Absolutely Relative

“Learn what people take for granted before you meet them. Never challenge these deep beliefs the first time you meet. All is relative to people in time and place. Do not propose standards.”

I was a junior health care professional on my way to my first international assignment. That was my advisor’s response to my “What should I know about where I am going?” Many decades later, I somehow think that I made that advice a practical road-map during my vagabondage around the globe.

What people take for granted is what builds their expectations. Unreasonable expectations are never unreasonable to those who believe they deserve what they expect. Many expectations are reasonable when there is no absolute value about what a person or a group can expect from life. About life.  About how they compare to others.

These are thoughts I had when reading an article on psychological research during WW II which stated that the term “relative deprivation” originated during that period of conflict.  It is now a solidly anchored concept when psychologists and sociologists try to interpret or even predict behavioral change. When dealing with groups and societies, it is proposed that it is the perceived relative deprivation that leads to action for social change when people want to have or forcefully acquire what others have. Because they believe they should have it too.

As a health care professional, my experience equates relative deprivation with “lack of access to and receipt of good medical care.” That is what I have tried to promote or support since my advisor said “learn what people take for granted.”  Indeed, what do people take for granted regarding their ability to get good care?

In every corner of our round world I have heard the same argument “People should have the same basic care available to them. If they need more, they should pay for it.” Is this what people take for granted? Will they experience relative deprivation if they do not? How come we do not have patient revolutions where patients of all ailments and maladies unite and ask for access to good care? Is it because they are too sick to do so? Or will that be the case of “absolute deprivation”, a state of poverty in health more than in wealth? After all these two statuses are correlated.

Or perhaps people take for granted that they are supposed to suffer more than others, and accept it? Is that possible?

…“The rate of suicide is higher in richer countries than in poorer ones” the article reported.

I stopped again and looked out of the window. A rainy day. But I do have a roof above me and it is not leaking. I do have the luxury to read an article, for my dog to take me on walks. Am I at a higher risk for suicide than one with a leaky roof? Even if my roof is not leaking, it is just an ordinary roof. Should I compare it to the roofs of those who have them in slate, cedar wood, bronze or even gold?

The answer seems to be again in the term “relative”. The argument is that disadvantaged populations within a richer country see a bigger gap to overcome than those in poorer countries. And that state of despair leads to suicide more often. The thesis is that when everyone is poor there is less discontent or the sense of deprivation, hence less suicide. So if the world were divided into populations with “absolute deprivation” and those with “absolute non-deprivation”, there would be less tension, conflict, war, suicide and perhaps even more health and joy!  People would then take only relative things for granted!

As far as theory goes, I could understand it. But that is not our world anymore.Geography itself has become a relative term. Even virtual.

.. It was still raining when I put down the journal and thought about the importance of everyone having the basic health care, facing narrower gaps, and how any new idea should first consider what the recipients take for granted.

Then I invited my dog to go for a walk. He looked outside, listened to the rain, and ignored my invitation. So I took my umbrella and went out for a walk alone.

December 5, 2013

© Vahé Kazandjian, 2013