Will Bardenwerper: Maybe Steelers can unite us

A few weeks ago, my wife, 4-year-old son and I joined my cousin’s family for Steelers Fest at Heinz Field.

It was the kind of warm and sunny day that one dreams about during the frigid gray Pittsburgh winter. My son proudly wore a superhero cape over his Steelers jersey, along with a Pirates cap. He smiled proudly every time we called him “Captain Pittsburgh.”

As we approached our seats behind the end zone, I could feel that there was something else lifting my spirits. I couldn’t put my finger on what it was, but I knew it wasn’t misplaced optimism about the Steelers’ 2021 playoff chances.

Then it hit me.

The smiles. The diversity. And the unity.

We were part of a large gathering of people — a rare experience in itself during the past year-and-a-half of covid lockdowns and restrictions. But it was also the composition of the crowd: striking in its inclusion — by race, gender, age and socioeconomic status (the event was free).

Nearly everyone was clad in Steelers gear and rooting for the same outcome — a good team we can all be proud of.

For at least a few hours we were not doom-scrolling on social media at home, stewing over lurid headlines, looking for opinions that validate our own, lashing out at those who hold opinions at odds with ours. We were all looking in the same direction, watching the same drills, admiring the same athletes and dreaming of the same Super Bowl.

Those sitting next to us didn’t care about our politics, and we didn’t care about theirs. We didn’t care whether they were for or against mask mandates, or how they felt about any of the other seemingly endless sources of distrust and dissension that are in our faces every time we turn on our televisions or open our laptops.

Opportunities to come together have been so rare lately. This little oasis of communal happiness was intoxicating. It served as a reminder that we are social animals, and, hard as it may be to quantify, there is an important public health benefit in emerging from Zoom calls and “pods” drawn from the same demographic, and enjoying the company of strangers we may otherwise not interact with. And, as so often happens in venues like this, in discovering that we have more in common with our neighbors than we may have imagined (though opinions on Big Ben’s future on the team may not be one of them).

And then there were the smiles, no longer shrouded behind masks, smiles that fears of the Delta variant have some clamoring to once again cover up.

Those advocating for the reimposition of mask mandates and other restrictions often defend them with observations like “it’s the least we can do,” or that “having fun is only important if you’re alive!” These huffy declarations are meant to stifle any further debate, advancing the straw man argument that those in favor of a return to “normalcy” discount the value of human life in favor of frivolous recreation. I have a 4-year old, and, like any loving parent, the last thing in the world I would want is to put him — or anyone else’s child — in needless danger.

But this line of reasoning gets a few important things wrong.

First, covid poses a statistically negligible risk of serious harm to vaccinated adults and unvaccinated children.

Second, mask-wearing does have unfortunate consequences, even if some are hard to quantify. The importance of nonverbal communication should not be discounted. Take children, for example, all of whom go through the first several years of their lives struggling to communicate verbally. Imagine being a child surrounded by large adults, and then being unable to see these intimidating giants smile, a simple act that thousands of years of evolution has taught us to perceive as reassuring and comforting. Eliminating this signal to a child carries with it the short-term consequence of making everyone seem more alien and forbidding, as well as possible long-term developmental side effects which could take years to emerge.

Requiring such a sacrifice would certainly be warranted if most children or vaccinated people faced a meaningful threat of death or severe illness, but thankfully that is not the case.

The unfortunate reality is that covid is not going to be entirely eliminated anytime soon. We will never be free from all danger, whether from covid or myriad other risks we assume every time we leave home. If near absolute immunity from any covid risk demands the collective scaling back of healthy human interaction, what is the endpoint that will satisfy the most cautious?

In other words, when can we return to normalcy? Gatherings such as Steelers Fest are not just indulgent pursuits, suppressed without consequence. Smiles are not something we can stifle without cost.

With all Americans having had months to get the vaccine, now is as good as ever to rediscover some of the simple pleasures that unite us. Many have underestimated these worthy goals, and we can see the result in spiking mental health challenges at the individual level and a dangerous rise in intolerance at the societal level.

The fact that our outing to Heinz Field felt so therapeutic illustrates just how rare such experiences have been for so long, and how restorative they are, not only to our mental health, but to our sense of common humanity and mutual goodwill.

Regardless of where things shake out on today’s policy debates, we ought to abandon the hyperbolic rhetoric designed to bludgeon the opposition into unthinking conformity. Let’s give each other the benefit of the doubt. I have worked in government, and, no, most government officials are not hell-bent on stripping our civil liberties and establishing a totalitarian state. Likewise, plenty of people I know have concerns with lockdowns and mask mandates, and they are not uneducated troglodytes callously unconcerned with human suffering.

Let’s retire the clichés — whether it is “don’t trust the government” or “stay safe” — expressions that either ignore covid risk or dismiss other vital signs of personal and civic well-being, like mental health, happiness and a more unified society.

Then let’s resolve to meet some strangers at Heinz Field on Sept. 19, maybe offer them a beer or soda, and celebrate the return of football … unless, of course, they’re wearing Raiders gear.

Will Bardenwerper (@wbardenwerper) is the author of “The Prisoner in His Palace: Saddam Hussein, His American Guards, and What History Leaves Unsaid.” He lives with his family outside Pittsburgh.