Are Anti-Maskers Sociopaths Trying to Destroy Society?

I have a dark hobby. Well, maybe more of a distraction than a hobby.

I deep dive on weird random social media accounts and try to learn more about the people behind the endless stream of fake news, conspiracy, inflammatory, reactionary, and otherwise cringe worthy memes, headlines, and infographics. These people are typically prolific. They do not post a meme along with a commentary and reflection that provides some context.

They projectile vomit pages and pages of absurdity, hate, ignorance and righteous rage. Sometimes 20–30 posts per day. They sometimes post the same thing with a number of different captions. They select other social media accounts to attack and they do so relentlessly. They post screenshots of being blocked like they were trophies.

Why do I do it?

Sometimes I wonder if I know the people behind these accounts. If I went to school with them or knew them when I was a kid. I look for photos of themselves with their families. I would like to see them smiling and enjoying themselves. Talking about music or movies or things that made them laugh.

But I don’t see that very much. It is almost like they have become conduits for all this corrupted and infectious viral content. There isn’t really a person there at all.

Sometimes I really need to dig into order to find a particularly rancid cave in which to explore. White nationalists have largely migrated away from Facebook and Twitter toward platforms that I have no interest in downloading. My heart can’t handle that big of a dose of horror. But the social media accounts of the anti-mask/freedom rally crowd are so easy to find. They are everywhere.

The themes are pretty much what you would expect. They believe the scientists and doctors are lying. They believe a “great reset” is coming where tanks will roll on our streets and we will become permanently locked down by a liberal-totalitarian-surveillance state. They believe the state has no authority over our bodies. That we are responsible only for our own health — so laws protecting public health are a violation of their freedom.

Of course, they are right to fear the power of the military-police state has over its subjects. Black and brown people around the world will tell you how brutal and violent the state can be.

They are right to suspect that for-profit interests have infiltrated our medical establishment to such a degree that our health might take a back seat to the interests of corporate shareholders. Ask anybody who has struggled to receive decent health care or been shackled with massive medical debt.

And of course, we are responsible for our own health. They are right. It is nobody’s job but my own to ensure that I eat well, drink water and get regular exercise. But let’s slow down and look at exactly how I would go about being responsible for my own health.

How do I get good food? Who grows and processes it? Who transports and stores it? Who ensures it is not, in fact, poisonous? How do I get clean water? How do I get fresh air and room and move my body in nature? Who makes sure there are trees to climb and lakes in which to swim?

I cannot do all of that by myself. Shit. I can barely get the bills paid and remember to fill up the gas tank most of the time. So thank goodness I am participating in something we call society. That is where we take responsibility for each other’s health. Some people grow food. Some people drive trucks. Some people work in grocery stores. And some people do things that seem barely even important at all (like teaching yoga) but we recognize the value it brings to our society so we create roles for that too. And we work together to make it happen.

Not that is all sunshine and snickerdoodles. There are huge problems. We exploit each other. We are violent with each other. We oppress and victimize each other. We are huge assholes sometimes. Our society has so many assholes that some of us have given up on the whole thing.

Some of us hate society. We are anti-social. Sociopaths.

From the anti-maskers to the alt-right libertarians, from the fire and brimstone evangelicals to the race war white supremacists — there are many of us who delight in the downfall of our society.

I get it. We suck.

But I’m not ready to give up on us just yet. Maybe it is being idealistic. But I feel like if we focus on being pro-social we can still salvage this thing. We have to really focus on helping each other — and not just in our private lives. Doing nice things for each other is great. But it is the social equivalent of thinking that recycling is going to save the earth. Adapting our personal behaviour is not sufficient to bring about social change.

So if you happen to encounter an anti-masker, remind them that although they hate society — society does not hate them. We will continue to educate them, feed them, and care for them if they sick. We will continue to love one another and care for one another. We will not join them in their sociopathic tendencies.

We will make it out of this pandemic eventually and we will heal from this. Not as individuals. But as a society we will make ourselves whole again. We will probably still suck in a thousand different ways. But at least we can try to fix that. If the sociopaths win there will be nothing left to fix.