(Ir)religiosity

If you have been to Rob Bell’s Drops Like Stars tour then you know that at an important point in his “talk” persons write “I know how you feel” on an index card (with their non-dominant hand!) and exchange the cards with someone else in the room who has undergone the same experience (divorce, affected by cancer, etc.).

At one point I exchanged cards with a person sitting next to me — who may or may not have been under the influence — and his card, instead of reading what it was supposed to, said “I know you feel.”  I thought it was pretty funny at the time, but I have been reflecting on that difference between the two statements for several weeks now and I’ve come to the conclusion that that the latter, that is the one with the “typo,” is truer than than the former, the statement we inevitably default to when empathizing with those who are suffering or hurting.

In fact, the more I think about how radically different each of us is and how strikingly dissimilar our seemingly similar experiences are given the intricacies and peculiarities of our own subjectivity, the more I realize how arrogant and rash it would be to tell someone that I know how they feel.  Even if I have shared an experience that we might for the sake of convenience call “similar,” or even “the same,” I simply cannot understand nor comprehend how that experience may have altered or radically augmented the other’s narrative in ways strikingly different from my own.  My subjectivity and the other’s subjectivity are wholly other to one another.  Even our shared and similar experiences different; we experience the same experiences differently, so differently that I would say we are precluded from state that we know how the other feels.  Such would be to collapse the other into myself, relegating the other into the order of the same.  I think this is devoid of true empathy and compassion because it still places my experience and my subjectivity above that of the other.  I experience another as an object, not a subject.

The closest we can come, by contrast, to truly identifying with the other in our (un)shared experience is by declaring: I know you feel.  This seems superficially axiomatic but I think one would be hard pressed to find normal instances in which the deeply heterogeneous ways in which we experience trauma and suffering are actually validated rather than simply recognized and shoved aside.  Moreover, I find it very powerful that while I can identify with the other on a certain level through various shared experiences I can never know the full depth and breadth of her subjectivity, indeed that is precisely what it means to experience the other qua other.  I do know empathize with the other, despite our shared experience, because I know exactly how that experience relates to the other’s subjectivity or because I know “how” that experience makes the other feel.  Compassion and empathy couched in that way is, at its core, narcissistic.  I know the other feels (not how!) and I identify with the other despite the mystery that is her complete subjectivity and despite my desire to project myself onto the other. This is, I believe, what it means to “be with” those who are hurting and those who are suffering, not because we have actually been in their shoes — because we haven’t and to say we have would be damaging — but because we are woven together in the fabric of humanity and we encounter one another face to face despite the enigmas the separate us.  We stand together and hold together our shared experiences whilst realizing we understand those experiences and their effects quite differently, that is what it means to relate to one another and see one another and respect one another as other.

I don’t know how you feel but I do know that you feel despite what the world around you may say.

Two things up front: 1.) I believe quality health care is a fundamental right that should be afforded to all persons regardless of _________, 2.) I believe governments have a moral responsibility to ensure that said care is provided to its citizens.  For me, these are non-negotiable.  Period.

Our country is the closest it has ever been to ensuring the most of its citizens have access to quality health care.  I will be outraged, not to mention deeply disappointed, if we fail to push it through.  At this point we’re our own worst enemy.  As Jon Stewart pointed out in a recent episode of The Daily Show, it wouldn’t be all the surprising if President Obama’s approval rating of the American people has plummeted over the last month or so.  The lack of civility and reasonableness in our public discourse on this issue would be disappointing if it weren’t so pathetic.

I’m continually perplexed at the various ways in which people either hear or see what they want to or intentionally caricature what is said by resorting to scare tactics (I’m looking at you Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck).  Most people simply aren’t working with the facts and if they are the choose to sideline them in favor of something that sounds controversial and may gain some shock value or media attention.¹

Health care is too important of an issue for us to play games.  I’m afraid if we keep screwing around we’re going to miss our chance.  Then we will be responsible for the lack of care and ensuring that the uninsured remain uninsured.  There won’t be any passing the buck.  The blame will rest squarely on our shoulders.

Yesterday President Obama published an op-ed in the New York Times that clearly and carefully articulates his position yet again.  You should stop right now and read the whole thing.  Here’s what I think is the nucleus.

This is what reform is about. If you don’t have health insurance, you will finally have quality, affordable options once we pass reform. If you have health insurance, we will make sure that no insurance company or government bureaucrat gets between you and the care you need. If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor. If you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan. You will not be waiting in any lines. This is not about putting the government in charge of your health insurance. I don’t believe anyone should be in charge of your health care decisions but you and your doctor — not government bureaucrats, not insurance companies.

But let’s make sure that we talk with one another, and not over one another. We are bound to disagree, but let’s disagree over issues that are real, and not wild misrepresentations that bear no resemblance to anything that anyone has actually proposed. This is a complicated and critical issue, and it deserves a serious debate.

I read that and I simply don’t understand what the great end-of-the-world, apocalypse inaugurating problem is that I keep hearing about.  What is so wrong with providing a public option for those who can’t afford it?  Please tell me.  Or better yet, let’s tell those who currently can’t afford care why it is that they were just dealt the wrong hand and don’t have the right to the same quality care that the rest of us enjoy.

It is deeply disturbing, I think, when this idea is met with such anger and hate by people (mostly white people who can afford health care, by the way) at town hall meetings and not accepted with a sense of great urgency.  Perhaps the health care debate is what racism and classism looks like in the 21st century.  It looks more and more like Gordon Marino was right when he wrote that “the fact that a significant number of Americans do not feel any urgency to revamp a system that leaves millions of our sick without care is symptomatic of the fact that we must be suffering from a hardening of more than our arteries.”  Indeed, our irrational and childish behavior is demonstrative not only our compassion deficiency but our collective moral bankruptcy.

Perhaps the recent recession extends to more than our economy.

1. One of the best places to keep up with what is fact and what is fiction is http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/ [↩]