Individualism is also at the core of the resistance to pandemic requirements such as those for mask-wearing: If people think of themselves solely as individuals, no one should be able to tell them what to do. Cultural individualists are not used to thinking about the effect on the collective—that, for example, masks work best if everyone uses them. Mask mandates were a difficult sell in a culture that had embraced full-throated individualism for five decades. Pandemic mandates that shutter businesses and schools have a much bigger economic and psychological impact; resisting those mandates
...more
