Before I begin, COVID-19 sounds like a horrible illness and I hope I do not get it.
It struck me that people are like sheep. Essentially stupid and easily influenced. I was walking down the street yesterday and could smell tobacco smoke. Walter Raleigh brought tobacco to England in the late 16th century (1586).
Consider how smoking took the world by storm. Even in my youth it was widely done and I spent many a Friday evening (after bellringing) in the pub with friends secondary-smoking the fog with which smokers had filled the room. Even when I started teaching there was a smokers' corner in the staffroom: terrible!
I accept that smoking is addictive because of nicotine but I also believe people took up smoking because it was the thing to do. The weakness of humans is that they want to do what everybody else does. This creates a social group and folk like to have an identity and sense of belonging.
All clothes fashions are the same. Flared trousers were once all the rage: you get my drift. It was once the fashion to go to church; but they say that died out in the 1960s with the Forsyte Saga on TV.
In 2020 the new craze is to wear a mask. It is now a fashion item. I am not going to debate whether it is, or is not, necessary to wear a mask; I will leave that up to others. I will say that people are stupid and follow a trend: we even have a label - FOMO. Getting the newest phone or whatever status symbol is current is what people love to do.
This may be a ramble, but I suspect there is more than a grain of truth in it.
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