How much can we help people? First thoughts.
How much can we help people? How much can we do for people, as opposed to what they can do for themselves? There are those who think that only people can help themselves, and it’s probably a true statement that the “readiness is all,” and that if one is not ready, be it ready to assume responsibility for one’s own learning, for one’s conduct on the job, for one’s children, and in some part for one’s community, no hand-out, be it from a public or private source, will ever replace the one helped not being ready.
The phrase the readiness is all comes, of course, from the final scene of Hamlet, sc 2 of Act 5. And the readiness is being ready to meet death on its own terms.
Laertes, the King, and the Queen have not yet arrived on stage and Hamlet is talking with his friend, Horatio. Horatio tries to draw Hamlet away from what he senses is about to take place, but Hamlet won’t be moved, and he defends his staying by saying what he does doesn’t matter anyway, for death will come when it comes. The important thing is to be ready.
This particular phrase, like so many in Shakespeare, lends itself not only to being taken out of context, but also to taking on almost as many meanings as there are readers, or listeners. In my usage of Hamlet’s phrase being ready I take it to mean wanting something so much that you’ve readied yourself for it with the result that it will become yours, as, for example, whatever it is you’re trying to learn.
But getting back to the original question, about how much can we help people, in particular help people to improve their lot, better their lives, obtain what they need to be fulfilled and happy. As you think about the question it does seem that there are two answers: You can help people a lot. You can’t help them at all.
Now too many of us go too much with the one or the other answer. There are those of us who are always helping others. And there are those of us who believe fervently that to help someone is to allow that person to postpone helping him or herself, that which in the long run is the best help of all.
There are those who over indulge their children. There are those governments that are constantly growing their health and human services programs and departments. There are those people who would take from those who have and give from what they’ve taken to those who have not. These and other such policies are often described by the adjective liberal, and those who promote them are often called liberals.
Then there are those who make even their own children earn what they are given. There are those who would shrink the welfare roles and put more people to work. There are those who would not take people’s earnings in the form of taxes but rather allow people to keep their wealth and invest it thereby growing the country’s economy and, without increasing the tax rates, the government’s revenues. The people who promote these ideas are often called conservatives.
And the argument goes on between the two groups. In prosperous times the conservatives are listened to most because all people’s opportunities and possibilities are rising. The pie is growing and the lines of division don’t need to be shifted. In times of recession or depression, in hard times, the liberals are most listened to because their liberal policies are the ones most apt to relieve the lot of the poor and out-of-work. And it becomes necessary to change the way the pie, that is now shrinking, is divided up.
But our country is usually an exception to this line of reasoning. We are the wealthiest country the world has ever known. And that’s why we are, compared to other lands and peoples, mostly conservative. For our very wealth, the fact that so many of us are blessed with so much material wealth, has obviated the need, except in very exceptional times, as during the Great Depression, or the present recession, of our needing liberal programs and policies to help the less advantaged classes.
But the biggest mistake we have always made is to think that the rest of the world is like us. It’s not. And in fact we are the least liberal of the developed countries, and the least autocratic of the undeveloped and third world countries. This is because of our wealth (without for the moment talking about the principal sources of that wealth). We have never had to be overly generous and protective with our own peoples. Never had to be overly liberal.
Nor have we ever had to be autocratic to keep large numbers of dissatisfied people among us in line. Again the access of most people to some source of wealth has spared us that.
But the world out there is something else. The countries out there are not like us. This fact was brought home to me just recently while reading an Economist Magazine article on the elections in India. I read that this country, India:
“…while a land of bright promise is also extremely poor. About 27m Indians will be born this year. Unless things improve, almost 2m of them will die before the next general election. Of the children who survive, more than 40% will be physically stunted by malnutrition. Most will enroll in a school, but they cannot count on their teachers showing up. After five years of classes, less than 60% will be able to read a short story and more than 60% will still be stumped by simple arithmetic.”
Don’t we all when we read this, or other similar descriptions of other peoples and places, adopt the liberal position, and think only of what we might do to better the situation of these millions? And also, don’t we ignore, or at least pay little or no attention to their state of readiness? It’s their need only that is on our mind.
I think a lot of the arguments between the liberal and conservative positions would lose much of their bite and substance if we drew upon the whole world for our examples, and not just our own country. When say India, as in this case, becomes the backdrop to our discussion then there are clearly thousands of unfulfilled lives that need our attention, that call upon us to share our wealth.
Furthermore, there are, probably within our own country, although to a much, much lesser extent, similar numbers to those cited by the Economist India article. Such numbers being the numbers of uninsured, the numbers of school dropouts, the numbers of young men incarcerated, the numbers of abusive home environments, just a few of the more pronounced among many others.
All of these numbers, while not making us a third world country, do give us an “underclass,” and do force us to stop acting as if there were not substantial differences between those of us with ample means and opportunities and those without. How much can we help people? By just as much as we are willing to share with them of what we have.
