From indifference to engagement

The year 2016 seems to have prompted several such insights. The outcome of the Brexit referendum in the UK surprised many, revealing disparities of views between regions and between age groups, which then prompted deeper analysis of the forces at work in British society.

Similarly, the election of Donald Trump defied the polls and caused analysts to try to understand what has been happening in American society and the differing views as between the east and west coasts and Middle America on immigration, America’s role in world affairs, the preservation of the environment, and the impact of climate change.

Perhaps the most significant epiphany is that globalisation has deleterious effects.

While it is true that across the world as a whole, fewer people are now living in dire poverty, it is also true that inequality has worsened within nations and among nations. It is also true that older workers who have lost jobs due to technological change, to immigrants, or to workers overseas - have found it difficult to adjust easily and find new employment.

Their expectations for themselves and for their children have been denied or badly dented.

It has not helped that the workers who have taken their jobs are not like them, adding a layer of ethnic tension, racial and religious intolerance, and xenophobia, on which Donald Trump and the British ‘Leave’ campaign were able to capitalise. It is surprising that many people have been surprised by these outcomes. The Catholic Church, through various papal encyclicals over the years, has decried unbridled capitalism and unregulated markets.

Most recently, Pope Francis in Evangelii Gaudium pointed out that trickle-down economics would not promote greater justice and inclusiveness. Pope Francis also spoke about the ‘globalisation of indifference’, a syndrome whereby we, caught up in the pursuit of wealth, become incapable of compassion, unmoved by the deprived lives of fellow citizens at home or elsewhere.

Recall the rich man and Lazarus; his sin was not that he was rich, but that he never ‘saw’ Lazarus and therefore could not treat him with the dignity and respect which every human being deserves.

There are already calls to reverse globalisation. In the USA, the incoming administration intends to pursue a policy of ‘America First’. In Europe, the intention is to reverse the flow of migrants. New multilateral trade agreements are being abandoned. The danger here is that the ‘baby’ is thrown out with the bath water’! In the past, populism has promoted fascist or anti-democratic policies. The problem then was identified as the ‘Jews’ or the ‘Japanese’.

The problem today is identified as the ‘Mexicans’, ‘Chinese’ or ‘Muslims’ or some ‘Other’.

The real epiphany is to recognise that the crisis of globalisation and capitalism is, at its root, not really a crisis of an economic system that will be resolved by ‘socialism’ or by taxation of the rich.

It is rather a spiritual and moral crisis, where the spiritual blindness of the rich and the aspiring rich needs to be overcome so that they see others, regardless of creed or race or class, as worthy of respect and dignity who must be lifted up to realise their human potential.

The globalisation of indifference must be supplanted by a globalisation of engagement and love of neighbour.