Georgetown Revises Its Community Compact

The original community compact was badly written, full of absurdities, and contained unacceptable language about the university having a unilateral right to change the terms of the compact. Numerous faculty as individuals, plus the faculty senate, said it must be revised, and so it has been. Here is the new version:

https://www.georgetown.edu/coronavirus/community-compact/?fbclid=IwAR1va4OPbFQRQUfHgP_KDFR5QgAxajeWMxQYck7d8kW2koWJ59pyguBE_Eo

This new version still has certain flaws, which I won't completely document here. One major flaw remains unchanged: It is unlikely that students will follow this. The university knows this and the students know this; they both know the other knows this. So we have mutual knowledge that when students sign this, they will do so disingenuously. 

Resisting The Mask Mandates

After acquiescing to wearing a mask upon entering the grocery store on more than one occasion, I decided I am no longer going to do it. The first time I encountered a store request to wear a mask was when I went with my daughter to Costco. My daughter is 21 months old. I wasn’t expecting it. I didn’t want to not get to shop, so I wore it. The look on my daughter’s face was one I never want to see again. She looked part confused, part scared. She didn’t understand why she couldn’t see my face. And she seemed to be upset about it too. This is, I think, the proper reaction to have. I told myself then and there that I would not take her to a shop again if masks were required (and I haven’t). But I have shopped again at Costco. And I have worn a mask that they provided me upon entry again (I don’t have my own mask and I have no plans to get one). Another local grocery store started to “require” masks and I found myself agreeing to wear one when I shopped.

Each time I have worn a mask, I have felt a deep sense that I am doing something wrong. I have told myself that I will wear one because I simply don’t want the hassle of an altercation… or because I am in a hurry and I just want to get the groceries and get home, but I know none of these are good enough reasons. I know that mask wearing doesn’t feel right because I am obeying a command for no other reason than I am being commanded. I don’t believe mask wearing helps the spread in the way that it is now claimed to (you may recall that in the early covid days, people were advised not to wear masks). The science on mask wearing is sketchy. No one should be breathing in their own CO2 and bacteria. I am not stating that there is no effectiveness whatsoever in wearing a mask, but rather that wearing a mask is, all-things-considered, not necessary. 

Beyond this, I think we should all be deeply troubled about the dehumanizing aspect of mask-wearing. By wearing a mask, you no longer get to interact with other humans in a normal way. You cannot read each other’s facial expressions and you are deprived of being able to share a smile as you pass each other by. This is no small thing. Humans read emotion and behavior by being able to see each other’s faces. We are altering our social dynamics at a fundamental level and people don’t seem to be worried about it in the least. It is also very difficult to hear any person trying to talk with a mask on. Most of the time, at least one of you has to repeat yourself in order for the other person to hear. On top of all this, the use of widespread mask use communicates the idea that we are all dangerous and to be feared. Who knows who is infected? You had better keep your distance… You had better stay home… Except people don’t. People strap on their masks and they go out out into the world ready to admonish their fellow humans if they dare not wear a mask. Apparently, those who choose to wear a mask have taken it upon themselves to condemn the rest of us. Which is another reason people should be weary of the mask mandates—it is turning us against each other. People are shouting at those not wearing masks and even calling the police on them (this happened to a friend of mine while visiting the beach in WA… before there was even a state mandate to wear one). What in the world is going on here? 

The dehumanizing aspect of wearing the mask is troubling for adults, but it is absolutely unforgivable when applied to children. Adults have had the benefit of growing up in a world where they developed interpersonal skills in a normal way. By being able to get close to other people and see their faces. Children who are required to wear a mask and exist in a world in which everyone around them are wearing them are deprived of normal human interaction. This is happening while they are developing their sense of self and learning how to interact with other humans. But everywhere they go they cannot see anyone’s face properly. And the reason they are told that they can’t see people’s faces and why they have to cover their own is because there is this lethal virus out there and there is no way to know who has it. Imagine what this is doing to their psychological development. Being raised to be fearful of other humans… to be fearful of their friends. I am told that parents tell their children that they are just doing “their part”. But what does this even mean to a child? Their part to … stop spreading a virus they might have… to “protect” others…? Parents should not be normalizing mask wearing to their children. At best, if parents feel compelled to make their children wear masks and take them places where everyone else is wearing them, they should be teaching them that it is not normal and it should be temporary. It is one thing to follow the mandate for pragmatic reasons, it is another to support the mandate for idealogical reasons and teach these reasons to your child. 

