Wednesday, March 23, 2005
Stand Back
I'm about to make several sweeping generalizations.
There are two kinds of people who care deeply, maybe even fanatically about the Terri Schiavo case.
1. People who secretly fear they are bad people because they have been less than perfect caregivers to their children/spouses/parents/etc.
2. People who have suffered at the hands of the first group and live in fear of the day the first group tries to make up for their past mistakes.
I have been a member of both groups at different times in my life. As a fun exercise, I'll let you guess which I belong to right now.
For the first group, letting a loved one go can be wrenching, even if the destination in question is just a college campus in the next state. I cannot even imagine what it would feel like to finally concede that the person in question would like to die, and help that happen.
Under the circumstances, Terri's parents must be suffering horribly. Given the role that Terri's bulimia played in the cardiac failure that brought her to her current state, I imagine they would love to go back in time and address their daughter's eating disorder when it was still a relatively trivial problem. Having failed Terri in this way, the thought of giving up on her must be inconceivably frightening. Once Terri dies, that's it--their final tally as parents will be carved in stone for all time. Deep down in their subconscious, a rough draft of that record has probably already been sketched out: "Failed to save our daughter from her eating disorder, failed to stop her from marrying a self-absorbed jerk, condemned her to death."
I say this because I myself have drafted some personal final tallies of my own and they were (are?) some doozies. "Not fit to be a member of the human race" was a front-runner for a long time. In other words, I understand guilt and regret, and how they prey on you when you're running out of chances to make amends for past actions.
And the Schindlers are not alone in this. Again with the sweeping generalizations: The entire shrieking, hysterical "culture of life" swarm has the same unresolved issue in their lives. They *need* to protest and argue for Terri's continued survival, because in their own lives there are too many un-addressed transgressions, unexpressed regrets.
On the other side of the table are the William Saletans and Dahlia Lithwicks of the world. Individuals who have, in the last two days, drafted, printed and signed a living will specifically excluding everyone they know from the first category from ever making decisions like the ones Michael Schiavo has made.
Maybe Saletan and Lithwick aren't exactly sure what, explicitly, fills them with dread at the thought of a guilt-saturated parent making end-of-life decisions. Judging by the heat and lack of clarity in their recent pieces, probably not.
For myself, I know exactly why I don't want my parents anywhere near the decision making process: They would do the exact same thing the Schindlers are doing, for the exact same reason. Also, because I've spend hundreds of hours in therapy, accepting all the hurtful actions my parents made in the past and I will be damned if let them take another crack at me, conscious, unconscious, vegetative or in any other condition.
How can I make such baldly unsubstantiated statements about this case? One, because everyone else is doing it. (Yeah, I'm looking at you, Dr. Frist. Cripes, I'd put more faith in Dr. Laura's diagnostic skills at this point.) Two, because the shortage of factual analysis and logical reasoning that abounds everywhere outside of the court system (and the cries of shock and outrage regarding the courts' strict adherence to facts and logic) prove my point entirely. Three, because it's my blog and I can do whatever I want.
People are arguing in chatrooms and bulletin boards and every other goddamn place and nearly always, without a scrap of accurate information about the case. Why? Because they're not really arguing about Terri. They're arguing about themselves, their past sins, their past injuries. Most people desperately want Terri to live or die because they can't admit to themselves what it is they really want: A chance to right past wrongs, or immunity from people who've hurt us before.
The final piece of supporting evidence for my theory: This piece, by a disability-rights lawyer named Harriet McBryde Johnson (right on! Harriet power!). It's concise, dispassionate and well-reasoned and makes no personal attacks on either side while making its case. It's the only instance, outside of the courts, of someone logically analyzing the situation. I don't know if the author has accepted her own failings and those of her caretakers, but judging by her ability to talk about the case without hysteria, it's a good bet she's made peace with her demons.
A brief moment of disclosure: I was a philosophy major in college and seeing an entire nation flaunt the rules of logic and dismiss entire two millennia of writings on the unreliability of human perception is more than a little maddening.
Also, I spent most of this week reading "Codependent No More" by Melody Beattie and in between paragraphs, screaming aloud in horror and recognition. When time permits, I'll most likely talk a little bit more about this. But no, it's not a coincidence, my theory about the Schiavo case and reading this book at the same time. And yes, I think the Schindlers are as codependent as the day is long, as is anyone else who things Michael Schiavo should have spent his life chastely obeying his marriage vows to a woman who no longer has a cerebral cortex.
