The Sociological Implications of Mask Debate During COVID 19

This module’s readings and video include many important topics and concepts, including: Comte’s Law of the Three Stages; Durkheim’s mechanical and organic solidarity and suicide study; C. Wright Mills and Robert Bellah’s moral sociology; social structure and agency; social networks, both artificial and natural; social capital; public good; methodological individualism and methodological holism.

You are now to use these concepts (as well as additional concepts in your readings and the video) to analyze the United States’ controversy of wearing masks during the COVID-19 pandemic. How would these social theorists explain why wearing a mask during the pandemic became such a contested action? Imagine that Comte, Durkheim, Mills, Bellah, Christakes (the professor in the video), Cooley, Goffman, Mead, Lacan, Berger, and Giddens were seated around a table discussing this issue. Who would be wearing a mask in this discussion?