Priorities: The Exclusion Makes Us Human
A picture went viral last week of an unpurchased purse left next to diapers in a department store. The post generated millions of views and has prompted mothers to leave gift cards in diaper boxes in store aisles across the country.
We can all relate to the rising cost of goods that we face when making purchases for our families. One 2023 study found that American families needed to spend an additional $11,434 more annually than they did just two years earlier, just to meet basic needs. Another analysis last year found that the average American family of four was paying over $15,000 more per year, since January 2021. No matter the political spin, inflation has had an enormous impact on most families in America.
In addition, the picture described above is relatable, because we have all, at some level or another, made sacrifices for those we love. Unlike Washington, most of us live within a budget. If we don’t have enough money for an important item, we might have to forgo purchasing a less important item to meet the needs of our family. The viral image simply allows us to visualize a real-life choice that a mother made: buying a purse or diapers for her child.
The story is certainly a good reminder of the sacrifices we make as parents for our kids, and it seems to have inspired mothers to “pay it forward” based on that idea. However, I am not convinced that this is the most important reason the story has connected with so many people. I believe the image simply reminds us of a human necessity that has been pushed aside in our modern world: priorities.
We live in a culture today that tells us, “We can have it all.” In fact, it tells us that we “deserve it all.” Yet, one of the traits that makes us human is our ability to think critically and make choices. It is inherent to us as human beings to know, when faced with the choice of buying a handbag or diapers for our baby, which one should end up in our shopping cart. Yet, we find ourselves celebrating this decision, not just because we appreciate mothers, but because we all know that this kind of sacrifice is becoming less consistent in our society today.
Modern life and technology have based our entire economy on the idea of preferences. Whether you are shopping at the store or experiencing social media through algorithms, humans have never been flooded with more choices. Sadly, we forget that there is a difference between preferences and priorities. Preferences demonstrate what you like; priorities form how you live. We can choose to act based on our preferences or not. Yet, we cannot escape the results of the priorities we make.
Our lives are formed and shaped by our decisions. If we let our preferences simply dictate our direction, chaos becomes king of our life. Prioritization brings order. Without priorities, we really can’t value anything. If you cannot give more time, effort, money, or weight to one thing over another, then all is equally worthless.
Thus, it is logical that priorities have become a casualty of a society focused on reaching equitable outcomes. While I would admit that priorities have not necessarily been placed in the direct crosshairs of the woke agenda, I believe they have declined because our instincts in western culture have been altered.
Any society, especially within a republic, should embrace the notion of equality under the law. Equality requires government to treat every person the same. This idea comes from God and is reinforced in the Declaration of Independence, which notes “that all men are created equal.”
Equity, on the other hand, provides the amount of resources and opportunities needed to get equal outcomes, as proposed by the modern Left. Even though this re-packaged socialist idea has failed every time it has been implemented in human history, our culture has embraced it. Our government, corporations, entertainment industry, and our academic institutions have largely chosen to push the agenda.
A culture that is conditioned to pursue equity in all things will likely have a difficult time understanding the importance of setting priorities. While we are all created equal, our priorities will distinguish our outcomes in pretty much every area of life. That is a foreign idea to the statist.
Yet, it is hard to argue with a simple fact: everything valuable in life requires the exclusion of someone or something. A marriage requires the exclusion of all other potential mates. Success in sports likely requires the exclusion of certain activities and the abstinence of certain unhealthy foods. Success in business requires the investment of time, money, and effort, generally to the exclusion of using those resources for other opportunities. Raising children requires you to spend time and money on them, that will not be spent on other things.
This consensual exclusion is what reveals the valuable things in our life. For example, we forsake all others because of the importance of the person we choose to marry. The exclusion makes us human.
Thus, our ability to make these choices and sacrifices are partly what separates us as humans from all other creatures. As conservatives, we often identify the impracticability of the socialist idea, but forget how anti-human it really is. After all, in a system where the people create order, individuals set priorities for their own life. In a system where the state solely creates order, priorities ultimately come from the top down. That, itself, might be as evil as anything mankind has ever devised.