The Atheist in the Foxhole

Before I go any further into the notion that spiritual traditions, a.k.a. religions, might offer a way out of our health insurance mess, I have to address the assertion that there are no atheists in foxholes. In other words, that when faced with death, we all get religion. I do not think that is necessarily true. I do think, though, that when faced with death, we can be moved to be far better humans than we may have thought possible.

Atheism is trendy at the moment. The new books table at Cody’s, an independent bookstore near my home, has several books on atheism prominently displayed. But I do not think that being an atheist exempts anyone from being a good person. In fact, the people who write these books are moved partially by revulsion for the things that have been done in the name of religion. That is basic human goodness talking.

I will give you an example, the best one I have personally encountered, of how human goodness is intrinsic. It is the story of my one encounter with Noam Chomsky. I had the opportunity to meet him once, in a small group of about 20 people at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, discussing the role of religion in public life. Because the group was so small, Chomsky insisted we sit in a circle rather than address him at the podium. The GTU folks were generally of the opinion that religion was necessary in order for people to have any standards by which to be good people. (I’m simplifying here, for the sake of brevity, but that was the gist.) Chomsky, as a good red-diaper baby, was having none of this. I was just a librarian at the GTU, but the forum was open, so I asked him, if religion is not what makes people good, kind, caring, what is? He replied (paraphrasing here) that we are good people like we have arms and legs. It’s inherent. We can rely on that. When I heard this, I had been a Buddhist for 15 years or so, and this is the teaching of basic human goodness, or primordial purity. I rocked back in my chair and just listened for the rest of the discussion.

Later, when I learned a little about his linguistics, I realized that his politics, in the case I just described, were actually of a piece with his science. As I understood it, and I’m sure someone will correct me if I’m wrong, the new thing he brought to the linguistics table was that language is an inherent capacity of humans. Just as the capacity to feel the suffering of others, and to care for them as one would care for oneself, is inherent.

I found him to be somewhat austere in an intellectual way, quite demanding in terms of the care people should give to working things out in their minds, but also genuinely humble and principled. I also found him to be a model of bravery in the Buddhist sense. That kind of atheist would do fine in a foxhole.

Us and Them

At first glance it seems that the hardest thing to change about the current situation is the deathgrip in which the health insurance con has trapped us all. The stupendous amount of money involved is a big contributor to that belief, I suppose. How exactly does one go about unwrapping people’s fingers from around such big piles of cash?

But I think that that problem can be solved if we can find away to solve the deeper problem of the denial of the impermanence of human existence: birth, old age, sickness, and death are how the story goes, along with life, youth, health, happiness, and enjoyment. It is a package. The health insurance con has been successful at least partially because the con men and women have been playing on our deep wish that we could have the good stuff and make the bad stuff go away. If there were a way to see through that, then the con would no longer have any kick to it.

In fact, most human cultures have aspects that do address the impermanence of existence and how we can live fully and richly in the light of that. All of the world’s religions of which I am aware offer their practitioners ways to understand and live with the inevitability of death. They offer ways of valuing life and living as good people in light of the fact that we will all die. It is not a coincidence that the last 200 years or so, when we have been seduced by science into hoping that maybe death will be overcome, have seen such stunning displays of human cruelty as those still going on today.

Maybe when we lose sight of the fact that we have things in common as human beings, one of them being the experience of age, illness, and death, we become more prone to separating people out into groups which are more or less worthy of our care. I have been struck over the last twenty years or so with the polarizing of people that has happened. I know people will say that this is a media artifact, and I think that is often true, but consider this. The U.S. is divided politically by something like 51% to 49%. But if you take one half of that divide, the Democratic party, and have two people run in a whole series of primaries, they wind up divided, again, by something like 51% to 49%. What is going on here?

I do not claim to have an answer to that question, but I do think that the fact that we have lost a spiritual sense of our common humanity is a big factor. We have divided ourselves into the fundamental duality, Us and Them. If I can convince myself that the man I know who died of a heart attack, died because he was at fault, because he ate the wrong things or was unable to make himself exercise enough, then I can maintain my belief that maybe it will not happen to me.

I know that religion is a bad word in some circles lately. I even understand that fact, given the atrocities that have been committed in the name of religion. But I think it’s possible to reclaim the gifts that the spiritual traditions of our various cultures have for us, and thus reclaim some moral compass in dealing with the human condition.