God save us all from people who just want to help.
I'm about to make several sweeping generalizations.
There are two kinds of people who care deeply, maybe even fanatically about the Terri Schiavo case.
1. People who secretly fear they are bad people because they have been less than perfect caregivers to their children/spouses/parents/etc.
2. People who have suffered at the hands of the first group and live in fear of the day the first group tries to make up for their past mistakes.
I have been a member of both groups at different times in my life. As a fun exercise, I'll let you guess which I belong to right now.
For the first group, letting a loved one go can be wrenching, even if the destination in question is just a college campus in the next state. I cannot even imagine what it would feel like to finally concede that the person in question would like to die, and help that happen.
Under the circumstances, Terri's parents must be suffering horribly. Given the role that Terri's bulimia played in the cardiac failure that brought her to her current state, I imagine they would love to go back in time and address their daughter's eating disorder when it was still a relatively trivial problem. Having failed Terri in this way, the thought of giving up on her must be inconceivably frightening. Once Terri dies, that's it--their final tally as parents will be carved in stone for all time. Deep down in their subconscious, a rough draft of that record has probably already been sketched out: "Failed to save our daughter from her eating disorder, failed to stop her from marrying a self-absorbed jerk, condemned her to death."
I say this because I myself have drafted some personal final tallies of my own and they were (are?) some doozies. "Not fit to be a member of the human race" was a front-runner for a long time. In other words, I understand guilt and regret, and how they prey on you when you're running out of chances to make amends for past actions.
And the Schindlers are not alone in this. Again with the sweeping generalizations: The entire shrieking, hysterical "culture of life" swarm has the same unresolved issue in their lives. They *need* to protest and argue for Terri's continued survival, because in their own lives there are too many un-addressed transgressions, unexpressed regrets.
On the other side of the table are the William Saletans and Dahlia Lithwicks of the world. Individuals who have, in the last two days, drafted, printed and signed a living will specifically excluding everyone they know from the first category from ever making decisions like the ones Michael Schiavo has made.
Maybe Saletan and Lithwick aren't exactly sure what, explicitly, fills them with dread at the thought of a guilt-saturated parent making end-of-life decisions. Judging by the heat and lack of clarity in their recent pieces, probably not.
For myself, I know exactly why I don't want my parents anywhere near the decision making process: They would do the exact same thing the Schindlers are doing, for the exact same reason. Also, because I've spend hundreds of hours in therapy, accepting all the hurtful actions my parents made in the past and I will be damned if let them take another crack at me, conscious, unconscious, vegetative or in any other condition.
How can I make such baldly unsubstantiated statements about this case? One, because everyone else is doing it. (Yeah, I'm looking at you, Dr. Frist. Cripes, I'd put more faith in Dr. Laura's diagnostic skills at this point.) Two, because the shortage of factual analysis and logical reasoning that abounds everywhere outside of the court system (and the cries of shock and outrage regarding the courts' strict adherence to facts and logic) prove my point entirely. Three, because it's my blog and I can do whatever I want.
People are arguing in chatrooms and bulletin boards and every other goddamn place and nearly always, without a scrap of accurate information about the case. Why? Because they're not really arguing about Terri. They're arguing about themselves, their past sins, their past injuries. Most people desperately want Terri to live or die because they can't admit to themselves what it is they really want: A chance to right past wrongs, or immunity from people who've hurt us before.
The final piece of supporting evidence for my theory: This piece, by a disability-rights lawyer named Harriet McBryde Johnson (right on! Harriet power!). It's concise, dispassionate and well-reasoned and makes no personal attacks on either side while making its case. It's the only instance, outside of the courts, of someone logically analyzing the situation. I don't know if the author has accepted her own failings and those of her caretakers, but judging by her ability to talk about the case without hysteria, it's a good bet she's made peace with her demons.
A brief moment of disclosure: I was a philosophy major in college and seeing an entire nation flaunt the rules of logic and dismiss entire two millennia of writings on the unreliability of human perception is more than a little maddening.
Also, I spent most of this week reading "Codependent No More" by Melody Beattie and in between paragraphs, screaming aloud in horror and recognition. When time permits, I'll most likely talk a little bit more about this. But no, it's not a coincidence, my theory about the Schiavo case and reading this book at the same time. And yes, I think the Schindlers are as codependent as the day is long, as is anyone else who things Michael Schiavo should have spent his life chastely obeying his marriage vows to a woman who no longer has a cerebral cortex.
God save us all from people who just want to help.
