Another New Year, another war. Once again, the place they call the Holy Land is Ground Zero. But there are invisible wars, too, and they're all around us.
An estimated 22,000 Americans will die next year because they don't have health insurance. Millions more will suffer even though they do have health insurance, because they still can't get the care they need.
We're going to make some difficult decisions in 2009. Let's hope that the first question we ask ourselves won't be "Will it work?" but "Is it right?" The practical questions should come later, after we've reminded ourselves of the fundamental principles and goals.
War and healthcare have something in common. In both cases, we seem to prefer intervention to prevention. Avoidance just isn't as satisfying. It's more gratifying to let a problem develop and then eradicate it with costly technology. Then we can feel we've done something - something practical. Our conscience, that sense of the greater picture, might tell us to choose the less gratifying path. But we tune it out.
I'm not just talking about those in power. I'm talking about myself. Like most people, I live my life in the world of the practical and the possible. That's not likely to change. Compromise will continue to be necessary, but hopefully it can be conducted with the highest goals in mind. Expediency is a fact of life, but it shouldn't drown out higher voices - especially when we're under pressure.
Jesse Kornbluth wrote about his reaction to dead Gazan children in their school uniforms, and a commenter described his piece as "pornography of the conscience." That striking but debatable phrase got me thinking: If we're going to arouse any human response in the coming year, shouldn't it be conscience?
We tend to think of human impulses and instincts as innately harmful, because they're created out of sub- (or supra-) rational drives. The commenter called Jesse's piece "pornography" because harmed children trigger our instincts in a special way. That made the commenter feel manipulated. But not all of our primal urges are bad. Some are altruistic. They evolved from our need to survive collectively. Don't we need to encourage that sense of collective fate? In fact, I hope we expand it.
Case in point: The mirror self-recognition (MSR) experiment shows that at least six species of animals have some self-awareness. That makes them relatives. Yet we keep thinking we're a higher species than these animals - even when we don't recognize ourselves in the mirror of a child's face.
Too many times, that blindness occurs because the child comes from a different tribe and a different religion. As the Muslim poet Hafiz wrote, "Beware of the tiny Gods frightened men create to bring anesthetic relief to their sad days." Frightened people can't see their own reflections.
Frankly, it feels awkward to even talk about this stuff. I'm no moral authority. But the New Year seems like the right time to raise these questions. And as the often-quoted Rabbi Hillel said, "If not us, who? If not now, when?"
Notice that he said who - us - and when - now - but he didn't say what. The "what" part is the job of the conscience. It's more than consciousness or self-awareness. It's the ongoing, real-time awareness of the right and wrong of our own behavior. Evolutionary biologists are still investigating the origins of altruism, but it's clear that - at least for most of us - some internal process knows right from wrong on a deep level.
When the 18th Century biologist Linnaeus named our species he didn't just call us Homo sapiens - "he who knows." He classified us as Homo sapiens sapiens. That could be translated as "he who knows he knows." To know that you know: How's that for a curse?
When I'm ignoring that still, small voice, I change. I'm angrier, more defensive. I'm greedier, as if I can build a physical fortress around my guilt. I need a drink. I need a shrink. Because somewhere inside I know ... that I know.
I work in healthcare policy and management. A lot of my work involves something they call "crunching numbers." Conscience is the voice that reminds us what those numbers mean.
As for Gaza, yes: rockets were firing into Israel before this invasion took place. But civilian deaths have been disproportionate on one side. And did you know that Hamas won with a minority of voters' support? (Needless to say, no children voted.) So, whatever your feelings about this conflict, those children should weigh heavy on the conscience. Collective punishment is a concept that should have died with the 20th Century.
Does that mean all wars are unjust, or that incremental health reform is wrong? I don't think so. Maybe some wars can't be avoided. Maybe some diseases can't be prevented. We'll need to make tough choices. But we should keep looking for the quiet solutions. We should keep listening to the soft voices, even when - especially when - the noise is deafening. That's not just sentimentality. It's practicality. Sometimes the quiet voices have the best answer.
Maybe we need to remember Eleanor Roosevelt's question: "When will our consciences grow so tender that we will act to prevent human misery rather than avenge it?"
That's not pornography. It's poetry.
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RJ Eskow blogs when he can at: