What We Owe

“But congressman, are you saying that society should just let him die?” Debate moderator to candidate Ron Paul. The audience with cheers and shouts of “Yeah!”

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I woke up today at 9 pm and spent a little while snuggling underneath my blanket, which is made of cotton and polyester. I can’t be sure how the blanket was made, but I know that in order to snuggle in it this morning someone had to pick the cotton (or at least design, assemble and run the machine that picks the cotton) and someone had to manufacture the polyester. Someone had to sew it together. The tag on the blanket suggests that person was Canadian. I got up and wandered downstairs, made myself a cup of coffee, giving purpose to the hard work of those who cultivated and roasted and blended the beans. When my tummy started grumbling, I helped myself to leftovers of the chili my roommate made. In addition to my roommate, I have the folks who planted, tended and picked the beans, tomatoes, spinach and olives to thank as well. I heated it up in the microwave given to us by a pair of our friends. My other roommates came in with their dogs. It’s not a material blessing, but the happiness that comes from casual conversation and puppies wagging their tails so hard they make a breeze is surely worth counting. Trundled through the house - built years ago by many people, I’m sure - back to my room to do my homework for an online course I’m taking. There are so many causes here, stretching back years, maybe decades. Researchers observed behavior, applied for grants, and did studies. They wrote them up, had them edited and reviewed, and published them. The textbook author compiled them and explained them, my professor assigned the reading, and my classmates helped me analyze it with their thoughtful contributions on the online bulletin board. When I was done with the homework, I stretched out on my bed with a book that a friend of mine lent me. Of course it’s not just the friend who put that book in my hands: it’s the author and, if the acknowledgements are to be believed, close to thirty others who were responsible. Then there is the bibliography, which suggests several hundred more people to be thankful for, not to mention the book’s subjects, early 20th century Spanish radicals, for doing things worth writing about. I got dressed rather late in the day, in clothes that for the most part come from factories. The weather today was cool, so I added on a scarf my mother gave me and a pair of blue shoes I found in a “free pile” in college and have treasured ever since, the gift of a (very fashionable) stranger. I put on earrings my good friend brought back for me from Mexico. Fully dressed, I went downstairs to help my roommate with the dinner she was cooking for our friend’s birthday. We ate and talked and played boardgames - designed, playtested, and produced by others - before saying good night just a little while ago. And now I’m here in my room, on the internet. I can’t even count the number of people whose work has gone into facilitating that. Do we count the ancient greeks who first discovered static electricity? The fine folks who designed the various components of my laptop? Certainly I should thank the many volunteer contributors to wordpress, my blog platform, and the people who give away fonts and images for others to use, and the contributors to ubuntu, the open source operating system I run my computer on.

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In the space of a single day, my life has been influenced by thousands of people, in ways that are almost entirely of the good. Some give to me out of kindness and friendship, others trade with me the products of their hard work for mine. Some know me personally, others live half a planet away or died long before I was born. Some provide for me things I need - food, shelter, health - while others simply make my life more enjoyable. We are achingly social creatures, even the most isolated and introverted of us. We all depend on each other, and on the gifts of our ancestors. To benefit from all of this richness, and then to say that others don’t deserve our help and compassion, is beyond hypocritical: it’s entirely blind, like a fish insisting that it doesn’t use water. And just as we forget the water we swim in - the social net that keeps us up and urges us on - so we also forget those who suffer far away from us: the lonely, the homeless, the unheard and uninsured.  The machinery of government guards the depths and the tides and helps those who are foundering.  It reminds us of who we are and what we owe.

* Any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee. John Donne, Meditations