The rise of mass consciousness, a uniquely modern phenomenon, has resulted in the proliferation of an idealistic, moral view of the world. It has been the most singular achievement of modernity. Nowhere has its impact, its peculiar stamp, been more evident or more pronounced than in politics.
It's ironic that a totally secularized society, inaugurated by the Age of Reason and Nietzsche's fateful pronouncement that God is dead, should produce its own brand of religion – call it humanism, or progressivism, or simply a belief in the possibility of a better, more equitable world – but such has been the case; there's no other way to call it.
Just think. Practically every single advance in the area of human rights, every significant social gain in the past century or so, has been won with "universal morality" serving as its banner, its call to arms. Indeed, one could well argue that the theory of (human) rights, the centerpiece of modern political theory, is a descendant of this peculiarly moral, quasi-religious point of view, its more or less natural consequence.
Why rights? Because "rights," properly understood, represent an extension of the moral equivalence and worthiness of persons, the incarnation of that worthiness through its multifarious manifestations; they encapsulate and make concrete the morality of persons. Which is why progress in the area of human rights represents real progress, there being no other kind.
The topic at hand presented an anomaly of sorts because unlike other rights, universal healthcare is contingent in a very real sense on the material conditions of a given society: in a nutshell, a society must be prosperous enough to be able to afford it. Since human rights, especially those pertaining to the moral equivalence and worthiness of persons, are unconditional, it follows that we can't speak of universal healthcare as a right.
Hence the needed corrective, recasting universal healthcare in terms of benefits and social or societal obligation to provide such to each and every member – again with an all-important proviso that the society is prosperous enough to carry out the program. Now we must show that the obligation in question is in essence a moral type of obligation, and that the cause of universal healthcare isn’t diminished from having been "demoted" thus from its ill-conceived status as a right. Once done, we can still hold on to the idea of universal healthcare as a moral imperative, though contextualized this time to a particular society – namely, a society which presumably can afford it.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Dave Nalle
one shouldn't have to choose between health care or rent or food on the table
This argument makes no sense, because the logical conclusion of it is that rent and food must also be provided by the state, because they are just as necessary as healthcare and perhaps more essential.
Dave
2 - roger nowosielski
That's not my argument, Dave. It's Jordans. By the way, there's an interesting opinion in WSJ today: Here's the link.
3 - roger nowosielski
The idea being that since they're all essentials, there should be no lack in a prosperous society. Call it a safety net if you like. Like the Food Stamps program.
4 - Jordan Richardson
the logical conclusion of it is that rent and food must also be provided by the state, because they are just as necessary as healthcare and perhaps more essential.
Erm, "rent" and food are provided by the state if people can't afford it. Not only that, but you're setting up a false dichotomy and reinforcing it with your own version of a "logical conclusion" that is, in fact, just your regurgitated politicking (surprise, surprise).
The argument makes perfect sense and it's an "argument" that numerous Americans live out every single day.
But whatever, Dave. You know best.
5 - roger nowosielski
Right, Jordan. In addition to Food Stamps, we also have here what's called "Section 8" housing.
6 - Dave Nalle
What I was hoping to point out in my inept way is that healthcare is NOT on the same level of importance as food or shelter. There are differences between the necessity of these things and society has a right to draw a line somewhere and say no more. When providing healthcare for someone else takes food out of the mouths of my children or denies them a decent education then I have to object.
A big problem here is that the priorities which the majorit might set are very different from the priorities which I or a minority of others who think like me might set, and forcing us to pay for soemthing which we think should be a lower priority for society is morally wrong. This is WHY it is always best to let individuals provide for themselves and make their own decisions on how to prioritize these quality of life issues.
Dave
7 - roger nowosielski
I would tend to agree insofar as the issue hinges on affordability. Besides, Thomas Szasz (see the link in #2) makes a compelling argument about other priorities - namely educational and economic betterment on the part of the citizens. Also, an interesting distinction between "unwanted happenings" (e.g., leukemia, prostrate cancer) and those which are the result of voluntary, goal-directed behavior (like obesity and smoking).
8 - Bliffle
Dave says:
"When providing healthcare for someone else takes food out of the mouths of my children or denies them a decent education then I have to object."
Has public health actually taken food out of your childrens mouths?
Has public health deprived them of a decent education?
Or are those just phantom threats?
Are you willing to withhold your objections until that happens?
Then Dave says:
"...forcing us to pay for soemthing which we think should be a lower priority for society is morally wrong."
