Maryland needs more men like Ebenezer Scrooge.
We obviously remember Scrooge for his uncompromising stinginess. On Christmas Eve Scrooge is a skunk, satisfied with the illusion of his own goodness. Too many forget that on Christmas morning Scrooge 2.0 is heading to a life of charity, philanthropy and joy. Many, many reasons should lead us all to love Scrooge more than we do for showing us the way to renewal and redemption.
Dickens used Scrooge to pillory a rising tide of penny-pinching skinflints in England. Small factory owners and shopkeepers were dominating politics. Philanthropy was not their strong suit. The shopkeepers endorsed a belief system that flattered their own thrift and absolved them of civic duty, holding that prosperity was the fruit of honest labor and poverty was due to idleness. You can hear it in Scrooge's voice on Christmas Eve, "I don't make merry myself at Christmas, and I can't afford to make idle people merry."
The poor of 19th century London actually didn't need Scrooge's handouts as much as they needed a city that was habitable. Epidemics were rampant. Human waste lay in piles in lots around the city. Life was short. The great tragedy of the fit and proper persons of Scrooge's social class was that their own children were dying of rickets, just like Tiny Tim. The city pumps that served contaminated water served everybody. The filthy air and stench were everywhere. The mid 1800s were a period of rising prosperity but sinking living standards because reasonable proposals for waterworks and sanitation went unfunded by the misers who had risen to power.
England finally escaped from high death rates when attitudes changed. The ultra-elites began to resurrect a classical Roman concept of a patrician's civic duty to invest in the well-being of the community. Neo-patricians made political common cause with the blue-collar workers and began a coalition to develop more livable cities.
Dickens' ability to break down class barriers played an underappreciated role in England's social transformation. Dickens illuminated a pathway of liberation for Scrooge through a consciousness of connection and opened up a portal that millions of readers have since trod. The turning point is when the ghost of Christmas Present shows Scrooge two hideously shriveled waifs, a boy named "Ignorance" and a girl named "Want." Scrooge asks whose children they are. Men like Scrooge with their allergy to idleness were accustomed to seeing social problems as shirked responsibility by a class of idlers. The ghost says that the children belong to "Man." They are not other people's children, they belong in part to Scrooge. Once Ignorance and Need and terminally ill Tiny Tim become his children, their redemption becomes his redemption.
Is there a Dickensian social order in Maryland? Chasms in social class and race isolate many residents from seeing their connections to ignorance and want. Too many of our fellow citizens could use the opportunities that involvement could bring through mentoring, service and connection. Many remain unable to see that "other people's children" are really our own. The illusion of otherness narrows our horizon, and narrows our chance to be redeemed the way Scrooge was.
As we look forward to a new year and a new administration in Maryland, there are honest ideological differences over the role of the state in solving problems. The neo-patricians of Scrooge's era overcame paralysis by accepting responsibility for making their cities better, and that transcended bickering over ways and means. Some improvements were state-sponsored, and some were private. Figuring out the details was easier with a consensus that kept civic improvement squarely on the agenda.
Today we have to recognize that the Ghost of Christmas Present is still accompanied by our children, Ignorance and Want. They are not someone else's problem. The physical and economic strength of our state in coming years must be the strength of all of the state. Maryland's farms, forests, and bays, its posh suburbs and hopeless corners are all linked. Today's neo-patricians cannot afford to choose one Maryland and not another. The children of Baltimore, Dorchester, Capitol Heights and Hagerstown include the same children of Christmas Present that confronted Scrooge. Without a modern Dickens to remind us of our common life and destiny, we each need to find our own way to embrace the neighbors who are our real business in 2015.
Dr. David Bishai is a professor in the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and director of the Interdepartmental Program in Health Economics. His email is dbishai@jhsph.edu.