I can’t help but wonder about the mask wearers who have gone to some length to obtain a personalized mask. I find the desire to express your individuality while conforming to a rule (law?) that should have everyone skeptical rather disturbing. I know it is more likely that a person is thinking if I *have* to wear a mask, I might as well make it one I like. But I think this is the wrong attitude to take to the mask mandates. I think it is an indication that people are too comfortable being obedient. It also appears to signal an idealogical embrace of wearing the mask. All of this normalizing of the mask mandate is very troubling. Where is the resistance? Why are people so comfortable wearing a mask when the science is sketchy and the virus is nowhere near dangerous enough to justify this level of infringement on our freedom? It would be one thing if covid was like the virus seen in Contagion. But I don’t think you’d even need laws at that point. No one would be risking leaving their house to pick up some milk. You wouldn’t just put on your mask and slather on the sanitizer. You’d be in self-isolation and barricading your house off.

So I decided I had had enough. I wasn’t going to wear a mask if the store required it. None of the reasons I had told myself were sufficient to lose a part of myself each time I went to the grocery store. So the other day, I went to the grocery store and I didn’t wear a mask. And you know what? I felt free. I felt like I had done right by myself. I felt like I was communicating to everyone in the store that they don’t have to wear a mask either. I am certain that most people didn't interpret my lack of mask wearing that way, and that some people were upset seeing me without a mask, but not one person confronted me about it.

I am sure that most of what I have wrote will strike a lot of people as insensitive and callous. Some may even think my decision to not wear a mask is “killing people”. It isn’t, but I am also fairly sure that the media has done such an excellent job of scaring the beejeesus out of everyone that nothing I could respond with would convince them otherwise. 

I have wrote this post because I am genuinely worried about what is happening to humanity in response to a virus, that while deadly in some small amount of cases, is nowhere near harmful enough to justify the violations to our individual liberty and the complete economic shutdown of the economy (why is a liquor store considered “essential” but not a small, family-owned restaurant?). And maybe, someone out there will read this and it will resonate. Maybe it will give them the strength to resist and reclaim their freedom. Maybe if enough of us do it, the government and businesses will have no choice but to repeal their mask mandates or “conditions of entry”. And maybe… we can get back to a place where people smile at each other at the store and don’t try and have people arrested for going to the beach with their kids.

If We May Only Compare Sweden to other Northern European Countries...

First read this.

Many people, including lots of my academic friends, think that when assessing Sweden's Covid-19 policies and outcomes, we are only allowed to compare it to Norway, Finland, and Denmark. We aren't allowed to extrapolate anything about what such policies might mean in any other country. 

Why, then, do these same people point favorably to other policies in Sweden and Norway, which they want, e.g., the US to copy? 

Henceforth, I'd like you to be very explicit. If, for example, you think Sweden's COVID-19 policies and outcomes have some racial or cultural component that makes comparisons to Denmark apt but comparisons to Belgium and Italy inapt, say so. But you'll then need to explain why this doesn't also apply to other policies you favor importing from Sweden. If it's not race and culture, what it is? Climate? Country size? Presence of reindeer?

On this note, here is the classic Alesina, Glaeser, and Sacerdote paper on why the US's ethnic diversity prevents it from having a European-style welfare state. 

Did the Lockdowns Work?

