“Americans are treated, and overtreated, to death” came across my desk today. The article is about U.S. doctors playing to Americans’ hope of being cured, spending hundreds of thousands of dollars in the process of slowly and painfully killing someone: “Cancer that can’t be cured is often called daunting but not hopeless. So that’s what patients hear. Hope is the last thing to go. People don’t give that up easily.”
It made me think of our nation-building efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq. Had we elected a president without hope in 2008, the first thing he or she would have done is called up Stewart and Dover and said “Fuel up the C5 cargo planes; we’re bringing everyone home tomorrow”. Congressional approval is required to start a war, but not to end one. A president full of hope, however, might be inclined to say “We’ve spent a 1-3 trillion dollars so far [various estimates] without much to show, but maybe if we spend another few years and trillion dollars we can accomplish something.”
Hope is usually considered a positive trait, but perhaps Americans have more of it than we can afford.
Well, he did get out of one of the two wars, and the sillier one at that, so give him some credit. If you haven’t seen it yet, you may be interested in Barbara Ehrenreich’s “Bright Sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking has Undermined America”.
In the story of Pandora’s box, Hope is the last thing left in the bottom of the box after Pandora has unwisely lifted the lid to peek and allowed all the world’s evils to escape.
Many commentators say how sweet! We have all these evils afflicting us, but at least we still have hope.
But what is Hope doing at the bottom of a box full of evils? Evidently Hope is just another affliction. The difference is that war, famine, and pestilence are out of the box, and it’s too late to put them back. But when it comes to Hope, the wise can choose to put the lid back on.
Marcel: Which war is the U.S. out of? Last I checked we had our military deployed in both Iraq and Afghanistan, at tremendous risk to our soldiers’ lives and our children’s financial solvency.
I’d have been glad to vote for a Presidential candidate who lacked any “hope” for our imperial misadventures in the middle east. But no such candidate was available once Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich were out of the race (and I couldn’t take them seriously for a variety of other reasons).
A lot of Obama voters probably made the mistake of thinking Obama shared their ‘Hope’ that we could ‘Change’ our policy in the direction of a quick withdrawal. Regardless of Obama’s private preferences, the permanent defense establishment headquartered in Versailles-on-the-Potomac made short work of that particular hope.
hope is the very best of all things for an individual, but probably the worst for a government.
jewish doctor to patient: “you have cancer with no chance of a cure”
patient: “so theres no hope?”
doctor: “it is forbidden for a jew to say there is no hope, no chance though.”
On the subject of that Yahoo article about long-term medical costs, I highly recommend the book “A Life Worth Living,” by Dr. Robert Martensen. Beautifully written book about his experiences as a doctor and a strong case for common sense (as you also are advocating, Philip).
Phil – You still have hope for our children’s financial solvency?
I gave that up when we started printing money to reward financial institution for being poor gamblers.
(poor may be a bad choice of words here :/)
At that point the downward slope to insolvency became close to vertical.
Barbara Ehrenreichs book was something I greatly enjoyed. I was in an awful business writing class when the Daily Show featured it. My prof told me I am too negative in my business communications and that I need to spin everything more positively. I explained that I prefer very direct, stern communication and I don’t mind hurting a few overinflated egos along the way. Mine has been bruised plenty of times. In fire fighting/emergency medicine, there is no room to worry about stuff like this. If business people thought the same way maybe life in this country would be better.
I don’t understand why people assume that the default state of the world is prosperous, successful, and happy no matter how many times you screw up. Then when you do screw up, and somebody calls you on it, they are supposed to worry about your feelings?! WHAT?! So after this conversation with her, I was able to send her a link to this book. Ha! Somebody agrees with me.
Anyway, good book.
I recall a sex ed film in high school titled: “Hope is not a method.” Wise words.
Obama could have been a great president under different circumstances, but the times do not suit him I’m afraid. Health care was either too much or not enough. Political capital for the issue will be exhausted for decades, ensuring that badly needed cost containment policy will never happen except out of dire circumstances.
The Afghanistan policy makes no sense at all. Even if Afghanistan were to become the Switzerland of the middle east, it just wouldn’t matter to the geopolitical order. Kerry made the same mistake calling Afghanistan the war we should have been fighting. Nonsense. Iraq may have been a bad idea and a failure, but at least the possibility of a free and safe Iraq had some upside potential for the world.
I hope Obama gets a solid challenger in the ’12 race. Maybe Obama can save his remaining 4 years for better times in the future when he can realize his potential to be a great leader.