“A decent society should do all it reasonably can to reduce human suffering. It should not, however, do so by extinguishing the lives of those who suffer or the lives of those whom we believe might suffer in the future. [..]
It is understandable and deeply human to want to bring all aspects of our health as much into our control as possible. Terminally ill patients often face horrifying levels of pain. We should try to treat that pain as best we can. Vulnerability is terrifying, but it is also inescapable. In our quest for health and fitness, we are fighting a delaying action. There is no earthly victory over decay and death.
Yet at each stage of life, we can fool ourselves into believing we possess more control than we really do. If we test to control the beginning of life and die by suicide to control the end of life, the negative side of movements like what has come to be known as MAHA (Make America Healthy Again) is to teach you that your health is under your control throughout your life. [..]
Perhaps this mind-set is the inevitable byproduct of workism — the idea that we are defined more by our jobs and careers than by our faith, our families or our friendships — which has our culture by the throat. Parents, for example, find it far more important that their children be financially independent and have productive careers than that they marry or have children.
But if your value is determined by your productive work, then it’s easy to see how people perceive that they lose their value when they are no longer productive or when their vulnerability limits their success.
Our commitment to individual liberty can also create the illusion of individual autonomy, a sense that I am the captain of my own fate. Taken together, workism and individual autonomy tell us that we are defined by our status and that our status is largely within our control.
Yet our value is defined by our humanity, not our productivity, and when we live in close community, vulnerability and suffering pull us together. It can trigger a feeling of love and care so powerful and painful that it changes us forever. It softens us. It humbles us. It awakens awareness of the needs of other people.
[..] Isolation brings death; community brings life. And we build community in part by recognizing that we are not in control and that each of us will one day desperately need someone else to love us, care for us and cherish us.
This is not because we’re successful or capable or living a life that others deem to be worth living, but because we’re human beings of incalculable worth — no matter our vulnerability or our pain.”
Full article, D French, New York Times, 2025.8.24