"The Daily Stoic" e-mail is both odd and somehow typical of what is now normal morning reading in this year of the pandemic.
Not much more than a thought for that day, the Daily Stoic last week still helped clarify how to think about wearing face masks to hold down the spread of the novel coronavirus causing COVID-19.
The ancient Stoics of Greece and Rome, believers in virtues like courage and self-mastery, apparently admired the classical Spartans of Greece. The Spartans were hardheaded and militaristic, yet only soldiers who lost their shield in battle were punished by death, not those who lost a helmet or breastplate.
As explained in a linked post by the writer Steven Pressfield, the helmet only protected the individual. The shield helped protect the whole, tightly packed Spartan line.
You want to risk your own life, the Spartans reasoned, fine. But you can't drop your shield and put the community at risk.
The Spartan's shield is like a face covering in the continuing pandemic. It is less about protecting yourself than taking your place in protecting the whole community. Yet here there is generally no penalty for dropping your shield.
The only apparent sanction for not wearing a mask into a city-controlled building, as required by the mayor's order, here in St. Paul is the threat of being asked to leave. That is not much of a disincentive.
There is strong evidence that it is possible to be contagious and spread the virus even if a person doesn't think they have the symptoms of COVID-19 or the symptoms have not yet developed. That is where measures like wearing a face covering really matter.