How much worth does a human life have?
Is a human life worth $100?
What if someone said to you that they could not take poverty anymore, and that the daily grind of poverty stigma and hells just to eat and sleep at night have gotten to be too much. That they were going to commit suicide if this did not stop and soon. Would it be worth pledging $100 a month to keep that human alive? Or not?
Be honest. Or would it be worth maybe ten cents a month, to keep that person alive? Seriously, how much is a human life worth *to you* personally? How much would *you* be willing to give up, to keep that human being alive?
What happens when a human's worth goes below rent and food costs? When a human life costs more than it is worth?
What happens when people care more about buying plastic holiday decorations at K-Mart than humans freezing to death on the streets outside their locked doors? What happens when human beings have no worth?
What happens is the world you see today.
Some human lives seem to be worth "more" than others, as uncouth as it may be to say it so bluntly. Certainly we see this in the current war situation. It appears Iraqi and Afghanistan lives are worth less than American lives. The big deal made over the tiny numbers of American dead from *their* war in Iraq, compared to the hoards of Iraqi dead and wandering homeless refugees, hungry mothers, shoeless children, cold people, shivering at night, is odd, at best. Their lives are nothing compared to an American soldier's life and the fight for "freedom" for the Iraqi people he is leading. The press plays it up as if one American soldier death should be paid for by 100 or more Iraqi deaths. I also see a disproportionate amount of dead in the Israeli and Palestinian conflict. It seems there are several Palestinians killed to every one Israeli, yet like the American to Iraqi casualty response, it is talked about as if an equal number of deaths are occurring on both sides, when I do not think that is true. So what is it that makes a white American soldier's life worth so much more than an Iraqi mother's, who is now a destitute refugee due to the "liberation?" It seems at the top of the artificially constructed *human life worth chain* is the white American Christian male. Everyone (women, minorities, non-Americans, non-Christians, etc.), and everything (animals, environment, etc.) are placed below him in the world I live in, in America. The world is here to serve the Christian white middle class capitalist male's needs, basically. Human worth is reduced to that. Sweatshops to prostitution to war to Arctic drilling, all fit that description.
Even within the fabric of America itself, there exists human worth scales that go from worthless to very valuable. For instance, when middle class white people commit crimes, they hire private attorneys and rarely go to jail. When poor people and minorities go to court, they are assigned overworked and underpaid public defenders who railroad them into plea bargains with prosecutors, plea bargains they do not understand, and many people end up in jail, not sure how they got there. Seriously innocent of any crime except poverty. Homeless folks also have less human worth. People with rambling houses and yards will protest a small park of homeless people pitching tents anywhere in their town. How much would these home owners give to save a life or two from hypothermia? Would they give a corner of their town for a few weeks a month? Would they give an abandoned building a month a year? Would they give one cup of coffee? One blanket? Would they give nothing? Not even one cent for those two lives? Would you be willing to not buy three holiday decorations so a kid can eat for the whole month? When you attach the meaning of what you are *not* doing with your money, to all the crap you are buying, maybe that will help make the crap look less enticing. When you look at the plastic decoration as a shivering person's coat. When you see the latte in your hand, as a hungry child's face.
In law, lives are measured in monetary worth. When I was in law school, I had a professor who went to Stanford and her brother was a doctor. She was class insulated in the way she would breathe, I swear! She was teaching Torts class one day and said to the class that if we are going to have to hit a car on the freeway, to choose a poor person's car, like an old Dodge Dart. Everyone in the class wrote that down, as if it would be on a test, no one questioned it. I raised my hand, "Why would we hit the poor person's car again?" She said because if you kill the driver, you will have to pay their working salary worth for an expected lifetime to their heirs. If you kill a dishwasher, she explained, you would pay far less in reparations than if you killed say, a doctor or lawyer. I was stunned that human worth was reduced to your salary at time of death. But it confirms a lot about the way people are treated. Indeed, law professors are saying outright, hit the poor person, it will cost *you* less!! It does not matter that the expensive car probably has features that may save that life, such as air bags, where hitting the old Dart would just kill the driver on impact. It does not matter that in an injury, the expensive car owner would have better health insurance and could afford better after injury care. What matters is the cost, to the driver, in penalty, apparently. How is it some have more human worth than others in our society? What establishes human worth? How is it some human life is worth more than other human life? We can pretend it is not true, as it offends our political correctness, but it is true that there is a hierarchy of human worth.
