Unmasked

Consider this a coda to yesterday’s post on women who want to keep wearing masks. It comes to us from Jennifer Levitz, via the Wall Street Journal. I offers a glimpse at some of the reactions people are having to the novel experience of seeing human faces:

Early in the pandemic, it took some adjustment to get used to seeing fellow citizens walking around town looking like train robbers. Then we grew accustomed to meeting people from the eyes up, or maybe the top of the nose.

Now, Americans are increasingly ditching their masks, creating a new conundrum: unfamiliar naked faces.

Nice expression, “unfamiliar naked faces.” As I noted yesterday, among those who normally wear masks in their everyday business activities are thieves-- aka train robbers.

The start of the vast unmasking creates more potential for having egg on our faces.

“If you’ve gone through six months working with someone and you’ve never seen the bottom part of the face—when you see it, it messes up your ability to recognize them,” says Dr. Alice O’Toole, a cognitive scientist at the University of Texas at Dallas. “It’s definitely a strange experience.”

What could she mean by the reference to having egg on our faces? Simply put, it refers to the fact that once you have face, once your face is recognizable, you risk losing face, that is, feeling shame for your bad behavior. Isn’t that why people want to keep their masks on, to continue to misbehave without having to suffer any reputational consequences.