Did that apply, during the W administration, to people who thought invading Iraq was a low priority?
9 - Bliffle
Roger says:
"... there's an interesting opinion in WSJ today: Here's the link."
I don't think the article is interesting at all. It starts with a strawman and then cites some bogus analogies involving automobiles.
Plus, it's written by a famous incendiary, Thomas Sasz, who 50 years ago wrote a book titled "The Myth of Mental Illness", an idea that is an affront to anyone who's had to deal with a psychotic in the family, although it was provocative enough to sell many copies and make it a best-seller.
10 - roger nowosielski
It was a sociological perspective at the time, shared by many others, including Lang. Lots of what we commonly refer to as mental illness is our (society's) propensity for labeling by calling the behavior "deviant" - from juvenile delinquency to other "social ills." Ervin Goffman was another proponent of that school of thought - e.g. Asylums, and so was Foucault.
Which doesn't negate the fact that in a great many cases, the causes are "organic." I'm certain, however, that none of those authors meant to contradict the obvious.
11 - Cindy
Reading this thread has made me quite spittingly grumpy.
healthcare is NOT on the same level of importance as food or shelter
At least not when you have it right Dave? Dave calls health care a quality of life issue and talks about priorities.People live an average of 80 years Dave. What could possibly be more valuable to them than life?
Thomas Szasz' brain is so addled that he joins in with a cult (that murders and destroys people) and takes on the defense of Scientology just to make himself right because they both believe in abolishing psychiatry. Roger, You once asked me what I thought of Szasz and Laing. Stick with Laing, he was a brilliant human being, compassionate and large. Thomas Szasz is a fucking cunt and a tiny shriveled waste of human space.
The idea that every life is infinitely precious and therefore everyone deserves the same kind of optimal medical care is a fine religious sentiment and moral ideal. As political and economic policy, it is vainglorious delusion. -Szasz
The idea that every life is infinitely precious is the only perspective held by sane members of a society. Anything less becomes increasingly inhuman until quickly all human qualities disappear and this state of consciousness is normalized and replicated. (where we're stuck)
The idea that...everyone deserves the same kind of optimal medical care is not only doable, but is the only perspective that is not based on greed and is based on our highest best human thinking. Stop admiring human aspirations and start practicing them.
The world is a mentally unwell place. May your cup of Prozac runneth over.
12 - Cindy
Laing was wrong about the biology of serious mental illness. However, he was nothing like Szasz. Laing was brilliant and had heart and love. People don't always have to be right. Laing was right about a lot of other things.
13 - roger nowosielski
Well, Cindy. I haven't followed much Szasz's career, only to say that at the time he was one of the representative of a sociological trend to focus on a society's propensity to label individuals as deviant and thereby relegate their behavior as subject to criminal law or other sanctions. And that was a much needed corrective. Other than that, I claim ignorance.
As to equality of all life, I do make my own argument. But it's a fact of life that the old folk are "valued less" - e.g., in the Eskimo society where they are just allowed to freeze to death. And then, you have the practice of triage. Try to dissuade the medical establishment from this practice. But there's no question, as you say, as to how we ought to think about these matters, only a matter of what can be done. And then again, the problem is obscured by greed. I doubt, however, that Szasz would be defending the medical establishment given his history of being a maverick. He speaks with his own voice.
14 - roger nowosielski
There's another thing, Cindy. I refuse to believe that all voices, some of them more or less reasonable, like Nalle's or Szasz's, are necessarily motivated by some weird notion of self-interest, in short, that they're voices of a corruption. I'd hate to think that. Perhaps that's why I tend to give them the benefit of the doubt, holding to my illusion that they're speaking from the heart. Perhaps a mistake on my part.
15 - Dave Nalle
Has public health actually taken food out of your childrens mouths?
Has public health deprived them of a decent education?
Or are those just phantom threats?
Have you SEEN the figures for what this health plan is likely to do to our taxes? With the economy weak and business revenues down any increase in my tax burden could very literally imperil my childrens welfare.
Are you willing to withhold your objections until that happens?
Absolutely not. Once it happens and the foot of socialized medicine is in the door it will never be possible to reverse it.
Did that apply, during the W administration, to people who thought invading Iraq was a low priority?
Sure. And IMO it applies to the massive waste of money and effort currently underway in Afghanistan.
Dave
16 - Bliffle
It's the PRIVATE healthcare system that will gobble up all of our money and all of our liberties.
