Face masks

In these days that the coronavirus rules the world, we see a new phenomenon: People publicly wear face masks. Also in the past (especially in East Asia) people sometimes wore them in public, usually in order to prevent that others would be infected when you had caught a cold or when the air was seriously polluted. But never before people used face masks on such a large scale in order to protect themselves and others against a nasty virus, the coronavirus. Some wear it voluntarily, others do it while the authorities have ordered it; or while it is prescribed in public transport or in shops; and so on. And it looks reasonable to wear a face mask in order to stop the coronavirus, doesn’t it? Nevertheless, wearing a face mask for this reason is not undisputed. This is what the Dutch National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM), which advises the Dutch government, says about it:

- Wearing a face mask in daily life has no surplus value.

- Face masks have only sense, if there are patients who are seriously ill and who spread many viruses.

- Face masks must be used in the proper way and must be replaced at least twice a day.

- Therefore, in the Netherlands face masks are recommended only for medical personnel.

So, according to the RIVM it has no sense to wear face masks in public. Not only the RIVM says so. Also the World Health Organisation (WHO) doesn’t recommend them. And indeed, investigations into the effectiveness of face makes against infections of the same type show that their public use is not very useful. For instance:

- In twelve relevant investigations only three show a positive effect of wearing face masks. Moreover, the chance to become ill decreased with only 6%.

- An Australian research team investigated in Vietnam about 1,600 people wearing face masks. Some used official face masks, some used cloth face mask. The latter group caught more viruses than without a face mask, so they were worse off.

Studies like these confirm the views of the RIVM and the WHO. I think that such studies show that a good face mask – not necessarily a medical face mask – properly used may have some sense and may decrease the chance to become ill somewhat. But how much is somewhat? 6%, 12%, 25%, 40%? However, the practice is that face masks in public are not properly used and for that reason they may be counterproductive: People can get more viruses just by using face masks. Then they have more chance to become ill. Nevertheless, authorities often prescribe face masks against the spread of the coronavirus and many people use them, not only because they are prescribed but because they think it helps. Why? I think that there are several sociological and psychological factors that are relevant:

- It is counterintuitive, so against intuition, not to use a face mask. A face mask looks like a screen that stops the virus. However, people don’t realize that viruses are very small. You cannot see them and they can pass holes so little that you can’t see them. Viruses, caught in the mask can be spread by your hands, if you touch the face mask. Sooner than you realize, face masks become dirty. Etc.

- People are imitators: Other people wear them as well, and are they so stupid that they wear them, if they are not useful? Moreover, many people feel ill at ease if they are one of the few who don’t do what everybody considers normal.

- Authorities prescribe them, so it must make sense. But authorities often don’t follow expert advice (and as shown above, expert advice – at least the RIVM and WHO – discourages from non-medical use of face mask). Besides, you can be fined if wearing a face mask is prescribed by law and you don’t use it.

- However, if people wear face masks, they become on the alert that they must be careful and that a nasty virus is about everywhere, and that it is better to keep distance from others.

- On the other hand, a face mask can give you the false idea that you are protected and/or that others are protected against your viruses. Then it can happen that people who have only mild complaints don’t stay at home thinking that they will not infect others.

Should we use face masks or shouldn’t we? I think that only one conclusion is possible: Be careful and stay safe.

Sources

- https://www.rivm.nl/video-helpen-mondkapjes

- De Volkskrant, 8 May 2020

Incubation

Exceptionally, this week's blog consists only of a photo, titled "Incubation", without further explanation. It's up to you to give it an interpretation.

Self-confinement

Self-confinement has become a vogue word today. Although it exists already longer, only few people such as physicists used it (it’s a physical term). My Oxford and Collins English Dictionaries don’t give it, nor does my English-Dutch Van Dale dictionary. But since a few months everybody uses it and everybody applies it. From fear to be infected by the new coronavirus, people stay at home as much as possible trying not to become ill. In some countries, like France, Spain and Italy people are or were even ordered by law to stay at home and there we can better speak of confinement, although many people agree with the measure (but you can be fined if you leave your home without a legal reason). In other countries, like the Netherlands, Germany and the UK, people are seriously requested to stay at home, but there are no sanctions if they don’t. Nevertheless, also there most people comply with the request. Then we can really speak of self-confinement.

