I was raised to be compassionate. To think about other people. To always remember that I am not the only person inhabiting this world and if I can’t help everyone, I should at least strive not to hurt them. Many of these values were tied to religion for me but even though I am no longer associated with any religion, I still carry these values with me.
In fact, I don’t think these values are tied to any one religion. To me, these values are just about what it takes to be a good person. Someone who, more than anything, cares about the people around them. Someone who wants to live in a community that is both welcoming and self aware.
And in recent years I have noticed that there are many who only care about themselves. They promote hatred and apathy, all under the guise of simply wanting a good life. They act as though they earned the life they have while simultaneously disregarding all the privileges they grew up with.
And I’m sick of it. I’m sick of pretending these aren’t just selfish people who need a reason to be apathetic. Who simply use the guise of ignorance to not have to spend any of their energy trying to create a loving community.
You Can’t Be Compassionate While Vilifying Poor People
We live in a society that values money above all else. That believes that people aren’t worthy of basic human rights: shelter, nourishment, medical care unless they have the money to afford these things. That innovation only matters so long as it earns the innovator money. A society that acts as though it is perfectly normal for multi million dollar and billion dollar corporations to earn revenue through the exploitation of their workers. A society that refuses to understand that someone who works full time has a right to a living wage.
The fact of the matter is that the people who clean our streets and bag our groceries have just as much right to be able to live comfortably as their employers. Maybe not everyone can afford to live in luxury but anyone who works full time should be earning a living wage. If they are earning anything less than a living wage, their employer is exploiting them.
And before you try to justify it by saying that maybe the employer can’t afford to pay the employees a living wage, I’d like to remind you that anyone who can’t afford the costs of running a business shouldn’t run a business. Just like how if a small business owner couldn’t afford their rent, they’d have to close down. If the owner can’t afford to pay their employees a living wage, they shouldn’t have employees in the first place.
It’s not a difficult concept. If you are profiting off of someone else’s labor, it is your responsibility to ensure that they are paid a fair wage. No one who works full time should have any struggle with paying rent, buying food and covering all of the basic expenses that come with living.
If you disagree with me on this, you’re either incredibly ignorant or selfish. And I don’t know what it would take for me to convince you that underpaying employees is a form of exploitation.
You Can’t Be Compassionate While Vilifying The Homeless
It is an undeniable fact that the homeless get a bad rep. In fact, some people are uncomfortable at even the sight of a homeless person. I suppose it makes them feel guilty. And in order to deal with that guilt, some in our society have decided that the best cure is to vilify the homeless completely. After all, if we portray homeless people as being aggressive, lazy and drug addicts, we don’t actually have to question why they exist in the first place.
The honest truth is that the leading cause of homelessness in Australia is domestic violence. Yes, domestic violence. Something that no one (except the abuser) has any control over. The honest truth is that homelessness is a symptom of an inadequate society, not an inadequate person. A person could be homeless for any reason: from domestic violence to losing a job due to redundancy to mental health issues. Even the people who become homeless due to drug abuse should not be vilified. Drug abuse is, again, a symptom of a bigger problem. Drug abuse, by itself, does not invalidate a person’s inherent worth and right to comfort. It does not make them lazy or bad.
We should be striving to help the homeless. Instead, we vilify them so that we can feel justified in ignoring the issue at hand. We pretend that homelessness is a result of laziness rather than structural flaws in our society. We pretend as though no one could possibly be homeless if they just tried to get a job.
These are all excuses. Those of us who have a home and can live comfortably will never know the full extent of the issues that cause homelessness. We will never be able to truly understand just how traumatic it is and how hard it is to escape homelessness without help.
Yes, there are organisations and charities trying to help the homeless but they’re not enough. We, as a community, need to respect that everyone has a right to a comfortable life. We need to understand that the whole point of a community is so that we can pool our resources and help each other. You can’t simultaneously benefit from living in a community (schools, roads, libraries, governments) while at the same time denying that same resource to people who are less fortunate.
I don’t care if I have to pay more taxes if it means that I won’t have to live with the knowledge that people are dying because of apathy and ignorance. If having money is more important to you than human life, you should re-evaluate your morals.
Universal Healthcare Is A Human Right
Living in a society where we are taxed by the government means that in return for paying taxes, we get roads, schools, libraries and countless other things that most of us could not afford by ourselves. The only way most of us have access to these things is through our combined taxes. That’s how human society works.
We’re not animals. We can’t just live in a cave, shit in public and die when we get sick or can’t hunt by ourselves. That’s prehistoric bullshit. The whole point of a society is so that we can pool our resources as a community and thereby have access to public infrastructure and new innovations.
In no way is having a road or a school more important than being able to support basic survival needs like food, shelter and medical care. Remember, humans don’t just give up and die behind a bush when we get sick, we actually go to a doctor for that. That medical care should be covered by taxpayer money. And in some places (like Australia), healthcare is covered by taxes.
Universal healthcare does not promote laziness in the same way that having roads isn’t promoting laziness. Having taxes pay for the big things means that whatever money we have left can go to educating ourselves, living comfortably, coming up with new innovations etc. A society that ensures that every member has access to shelter, nourishment, medical care and education is one where a much greater percentage of the population reach their full potential. This type of society is one where innovation is constantly happening (and not just purely for profit, for comfort too).
We need to create a society that values every member, regardless of how poor they are or how much they’re struggling. That’s the whole point of living in a community.
If you believe that it’s every person for themself, you should just get out of society and live by yourself in the wild. Every person for themself is the type of mentality we should expect from wild animals, not members of our community.
Hell, even the animals in our community have more compassion and are more selfless than some of the people in it.
Resources
Homelessness (Australian Human Rights Commission)
Homelessness statistics (Homelessness Australia)
Questions and Answers on Universal Health Coverage (World Health Organisation)
What is homelessness? (Mission Australia)