We do it with schools. Some humans deserve better public schools than others. There is no way to deny that public schools in rich neighborhoods keep that money to themselves, buying pools and air conditioning, etc., and that the poor neighborhoods do not have enough books to go around. And then there is the whole private tier of schools. It is well acknowledged that if you come from certain private schools, you are assumed in the upper class. One such school in America is in Seattle, called Lakeside. I would be amazed if Bill Gates' kids do not attend there. I bet Gates gives money to Lakeside already. When I last checked, almost 10 years ago, it was something like $5,000 in tuition for a year in the 5th grade. Which is almost the tuition rate of the University of Washington. So some kids get elementary schooling that costs as much as college, when many go to schools without enough books and cannot afford college. Let's see. Can you figure out who is the one assigned more human worth in this picture?
It happens with college too. The poor are funneled into low-income, low-status vocational training tracks at community colleges with two year degree programs, while the rich are ushered into ivy league and even public universities, for 4 year degrees and beyond. People try to say that is not true, that community colleges are equal to universities. But that is a lie. You do not see *any* of the Kennedy or Bush clan ever attending a community college! Come on! It does not happen. Even the biggest idiot in the world can get into law school if his parents have money. Remember Dan Quayle? Universities have immense resources compared to community colleges. The academic counselors at community college try to funnel the low income kids into vocation rather than 4 year universities, as well. And much of this education system has to do with later financial security. People coming out of professional schools such as medical, law, engineering, architect, etc. are going to fare much better than those coming out of voc-tech colleges with medical assistant, legal secretary, dental hygienist, nursing assistant, etc. degrees. It does not take an idiot to see that. Again, can you tell the ones assigned more human worth by society? Take a guess.
How is human worth playing out in your life? Look at the fruits and vegetables on your table. Farm workers picked that produce. Now, have you ever gone to a campesino where farm workers live? Then have you ever visited the house where the farm owner's family lives? What is the difference between your home and a campesino? Visit a campesino. Compare it to your home. Those hard workers pick your food 40+ hours a week. And live in poverty. A class level below those eating the produce they pick, below the farm owner whose profits the laborer creates. How do you explain that? Is that about human worth?
The cheapest rent I can find is around $650 a month. So my human worth has to equal at least $650 a month plus the cost of utilities, food, etc. But honestly, my human worth, in capitalism, must be worth even more than those costs. I must factor in the boss needing to take his share of the profits of my work, so it just keeps dwindling. My worth seems reduced to my work, just as in law. Instead of working a garden and living holistically, making my food, working directly for things, there is always this filter of capitalists who have to skim some individual profit off everything before it ever makes it down to me. There is a markup from the middle man on everything I touch, food, rent, utilities, work...A life that could have been simple is made so complicated by having to support this whole middle man structure. But this class chasm, that is growing wider than ever before in American history right now, is saying to me, over and over, "What is a human life worth?"
I would like to know what you, personally, right now, would be willing to give up to help rise a lower income person up closer to your income level. Now, do two times that! Seriously, think right now about your life. Is your human worth more than others? How? Why? Kahlil Gibran said something like anyone who has deserved to drink of the ocean of life, surely deserves to drink from your little stream. Do you talk about equality? Do you say you support class equity? Then what would you be willing to give up today, now, to help redistribute wealth right where you live? Would you give up a latte a day, to help a welfare mom down the street be able to afford childcare to go to college (hopefully not one of those low income voc-tech schools!)? Would you give up a new dress or a new pair of earrings or some new nail polish to help buy sleeping bags for some homeless folks? Would you give up going out to eat once a week and instead give that money to the food bank to feed the poor? What would you be willing to give up, to tithe, so to speak, to get wealth redistribution up and running in your communities today? We saw a lot of money go out to the Kerry campaign. Is keeping the poor alive worth as much money? Apparently not. What is a human worth to you? Are different humans worth more or less to you? Who has worth to you, and why? It is time we looked at this and talked about it honestly, with open eyes.
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