What the devil is awareness and why aren't we using this cure-all on everything? Little Johnny scrapes his knee? Slap some awareness on that boo-boo and make it all better. Sudan is still mired in sectarian strife? Send 'em two C-130s of awareness and they will be good to go. ALS ought not be much of a challenge for a good dose of awareness. If only we knew of a way to generate a sufficient quantity! Thankfully, it was discovered that dropping your core temp rapidly causes the human body to literally exude awareness. (Think about the last time you jumped in a cold lake. You were full of awareness, weren't you?) The miracle of social media is simply a tool to farm awareness on a grand scale. Youtube is a giant awareness thresher...
Snark. Get used to it. (I consider it at least as powerful as awareness.)
My introduction to ALS (amyotrophic_lateral_sclerosis) came in my teens. I went to church with a young man who suffered from it. I say suffered not because I have first hand knowledge but because I could see the expression on his face as the muscles in his body refused his commands. I interpreted that loss of control, that expression on his face, as suffering. As I grew older and his condition advanced, I became marginally aware of a few facts about the disease - One, it's evidently not contagious but it is theorized that it may be genetic. Two, the rate of advance is variable. Stephen Hawking has dealt with it for 5 decades. Lou Gehrig only had two years from diagnosis to death (although he was probably symptomatic for several years prior). Three, there is no known cure.
There is room for discussion on where and how a cure will be found, but not here. I'm not a biochemist and suspect that any number of research and pharmaceutical teams are busily headed down that path. The ice bucket challenge is ostensibly concerned with accomplishing that but, is it true? More importantly, have I fulfilled whatever moral obligation I have to people who are suffering if I lower my core temp a little? I don't think so. Not even a little bit. Some would say, "But what is the harm in this? Even if none of these bucket dumps generates an additional dollar for research, even if none of the participants has an actual understanding of the disease, what harm has been done?"
I think some harm is done to ourselves in the form of self deception. Much the same way that taxation reduces voluntary charitable giving, I think the ice bucket challenge reduces our bandwidth for doing something productive for people. Call it "moral opportunity cost". More importantly, it gives us the 'I gave at the office' type feeling. We've checked some type of socially acceptable box for being a good guy if we complete the challenge, post the video and get a few likes and shares.
And what about those likes and shares? Do we derive some sense of gratification from them? Where can I get some Supreme Guidance on the intersection between my desire to do good, those who stand in need of it, and everyone else? Matthew recorded some thoughts from a Trusted Source.
1“Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven.2“Thus, when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. 3But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 4so that your giving may be in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
Ouch. Turns out awareness has a dark side. Rest assured, Emerging Church peoples, I am not here to proclaim ice bucket challenges as sin. That's not my job. I'm just here to explore the disparity between the things we say are good, our actual actions to that end and the cost. The math in this case is complex. Without a shadow of a doubt, positively impacting the lives of anyone dealing with this disease is unequivocally good. Measuring the impact of completed challenges is far murkier. In fact, if moral action were a business, I'd have trouble developing predictable KPIs for ice bucket challenges to tell me if any good was done at all. (BTW, I'm not prepared to just accept that additional dollars raised is a stand alone KPI that shouldn't be scrutinized and neither should you.) Cost?
In all seriousness, the cost is being born by those who carry the burden of the disease. I really have no business talking about cost when some of them do such a better job of it:
Suddenly, dumping water on my head doesnt seem logical, adequate, or moral.
