Some of the British government's smallest minds have been lobbying for a new tactic to contain the cost of running their free National Health Care System. They want the government to wake up the 'commoners' with known risk factors for developing preventable disease and shame them into healthier lifestyles. 'Brownie' and 'W' have obviously been conspiring, as the combined preschool depth of intellectual analysis given to this issue is appalling.
Alas, it seems that an ally who is slowly withdrawing their couple thousand troops from Iraq has managed to finance medical care for all their citizens. Socialized medicine, however, is no more immune to the backward approach of blaming the less fortunate than is the Bush Administration. Whenever humanity (or our Congress and Senate) takes a step forward with a plan for universal health care, some knuckle-dragging fool wants to drag us back to the dark ages.
We used to blame the sick you see. Disease in centuries past was often decreed to be a punishment from God, a result of sins of one's 'father', an evil spirit trapped inside a person, a spell caused by some poor woman designated by her neighbors as a witch or even a return of one's own dirty karma. These were wonderful explanations when man didn't understand the connections between hygiene, infection, environment, inheritance and disease.
Of course, we all understand it is best not to confuse the public with science, truth, evidence or facts. It is always about money and resources and how to allocate them.
As multi-national corporations get richer and humans' bank accounts get leaner, this backward thinking is gaining popularity in westernized countries trying to balance their budgets without taxing corporate profits.
Otherwise, these companies finance opponents' campaigns and threaten to jump ship, open an office in Dubai, build a plant in Canada or have their call center moved to India. Oh, wait. That's already happening here, isn't it? Off-shore, tax-avoiding multi-nationals still able to bid on all our government contracts while our homegrown, responsible, tax-paying American corporations cannot possibly hope to compete. As they used to say on SNL, how convenient.
There is everything right with aspiring to green living, staying fit, exercising and healthy eating, of course, but let's not forget the reality of money, genetics and blind inheritance.
Of course we do get some results when we beat up on each other, so let's imagine what the government's campaign highlights for a "Shame on You" approach would be like.
Bus advertisements would be first, featuring enormously fat derrieres and the warning, 'This is your ass on lard'. Then the TV spots showing several attractive men and women in cowboy hats forming a close-knit conga line coupled with the tagline, 'Monogamy could have saved their lives'. Or better yet, signs in front of every dance club with the international symbol of a circle and a red diagonal line drawn across it with the word "bareback" written in the middle.
The billboard signature of the series would culminate with a realistic picture of a dirty, semi-comatose man grasping a port bottle, semi-entombed in rags and a cardboard box under a graffittied-bridge, an emaciated dog standing guard, with the caption, 'Shame on him'.
What's the matter? Isn't this how we always picture a homeless person? Filthy, disgusting weirdo and so utterly inhuman only a mongrel would even stand near him?
No point in showing families down on their luck, or the elderly impoverished because of medical bills, or even the teenage runaway whose Mom's internet boyfriend has been raping her. We can't keep confusing the public with the truth, after all.
We don't go to the scene of an accident and decide which crash victims are at fault and which aren't and base medical treatment on the result. We treat them ALL. The accident happened, it's over, and that is how it should be. We can let the investigators and the insurance companies sort out the rest.
The average person votes for the taxes to support emergency services like firemen, paramedics and police, because the average person knows crap just happens. We don't have our own private ambulance and medical staff like Vice President Cheney, or a team of personal doctors like President Bush. Okay, so I cannot tell you how much that bugs me, but worse still I question why our citizens don't deserve at least the same caliber of benefits that our senators and congresspeople have paid for on our tax bill.
But while we are shaming everyone, let's make sure we blame little children for their parents' lack of resources. (A Bush tactic evidenced most recently by his veto of the children's health care expansion bill). Screw those little suckers for getting cancer in their right eyeball at twelve months old, or being born with cerebal palsy, or Down's syndrome or Asperger's. What kind of parents would not have been prepared for that in the first place, right? Poor people shouldn't have children if they can't afford them. I despise this elitist thinking and the heartlessness that accompanies it.
The blind hope that we will have a healthy child and can confine our worries to food, shelter, education and love isn't supported in any way by our government, and disappointingly, the Brits are on that same slippery slope. Procreation, the most human of human behaviors, should never be a right relegated only to those with a big enough bank account.