Right now the system eats 18% of our GDP and will rise to 30% in a few years. What could stop it from going to 60% or 100%? Nothing.
The private system will also eat our liberties, as even now they plan to MANDATE everyone to pay for PRIVATE insurance. At least taxes are levied only if you have income or assets, but this new MANDATE idea will apply even to the poorest church mouse. Thus, poverty will send you to jail.
The private healthcare insurance monopoly/oligopoly is protected from Federal regulation by a 64 year old law that was a horrible mistake.
Activist decisions by rightwing supreme courts have allowed corporations to openly and freely BRIBE politicians.
It is PRIVATE insurance corporations with their unbreakable monopoly and iron grip on the government that will impoverish this nation and enslave it's citizens. They will do EXACTLY what you have feared for so long from SOCIALISM. There is NO functional diffference between unbridled monopoly and soviet-style government.
And if you don't see it, you're either blind or a co-conspirator.
17 - Dave Nalle
It's heartening to see that Bliffle realizes how disastrous the current healthcare proposals will be for the nation.
What we need here is some good old Teddy Roosevelt style trust busting followed by a rational combination of deregulation and regulation. Deregulate to open up competition in services and drug distribution. Regulate by putting serious penalties on gouging and price fixing. It's worked before in other industries.
Dave
18 - Bliffle
It's discouraging to see that Dave hasn't abandoned his habit of condescension and his patronizing attitude.
It isn't "current healthcare proposals " that are dangerous, it's the existing unbridled monopoly that has been operating for decades.
Beware: when the healthcare monopoly has exhausted their current set of victims they will expand their efforts to fleece people who had the conceit to believe that they could remain above the problems suffered by the Lower Classes.
In the last 5 years I've seen it happen as guys I knew who were rabid republicans thought that their pensions and retirement health plans were beyond reach lived to see them cut out from under them. Just as I told them would happen.
Greed is insatiable.
19 - roger nowosielski
Rarely do I hear any mention of the escalated medical costs of healthcare because the private insurance will pay. And so, the cost of one aspirin in the hospital runs upwards of $3.00 - and that's just one example. So there's a great potential for cost-cutting in this one area.
20 - roger nowosielski
But since Dave is talking about his taxes being impacted, then he's indeed rather well to do, for the taxes, a/c to the present plan, won't kick in unless you're making close to two hundred grand a year, or some such ridiculous figure.
Good for you, Dave. Didn't know you were that well off.
21 - Cindy
Did anyone (besides Roger) read the article I posted about why WalMart likes Obama's healthplan?
Roger, I don't call them corrupt. To me they are sick like we all are, only they're more sick. Not that he is the first or last one to recognize this but just because I happen to have bought it to reread within the last week, read Laing, Politics of Experience.
I agree something needed to be done about the way the mentally ill were treated then. Something still needs to be done. But hey, they've stopped drilling holes in peoples heads--mostly.
Laing had some wonderful group home thing for schizophrenics, in England I think, very loving, nurturing atmosphere where people were treated with respect. I recall a film I saw a million years ago.
22 - Cindy
I forgot to say how much I appreciated Prof. Bliffle's comments.
I'll repeat this bit because it takes the prize in the thread. I bet it never gets a response either.
"...forcing us to pay for soemthing which we think should be a lower priority for society is morally wrong." (Dave)
"Did that apply, during the W administration, to people who thought invading Iraq was a low priority?" (Bliffle)
23 - mrdockellis
"unless you're making close to two hundred grand a year, or some such ridiculous figure."
Watch it, Rog your rhetorical mask just slipped to reveal your rapacious marxist face.
You stick to the talking points about rich individuals taking the hit all you want, but small business making $250,000 (S corporations) will get slammed by this Commie thievery.
You guys are always using well lets use the term "rhetorical flourish" to swipe from one group to create a new group of entitlement addicts.
To each according to his need, eh comrade? But "needs" are relative to each and therefore endless with unlimited cost. And we're doing this when Obama himself says we're out of money. Total lunacy.
Better tell Obama to hurry. The poll numbers are dropping. They onto him!
24 - roger nowosielski
Wasn't talking about small businesses, Mr. Ellis. That's another story. But I wouldn't view Dave's extra one or two percent tax hit on 200,000 a year income as a highway robbery. Taxes have always been progressive, and they ought to be. Not just a Marxist proposition.
25 - roger nowosielski
Glenn Beck loses his mind - again.