“We’ll see each other through.”
-From The Dispossessed, Ursula K. LeGuin
Almost by definition, “news” is usually about something bad. The every day triumphs and kindnesses that often punctuate our lives generally go unremarked, while disaster usually commands Page One; if it bleeds, it leads.
Yet every once in a while, a bad beginning produces a happy ending, as when 33 miners, trapped half a mile underground for more than 60 days, were successfully rescued in Chile yesterday afternoon. While the world watched, waited, and prayed, an international effort months in the making came to a conclusion more successful than many had dared hope.
In the back of our collective mind there always lurked a fearful apprehension that what seemed like a hopelessly Rube Goldberg contrivance for bringing the miners thousands of feet up to the surface and safety might not work at all, or might fail during the operation, leaving some or all of the miners trapped and possibly condemned to a miserable, lingering death.
Certainly, in a time of diminished expectations and reduced confidence, such an outcome might have mirrored the mindset of many, but today, all 33 of the miners are on the surface, safe and sound. Yesterday afternoon, just as the Cathedral City City Council was preparing to go into its evening session, the news broke that the last miner had been brought safely to the surface. I was able to share that news with my colleagues and with the city staff and members of the public who were present in the Council chamber.
The look of palpable relief on the faces of many in the room told its own story of how involved all of us had become in the rescue effort, and how much emotional capital we had invested in the safe return of the trapped miners to the surface, to the world of light, and to their families.
In that moment, as people around the world shared a sense of relief, of promises kept and hopes fulfilled, we were all Chilean; in that brief moment, the collective heart of humanity was beating as one.
In a grouchy and often angrily divided time, it is all the more important to cherish the events that bring us together. As human beings, we are at our best when we build communities and when we rally to one another in times of adversity. For there is, deep within the human soul, a strong sense that we rise or fall, live or die, together; as John Donne observed nearly four centuries ago, we are involved in one another. Our profoundly human conviction that in tough times, we’ll see each other through -- a conviction amply borne out in Chile over the last two months -- is what makes it possible for a civil society not merely to endure, but to thrive.
For those of us who are called to public service, the greatest challenge of our service is remembering and reaffirming the importance of community. It is easy to practice a politics of division; indeed, our dialogue often fixates upon finding points of contention over which to engage in furious controversy, of never letting facts get in the way of a good fight.
The harder, nobler politics we ought to pursue is one in which we remember that by seeing each other through, we build a civil society in which ideas may compete, initiative can be cherished, innovation can change lives and communities for the better, and the freedoms we hold dear can be enjoyed by all.
For in the end, our job in public service is to prove that Thomas Hobbes was wrong when he spoke of the state of nature as being one of “war of all against all,” and our lives therein being “poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” In Chile, the world came together and showed that, even if briefly, we need not resign ourselves to such a dystopian, Hobbesian view.
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Paul S. Marchand is an attorney who lives and works in Cathedral City, where he is seeking re-election to the City Council. The views expressed herein are his own, and not necessarily those of the Municipal Corporation or of its Redevelopment Agency.