Even well-intentioned harping on the common man's responsibilities so as not to become a burden to society can easily morph into harassment and discrimination. It also denies the most basic of human rights. The right to freely abuse one's own body, whether it be through motorcyle riding, bungie jumping, smoking or the ingestion of rare steak and buttered potatoes.
Do we really want our health system to abide by the same elitist/classist issues general society upholds? Those with resources encouraged to judge those without? It is arrogance of the highest order and smacks of an emerging feudalistic approach to health. When empires were building we saw this before, but life in North America has become cheap once more. The irony is that if we don't protect the health of the poorest of the poor, it will affect those who think they are above these diseases.
To those smug self-serving jerks who think this doesn't affect them, 'those peoples' children may accidentally mingle with theirs whether on a school bus, or playground or touching a doorknob. The health of a community impacts its very core, so let multiple resistant Tuberculosis out of the box and it may end up residing in a Park Avenue penthouse.
We cannot all 'indulge' ourselves with healthy living. There are the aspects of childcare (if a single mom with four kids and two jobs joined a health club, social services would be after her), free time (most lower spectrum jobs require enormous amounts of labor hours to produce even the most basic lifestyle), family obligations (kids, aging or sick elderly needing care), the cost of good food (have you seen the dollar menus at fast food places compared to what the same money buys in a supermarket?), and STRESS beyond our control.
Tell me one impoverished person who is not under tremendous stress and I will smack you as hard as I can. I'm not a violent person, but somebody has got to knock some sense (and compassion) into you.
Yes, I am complaining, but not because I begrudge the rich their money. I just resent the implication that a person should be judged on what is written in the Adjusted Gross Income column of their annual 1040's. Excessive resources can be the result of blood, sweat and tears but the norm is extraordinarily good luck including the category of inheritance.
Until one has experienced the shock of debilitating illness or unexpected financial loss, that person has not worn the same moccasins, my friends. There are hurricanes, tornadoes, shipwrecks, car accidents and bridges that fall down, remember? The body is also based on planned obsolescence. We all have a "Best If Used By" expiration date stamped on our derrieres. Unfortunately, some of us will expire before it seems fair. If we are young enough, and don't cause anyone undue expense, our epitaph will be the dismissive, "The good die young". However, if we bankrupt our insurance company or our parents on the way out, we are despised by society. A catastrophic illness or accident-related injuries suddenly become our 'fault'.
Health is a commodity as are good looks, tallness, thinness, and big breasts. Healthy people historically make more money than sick people. If your genetics are crappy and your parents were sickly? There is a good chance they were poorer earners and worked lesser years which resulted in lesser accumulation and lesser inheritance for you. If your grandparents were also poor earners because they were sickly, etc., yours and future generations still suffer this trickle down effect. Of course, I specialize in gross generalizations, so bear with me please.
If we consider the impact slavery had on African Americans in this country, or the 500 year holocaust against Native Americans, or the exploitation of many new immigrants, the reasons for some economic differences between some individuals in groups should be self evident.
Add in the fact that most medical studies have historically been performed on white men, even if medical treatments are available for other groups (including all women), they may not be as effective. Case in point: My cardiologist's stress test machine could not tell the difference between 'heart blockage' and 'big breasts'. How do I know that? After an angiogram, which showed my heart was healthy, this was his ultimate diagnosis to explain why the machine results erroneously showed I was ready to keel over.
Harvard's fund-raising arm developed some statistics that showed the students from the lowest socio-economic classes given the most financial aid were also the lowest return contributors. Personally? I doubt if the results of their statistics surprised anyone there, as even I would assume these students would be using their greater earnings to help their extended families. Or maybe even with a Harvard degree it might take another generation or two for the excess of disposable income to start being accumulated and returned to the school. Candidly? My son went to Harvard and he probably will not be a big contributor until he has grandchildren because he doesn't have a trust fund. That's just reality for our family. We are still working our bums off to survive, like most other middle-class Americans.
Being genetically lucky is an important life perk. If you can live a healthy lifestyle and avoid the rigors and stresses on the body and soul, great. But if your physiology is a bit weak, is your worth something to be gauged by how much of a drain on social services you become? I say, balderdash!
The wealthy have much less chronic stress and doctors know that twenty years of stress will produce high blood pressure in anyone prone in this direction. Should we really be shaming someone with all these stresses already on their plate?
