The Humanitarian _______________

Below is a first-draft preface to the new book I’m working on— The Humanitarian Musician. Just to give a taste and to jump-start the dream of every profession taught, practiced and lived with the preface “Humanitarian” before it. One definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. So why not try something new? What do you think?

 

My cousin’s son had completed a 4-year MA in Business and I asked him whether any of his courses dealt with ethical issues or the responsibility of business to the community. He thought for a long time and then recalled one day when they did a little volunteer project. It was clear that the entire thrust of his training was simply about the details of making a profit. 

 

My niece was describing her grueling training in Med School as a series of abusive remarks by small-hearted interns and inhuman hours assigned by unfeeling and often downright cruel teachers. This was in a healing profession designed help young doctors develop empathy and compassion for their patients. To serve life with a millennium-old mission statement: “First do no harm.” 

 

And don’t get me started on the music teacher in the movie Whiplash. A disgrace to my profession.

 

Have we learned nothing about how to bring up, educate and help people rise to their better selves, with care for each other and attention to the common good? Apparently not. Naturally, there is little hope for more humanitarian attitudes with drug dealers, arms dealers, human traffickers, military schools and such. But might we at least expect something better in the helping professions of doctors, lawyers, teachers, social workers, ministry and the like? Might we suggest that all businesses, corporations, media outlets, journalists, the entertainment industry, the tech industry, scientists, pharmacists and such consider holding their own feet to the fire to see whether their work is helping or harming? At the very least, if they’re not going to take responsibility for the Common Good, can we at least put up some guard rails (or protect those that exist) that keep them from careening into innocent pedestrians on the sidewalks?

 

Imagine with me here if every profession put the word “humanitarian” before their title as a constant reminder to work in service of something larger and kinder and fairer than the mere details of their craft. The humanitarian carpenter, the humanitarian truck driver, the humanitarian street sweeper, all of which indeed are offering services that sustain and improve our quality of life. But can we go further? The humanitarian corporate CEO, the humanitarian politician, the humanitarian movie star, the humanitarian billionaire? Organize our culture around such expectations and hold each other accountable for both our successes and transgressions? Imagine at each meeting where a decision is to be made, the question is spoken out loud: “Who does this help? Who does this hurt? “ With the expectation of a universal Hippocratic (not Hypocritical) Oath: “First do no harm.”

 

That’s a big dream. But it can begin with a small dream like the one spoken aloud in these pages. To start from my own esoteric profession as a music teacher to give a model about what that might look and feel like and how it might not only bend the moral art toward justice but lift our spiritual promise to the heavens and nourish our soulful engagement with beauty and build the bridges of connection between all peoples that we so urgently need.