“Personal responsibility” is
a phrase I hear all too often. Typically it’s used as a coded phrase for
selfishness, a lack of empathy, and ignoring the fact that being part of
society requires acknowledging our shared responsibilities towards one another.
As I see it, personal responsibility is unpatriotic and un-Christian, at least
when taken to the extremes it so commonly is these days.
Now, personal responsibility
doesn’t sound so bad on the surface. And it isn’t. Taking responsibility for
your own actions and life choices is a necessary part of being an adult human
being. Failure to do so often amounts to laziness and immaturity, two traits I
know intimately. It’s important I acknowledge that before I go railing against
personal responsibility. Personal responsibility isn’t exactly a terrible ideal
devoid of any redeeming qualities. Rather, personal responsibility is
important. It’s something I often don’t take seriously enough. But it’s also a
cheap façade trying to hide dismantling Medicaid and protections for people
with pre-existing conditions behind something more palatable. It’s the source
informing a lot of misguided and malicious ideas about how society should work
and how we should treat one another.
With regards to healthcare, “personal
responsibility” seems to mean a complete disregard for others and a focus
solely on oneself or one’s family. I’ve been told my own cancer treatment isn’t
worth it, that it’s too expensive and unfairly burdens other people. I’ve been
chastised online for daring to say that I should be able to have health
insurance, since insurance companies covering expensive treatments like what I
need for my cancer means other people might have to spend a little more on
their own coverage. As if that isn’t the basic principle of how insurance works.
Someone just last week told me they find it “hard to even relate” to my fear of
losing my life-saving coverage, because they are spending too much on health
insurance. As if spending too much money is remotely comparable to losing
access to the treatment keeping your chronic cancer managed. I’ve been told I
should have planned better, been more responsible, and saved more money before
I got cancer. As if anyone can plan for a cancer like mine.
Statements like these just
highlight for me how so many people thoroughly fail to understand serious
health issues and how unexpectedly they can arise. They make clear how little
empathy so many people feel as well, and how content so many people are to
disregard those whose life experiences run contrary to their preconceived notions.
For me, these kinds of ill-informed to blatantly malevolent statements reveal “personal
responsibility” for what it is: a lame excuse to justify selfishly ignoring
others.
Such selfishness and
disregard for others is far from patriotic. This might not be especially
relevant if not for the fact that many of the people who said the things I
mention two paragraphs above have “patriot” in their twitter bio or feature the
American Flag in their profile picture. I guess some of us have vastly
different ideas of what it means to be patriotic. I think it’s patriotic to
happily pay a little more in taxes or health insurance if it means our country
spends a little more on making society better and covering people who most need
medical care. I think it’s more patriotic to want to inconvenience ourselves
for the sake of the greater good than it is to post patriotic pictures of flags
and bald eagles online and set off fireworks annually. I think it’s patriotic
to ask what we can do for our country and our fellow citizens, not what we can
do for ourselves. Personal responsibility, as it connotes today, leaves little
room for patriotism.
Personal Responsibility is
also egregiously un-Christian, which wouldn’t matter to the national
conversation if it weren’t so often Christians, often citing their idea of
Christian values, who support “personal responsibility” and “personal freedom”
as guiding principles for everything from gun regulations to healthcare policy.
I can’t find anywhere in Jesus’ teachings that suggest emphasizing personal
responsibility as much as we do today. In fact, as I see things, it’s Christian
to disregard personal responsibility. Not that Christians are called to be irresponsible,
but we are implored not to worry about taking care of ourselves so much and
instead focus on serving and caring for others. The Good Samaritan didn’t cross
over to the other side of the road to better take care of himself, after all. Neither
should we.
