On Our Rights in These Times
We live in tumultuous times - on so many fronts.
In the past two years, we have been bludgeoned with a global pandemic on the scale not seen since 1917 - a pandemic that has splintered the world even more into never-ending factions of argument: To vaccinate or not? To mask or not? To isolate or not? To travel or not? To party or not? School or no school? Do we ask how the folks who’ve had the virus are doing? How they are recovering? Or are we too busy taking sides in an issue that should have only one side: the public health of the world.
Environmentally, we are an unbalanced hot mess, dealing with crazy wild weather that is not only unpredictable but destructive: heat waves, wild fires, draughts, floods, hurricanes, tornados, rising sea levels, melting glaciers, pollution rolling out of cars and homes and businesses. And still - global leaders and international corporations sit and wonder and discourse and argue at meetings and conferences in luxury hotels and resorts about how to balance the profit/loss margins of mega-corporations with the stark reality that we are quickly burning up the earth, with no place else to go.
Polite political discourse today is as old fashioned and out of date as a Model T Ford. Respectful debate has become scarce, and no one really cares - because no one is really listening. It doesn’t matter if it’s a Democrat or Republican; conservative, liberal, socialist, “green”. No one listens because no one really cares what the other has to say. Ideas are not so much shared as shot down, not so much discussed as dealt a death blow. The truly intelligent people who might be able to lead have been bullied into hiding, not willing to expose themselves to the sure-death-march of running for office.
Never before has the world been able to share so much information so quickly. I won’t even bother looking up the statistics as they would be outdated before I could even post this blog; before you could read to the end of it. Social media has - in some ways - become a microcosm of the world at large; the shouting and fighting writ large and flying fast along the invisible waves of bits and bites. A single thumb can type a text faster than most of us could have dialed a rotary phone those many years ago. A click of a button, and pictures display, insults fly, insinuations and accusations clog the information “highway”. We drown in so much information, we can no longer discern reality.
When my daughters were growing up, I remember when they were breaking out of childhood into their teens, telling me their “rights”; what they could and should do; what I should allow them to do. There was little that would set me on edge faster than that. Rights? I’m sure they would agree that this declaration would launch me faster into diatribe than probably anything else they could say. “Rights?” I’d say- “What about your responsibilities? Don’t talk to me about your rights until you understand your responsibilities!“. As teens, I’m sure they didn’t want to hear it - but I think it stuck, over time. Today, my daughters are women who take their responsibilities seriously - not just to their families and their employers - but to society as a whole. They understand that rights mean very little until they take hold of their own responsibilities.
So. What are we to do in the face of such immense and seemingly impossible mountains to climb? Issues to discuss? Problems to solve?
We teach about responsibility. We talk about our responsibilities - not our rights. For unless we accept the responsibility of doing what is right, what is good, what is fair - our “rights” will have no meaning in the end. Our own “rights” will get trampled under the more powerful, selfish cries of others’ rights because no one will recognize their responsibility to do something, say something, be someone.
My “right” to decide whether or not to vaccinate or mask? Perhaps it would be better to think about my responsibility to my family, friends and community to keep them safe by doing what I can to limit the spread of Covid-or any disease, for that matter. Whether I believe I have a “right” do to what I want, or whether I believe that the science is imperfect, I should not escape the reality that I have a responsibility to contribute to the public health and wellbeing of others. I may not be able to bring about the health of the world, but I can act responsibly in such a way as to keep my family safe, my community safe.
What about my “right” to live in a world with clean air, clean water, clean food? Or do I have a “right” to use up fossil fuel with abandon? To throw trash into rivers, streams and oceans? Is that my right? Well, that right comes at a price, doesn’t it. Whether I believe in the science of our world burning itself up with greenhouse gasses or whether I think there’s a conspiracy to prevent us from the “right” to use fossil fuel with abandon, or make billions of dollars in the process, perhaps I have a responsibility to do what I can, when I can, to take simple steps to slow down the destruction of every ecosystem in existence.
And of course, the “right” to free speech and political discourse. Might I suggest that there is such a thing as prudent speech - not because I don’t have a “right” to say what I want, but because I have a responsibility to be careful with my words, compassionate in my treatment of those I don’t agree with; loving and forbearing in responding to those who have wildly opposing views. Certainly claiming my rights to say what I want - no matter how offensive - will do nothing to change the minds of those who are in the polar-opposite field. And hasn’t experience shown us that digging in our heels, shouting out loud what we believe regardless of the cost, does nothing for social accord in the end? If nothing else, have we not learned the wisdom of a kind word over the brazen-loud shout of an angry soul?
In the end, those of us who believe in compassion and mercy and love cannot view the world through the lens of what our “rights” are. That almost always leads to a selfish view of the world. Seeing, instead, through the lens of our responsibilities to others - our families, our friends, our communities - shifts the paradigm to “the other” and away from me.
Focusing our personal responsibility onto doing what we can, no matter how small, no matter how quiet, puts the onus on us to do something positive, say something kind, respond with compassion. It gives us a chance, perhaps, to actually do something to change the world around us in a small way, but a good way.
Only when we understand that the luxury of having “rights” comes about when all the members of a community understand the price of those “rights”; when we understand the value of owning up to personal responsibilities to do things better, for the common good, for everyone - and not just for me, will we be on our way to ensuring that everyone will get to enjoy those “rights'“.
Yes, having rights is an important element of our American society; but we might want to remember that rights come with a price: the price of our own responsibility to do what we can, in whatever way we can, to ensure that others are cared for, that their own rights are preserved and protected.