Acknowledging the Whole Person

HS #22  2017.5.2

Acknowledging the Whole Person

 Survivor, now into its 18th season, is my one “must see” TV show.

I like it because I sense that the human interaction is real. Yes, editing is done, but the reactions are raw and genuine. The viewer peers into a microcosm of human society as twenty strangers vie for a million dollars. Jeff Probst, the moderator, does a remarkable job probing and smoothing tense situations involving race, gender, sexual orientation, age, and disabilities.

Last month’s April 12 episode was invaluable viewing. One contestant, fighting for his own chance to win the prize, was trying to convince his fellow players that another contestant was untrustworthy. He asked him in front of the seven others and millions of TV viewers, “Why haven’t you told them that you are transgendered?”

Fifteen minutes of rich human interaction followed.  However, I want to focus on just one statement of the outed man.  He explained that he keeps his transgendered identity private not because he is ashamed or embarrassed of it, but because when others discover he is transgendered, “that becomes who you are. It overwhelms everything else - you’re the trans-person.”

I learned the lesson of viewing others as one-dimensional in one five-second exchange while in grad school. One of my college friends was tall -  6’7” or thereabouts, and I commented on it occasionally. One evening at a church supper, I greeted him, “Hi tall Scott”. He replied, “Hi balding Pennings.” What the hey!  That stung.  My comment wasn’t meant to be insulting. But I instantly realized that while I meant it as a compliment of sorts, he resisted being labeled and reduced to being  “the tall guy.” Lots more to Scott than his height.

The satirical newspaper, “The Onion” once ran a story with the headline, “Area Homosexual Saves Four from Fire,” One of the typical lines: “The brave, homosexual man has inspired us all. The hospital has announced plans to rename its burn ward "The Gay Burn Ward.” The humor, of course, comes because the reporter had ridiculously reduced the man to one dimension.

Mark Twain made the same point via Huckleberry Finn who couldn’t help referring to a fellow youngster as “the Harelip.”

Key point: Although they can be negative or insulting, labels are not necessarily so. Instead they are just the things about us that are unusual, and hence serve to distinguish us, and hence often isolate us, from others.

In a recent email discussion with a friend on this topic, I wrote:

“Putting a tag on someone is probably not objectionable if it agrees with the person's own tag. If someone introduces or refers to me as a mathematician, college professor, singer, kayaker, racquetball player, or Elvis’s owner, I resonate with it, because those are the way I view myself. On the other hand, even though bald, preacher’s kid, gay, left-hander, gardener, short, guitar player, and teetotaler are  also true of me and distinguish me from others, none of these attributes are especially important to my self-identity.“

I sometimes ask students, "If someone came up to you on the street and asked "Who are you?" what would you say?” Obviously the question could be answered many ways. The answer that we give likely reveals how we see ourselves and want others to see us. Ideally though, we’d probably really prefer that others view us as whole people with myriad interests and facets. 

Going a bit deeper, I once heard a powerful proverb: “You are as great as your noblest ambition, as weak as your controlling desire.”

It points out that the same person can have both great purpose and mission and yet be tragically flawed. Of course they can.  Literature is full of fallen heroes. King David is a shining example.  Modern examples include Pete Rose, David Petraeus,  and Bill Cosby among many others.

Is Bill Cosby a man with a heartfelt mission to improve the world by serving as a role model to and exhorter of young African America men. Or is he a serial rapist? Although it’s tempting to embrace one and reject the other, both his noble mission and his alleged crime can and should be acknowledged.  People are not one-dimensional.

Our challenge then is to see others as whole persons.  In particular, to make the effort to look beyond unique characteristics which distinguish and isolate, and instead see others for the complex and multidimensional persons that they are. Our own lives will be the richer for it.