never get a booster. Third, they applauded his “stating the obvious” report that almost everyone who died of Covid was obese. Finally, they liked his indictment of the CDC and Anthony Fauci for failing to inform Americans that Covid was a pandemic of the obese. “They have blood on their hands,” Maher said of the medical industry.

Yet, a few weeks ago, Maher’s audience was applauding draconian Covid crackdowns. What happened?

Nothing. The audience didn’t change its mind. In their hearts, they never were Branch Covidians. But they are trained, as we all are, to pretend we agree with the prevailing narrative at all times. We pretend we’re concerned about global warming. We pretend we’re concerned about AIDS. We pretend we’re concerned about system racism. We pretend we’re concerned about transphobia. Whatever the awareness ribbon of the day might be, we wear it. We keep our thoughts to ourselves and signal our agreement with the cause of the moment.

For the past two years, the awareness ribbon gave way to the Covid mask, the symbol that “we’re all in this together,” and the visual expression of “be safe.” Like the AIDS ribbon, the Covid mask did nothing to save even a single human life, but it protected the wearer from public scorn. The mask symbolized conformity with the prevailing psychosis, not “science.”