ON BEING A GOOD SAMARITAN

The Good Samaritan by Ferdinand Holder (1853-1918)

The parable of the Good Samaritan in the New Testament (Luke, Chapter 30) is cited by politicians, ministers and fundraisers. It is often used to raise money.

The core of the parable is this: A member of a low-caste minority shows greater compassion to an injured and robbed stranger on a road than members of society's elite who pass the unfortunate stranger by. The Samaritan not only tends the wounds of the stranger but brings him to a place of care and recovery at his own expense.

On one level, this is a sociological observation. The poor are often more personally hospitable and open to sharing with someone in crisis than the wealthy. Some of the world's poorest societies are the most hospitable to travelers/strangers, for example. This was most likely true when this parable was contrived.

On another level, it is a primer on what being truly compassionate entails. It does not entail dropping a dollar into the coffee cup of a random beggar. That is too easy. Being truly compassionate in action begins with understanding the state of need of a person from that person's perspective. If the person is incapacitated, it entails getting the person to a place in which that person can then express his/her needs with some clarity.

I find the current Narcan craze by municipalities an interesting study in perceived Samaritanism. Today I drove by a local billboard in my city which boldly asked "Need Narcan?" in big red letters. 

Municipal police and fire companies now revive opioid addicts who overdose with a shot of Narcan, which costs taxpayers $200 per shot approximately. Is this being a Good Samaritan? It may seem to be until one realizes that there is no follow-up after the person is revived. That's right. In many big cities, the addict is revived and left in place. 

This strategy is less compassion and more cost-saving by design. Why? It saves hours for first responders who used to place the overdosed person in an ambulance on life-support until that person was treated by an emergency room at a hospital. From a treatment perspective, this system may have been better at getting the addict into some form of rehabilitation treatment. Untreated addicts are often repeat overdosers, requiring multiple Narcan interventions. 

Is encouraging addicts to feel safe in pushing up their opioid use by providing unlimited revival at public expense a form of compassion? Is reviving an addict from death so that person can repeatedly experience death and revival due to addiction being a Good Samaritan? I wonder.

Another interesting example is the current moral indignation of some who push for open borders. I am sure some would consider themselves Good Samaritans because they would welcome migrants into their nation with little or no vetting. But are they?

If the measure of a Good Samaritan is taking personal responsibility for a person in need on that person's terms in an effort to secure or improve that person's life, then a demonstrator who carries a placard without actually providing for a migrant personally is not a Good Samaritan. In fact, that demonstrator could be seen as an unethical exploiter of the public's social resources in order to feel morally superior. 

I strongly believe that truly being a Good Samaritan, as described in the parable, is an individual decision and action. In some of our lives, we have embarked on an ongoing Good Samaritan relationship with a particular friend, a neighbor, or even an adult member of extended family. This form of being a Good Samaritan doesn't have the media bluster of pulling someone out of a well or from in front of a speeding train. 

Calling fast and easy charity, like a click on a web site, being a Good Samaritan cheapens what the original parable teaches. It is a successfully marketed form of rationalization for our selfish human natures, but it is not what being a true Good Samaritan is about.