How The Mighty Have Fallen: A Call to Compassion

For the first time in a very long while, America has been driven to its knees. The props we normally rely on to give us our false sense of security have been kicked away by an uncaring viral thug named COVID-19. As the pestilence rages, people of all ages are dying in droves, while medical and social services buckle under the strain. Fear and worry dominate the national conversation, uniting unlikely foes in the common goal of working toward, hoping for, and praying that the crisis ends soon. Our collective sense of well-being and self-identity have been shaken to the core.

Americans are now confronted with a sense of vulnerability unknown since World War II. Although new to most of us, that sense of vulnerability is the daily fare of huge numbers of people in our midst and around the globe. Through the upheaval the virus has caused, we have been given a unique opportunity to experience the plight of hundreds of millions the world over...if only in small measure and for a brief period of time.

While still in the trenches of our battle to overcome the pandemic – and we will overcome it, though not unscathed – there are valuable lessons for us well-to-do and often self-absorbed Americans to learn and remember. They center around empathy and compassion for the poor and disadvantaged both within our borders and in developing countries on distant shores. Those are the folks whose plight will not end with subjugation of the marauding coronavirus. If no other good comes from this frightful chapter in our nation’s history, the virus will have done us a huge favor by giving us a momentary glimpse into the plight of the marginalized wherever they live.

According to the World Bank, at the top of a long list of vulnerabilities faced by nearly one-half of the earth’s population is the issue of economic insecurity. The poor always live hand-to-mouth, concerned not with how to stay out of immediate debt but how to juggle chronic, crushing debt that makes feeding their families today an overwhelming anxiety. If cutting down trees to sell charcoal for needed cash furthers deforestation and degradation of their local environment, then that’s what they must do to meet the needs of the moment. They unwillingly live with the tyranny of the urgent, constantly confronted with the dilemma of short-term needs thwarting long-term progress.

Living in countries with no viable safety net – no welfare system, food stamps, and certainly no Federal Stimulus Package – is no joke. For once, perhaps, we can feel just a bit of what they struggle with their entire lives. The old notion that the poor and disadvantaged are somehow responsible for their own condition is as arrogant as it is heartless. They simply lack opportunities we take for granted: education, job availability, access to credit, and affordable health care, among many others.

As for access to health care, many millions of poor Americans have none and no way to afford it. Contrary to its own policy, the Administration has just decreed that all uninsured coronoavirus patients will be treated at no cost (realizing there is no way to otherwise stop its spread and detrimental impact on the interests of the well-to-do). In similar fashion, the poor in developing countries cannot afford doctors and medicines, let alone preventative health care services like dental or maternal and child nutrition. And even if they could, the quality of care is chronically sub-standard and often too distant to reasonably access.

Poor health, wherever it is found, increases susceptibility to preventable diseases. Many life-threatening illnesses tamed in the West still rampage around developing nations, indiscriminately killing millions each year among those living in overcrowded conditions. Malaria, AIDS, tuberculosis, and polio are among them. Our current frustrations with accessing test kits, respirators, preventative protective equipment, and non-emergency medical care are just a slight brush with the reality constantly faced by a depressingly large percentage of people who share our planet.

Added to the woes of the marginalized in low-income nations are inadequate or impossibly expensive housing, racial and ethnic discrimination by authorities who regularly use their positions to demand bribes, poor educational opportunities for children whose labor is often needed for the family’s subsistence. Then comes lack of legal protections against ruthless landlords, and farmers exploited by uncaring landowners and inflexible banks (some 15,000 farmers a year commit suicide in India alone because of crushing debt and no way to repay loans). Top that off with unclean water and sanitation, combined with inadequate nutrition – all of which increases infant mortality while insuring low levels of health and susceptibility to all manner of illness. And the list goes on ad infinitum.

Our current temporary vulnerability is their daily bread. The inability of the poor and disadvantaged to control the circumstances that dominate their lives is no different than our inability to control the deleterious impact of the coronavirus on our healthcare system, economy, and collective psyche. Now that we've had a tiny taste of their plight, perhaps a bit of empathy will emerge and lead us to respond with acts of compassion. Studies have shown that if and when the poor do get opportunities to improve their plight, especially in the form of monetary assistance such as low interest loans, they are able and more than willing to leverage them to improve their lives in every sphere. No one wants to be destitute. They simply lack the opportunities needed to climb out of poverty. And that is where those of us who live more securely can make a significant difference.

However important compassion is, it is not the only reason for us to help the poor and needy in our communities and our world. To do so is expedient for us as well. Whatever we do to assist a destitute farmer in Bangladesh, or lift up a struggling family in Baltimore’s slums, eventually benefits everyone. We rise and fall together. Poverty, poor health and sanitation, low levels of education, and political oppression sooner or later come round to impact everyone. Political and economic unrest, communicable diseases, and lack of basic education take a toll on even the most prosperous people and nations far from the immediate victims.

In America, unaddressed needs pull down the whole country, lessening our strength and dynamism, while robbing us of the contributions of undeveloped human skills and talents. Like no other force of nature or human will, COVID-19 has brought the issue of our interconnectedness to the forefront. A distant virus from a working class meat market in China has sweep across the globe to invade every nook and cranny of American life. A minor occurrence in a far-flung part of the world has become the life-altering, defining event of our century. Every trickle can become a tsunami.

Now that we get it – our connectedness and our mutual vulnerability with all of the world’s denizens – what are we going to do about it? Back to business as usual after the immediate danger passes? Hopefully, not. Hopefully, more compassionate minds prevail. Hopefully we come to our senses and realize that a xenophobic focus on our nation’s well-being to the exclusion of other nations is ultimately self-defeating for America and the world we claim to lead. Arrogance and self-interest always circle back with a vicious bite. Our national security improves more through goodwill programs than via drone strikes on dark figures in troubled regions. The Peace Corps does far more for our national defense than a shipload of scud missiles. International aid and every sort of peaceful exchange of business, academics, sports, science and medicine are far more productive in the long run than isolationism and its wicked step-sister, military expansion.

Our nation will soon enough get the upper hand and begin to recover from the devastation of the coronavirus that has reconfigured our country and its collective sense of identity. As we find our way back from having every false notion of strength and independence leveled and our true state of vulnerably and need exposed, we have a golden opportunity before us. On both a personal and national level, we can reset our moral compasses to point toward compassion, inclusion, common cause with allies and supposed adversaries, and benevolent engagement with all, especially the poor and disenfranchised. We must understand that we can never be great until the plight of the disadvantaged dramatically improves.

To the degree that we find the moral strength to move toward recognizing and celebrating what all humans have in common rather than what separates us, the next pandemic or international crisis will be that much less threatening. Certainly more such events are on the way - sooner or later, in one form or another. What is uncertain is if we have learned enough from this one to survive what inevitably lies ahead. Our best preparation for tomorrow’s threat and the way to reduce our own vulnerability to it is by vowing to care for the most vulnerable, both at home and abroad. We cannot thrive without assuming the important role of our brother’s keeper. The real way for us to get ahead is to help others catch up.