I guess my point is that if we really want to encourage better health in our country, we need to address the issues that keep families locked into the lower socio-economic levels. Easier access to higher education would be my first long-term solution, and probably the most lasting. When we do have a family that is getting assistance, however, we need to increase the allocations to make it possible to buy healthier foods, rather than the cheap, processed junk they are forced to buy out of necessity.
We need to make school lunches nutritious and appealing so that children eat well at least there. The pressure should be put on the fast food industry, sit down restaurants and the junk food manufacturers who tempt us with crap. (Humans love the smell of cooking meat, fat and the taste of salt and sugar. Is it any wonder fast food is so popular?) We need to help families with education about nutrition, without degrading them. We need to get the information out on smoking, drinking and drugs. Again, we need to find healthier ways that people can enjoy themselves and get that same relief from the day's demands. Whatever happened to free concerts, community sponsored fairs and guided wildlife hikes once in a while?
Putting music instruction and art lessons back into the school curriculum couldn't hurt. Even a generation or two ago everybody played an instrument and sang. Now it has become passive entertainment with an isolating piece of technology like an iPod rather than active, soul-lifting participation in a kids' hip-hop or rock 'n roll band! (Okay, so I was a music teacher for a while, so I can't help myself here.)
Smoking, for instance, used to be a popular habit with all classes, but now a mere 15% of upperclass British men smoke, while 57% of working class men do. Think stress has anything to do with that one? A cigarette, comparatively, is still a cheap high for the brain and produces such a feeling of well-being that it becomes addictive. Of course, this has to do with education and with choices, but jamming our 'shame on you's at anyone who has become physiologically addicted is useless.
In the US I would assume we have similar statistics, although hypocrites that we are, we hesitate to mention the words 'social class' or separate statistics based on the same.
Lectures by people like C. Everett Koop, a past surgeon general, have a place, of course, but brow-beating the less healthy based on 'terrible lifestyle practices' is a useless, annoying and destructive endeavor. It sickens me to see that the approach suggested for today's obese children is the same, paternalistic, shaming technique. (I guess the fat kids don't experience enough shaming and degrading behavior from their classmates.)
When five-year-olds gossip that another child is 'fat' or are afraid to eat because they don't want to become obese? That concerns me beyond what I could express here.And remember the term 'adolescent rebellion'? Well, guess what? We never really outgrow that one when it comes to personal attacks or biting criticism of our essence or the temple we maintain it in.
We harp on children to eat better and make better choices, but then we serve fat and calorie laden crap to them at school and every fundraiser is a 'candy-sale-a-thon'. We give our kids a class on nutrition and then serve them McDonald's or Taco Bell for lunch. Ketchup gets re-classified as a vegetable on our school menus by the Feds and is no longer a condiment.
But I don't offer just complaints in this area, as I believe we can be successful if we stop being so cruel. One simple change, like giving children an hour for lunch instead of the 25 or 30 minutes generally allowed in most classrooms, and kids might eat less and not wolf down their food.
School funding for students to have longer recesses and daily physical education classes would do more to prevent obesity in children than anything else, but as a society we claim that would cost too much money and talk still comes pretty cheap.
It is easy to threaten to penalize those who can't quit smoking or drinking or eating, but the truth is, these are reactions to a highly stressful life. But why am I surprised? We take exactly the same flawed approach to those suffering from mental illness and incarcerate and punish our alcoholics and addicts who are often self-medicating for other serious mental health and life problems.
We act like someone developing a genetic cholesterol problem could avoid heart disease if he just tried a little harder. The cheap explanation is to claim it is choice, but if you've ever known an ill person intimately, you can be assured nobody would willingly choose that life.
If we accept that all people have a right to certain things in life and make the societal changes to provide at least the basics for decent living on some slightly higher than lowest-common denominator level, overall health in all our citizens would improve.
Or we can just put those billboards on the bus. Our choice.
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Comments: 28
I hate my family... :)
Excellent article-- to the point and right on the point and I agree 1000%. When will they ever learn the truth of poverty?
There is no reason why anyone in this country isn't covered for needed medical care, whether they are rich or poor or old or young. Poverty is a very complex state and no person has the exact same set of circumstances, issues or plain old luck.
Your reasoning is good and should help me stop being so judgmental. Thank you for this article.
I especially liked the line about walking in someone else's shoes.
