The value of life beyond partisanship



If you’ve been deemed essential and your work and paycheck have continued in recent months without interruption, it’s very easy to see those demonstrating against home sheltering restrictions as scientifically illiterate hicks.  If you dig a bit deeper and realize that they are fighting an existential threat borne of economics you might just change your tune however.  The fact is that our human instinct to survive will, at times, provoke us into risky behavior sufficient to trade the devil we know for the devil we do not.  For many people with their backs on the ropes of their own socio-economic demise, you are witnessing, first hand, the exchange of safety sheltering from the storm, for the resources to survive.  In cruder terms; you are watching starvation drive individuals to make life threatening decisions in order to put food on the table today.  This was never about 4th Amendment rights or freedom of mobility, this is about having an insufficient safety net, both governmental and personal, to weather a storm with staying power longer than our resources or patience.  What it has been turned into has been the blanket criticism of those afflicted with little to no savings, living a hand to mouth existence suddenly laid off or furloughed with little thought given to the path of the individual or the plight they suffer.  We do this because it’s far easier, psychologically for us, to blame the individual for the situation they are in than it is to help them out of it.  We can write it off as self imposed or deserved.

What we are really seeing is two divergent pathways to the demonstration of the perceived value of life.  If we reacquaint ourselves with Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs we can see that we are witnessing those with “physiological needs” met, bicker and judge those without and the predictable ensuing friction.  The fact is that the quest to meet those needs is coded within each of us and the difference between those demonstrating that desperation today and those showing it next week distills down to little more than the insulation provided by time and money.  We must ask ourselves: “What does it take for an individual to leave the safety of their home in the face of lethal risk?”  The answer, simply stated is, a more clear and present danger. 

The white noise surrounding this issue is drowning out the human suffering associated with it and none of us are better for it.  The solution means confronting things we are not comfortable with and shifting priorities we want to cling onto. This is not Blue vs Red, this is the value of human life and our ability to see it for what it is. 


Todd El-Taher

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