Although the term self-confinement in its social sense is new, the idea isn’t. Introverts like it to do things alone and sometimes avoid other people, which doesn’t mean, however, that they retire themselves deliberately from the world. They simply like it to avoid others now and then. Writers often retire themselves and close themselves off from contacts with others, so that they can better concentrate on the writing process, although some authors, like once Sartre, don’t mind to create new work in – once – smoky and noisy rooms like cafes. Here I want to talk about philosophers who isolated themselves.

For many who know a bit about the history of philosophy a clear case of self-confinement is Montaigne. Montaigne was a counsellor of the Parlement (high court) in Bordeaux. However, he hated the intrigues and machinations there. His father died in 1568 and Montaigne inherited the castle and the estate and so “in 1571, he retired from public life to the Tower of the château, his so-called ‘citadel’, in the Dordogne, where he almost totally isolated himself from every social and family affair”, as the Wikipedia tells us. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_de_Montaigne) In other words, Montaigne went into self-confinement. However, do you really believe that an ordinary country gentleman who has isolated himself from the world will be urgently asked by the King of France to become mayor of Bordeaux ten years later? No, of course. Montaigne retired from his job and the world of the Parlement, but he held friendly relations with his neighbours like the Marquis de Foix, travelled to Paris, was a mediator in political conflicts between the King of France and the King of Navarra, etc., etc. You can read all this in the outstanding biographies by Desan and Bardyn. It’s true that Montaigne regularly confined himself to his Tour for writing essays. In that sense Montaigne confined himself, but he didn’t retire himself from the world.

A philosopher who does have lived almost in self-confinement now and then was Ludwig Wittgenstein. Sometimes Wittgenstein wanted to flee from the people around him and to isolate himself from the world. Therefore he built (with his own hands) a cabin on a fjord far away in Skjolden in Norway. Certainly then in 1913 Skjolden must really have been an isolated village. It must have been difficult to get there, not only to Skjolden but also to the cabin. I was there in 2011 (see my blog dated 29 July 2011) and you could get to the cabin only by climbing along a steep, stony and dangerous path. Or you could come there via the lake and climb from the shore under the cabin to the cabin. If there is one place where a philosopher lived that can be described as self-confinement it is Wittgenstein’s cabin in Norway. He used it now and then between 1913 and 1951.

Another philosopher who sometimes lived in a kind of self-confinement was Friedrich Nietzsche, although also Nietzsche didn’t live an isolated life. From 1881 till 1888 Nietzsche often stayed in the little Sils Maria in Switzerland, always in summer. However, the philosopher didn’t stay there because he wanted to isolate himself, but he suffered from migraine and here in the healthy climate of the Swiss Alps he felt well. He made walks through the mountains and he had always a notebook with him in which he wrote down his philosophical thoughts.

Here we see three famous cases of philosophers who are known to have lived in a kind of self-confinement. It will not be difficult to mention more. Two other well-known cases are Heidegger and Thoreau. The former often retired himself to his Hütte (hut) near Todtnauberg, Germany, where he looked for rest and wrote many of his important works. Thoreau built himself a hut near the Walden Pond in Massachusetts, where he tried to live a natural life. But also Thoreau didn’t live there an isolated live. He often went to the nearby Concord and also received guests in his hut. Moreover, he hasn’t lived there continuously. But be it as it may, such cases make clear that even if you confine yourself or have to confine yourself to a certain place in order to live there in isolation, this doesn’t mean that you have yourself cut off from the world. The latter is really exceptional. Most self-confiners are no hermits. When people confine themselves or are confined to a certain place, it is for an apparent reason and usually only temporarily. Nobody can survive in complete isolation, for in the end humans are social beings.

Freedom in corona times

I always avoid to write here about themes that I have treated before. Nevertheless, sometimes it happens. It can be that I have forgotten what I had written about before, which is not strange if you realize that I write these blogs already for thirteen years. Or it can be that I want to add something to what I have written before, or that new developments put an old theme in a new light. Now, I want to talk again about the so-called Frankfurt-style cases (named after Harry Frankfurt, who discussed them first). In the first place, Frankfurt-style cases are about responsibility but they are also about freedom, and in that respect they are relevant for the corona crisis. In this blog I am going to discuss such a Frankfurt-style case and I’ll show how it is relevant for our idea of freedom in the corona crisis.

When we talk about freedom, there is a tendency to think that it means that you can and are allowed to do what you like. But the present corona measures, and especially the forced self-confinement, restrict us very much. Therefore, you often hear: Our freedom is at stake. It’s true that some government leaders abuse the crisis by intentionally increasing their powers, more than is necessary to bring the virus under control. Other authorities issue weird measures like a ban on gardening. However, here I don’t want to talk about this but on the idea of freedom. For, when philosophers think of freedom, usually they don’t think of an unlimited individual choice to do what you like, but they have something else in mind. They call someone free, if this person can follow his/her own choices. This can also happen if the number of options is limited, by nature or by man. To be exactly, a person is free if

- s/he has alternative options to choose from

- if this choice is her or his own choice.

In my blog dated 23 February 2012 I discussed this Frankfurt-style case (see there for the references): Jones is in a voting booth deliberating whether to vote for the Democratic or for the Republican presidential candidate. Unbeknownst to Jones, a neurosurgeon, Black, has implanted a mechanism in Jones’s brain that allows Black to monitor Jones’s neural states and alter them if need be. Black is a diehard Democrat, and should Black detect neural activity indicating that a Republican choice is forthcoming, Black is prepared to activate his mechanism to ensure that Jones instead votes Democratic. As a matter of fact, Jones chooses on his own to vote for the Democratic presidential candidate, so Black never intervenes.

Take now the present corona crisis. A new nasty virus has spread all over the world: the coronavirus. It makes that many people must be hospitalized, and many people infected by the virus die. The medical services threaten to become overloaded and to collapse. It is absolutely necessary to take radical measures, including forcing people to stay at home, the so-called self-confinement. You are a rational person and according to you the only option is to accept the measures proclaimed by your government, including self-confinement. And so you do. You leave your house only for buying food, for physical exercise or for other reasons allowed by the government. It’s true that, if you would break the coronavirus emergency laws, you would get a high fine and be forced by the police to return home. However, this never happens, for you are fully convinced that the best you can do is obeying the coronavirus emergency laws. In other words, it’s your free choice to follow these laws.

As said, Frankfurt-style cases like the one I just presented were used to discuss the question whether someone is responsible for his or her actions, even if in practice s/he has only one option. However, they tell us also much about the idea of freedom. As we have seen, a common idea of freedom is the view that you can and are allowed to do what you like. I think that it is acceptable to add here “unless it hurts other people and affects the freedom of others”. Now the present situation is such that, unless people restrict their usual behaviour, they’ll hurt other people: If they would keep going along with family, friends, colleagues and others in the usual way, many people would die of the coronavirus and many others would become seriously ill and some of them would become handicapped in some way. This makes that restricting yourself and even going into self-confinement is the only kind of behaviour that respects the freedom of others. Actually, this is the only rational way to do. And so you conclude that the only thing you can reasonably do is to accept the coronavirus emergency laws. That you would be fined and be forced to stay at home, if you break these laws, doesn’t even come to your mind. In the end it’s not your government’s fault that there is such a nasty virus in the world. Following these laws is your own choice.

The upshot is that you can still be free, even if you have only one option. And this is the situation of the present corona crisis. So, don’t complain that your freedom is affected by these emergency measures. Another question is, of course, which measures are the best and whether the measures taken are the best, let alone whether some governments or politicians abuse the corona crisis for increasing their power.

Postscript

And so it happens that the Frankfurt-style cases no longer are thought experiments but have become real-life scenarios.