Whose Life is More Important?

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Back in November 2015, I wrote a post asking, "Is the cost of security and self-preservation worth it?" This seems particularly relevant with the latest executive orders, so I've decided to repost it below. I think it's of significant note that the refugees and immigrants being banned are not those who are threats to us, which seriously undermines any security argument.

Here is a sermon from a guest at our church with first hand experience of having Syrian refugees move into her neighborhood. An audio-only version is also available.

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Security has become a bit of a conversational past time the last couple of weeks. The Syrian refugee crisis and Paris attacks have, of course, brought this to a significant head. But the issue is not new and comes up with various issues, including gun control, police force, just war theory, etc.

My problem is that, like many issues, we have dichotomized the sides, which doesn't help any solution-finding. We need to validate that a sense of security for ourselves is important. But security for other people is important, too.

Assuming refugees pose various dangers to us (on Monday, I talked about my personal experience with Muslim peacemakers), is our safety more important than the safety of the refugees? Should we be putting our needs and (more commonly) comfort about the basic (often life and death-related) needs of others? It's human nature to do so, so it's understandable, but is it what we should strive to do?

When we start denying people asylum in order to protect ourselves from potential (not guaranteed) cultural changes and potential (again, not guaranteed) attacks, we should also not place these as opposites and acknowledge the true costs. Few people want cultural change, and no one wants the safety of their loved ones and themselves to be put at risk.

What we are saying is that maintaining our culture as it is is worth hundreds of thousands of lives of the Other who have no safe place to go. We are willing to let hundreds of thousands of innocent people live in limbo with a horrible quality of life with many likely dying in order to maintain a status quo culture and give us a sense of security. Is that cost worth it?

Let's assume for a moment that denying refugees prevents another 9/11-like attack, so we have saved 3,000 American lives. The cost is hundreds of thousands of refugees' lives. All are innocent victims. All would be tragedies. So are our lives worth more than theirs? What does it say about our value system that we put psychological security above human rights? The problem is the cost of denying refugees isn't ours to pay, at least in the short term and materialistically. It's theirs. But it's ultimately our cost morally.

What is our obligation to our fellow human? When do we put ourselves at risk in order to reduce the risk to someone else?

Should security be pursued at all costs? Is self-preservation or (wise) self-sacrifice for the sake of another the higher goal? 

Safety is an Illusion

Maslow rates safety and security as fundamental needs, just above basic physiological needs of water, air, food, sleep, etc. This makes sense. If we don't feel safe, it's very difficult to function.

However, there's a reality of risk we take in everything we do. And there's almost a bit of a delusional state we need to live in to get by. If I thought about all the ways and chances we could get in accidents on the freeway, I might never put my kids in a car. But that just won't work. Sure, there's good, reasonable safety precautions, like car seats, seat belts, car maintenance, and safe driving. But bad things happen despite all of those things. And they happen every day.

In the aftermath of shootings in San Bernardino and Orlando and gorilla and alligator encounters with children, there are a variety of outcries focused on how somebody did something wrong that could have prevented these tragedies.

We need good, honest, critical thinking evaluations of what can truly prevent bad things from happening when possible.

However, I think a lot of the debate is not that. I think much of it is an attempt to self-soothe by saying, "It would never happen to me" because of the many things I would do differently. I had that reaction with the kids situations, putting myself in that position and telling myself it would never happen to me. But then I realized my "logic" was really just a reaction of fear, not wanting to acknowledge the horror of the situation and not wanting to consider that it could happen to me.

In order to do that good, honest, critical thinking evaluation of safety, we need to be able to face tragedy and horror in its face, recognizing that it's not that far away and not somewhere else. Many arguments about safety I've heard over the past months won't actually improve safety; they'll improve people's feeling of safety. Those are very different things. Feeling safe is fine. Again, I think we need a bit of a delusional quality of life (this is actually reinforced by research indicating that the negative view of the world in depression is actually far more accurate than non-depressed "normal" states). However, we need to consider the consequences and recognize the illusory quality of some things that we do.

When it comes to guns, for instance, do they actually make us safer societally, or do they make individuals who carry them feel safer? Since we can't systematically study them well in this country, that's a difficult question to objectively answer--what I hear are mostly single anecdotes on either side of the debate, but you can always find an exception to any evidence.

And then when we determine something makes us safer, we have to conduct a cost-benefit analysis. We don't want to acknowledge this, either, but we do it all the time. We turn down a variety of safety measures, including air bags, seat belts, helmets, home alarms, distractionless driving, etc. Most of these just impact us individually, but we also need to consider the safety impact of decisions on others.

Just because something makes us safer individually, does it make other less safe? Driving in a car full of spikes could be a good example of this.

When we think of safety, we need to move beyond the feeling of safety into evidence of actual safety, and not just for us individually, but as a society.

And sometimes bad things happen no matter what anyone does.