The Guilt of Humanism

My parents raised me to be a humanitarian, to be a humanist who didn’t just notice the problems of the world but who really identified with people in difficulty and gave of myself to improve their lives. And it has never been as clear as it is today how guilt-laden that education really was. It’s not just guilt over the accident of birth and the advantages I’ve been brought up with, but guilt because that accident makes me feel I have to give everything I possibly can to those who have less. Che Guevara said “El conocimiento nos hace responsables / Knowledge makes us responsible,” and I agree—once we’ve recognized how good we have it in one part of the world, we have a responsibility to respond to the needs of people who don’t. That sense of responsibility weighs on the soul sometimes, even makes me feel sick with guilt when I can’t give people everything they need, when I’m not capable of solving someone else’s problems or fixing the realities of their lives. I feel like an egotist today, selfish because I want to protect my life even while I want to help those I love. My sister reminds me that it’s not selfish to take care of myself—perhaps being an activist isn’t all that different than being an enabler, leaving me feeling I’ve failed others when I simply have no more to give.

All of this has surfaced recently as I tried to find the words to tell my dearest Cuban friends that I’m unwilling to marry into the family to help them. I’ve been married before, I’ve been alone for almost a decade now, and I know I can’t possibly retain the life I’ve built and come to love if I bring a Cuban into my home and life for two years without actually being in love with him. Is this selfish? Or is it too much to ask that I be willing to go so far in my constructive action? I’m not sure I even understand where those lines lie; I don’t think it’s too much that my friend Mark is willing to put himself in front of Israeli tanks; I don’t think it’s too much for an activist to put her life or livelihood on the line for what she believes. So maybe I’m just too attached to my first-world life, to the privileges I’ve been born to and built into my life. On the one hand, it seems an easy thing to take someone in, and I often help friends by giving them a place to live when they need it. But I don’t feel right about this one, and I can hardly find the words to explain why I can’t do it. I feel selfish, nauseated by the thought of my own inability to step forward and act on his behalf.

Am I less an activist and humanist than I thought I was? Am I just another selfish American who wants to protect her own gains? Could it be that I’m not as much a socialist as I’d like to think? Raymer moved me almost to tears when he spoke of a Cuban giving away not just his leftovers but what he himself needed, saying that if he had to share his half-loaf of bread with a neighbor, at least they’d share their hunger as well. So why can’t I build the willingness to think the same way, to share my tiny apartment, not just my leftovers or the extra spaces in my life and heart?