Elizabeth S., keep in mind that worrying about what others do with their lives is just as bad for your health as their smoking is.
When we are young, rich, beautiful, secure... it is so easy to be arrogant about those less fortunate. When we are older it is easier to realize how much is out of anyone's control. What I object to the most, though, is shaming. My father was disabled at 39 with a massive heart attack and the development of emphysema, and he felt ashamed of being so sick until he died two decades later. One day he actually said to me, "I wish I looked as sick as I am, because I hate to think of people thinking I am faking it." That is one of the saddest statements I've ever heard in my life. I'm sure there are many others who are in the same position. When I had cancer, what was removed was internal, so nobody could 'see'. Actually, while I was in treatment, I looked 'great' from what people told me as I didn't lose much of my hair. (Chemos are different and have different side effects.) It was so weird to have people talk to me in such a way. They thought it was okay to possibly be dying as long as I didn't look like I was. What can one say?
It made me much more compassionate towards other people who are ill or have disabilities. But for the grace of God, as they say, go I and everyone else.:)
I share your father's mixed blessing. I am disabled but you wouldn't know by looking at me. I've seen the sneers and heard the remarks and thought, "What? It's not enough to feel horrible, you want me to look that way, too?" And, like you, I didn't lose the hair on my head with chemo. I took a low, oral dose, daily, but they still warned me that I'd probably lose my hair. Nope. And one day, after I had conserved energy for a couple of days so I could make it to the grocery, I drove there and still wasn't sure I could make it to the door. Some man gave me one of those 'looks' because I used a handicapped space. I hoped he would say something, so I could tell him that his psychic powers and x-ray vision had failed him. So, I understand completely where you get your passion. I admire you for writing it so well. Mine come out as rants.
I am also grateful that, when I was healthy, had a great job and insurance that paid for everything, I was not arrogant and I did not begrudge others. It is such a blessing to not have to eat any words now.
I did a little different take on Here by the grace of God, am I, if you're interested.
I like your comment:
> Until one has experienced the shock of debilitating illness or unexpected
> financial loss, that person has not worn the same moccasins, my friends.
This is a really huge weakness in democracy, people vote based on their
small mindedness. When you get older and look back you see and understand,
but we worship young self-centered simple minded idiots on the media and
they do not tell it like it is, the tell the elitist screw everyone story.
I could tell everyone that's healthy and able-bodied that looks down on others not so fortunate, to go and volunteer in either a homeless shelter, a food pantry or a free clothing room - we've done two out of the three and we're both disabled, though only Mark's is recognized by the government, and they will! understand!
Bravo!
Marilyn
I don't think the media is nearly as responsible as churches, teachers, and parents are for this. My kids saw all the same things in the media that other kids see, but they didn't grow up with the same attitude so many others have because I experienced the media and the real world with them, and influenced how they accepted and what they saw.
A friend of mine transferred her son to a new school after his humanities teacher told them that poor people are just people who are too lazy to do better, and refused to allow him to even discuss the other side (he was not from a poor family - not even close). This teacher used bible quotes and Republican rhetoric to support her position. The parents went to the principal and the school board and didn't get anywhere. They moved him to another school when it was apparent the teacher was going to hold their involvement against their son.
There's also something to be said for compassion for people who are less fortunate than others, that has to do with regard for humanity -- without which we are a pretty low form of bio-sludge. This lofty idea of the majesty of personal responsibility seems to be most usually voiced by those who wouldn't even glance in someone else's shoes, let alone walk a mile in them. We don't all live life on an even playing field. The guy who has an IQ of 80 isn't going to be talking the Board of Directors at General Mills to giving him a half-million dollar bonus. Instead, he's getting up every morning at 6:00 am and looking forward to another wonderful day on the assembly line at the paperclip factory. The guy born with a silver spoon in his mouth, or has an IQ of 160, often makes it all the way through life without having a clue what real stress is, and quite often he's the guy telling the other guy to pull himself up by his bootstraps.
The issue of healthcare is a more complex aspect of this. Although, I believe we who are able should help those who are less able I'm not sure the best way to do this is by pumping money into a system in which advertising and production in the food and beverage industry puts huge amounts of trans-fats and high fructose corn syrup into the shopping carts of most Americans who then become sick, head for the doctor who prescribes a pharmaceutical which fixes one symptom, but creates two others. Maybe the way to address this more effectively would be some form of education or emphasis on creating more public awareness, which might result in something like we're seeing with Coca-Cola replacing their high fructose corn syrup with stevia.
