Shared Sacrifice in an Age of Anxiety

President Obama’s bipartisan debt commission has employed the phrase “shared sacrifice” as part of its recommendation on how to reduce the national debt.

Is shared sacrifice possible? How?

At one level, shared sacrifice might happen through governmental action. I am thinking about the rationing of gasoline during wartime, or the ban on watering lawns during a drought: in both instances, the centralized power of government organizes the shared sacrifice, and is available to compel– through sanction or force– those who do not co-operate. In these situations, the threat is broadly recognized throughout the society (the enemy is clear in wartime; the lack of rain is clear in drought), and so the social cohesion necessary for shared sacrifice is relatively high. While the power of government to coerce is present, it’s (mostly) not needed (except for your neighbor who turns on his sprinkler at 3am).

The problem with the national debt today is, the enemy is not clearly in our consciousness: the threat is not broadly recognized. Pain in our society is either blamed on someone else (scapegoating), or it is numbed (denial). In fact, in an eventually self-defeating feedback loop, the national debt serves to mask present pain, by borrowing from the future. An organism that masks pain is vulnerable to disease and injury, because pain is the signal of imbalance, and the need to adjust.

Prescription drug abuse surged 400 percent in past decade – CSMonitor.com

Check out this unsettling yet unsurprising story from the Christian Science Monitor:

Prescription drug abuse is not just on the rise – it has become a national crisis, according to a just-released White House study detailing a 400 percent increase in substance abuse treatment admissions for prescription pain relievers between 1998 and 2008.

The non-medical use of prescription pain relievers is now the second-most prevalent form of illicit drug use in America….

The abuse of these strong drugs is an indication of a much more widespread cultural problem, says addiction specialist Clare Kavin of The Waismann Method, a treatment center for opiate dependency….

“We are in a culture of immediate gratification and nobody will put up with even the slightest discomfort anymore,” she says.

via Prescription drug abuse surged 400 percent in past decade – CSMonitor.com.

The culture of immediate gratification is a culture that has lost its grounding in a Transcendent Source, in a Higher Power. And who would blame us: pain hurts; gratification is fun; therefore, avoid pain and gratify oneself whenever possible.

The problem is, we’re supposed to be adults who know better. True religion, of whatever stripe, helps us become mature people who can deal with suffering in life-affirming ways– ways that include, among other things, tears and grief, anger and anguish. In other words, true religion helps us be honest– even when honesty hurts.

It goes without saying that none of this is a criticism of palliative care, or of medically necessary pain management: both are mercies for which we can be thankful. Neither, further, is this a criticism of individual prescription drug abusers, whose pain I wouldn’t try to imagine. Compassion, not scorn, is the proper response to these people.

The criticism is of our culture: the culture of instant gratification, which doesn’t give us much help as we try to make our way through suffering, loss, and pain.

Religion should teach us that, inevitably, there is a time in an authentic human life for surrender.