The You're-on-Your-Own Society

[xchrom]

http://www.thenation.com/article/171129/youre-your-own-society


An unidentified man, left, watches Allen Duncan, homeless and unemployed, sleep on a sidewalk, August 8, 2011 in New York. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan)

Of all the divisions between the candidates in this election, perhaps the deepest was over whether, as President Obama put it, we are all in this together. Do we believe in solving our problems by sharing them—through the Affordable Care Act, grants for low-income college students, progressive income taxes that fund public services, help for the unemployed, infrastructure improvements, scientific research and other essential features of modern democracies that are taken for granted in just about every other Western industrialized country? Or do we believe, with Mitt Romney, that each of us is on his or her—maybe especially her—own? Do we believe in government, or in billionaires? A tax-funded safety net for everyone, or a patchwork of charities and churches with no obligation—or, let’s be realistic, capacity—to help all in need? Do we agree with Romney that the government should turn disaster recovery over to the states or, “even better,” private enterprise? Maybe Hurricane Sandy clarified that question for some of those famous undecided voters. It certainly seems to have done that for Governor Christie.

he logical corollary of “You’re on your own” is “You’re your own damn fault.” Americans in general are keen on seeing social problems in terms of individual weakness—look at how we demonize fat people, as if the reason so many are overweight is just a lack of willpower. But that mindset is particularly part of the right-wing DNA. After all, if you can hold people solely responsible for their problems, you can ignore them, deprive them, even hate them. Rape victims, women with unwanted pregnancies, poor people (get a job!), drug users, children who commit crimes, people who have been imprudent or out of line in any way, have only themselves to blame. Nicholas Kristof wrote a New York Times column a few weeks ago about his friend Scott, who had a midlife crisis, quit his job to read books and play poker, didn’t buy health insurance even after he went back to work because it was too expensive, and, partly to save money but also because he was busy and had no wife to nudge him, postponed seeing the doctor about disturbing symptoms that proved to be caused by advanced prostate cancer. Kristof’s point was that we all make mistakes, and that good public policy takes that into account. In a follow-up column that noted Scott’s death, Kristof wrote that he was “taken aback by how many readers were savagely unsympathetic. ‘Your friend made a foolish choice, and actions have consequences,’ one reader said in a Twitter message.” Yes, actions have consequences, and that’s why we need society to protect us from our folly, ignorance and bad judgment—our own and one another’s. Sooner or later, everybody takes risks that turn out poorly. Some people have unprotected sex, cross against the light, drive too fast, ride a motorcycle without a helmet in Connecticut (where for some crazy reason that is legal), don’t wear a seat belt, drink too much, send money in response to e-mails from Nigerian princes, don’t vaccinate their kids. Some people refused to evacuate during Sandy—should relief workers deny them a hot meal

[hootinholler]

1. I've been calling them YOYOs lately

It hasn't caught on yet.