Of course, as Elizabeth mentions, sometimes circumstance can befall any of us; carwrecks, tornadoes and the like. I know a guy in my town who stopped his car to help some auto accident victims, and now he walks around on crutches because he has lost most feeling in his legs due to the power line that was down at the scene.
And a couple more things: One, to except this quote from Elizabeth's post: "Tell me one impoverished person who is not under tremendous stress and I will smack you as hard as I can. I'm not a violent person, but somebody has got to knock some sense (and compassion) into you." -- I like this, because so many of us go through life just glancing at people without even imagining what they go through. If they are breathing, and their eyes are open, they must be doing just fine. Sandy's experience with the guy at the supermarket (with the failed x-ray vision) illustrates this. There are people all around us who have extremely heavy loads on their shoulders, and they carry it around all day, every day and some of them wake up at night to calculate the weight of it all.
Ok, this is a little long for a comment now, but there is so much to think about relative to what Elizabeth has said, and wisely suggested as ways we might think about or address these issues.
Thank you, Elizabeth.
I agree with you Robert. That cry or superiority is a crock. The people who talk about personal responsibiity have enough money that they do not have to be personally responsible. They can hire people to do what they do not want to do, and they can get out of being responsible for what they do not want to be responsible for.
All of this stuff is a big bluff, a lie. I know this because I am in the midst of these people all the time. They cannot listen to anything else because they have so much fear of being non-superior.
People are people and the way we have catered and deferred to authority has been shameful and dangerous.
We pile stress on people to break them down and them claim nothing can be done for them, and taxes are too high.
I do not understand why I feel differently than most people about this. It just seems plain to me what is going on, why lie about it or pretend?
The people doing this are psychopathic bullies, and they will back down if only people who stand together and stick up for themselves.
I am sure like me, many people have said you were 'too compassionate' or 'too empathetic'. For years I tried to hide and overcome these qualities in my personality because I felt ashamed that I cared so much. Looking back, I realize there was nothing wrong with me, as it was the other way around.
My little granddaughter's kindergarten parent/teacher conference still says it all. Although she goes to a wonderful arts and academics magnet school, her teacher said she needs 'help' with her social relationships. She is well-loved by her classmates and a sweet, darling and adorable person, so why is she having problems? Because she gets very upset when the other children are mean to each other. She wants them to be kind, fair, loving and playful rather than shoving, dominating, shunning and insulting each other. Makes you think, doesn't it? Sigh...
Luckily I realized in my early twenties that what I had been trying to suppress was the best part of my being. One of the main reasons I voted for Obama was that I felt he could inspire civic pride and humane thinking that would then encourage compassion and respect for all citizens. It will take a lot of leadership to undue the twisted, selfish thinking of many in our country, but hatefulness will never be as powerful as love, kindness, tolerance and compassion.
My daughter's kindergarten teacher suggested that, since she had never once had to correct my daughter, she was not normal and maybe I should talk to someone about her. I thought the woman was nuts, but also realized I might not be objective about my own child. So, I took her for an evaluation. After two days of testing, in which she achieved perfect academic scores through sixth-grade level and passing scores beyond, and demonstrated what they determined to be perfectly appropriate social skills, and showed them that she could write two different sentences simultaneously, one with each hand, they decided my daughter was a genius and the teacher needed help. I put her in a private school where she completed four grades the following year. Since she had so much time on her hands, she spent much of it during her remaining school years rescuing the kids that everyone picked on.
And now, people say she is too nice.
I believe President Obama can pull this off. I agree with you that hatefulness is not normally as powerful as love, kindness, tolerance, and compassion. The exception was the last eight years, when a tyrant took charge and gave license to those who were like him to bully people who weren't prepared to fight back, even if they were stronger in number. I think many of the people who fell into that trap are people who never outgrew wanting to be popular. President Obama should have no trouble making 'goodness' popular again, which should pull some of them around. The people who are truly ugly will remain that way, and hopefully will get lost in the shuffle.
Back onto kids and clueless teachers... After one year of public school I put my daughter in private school as well. Because she was completely bi-lingual, she was an outcast in her public school that was racially and economically divided into parts. She looked white but could speak Spanish, which automatically made her a freak.
