Hurry, Call 911! Or Don't!

One of my “parishioners” gave me a few magazines to read recently, through which I ran across the following article. I’m not promoting the argument, but when I read it, I instantly recognized that it could create some very interesting dialogue on the Houseflies. So… feel free to dialogue!


HOW CALLING 911 CREATES A CRISIS
The bureaucracy of crisis intervention is an obstacle to loving thy neighbor
By Jurriaan Kamp, “Ode” (June, 2007)

If you have a problem in today’s society, you don’t knock on your neighbour’s door; you dial numbers. “Care” and “attention” are found at the other end of a telephone line. Those numbers diminish the universal phenomenon once referred to as mercy, compassion or altruism. Crisis hotlines and 911 numbers increase the distance between people.

Love for your fellow man flourishes when people live in close proximity and have reciprocal relationships. Caring for others – solidarity – is a classic characteristic of “primitive” societies simply because the people are dependent on one another and don’t live in a world of “care facilities.” In modern society, caring for our neighbours is no longer our concern, but that of nameless professionals. When politicians speak of a “safety net,” they are not referring to a circle of mutually supportive citizens, but agreements that are made by the state, a company, an insurer and a pension fund. We can only hope that such institutions will take care of us if we’re in need. The tragic paradox is that all the well-meaning efforts to make society more just and humane – from communism to social services – have undermined a vital element of humanity. People don’t have to take care of each other anymore, and so they don’t. “Mercifulness” has become a word reserved for dictionaries. Many people believe this word intuitively belongs in the Bible or history books. The modern version of mercy is charity. And that describes donors with checkbooks, for Hollywood stars who become ambassadors of good causes and for the percentage of the government budget pledged to development aid.

Society doesn’t benefit if care professionals replace neighbourly relationships. If care becomes a large-scale operation, our sense of community disappears. That doesn’t mean we should nostalgically reminisce about the good old days. The feudal society of previous centuries offers no solutions, nor is there a future for us in tribal cultures. Yet we can use elements from these ways of life to instill moral values in society. The key is a small scale. Our lives must be manageable enough to allow reciprocal relationships to blossom, and to strengthen a mutual exchange of goods and information – but also of sadness and happiness – as well as trust and solidarity.

The moral values of today’s politicians are so quick to invoke would benefit from a smaller state, less government interference, not as much emphasis on policy and a simpler bureaucracy. If we had fewer emergency numbers, people’s mutual dependence would increase. The political “right” is in fact right: The state doesn’t make people “good.” On the contrary, a powerful government corrupts the innate “goodness” of the market – and of people.

Humans are programmed to work together, show respect for their fellow man. But that “natural programming” only works in small-scale environments without a powerful government. Therefore, the challenge lies in giving that much-needed small scale a place in our globalizing society and connecting local communities in a world economy. To do this, we need to recognize that 911 and emergency services alone don’t mean progress.