Here's a new paper by the excellent Christian Bjørnskov arguing they did not reduce mortality.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3665588

Note that the defender of the lockdowns bears the burden of proof demonstrating otherwise. Simple post hoc ergo propter hoc reasoning will not do. Do some social science, please. Also, when you try to justify them, please be sure to do a full cost-benefit analysis, taking into account lost schooling, the massive drop in GDP, lost jobs, increased suicides, reduced treatment for other diseases, increased child hunger, the re-emergence of tuberculosis, and so on. No using overly paranoid, unscientific models which assume no natural immunity and a 75% infection rate. Please be sure to account for what appears to be the re-emergence of the virus in the early lockdown countries; it's very possible all they did was delay the mass spreading of the disease. 

I'd like also to remind you that your original argument for lockdowns was not to make the disease go away, but instead to prevent hospitals from being overwhelmed. No gaslighting us, please, by changing your justifications after the fact. 

More on Mask Mandates

At Radical Classical Liberals, Andrew Jason Cohen and I have posts on mask mandates that I thought would be of interest to readers of this blog. See here and here. Both Andrew and I agree there is a moral obligation to wear masks, but oppose laws that mandate mask wearing. But I argue that Andrew's way of supporting his view does not succeed, and offer different grounds for opposing mask mandates. The grounds I offer overlap with some of the argument Jess Flanigan made at this blog.

Georgetown's COVID-19 Compact and My Response

UPDATE 2: I learned recently that the Faculty Senate also objected to this document (back on July 14 before the rest of us saw it) for the same reasons, and as a result, it is likely that it will be revised.

UPDATE: Upon further reading, I realized that the compact, as written forbids me from hugging my kids or having sex with my spouse this year (if I want to come to campus) since it literally says I must stay 6' away from them. In this case, though, I presume on their behalf this is merely improper wording. 

N.B.: I will delete this post if our policies are amended.

Georgetown sent all faculty, staff, and students a "compact" yesterday, which we are expected to sign. 

Today I sent our provost the following email:

Dear Provost Groves,

As a scholar of the political economy of academic decision-making (e.g., Cracks in the Ivory Tower: The Moral Mess of Higher Education, Oxford University Press 2019), and as someone who has published in a peer-reviewed journal on policy failures regarding COVID-19 I was eager to see what our campus compact would be this fall.

I assume that the document was carefully written, the language is intentional, and that the implications are intended. As it stands, the compact has a number of disturbing features.

For instance, consider this language: 

 Recognizing this responsibility, in order to be present on any university-owned, managed or controlled properties (“Campus”), and, if a student, to live in the neighborhoods of Georgetown, Burleith, or Foxhall, (the “Neighborhoods”),  I will adhere to the terms of this Community Compact for the 2020-2021 academic year.

I specifically commit to the following:

….8.  Practicing good personal hygiene consistent with the COVID-19 Health and Safety Measures, including:

• 

1. maintaining 6’ of physical distancing between myself and any other person,

2. frequent hand washing for twenty seconds,

3. frequent use of hand sanitizers, and

        4. wearing a face covering over my nose and mouth at all times except when I am alone in a room, when eating, when in my personal residence without guests, or when exercising outdoors with at  least 6’ of physical distancing; [emphasis added]

As written, if students or I intend to come to campus, then this document implies (as in “deductively implies”):

1. In order to sit outside on my own deck to read a book, I agree to wear a face mask. (Perhaps we understand “in my personal residence” to include “outside on one’s own property.")

2. If I decide, at long last, to visit family members or allow them to visit me at Thanksgiving or Christmas—family members I haven’t seen this entire year—that they and I must wear face masks the entire time they are in my house, unless we are each alone in separate rooms. This holds even for Thanksgiving, despite the fact that the earliest I would be on campus would be over a month later and I would no longer be able to spread the disease at that point.

3. Any of our students living on or near campus cannot kiss their significant others this year, unless they also live together. 

4. If I sit outside on an empty park bench in my neighborhood park, I must wear a mask.

And so on. 