All or Nothing

At first glance, the hardest change to make would seem to be removing the insurance industry from health care. The people who have been running that long con have been making a massive amount of money at it for a very long time. We are all in on it, too. Take a close look at your mutual fund, your 401(k), or your pension plan if anyone out there still has one. I imagine you will find that they are all heavily invested in health insurance.

So, the health insurance companies will not go quietly. Michael Moore in 2007 posted to his e-mail list a memo from an insurance company P.R. person, in which the main talking point was that the rising cost of health care should be attributed to bad lifestyle choices by the evil Baby Boomers. I cannot find the letter, but I can paraphrase him or her as saying that it took us 50 years to get into this mess and it will take us just as long to get out of it. Those figures rather closely match the lifespan of the Baby Boom.

The plan? Blame the Baby Boom for its own aging, sickness, and death, give them as little care as possible, and sit tight until they all die.

Anyone who spends a moment thinking of someone they love being spoken of or treated that way would rebel. It is not acceptible to us as human beings. We cannot blame people for illness and old age as some kind of personal failure. Human beings care for the sick and we honor the dead. From what I have read, that is one of the ways anthropologists have defined as human the beings they encounter. They look not only at whether the hominids bury their dead, but at whether there are signs of people having been cared for when ill or injured.

There was a wonderful example of this in the press a few years back, which I have not been able to find again. If my description rings a bell for anyone, please write in with a reference. An anthropological dig turned up a skeleton of a male hominid who died in his thirties, about when people died in those days if they lived a long life. The striking thing about him was that his skeleton showed signs of a seriously broken bone that had healed. The injury had happened some years before the person died. The researcher wrote that the fact that the bone had healed meant this person had been cared for over a long recovery. Others had brought him food, kept him warm, and looked after his needs. This was surprising to the researchers because this particular dig came from a time when they thought the hominids were living a harsh existence, and they had assumed that the sick would have been left to die. This forced the researchers to re-consider their evaluation as to whether these hominids should be called human or at least proto-human.

The point of this story is that it is part of being human to care for the sick. We cannot let that be taken away from us. Does anyone really want to live in a world where they will be blamed for partaking in the human condition?

It suits the insurance industry to have us see this as an all or nothing proposition: either we go along with their little horror story or the financial house will come tumbling down. But the insurance industry can change. That massive infrastructure could be turned to administering health care rather than denying it. It only takes the removal of the insurance model to unleash a massive supply of medical knowledge, human compassion, and resources. The people who work for those companies will still have plenty of work to do.

The only people who would be harmed by this would be the people who have so far been making money on the gamble. But they are going to start losing soon anyway. The scheme is not scalable, as they say in the business world. It is also not supportable, and when people see what is actually involved in the plan the P.R. flack laid out, they will not stomach it. We can either let the insurance industry take us all down with them, or we can, as gently as possible, inform them that they are going to have to find another way to make money. They can take care of themselves, in fact they have few other skills. We as a human society must start caring for our sick and dying again.

Dear Mrs. Clinton

Hillary Clinton gave a great speech in New York last night, after winning the South Dakota primary. She asked people to write to her, on her website of course, and tell her what they thought she should do now. Since she has fought for universal health care for many years, and taken a stupendous amount of very personal grief for it, I felt compelled to respond.

I did this even though I wish she would not run for president and put us all through the torment of watching the Republicans eat her for breakfast. I address her as “Mrs. Clinton” because the belittling use of her first name by said Republicans, and the rest of the news media, makes me nauseous.

One of my readers asked me where I’m going with this blog. For those of you who are time challenged, the bullet points in this letter are my main arguments.

Dear Mrs. Clinton:

This is in bullet points because I know your time is valuable. 

• Whatever you decide, please devote your considerable personal capital to achieving universal health care
• Insurance assumes that the thing insured against will not happen to some people
• Everybody gets sick and everybody dies, so in fact insurance does not work for health care
• Insurance functions by denying care to people who need it
• Denying health care to people who need it is morally unacceptable
• Insurers have gotten the control they have because we are afraid to face the fact that we will get sick and die
• Insurers keep their power by using this fear and telling us that the people who do get sick and die are somehow to blame for that
• A huge amount of money and energy is going into this blame campaign so insurers can survive the upcoming old age and death of 70 million Boomers
• This blaming of the old and sick is also morally unacceptable.
• We need to look to our religious traditions, our ethical and philosophical traditions, and our common humanity and accept the fact that we all will get sick and die
• In light of our common humanity and common fate, we need to care for everyone
• Good luck, whatever you decide.

Love,

Nora