Mask

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Young people, who are still uncertain of their identity, often try on a succession of masks in the hope of finding the one which suits them — the one, in fact, which is not a mask. ~ W. H. Auden
Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth. ~ Oscar Wilde
Fire is to represent truth because it destroys all sophistry and lies; and the mask is for lying and falsehood which conceal truth. ~ Leonardo da Vinci
Where you going for tomorrow, where're you going with the mask I found? ~ Scott Weiland
Why are masks so menacing? It has to do with psychology and the fear of anonymous death. For many people, the idea of being murdered by an unidentifiable stranger for no reason is more terrifying than being killed by someone you do know, and for some good reason. ~ Benjamin Radford

A mask is an object normally worn on the face, typically for protection, disguise, performance or entertainment. Masks have been used since antiquity for both ceremonial and practical purposes. Though usually worn on the face they may also be positioned for effect elsewhere on the wearer's body.

Quotes

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  • Young people, who are still uncertain of their identity, often try on a succession of masks in the hope of finding the one which suits them — the one, in fact, which is not a mask.
    • W. H. Auden, Forewords and Afterwords, "One of the Family", p. 369 (1973).
  • One thinker no less brilliant than the heresiarch himself, but in the orthodox tradition, advanced a most daring hypothesis. This felicitous supposition declared that there is only one Individual, and that this indivisible Individual is every one of the separate beings in the universe, and that those beings are the instruments and masks of divinity itself.
    • Jorge Luis Borges, Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius (1940), first translated into English by James E. Irby (1961).
    • Variant translation: This happy conjecture affirmed that there is only one subject, that this indivisible subject is every being in the universe and that these beings are the organs and masks of the divinity
  • Every one who, with intent to commit an indictable offence, has his face masked or coloured or is otherwise disguised is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding ten years
  • We wear the mask that grins and lies,
    It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,—
    This debt we pay to human guile;
    With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,
    And mouth with myriad subtleties.

    Why should the world be over-wise,
    In counting all our tears and sighs?
    Nay, let them only see us, while
         We wear the mask.

    We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries
    To thee from tortured souls arise.
    We sing, but oh the clay is vile
    Beneath our feet, and long the mile;
    But let the world dream otherwise,
         We wear the mask!

  • If you have abandoned one faith, do not abandon all faith. There is always an alternative to the faith we lose. Or is it the same faith under another mask?
  • A few years ago, very few teenagers wore masks. But many wear them today and the numbers are increasingly very rapidly. The reason is that these teenagers are looking for something to hide behind. They are constantly having to communicate with friends via SMS and emails and this is making them so tired that it is a relief to wear a masks. It is a way to hide their feelings.
  • Your occupation consists in preserving your hiding-place, and that you succeed in doing, for your mask is the most enigmatical of all. In fact you are nothing; you are merely a relation to others, and what you are you are by virtue of this relation. To a fond shepherdess you hold out a languishing hand, and instantly you are masked in all possible bucolic sentimentality. A reverend spiritual father you deceive with a brotherly kiss, etc. You yourself are nothing, an enigmatic figure on whose brow is inscribed Either/or – “For this,” you say, “is my motto, and these words are not, as the grammarians believe, disjunctive conjunctions; no, they belong inseparably together and therefore ought to be written as one word…"
  • It's a terrible thing to be alone — yes it is — it is — but don't lower your mask until you have another mask prepared beneath — as terrible as you like — but a mask.
    • Katherine Mansfield, in a letter to her future husband, John Middleton Murry (July 1917), published in The Collected Letters of Katherine Mansfield, Vol. I.
  • All visible objects, man, are but as pasteboard masks. But in each event — in the living act, the undoubted deed — there, some unknown but still reasoning thing puts forth the mouldings of its features from behind the unreasoning mask.
  • Beneath this mask there is more than flesh... beneath this mask there is an idea, Mr. Creedy... and ideas are bulletproof.
  • To perceive pure love that is God, you have to unmask your heart, unmask your soul, unmask the purity of your being.
  • Where you going for tomorrow, where're you going with the mask I found?

“Mask Bans Insult Disabled People, Endanger Our Health, and Threaten Our Ability to Protest” (July 25, 2024)

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Alice Wong, “Mask Bans Insult Disabled People, Endanger Our Health, and Threaten Our Ability to Protest”, Teen Vogue, (July 25, 2024)

Today, the mask is the unsightly marker of deviant individuals: the sick, the immunocompromised, the disabled, and the protester who wishes to keep their identity anonymous. (Many demonstrators at pro-Palestine marches have worn medical masks or other face coverings, both to protect their identity from authorities and to protect their health in large crowds.) We’re told such masked individuals threaten the moral order of society, and these bans are meant to keep the public “safe.”
  • There are days when I am overwhelmed with grief and rage at the regressive attitudes toward public health and disabled people. In my opinion, the ableist, fascistic, and eugenic nature of proposed mask bans under consideration in New York City and Los Angeles is bleak. But what is happening now is not new or surprising; the hate is more explicit, that’s all.
  • Today, the mask is the unsightly marker of deviant individuals: the sick, the immunocompromised, the disabled, and the protester who wishes to keep their identity anonymous. (Many demonstrators at pro-Palestine marches have worn medical masks or other face coverings, both to protect their identity from authorities and to protect their health in large crowds.) We’re told such masked individuals threaten the moral order of society, and these bans are meant to keep the public “safe.”
  • Any mask ban is a dangerous prospect, as many regions are currently dealing with an increase in COVID cases, and these patterns are expected to continue multiple times a year. (Days after Los Angeles’s Democratic mayor Karen Bass said the city would look into a potential mask ban at protests, she contracted COVID.) A mask ban on the subway would endanger a public good that many people depend on — and have a right to — and the ability of high-risk people to participate in society, to be seen, and matter to the broader community.
  • “Safety” is a key word used by people who mask and those who consider masking a criminal act. But it’s worth asking, who is kept safe by the state or by individual acts, and who is left out? “We keep us safe” is a phrase used by community organizers that view public safety as a collective endeavor. As Charis Hill, a disability activist, tells me, “I take medications that weaken my immune system, so I primarily wear a mask to protect myself, but I also wear it to protect others and to show that we are still in a pandemic. If mask bans become the reality, I have little hope that I'll ever be safe in public again.”
  • What is clear to me is that disabled people have never felt safe. Many of us view masking as a form of solidarity with workers, activists, and people of color all over the world fighting fascism and genocide. But mask bans send the message that it is a crime to be disabled. I think of people who have fought hard to stay relatively safe since early 2020, those who hang on a precipice that feels like it could fall at any moment. Some days I wonder what my breaking point will be.
[edit]
  • Encyclopedic article on Mask on Wikipedia
  • The dictionary definition of mask on Wiktionary
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