Symbolic vs. Systemic
Now that every other blog in the world is getting into the act, I guess I should write something about this Terri Schiavo case. She's the Florida woman who has spent the last 15 years in a "persistent vegetative state" and is now at the center of the media's news cycle, as exemplars of virtue like Tom DeLay jump in front of every microphone they can find to proclaim how they're going to save her "life".

It's not the specifics of the case that I'm particularly interested in. As a "cogito ergo sum" kinda guy, I think that the person in question died in 1990, or whenever she lost brain function. Whatever is lying in that hospital bed is not the individual who thought and felt and loved and hated and did the other things that, IMO, define living humanity. But I'm not sure that I'm right, and so I'm not necessarily against putting the tube back in; I'd defer to expert opinion, figuring that the doctors and judges have a better insight into this than I do.

What bothers me here is that the Republicans are interested in "living their values" in a symbolic way, but not in a systemic way. (As this Washington Post story notes, their own political memo evidently says so.)

There's no larger concept at work here. Suppose that Terri Schiavo were suffering from bone marrow cancer, in horrible pain, unable to eat, wasting away. And suppose that her parents went public with a plea that Congress allow her daughter to utilize medicinal marijuana, on doctors' orders and under their supervision, to ease her pain and help her eat. Tom DeLay's response would be his usual: the upraised middle finger, and probably some remark about how if those hippie liberal losers don't like it, they should move to the Netherlands.

The Republicans will rush back to DC to pass a special (albeit unconstitutional) piece of legislation to "save" one life, with the cameras on. (Here's a great link to a short piece noting what has and hasn't inspired George W. Bush to cut short his Crawford vacations.) But they won't think twice before pushing for cuts to government programs that help millions of people toward economic self-sufficiency, bettering their lives and their communities, to (somewhat) pay for further tax cuts for millionaires. Humanistic values--the worth of life--are political instruments, not real moral guidelines to making policy.

I'm a utilitarian; I believe in policies that do the most good for the most people. That shouldn't be the only concern, but it should generally guide decision-making. As a non-religious person, I look at the whole system of Judeo-Christian ethics as having utilitarian value: the principles of the Bible are generally beneficial for societies whatever you think God is.

The Republicans are, at best, half-assed, symbolic utilitarians. They'll make a gesture--as in the Schiavo case, or any of the anti-abortion measures subsequently ruled unconstitutional--meant to signify that they "support life" (and score political points). Then they'll cut money for school lunches, community policing, housing subsidies, job training and a hundred other things that have real utility. They claim to venerate the concept of "life," but show no regard for quality of life.

This is moral hypocrisy, and it constantly goes unpunished in our political system.