“I can be someone’s and still my own.” — Shel Silverstein

Those of you that know me know I’ve used that quote before. At a certain point, we get to an age where things get to us more easily. I read that story every year to teenagers when they prepare for Confirmation. I get choked up every time I read it. I know a lot of people that have new year’s resolutions at the ready on the first. It takes me awhile. All of this came into focus when I perused twitter and encountered yet another of those patented “I don’t understand how you could vote for…” and it occurred me that we are hearing this more and more often these days.

The obvious point is that it shuts down our collective discourse. It puts us into one side or another and determined that the other side is just a group of village idiots. So, my new year’s resolution is to raise my level of discourse. I will certainly still challenge individual members of the herd. It’s hard to avoid doing that these days, but I will do my red letter best to avoid transferring that to a whole ideology.

This brings me back to Silverstein. The line above obviously is directly related to the story it came from (“The Missing Piece”) but it is one of those rare lines that can stand on its own. As a writer I’m jealous. All of us want one of those lines at least once in our life. There was a time when I thought I could be a speech writer.

America is a unique place. It always has been. It combines the mythos of rugged individualism with a community feel where we do what we can to help each other get along. We can be someone else’s and be our own at the same time. So, our body politic must strike a balance between a collectivism the rest of the world embraces and an individualism that numerous tout. When we dial away party politics we get to a point where we each have our own personal take on where that balance rests. There used to be a day when Democrats and Republicans could set aside differences and meet in the middle of particular issues. I suppose it still happens under the rarest of circumstances. It is the ultimate difference between states people and performance artists.

Obviously, I’m just a teacher, so my thoughts and words have little to do with what actually happens in government. However, it can impact what happens in my little corner of the world. It can impact my personal relationships. It can impact the level of angst I feel on a daily basis or my level of optimism for the future.

I can be my own and someone else’s at the same time. I can manage my own happiness and practice a certain level of autonomy while allowing others to help me whenever I need assistance. I can be that helping hand to others when they need emotional or physical support. We can collectively be our own and each other’s at the same time. We can remember that our own personal belief of where we stand on that continuum does not define us as a human being. Our humanity must exist beyond that and so we cannot allow ourselves to get bogged down in the “I can’t understand how you can vote for….”

“I can be someone’s and still my own.” — Shel Silverstein

I suppose I have to be a teacher because I find that I repeat myself quite often. The best writers are the ones that offer lines like above. I’ve used it more than once in this space because it packs so much into such a tiny place. It’s simple and yet more profound than probably anything I’ve ever come up with.

We’ve been talking about student loan forgiveness for a few days now. I have tons of responses on social media and here. The negative responses (mostly on social media) usually fall under two different categories. These are categories I’ve addressed before. I keep repeating myself after all.

The main word we come to in all of these discussions is the word deserve. These students don’t deserve to have their loans forgiven. They haven’t done anything to earn that. Either that or we will cite the fact that they willingly entered into this contract, so they should suffer the consequences of that decision. Of course, the mere fact of suggesting that anyone should suffer anything should make us pause. This doesn’t even mention the fact that we are making a pretty heavy assumption that students are making informed decisions when they sign these deals. We assume they know what they are getting into. If they are in dire financial straits it is probably due to the fact that their parents didn’t go to college. So, why should we expect them to automatically understand how these loans work or how to pick a major that makes sense? Middle class kids that have parents that went to college will know these things. They also will be less likely to need larger loans.

As I said in a previous piece, the idea that any of us deserves anything is presumptuous. Certainly, in a philosophical/theological sense that is definitely untrue. We don’t deserve a damn thing. However, one could claim that everyone should get a measure of human kindness. Silverstein’s quote above eloquently points out that we may think we are lone wolfing it, but all societies have a certain interconnectedness that we cannot deny. We can belong to someone else and still be our own. We can support each other and still maintain a measure of self-reliance.

We all acknowledge that the government does not have an infinite amount of cash to spend. So, when we ask the question of whether we should forgive loans we have to look at it as an investment. What do we as a society get for that? Is that enough to justify the investment? It’s a fair question especially when thrust against other opportunities where we can invest in people.

The second argument levied is why these people get assistance and not those people. Someone asked why they should forgive student loans and not cancer patients. Of course, no one bothered to consider that we could conceivably do both. Sure, it means that other things may not be funded, but opponents love to present a false choice.

People often use these two methods to avoid the hard conversations that come with living in a society. Government spending is all an investment. It is an investment that will help some people and not others. These are choices we freely make as a society. We can dodge it as long as we want, but eventually we have to face these hard choices.