‘Don’t call them heroes’
by Michael Cook | 23 May 2020 |
Healthcare workers in the coronavirus epidemic are everywhere being praised as heroes (except Russia – see the next story). They are risking their lives; they live in isolation; many become sick; some die. But labelling them as heroes a good idea, asks a feature in Stat.
First of all, “The hero image burns so bright that it eclipses any light shining on the failures of the system.”
It also masks the post-traumatic stress that many will experience. “The white noise of the hero complex deepens, widens, and obscures the human cost of this burnout epidemic.”
And then, “There is a genuine danger that if only an exclusive few are heroes, the rest of us won’t have to act heroically. If the heroes are taking care of everything, we can let up. The hero label has an isolating, immobilizing corollary: Their actions matter, mine do not.”
The experience of first responders to the 9/11 attacks shows that “the more space the hero label takes up, the harder it will be for them to authentically express themselves. It’s as though we’re saying, ‘Tell your story through the hero lens of our cultural imagination, or don’t tell it at all.’”
Michael Cook is editor of BioEdge
The coronavirus pandemic should have been an Iwo Jima moment for utilitarian bioethicists with their flag fluttering proudly on a blood-soaked hilltop. After all, the emergency seemed quite propitious for calculating the greatest good of the greatest number. However, as Oxford medical ethicist Charles Foster wryly observes, politicians everywhere embraced a "crude vitalism" instead.
This was best expressed by New York Governor Andrew Cuomo in March. He told the media -- and voters: “My mother is not expendable. And your mother is not expandable…We’re not going to accept a premise that human life is disposable. We’re not going to put a dollar figure on human life." Out the window went utilitarian policies.
Is the same dynamic being played out in the simmering debate over immunity passports? Read below.
This was best expressed by New York Governor Andrew Cuomo in March. He told the media -- and voters: “My mother is not expendable. And your mother is not expandable…We’re not going to accept a premise that human life is disposable. We’re not going to put a dollar figure on human life." Out the window went utilitarian policies.
Is the same dynamic being played out in the simmering debate over immunity passports? Read below.
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Is Anthony Fauci a modern Galileo speaking truth to power? BioEdge
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