Stephen Colbert coined a phrase earlier this year, well, a word really, on his popular segment, "The Word". The "Word" was 'narcicitizenship'. He, of course, meant this to be comedic, but I think the word conjures up and encapsulates a very accurate picture of what has developed in the American consciousness in recent years. It's all about me. We don't need welfare programs because if other people just worked as hard as I do, they wouldn't need it. We don't need single-payer health care because if other people would just eat and exercise and buy insurance the way I do, they would have adequate medical care. We don't need gun control laws because I am a responsible gun owner and I want to buy whatever crazy ass kind of automatic weapon I can dream up, and because I will be responsible with it, everyone should have a right to have one. It's all about me. I am the center of the American Universe. Everyone should be a straight, white, middle-aged, card-carrying, picket-fenced homeowner, and if they would just get on the bandwagon, everything else would fall neatly into place without the big, bad, mean ol' government interfering in my life!
Obviously this worldview leaves out droves of Americans who would love to eat more nutritiously and go to the gym, see a primary care physician every time they feel sick, and drive their kids to church every Sunday, if only they could afford to. It fails to even make an attempt to understand the everyday experiences of more than 16 million Americans living in poverty. It fails to contemplate that another person's experience might be different from our own. And the only cure is for us to educate people and connect people. We must put the "narcicitizen" in a room with the impoverished, inner-city, teen mom who, despite her predicament, scored a 1400 on her SAT and now can't figure out how to go to college and raise her child at the same time. Or with the veteran who was doing just fine until he came home to a broken economy that doesn't want to employ him. Or with the 75 year old retiree who worked, saved, bought and paid for his home, and who has now lost everything because his wife has Alzheimer's. We have to connect with each other. We have to foster compassion and empathy. We must show our fellow citizens who are so vigorously supporting "entitlement reform" that those entitlement programs affect people who aren't lazy or incompetent or immoral. The future of our country is going to depend on our ability to do so. Reach out. Speak to your neighbor. Sit on a park bench next to someone who looks just a little outside of your demographic and strike up a conversation. Get of your bubble! Who knows, you might just make a friend or, better yet, change a life.
