- The Republicans are watching High Noon.
- The Democrats are watching It's a Wonderful Life.
- You can't rely on society. You must follow your own moral code.
- We are all in this together. No man is an island.
I think our perceptions we each have about individual versus social responsibility, capitalism and socialism are based upon which one of those 2 pieces of wisdom resonates more strongly within.
For example, the Right to Life movement is based upon the idea that a human life is sacred. Abortion is the ultimate attack against the sanctity of the individual. The Pro-choice movement says it is ultimately the decision of the mother, and that there is a greater social debate about what 'the sanctity of life' means.
Sister Joan Chittister wrote:I think in many cases, your morality is deeply lacking if all you want is a child born but not a child fed, not a child educated, not a child housed. And why would I think that you don't? Because you don't want any tax money to go there. That's not pro-life. That's pro-birth. We need a much broader conversation on what the morality of pro-life is.
In a weird way, this is almost a 'chicken or the egg' argument. Is human life sacred because every life is born? Or is human life sacred because every life that is born is welcomed?
I think that sometimes the way around these seemingly intransigent arguments is to think about the importance of the principle over the symbol. (Think about how much of the government shutdown was generated by the definition of a border wall versus border security. The wall is the symbol. Security is the principle.) In this situation, the sanctity of life is the principle. How do we move towards the principle when people disagree on the importance of the symbol?