These are extremely strict measures not, as far as I can tell, supported by the academic literature on the risks of COVID-19, though perhaps we are forced to adopt such measures by DC regulations. They are certainly far stricter than the legal requirements I face or have faced as a resident of Virginia.

Further, the document suggests that students, staff, and faculty agree that you can unilaterally change the compact at any time, and that they pre-consent to whatever changes you later make. I don’t know if this document qualifies as a contract in some legal sense, but in general, in legal contracts, even when there is language to the contrary, parties do not acquire the right to unilaterally revise the conditions.

As it stands, then, the document requires faculty, staff, and students to either A) abide by extremely strict rules or B) lie about their intended compliance with such rules. 

I suspect the overwhelming majority of our students will choose B, in part because they will feel that they are under duress. They will sign the document and pledge to follow those rules, but will in fact deviate from them and know they will do so ahead of time. For instance, they will have friends over to their apartments from time to time. They will not abstain from, say, kissing a significant other they don’t live with. When they go home for Thanksgiving, they will not wear a mask the entire time nana visits. 

Further, I suspect it is not cynical to suggest that whoever drafted this document is knows that students who sign this will not intend to comply strictly with the document. It appears we are knowingly asking students (and others) who wish to be on campus to make false promises. 

I was on the fence about teaching in person this year. I am 40-years-old, have no co-morbidities, and on the best estimates, have an expected IFR of maybe 0.01%. I am one of the faculty least at risk. But as it stands, I will have to choose to teach online and avoid campus, because if my in-laws decide to visit on Thanksgiving break (after 11 months of all us practicing radical social distancing), I will have to have agreed that we must all wear masks except when alone in our individual rooms.

Jason Brennan

Robert J and Elizabeth Flanagan Family Professor
Strategy, Economics, Ethics, and Public Policy
McDonough School of Business
Georgetown University

Mask Mandates and Politics

 

People should wear masks to prevent the transmission of COVID-19. If you don’t wear a mask, and you give someone COVID-19, then you might have violated their bodily rights (assuming they couldn’t consent to the risks). That’s wrong. So you should wear a mask.  

 

If it’s wrong to refuse to wear a mask, should it be illegal to refuse to wear a mask? It depends.

Most things that are wrong shouldn’t be illegal. Even if refusing to wear a mask is risky, so is prohibiting mask-refusal. Public officials should weigh the risk of mask-wearing against the risk of enforcing a mask mandate.

 

Depending on the severity of the virus in a place, it might make sense to enforce a temporary mask-mandate, but this should usually be a last resort. As it stands, public officials haven’t invested enough in less prohibitive ways of reducing contagious transmission, such as contact tracing and expanded testing, so mask mandates are probably unjustified in a lot of places.

 

Mask mandates can also backfire if people view them as illegitimate. In which case, public officials shouldn’t enforce them because they won’t be effective and they may be counterproductive. Elsewhere, mandates may be unnecessary if almost everyone wears a mask voluntarily and private businesses require them. And mask mandates may be enforced in ways that are discriminatory or inegalitarian. In these contexts, mask mandates are especially morally risky.

 

So while it’s possible that public officials can justifiably enforce temporary mask mandates in some contexts, that doesn’t mean that everyone everywhere should be required to wear a mask throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.

 

When it comes to the ethics of mask mandates, there’s not an easy, one-size-fits-all answer to the policy question. Even if people have enforceable rights against being infected with COVID-19, in some contexts, officials will lack the authority or the ability to enforce these rights in a morally acceptable way.

 

These answers don’t make for good politics because proponents of mask mandates have political incentives to discount the risks of unjust enforcement and opponents of mask mandates have political incentives to discount the risks of contagious transmission.

 

But contagious transmission and law enforcement are both morally risky, and in both cases the risks are sometimes distributed in inegalitarian and disproportionately harmful ways. Public officials should balance the moral risks of enforcing a mandate against the moral risks of not enforcing a mandate. If they did, then they’d find that there’s not a yes or no answer to questions about mask mandates—it depends.