And that is what is making unmasking — and a more general return to normal — so difficult for so many of our progressive friends: It has become a cultural and social issue, and a quasi-religious one at that. For a certain kind of progressive, giving up masking feels like giving in. It doesn’t feel to them like the epidemic has been beaten — it feels to them like they have been beaten, and their cultural enemies (Joe Rogan, and that estranged uncle who is angry on Facebook) have won.

This is a near-guarantee of bitter social conflict. Consider the protests going on right now in Canada. Raquel Dancho, a Conservative MP, told the BBC that Canadians, normally an orderly people, have had enough: “We abide by all the rules. We stepped up, and we have 90 percent of Canadians vaccinated,” she said. “What we’re seeing now is that Canadians have come to the ends of their ropes. We’ve done our part, and now Canadians are looking to their governments and saying, ‘That’s enough of this. We need to move forward. What’s the plan?’” The problem with figures such as Justin Trudeau is that they have defined themselves wholly in opposition to their critics. What is Justin Trudeau? That is a question that really can be answered only in the negative: He is not x. We are in much the same situation in the United States, where the core identity of each political party is simply that it is not the other political party. The mask scolds at your local grocery store cannot give up ritual face-covering for the same reason the Judean People’s Front and the People’s Front of Judea cannot give up their mutual rivalry: Without it, they will not know themselves.