We had lived in Mexico City when my husband was transferred, which was while my daughter was 3 to 6. When she started first grade in the United States, she was three years ahead in math. I had taken great pains to inform the principal that my daughter had lived overseas until three weeks before. This got translated to her teacher as... she was on vacation for three weeks in Mexico before school started. ?????
A few weeks later, when my parent/teacher conference for my daughter was held, the teacher told me that my daughter had severe learning disabilities. I told her I had not noticed anything like that and thought she was a genius (typical parent's response). Her evidence? My child did not know there were four quarters in a dollar, although she could do math up to the fourth grade level by then. You can imagine her shock when I re-explained that we had lived out of the country, and expressed my surprise that after I had written a letter to this effect and handed it to the principal and verbally said this when I met with her about placement, the teacher was in the dark.
I do think that our schools need to do several things to improve learning for our kids, starting with making school a completely SAFE place to be and going forward from there. It is a shame, though, that all children cannot obtain the same great education available to those who somehow manage to afford better schools, whether that is through neighborhood real estate acquisition or private education. My daughter ended up skipping the last two years of high school and graduated with a pre-med degree five weeks after she turned 20. There wasn't any way to hold her back. I wish other kids had this same opportunity, as I know I was so bored my last two years of high school I wanted to kill myself. Ah well, there is some progress at times.
Go Obama! He signed the fair pay act into law today, which won't solve anything for Ms. Ledbetter, but will for my daughter and yours.
More than wishing there were more people who are 'too nice', I wish there were more people who understood that being nice does not mean saying what others want to hear.
What a great 'little over a week' it has been, huh? I am more impressed with President Obama every day. His humble confidence and ability to deliver a tough message without anger are so refreshing. Did you hear him address the disgraceful behavior of Wall Street today? I'm hoping he takes on the Republican Party next.
I hate that your daughter had to deal with 'freaks' in school. That breaks my heart. My daughter (the one I spoke of here) doesn't look white, went back and forth between public and private schools, and didn't experience that problem.
Amazing how your message was translated to 3 weeks vacation! Sorry, I chuckled and it isn't funny. This made me shudder -My child did not know there were four quarters in a dollar, although she could do math up to the fourth grade level by then.
I think a normal life is really the best way to go, as too much ambition can be corrosive, just as too little can be. I gave up a music career so that I could have a family and live a normal life, so I let my kids do what they think they want out of life. Okay, so once in a while I don't mind my own business, but I am generally diplomatic. They see right through any subterfuge, though, so there is no point in trying to even consider any kind of manipulation, even inadvertent.:)
Sandy, the 3 weeks vacation thing now IS funny, even to me, although it wasn't at the time.
Oh, not knowing how many quarters were in a dollar was not a school thing. My daughter only knew about pesos - the Mexican money - when we moved back here. American can was 'play money' to her, as you couldn't spend it there.:) She thought it had absolutely no real value. (From the minds of babes... little did I know she was correct.)
Obviously the night of her parent/teacher conference we got out all her saved changed, put it into the paper bank rolls, and shortly thereafter deposited it to her bank account. She was a quick study and knew the change math by the end of the week.:)
When my son excelled and got into Harvard, however, all his male teachers wanted to take credit. One of them had written a really awful recommendation, which my son inadvertently left out, as he also had taken some college classes in high school and decided to use the two professors' recommendations instead. Of course, the high school teacher was convinced that it was his letter - and had the gall to tell my son this - that put him over the edge. It infuriated me as it was almost like negating all the hard work and effort my son had done to get accepted. My son just shrugged it off, because he knew the letter had never gone anywhere but also that he got in on his own merit. I was not so charitable, as I am one of those grizzly bear Moms who will do anything to protect my kids. I was actually pretty strict, but didn't realize it until I started talking to other parents after all our kids were launched. It seemed that my husband and I had a reputation we didn't even know about. One that said things like our 'poor kids' had to do their homework every day before they got to go anywhere, etc. Looking back, I wouldn't change a thing.:)
The blind hope that we will have a healthy child and can confine our worries to food, shelter, education and love isn't supported in any way by our government, and disappointingly, the Brits are on that same slippery slope.
I've always thought conservatism is lack of empathy combined with lack of imagination.