Tell Me What the Difference Is
In a longer view and deeper consideration of present crises, it is possible to see similarities among 1) the lack of will to limit the fatal consequences of burning fossil fuels, 2) the perfervid determination on the part of too many politicians to destroy the Affordable Care Act as in the intention of the new governor of Kentucky to curtail the short-lived opportunity for the poor of his state to obtain basic health care through the federally funded expansion of Medicaid, 3) the political movement to reduce food stamps for those families that need them most and 4) the all-too-recent history best known for the sites of base human cruelty: Auschwitz, Bergen Belsen and Dachau.
I am asking what the fundamental difference is between any two of the four above or among the entire lot. And I am proposing that there is little difference because care for the dignity of human life in the first three examples is far down the list of priorities -- the top priorities being profit now, political paybacks and the Baal-like idol of smaller government. The fourth example got to the point much more quickly with the gas and the ovens.
In each case, it is the diminution of human life that is the result, intended or not. Those who so vigorously oppose free birth control and abortion on the platform of respect for life are, almost to the person, climate-change deniers, outright haters of so-called Obamacare and spending public money to provide health care or basic sustenance to those who, due to their bottom-tier resources, are priced out of the market. So much for the sanctity of life.
The other day, I came across a quotation from the remarkable works of the late Primo Levy. He said, "Consciences can be seduced and obscured." He was referring to how ordinary Germans became Nazi sympathizers, mostly for survival's sake but by the route of allowing their consciences to be seduced by the hypnotic power of Adolf Hitler's apocalyptic rhetoric and promises that at long last he would elevate them to their deserved status as the master race.
To get there in their heads, such work-a-day Germans and sympathizers in other European nations were required inwardly to decide that Jews were not really human and therefore did not possess the fundamental dignity that human beings possessed. The result was the Holocaust that was stopped only -- and too late -- by the defeat of what was left of Germany.
You and I can decide that another person is not deserving of what we have, viz., dependable health care, sufficient food that we do not think much of its cost, or the choice of whether or not to bring a child into the world. A whole nation can decide by political consensus not to abandon the use of fossil fuels for the sake of today's comfort and the profit margin of the oil and coal industries, putting out of the common mind the obvious consequences that will fall upon its children and grandchildren.
Levy was right: The conscience of a nation can be seduced or obscured. In such a case, there is no fundamental difference between the Holocaust and plunging the poor back into the pre-Medicaid era of their lives when going to the doctor was tantamount to winning the lottery, between cutting off the food supply to the poor and between dismantling the nearest thing we'll ever have to universal health care coverage whilst we watch as the health of a nation worsens even as hospitals' and providers' profits grow to new heights.
Surely such things as I am writing here will be called the product of out-and-out hysteria or politically motivated muckraking or whatever else clever wordsmiths may craft. Nevertheless, I will include e-mails in the READERS WRITE section following next week's post that express the outrage this essay may occasion along with more sober critiques of its substance.
If I'm lucky, it will be said that I was mixing the proverbial apples and oranges. More likely will come accusations of once again beating up on Republicans and running down America in which I should feel fortunate to live.
Such charges will miss the mark by a wide margin.
The theme is human dignity. It cannot be bought or sold, cannot without terrible consequences be taken from any individual or class or race or ethno-religious group. Human dignity has emerged in our time as our highest value even as it is violated every day in one way or another. Black Lives Matter, for example, is a reaction to that violation.
Why is human dignity violated? It is violated and beaten down along with those from whom it has been stolen because individual and group human dignity gets in the way of so many other pursuits.
To the ante-bellum plantation owner in the South, indentured servitude was an economic boon. To the unscrupulous industrialist, profit and stock value trump the welfare of workers and their families. To the ideologue of politics, the a priori principles of party become everything even as they fail to do justice and love mercy. To a prosecuting attorney who wishes to ride convictions, however obtained, to higher office, defendants' rights are violated by egregious misconduct under the aegis of fighting crime.
None of these add up in anyone's arithmetic columns to Auschwitz. However, in the higher mathematics of history and philosophy in which the larger picture becomes visible, they do, indeed, add up. There is no fundamental difference between taking away health care, cutting off food aid, purposely ignoring global warming and consigning human beings to the horror of death camps. The purpose of committing any such crime and the fate of those afflicted by its commission come to the same thing in the end.
NOTE: The essayist has learned through several years of volunteer work at a nonprofit Detroit social service agency that food stamps and Medicaid are for tens of thousands of people in Detroit alone vital lifelines to survival.
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