I finished up Pathologies of Power today, over lunch. It’s a hard book to read. The language is dense, and the reader is expected to think for themselves. However, the stories are crisp and to the point. I excerpt below (totally without permission) the section of the “Afterward” that grabbed at my heart and inspired these thoughts. As Farmer himself says “This book isn’t harsh, the realities it describes are harsh.”
I’m not sure of the point, exactly, except to look hard and honestly at the realities of life for the less fortunate billions in the world … and then perhaps to judge and act for myself.
Tuesday, I hurt my left knee at the gym. Yesterday, I saw a doctor at a hospital, and this evening I’m getting an MRI. Perhaps in a few weeks I’ll have minor surgery. One thing that sticks with me is that that both me and the kid in this story (Manno) hurt our left legs. More than that: Where I am now, and where little Manno was when he hurt his leg, these are differences of birth. I can’t take credit for being born to educated parents in Virginia. I can’t take credit for my current comfort relative to his discomfort – and I certainly can’t blame little Manno for being unfortunate enough to be born and to live in Haiti.
The fact that I get an MRI and he gets an offer of amputation is not attributable to our life choices. There is no amount of hard work and perseverance that would have turned him into me, or me into him.
I am no better or worse than him – but I would hazard to say that I am considerably luckier. I am beginning to feel that leaving this level of difference in life experience to the luck of the draw is to fall considerably short of our human potential. Certainly, no existing law demands anything of me, and I’m not suggesting pure socialism, but perhaps raising the bar for the least fortunate billions would be a better use of our time than advancing the opulence of the most fortunate millions. I have no problem with social classes. Work hard, eat better, be more important. It’s all great so long as the result is not “early and preventable death for billions.”
Farmer points out that billions today live without benefit of the discoveries of Pasteur or Salk … while the focus of 1st world pharmaceuticals is on impotence and baldness. “End of life” care is an ethical issue in the first world when it occurs in the 80th year, but not when “end of life” happens at age 5 – from starvation or malnutrition – just a short airplane ride from Miami.
Farmer goes further: He calls this situation a “crime” against Manno. Not just the bullet … (and notice that we leave un-wept the woman who died in the street that day) … but the entire social situation that he must endure. A complex, violent, and subtle crime – with so many individual choices and players that there is no good word for it except perhaps Farmer’s “structural violence.” It is said that without a victim, there is no crime. Well here we have victims aplenty. Is there a cause? Certainly. Is this situation within human control? Without a doubt.
Most troubling: If the violence is in the structure, and I am at the lucky top of that structure, then are we, am I, perhaps guilty of at least a crime of neglect here? Certainly I didn’t pull that trigger – nor did I underpay the nurses in Port-au-Prince – nor did I, nor did I. Yet I cannot help but notice that I’ve voted in this great democracy of mine since I was 18 – since before Manno was born – and still the structures persist. I have the power in this great power disparity. Is this not mine to own? To fix?
I have consistently seen what little charity I do as something above and beyond. I take great and vocal pride in being able to not only fend for myself – but also to give a little bit back. Look how generous I am! But what if, perhaps, I am called to these things not out of some desire to do more than I have to – but because I am culpable of these structural crimes. Each one is small, but the mass of preventable suffering in the world is large.
Here’s the excerpt:
