What does society value and what do you do when those values are contrary to your own?
A long time ago, when I was in high school, I volunteered with a group that mentored elementary school kids. For part of our curriculum, we looked at the media, how it portrayed our heroes and villains, and what this reflected about our society. I came to understand how media and culture shapes our values. These elementary school kids, ages 8 to 11, would watch wrestling and trashy tabloid talk-shows and violent movies. These made such profound impressions on them; they had terrible preconceived notions of sex, violence, race, drugs, education, and even success in our society. We had a lot of work to help these children.
I don't pay much attention to the media these days; I have no TV or Netflix, just the Hamilton soundtrack on repeat. But the primaries have triggered this question for me again. What are our society's values? Are they the values I have? Our potential presidential candidates reflect a scary set of values and character. On the one hand, we have a candidate characterized by outlandish comments, bravado, arrogance, and racist and sexist statements. As the delightfully snarky Economist describes him, his "beliefs lack coherence or much attachment to reality." But on the other hand, we have someone who seems above reproach and immune to punishment for having classified documents on a personal email account. If I had patient information in my email, I'd be fined and jailed.
I don't want to blog about politics or policies, but simply want to ask why our society puts up with bullying, selfishness, and hate-mongering. Why our society puts up with someone who is not accountable, beyond reproach, able to do anything without being punished? Maybe these traits are lesser evils compared to the other qualities they bring, but these candidates don't reflect my values.
I chose a profession that tends to the sick; that turns a blind eye to disease, age, race, gender, sexual orientation, socio-economic status; that is bound by a code of ethics; that seeks to be humble. I am not a businessman, entrepreneur, political insider, media mogul, or great leader. I try not to be selfish. I try to give more than I take. The policies I care about most are those that affect my patients. I hope these values, my values, are not lost to our society.
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3 comments:
Hillary is currently undergoing a rigorous FBI investigation over her email, so I don't think it's a fair statement to say she is "above reproach." So far there is no evidence that she broke any laws: https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2016/03/04/clinton-emails-continue-to-be-non-scandal-disappointing-republicans/
Thanks for the comment. I'm certainly not an expert and appreciate your opinion and article. In any case, I've seen the process that happens when a laptop with potential patient health information gets lost or stolen. Simply that occurrence and subsequent investigation can ruin a physician or researcher's career. The whole conversation on privacy, confidentiality, and responsibility is a complex one, especially in light of things like the recent government request for Apple to turn off passcode lock features for a specific phone.
Right. Being a politician isn't really like any other career, which in some ways is frustrating and in some ways makes sense. I just hope that the decades that Hillary has spent fighting for women, for families, for health care, for LGBT rights, are not overshadowed by one mistake (which has been made by many other government officials.) Especially when the other candidate is something out of a dystopian nightmare.
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