Paradigm Shift: Michael Moore's Values

Posted by Greg Allen on 07.03.2007

Somewhere along the way, Moore picked up the line "There are no easy answers, but there are simple answers." For health care reform, Moore's simple answer is that the profit incentive to provide less care has got to go. With Sicko that simple answer looks like Moore's best work yet.

Solidarity: Common interests; mutual sympathies; communal responsibilities. Solidarity is the first truly honest answer to why I bet you've heard in a long time. If you're like me, hearing that big why answered the right way will come as a big surprise, but answer it Michael Moore's did in his new film about the health insurance industry and universal health care,Sicko. Why should the American people see comfort from misery as a human right the likes of freedom from slavery? For Michael Moore, the answer is solidarity. Because when you get down to it, both wrongs could just have easily befallen you, and thus it is your responsibility to help the one it did befall.

There are over 40 million uninsured in this country. There are another 16 million whose coverage offers no real protection from any sort of medical catastrophe. As for the rest, well the insurance company isn't exactly excited about footing their bill, hence why they find any and all reasons not to.

Something about this is very very wrong. Maybe it's not you, but it's never more than a few unlucky draws away from you. No matter what your values are (unless malice is a value) those statistics don't fit comfortably within them.

Let me get side-tracked for a moment. How often do you hear the word "values"? Really—how often? I ask because every time I read the news there's somebody railing about how our values are under attack on all fronts. These values, family, individuality, community, freedom, etc... are ostensibly supported by everyone and yet somehow being violated by the government that is elected to enact legislation founded upon them. If you ask me there's an easy reason why: it is easy as all hell to say you are chock full of values; it's even easier to say the other side lacks them; the hard part is taking something like family and passing a law about it.

Maybe that's why when you read the op-eds of editorials from fifty years ago they say the exact same thing: America has deeply rooted values, only recently have they been under attack, and by the way vote for me.

Hearing this same garbage over and over made it all the more delightful to hear someone articulating an actual value-based proposal, all the more-so because it came from such an unexpected source. You see, every choice implies a trade-off. For example, lowering interest rates makes home-buyers happy, retirement-savers sad. That's why responsible advocacy on any issue means discussing both and why the benefit to one group should take precedence over the detriment to another. Regarding values, politicians telling you the benefits of individuality, for instance, are wasting your time if they don't also discuss why those benefits outweigh their drawbacks. With Sicko, Moore acknowledges those drawbacks (higher taxes) but makes the case why upholding solidarity matters more. Honestly, that's not the sort of thing you see very often.

That's what makes Sicko so compelling. Moore's values is clear and consistent from the outset. There are no big bad WASPs who won't give Moore an interview (as in Fahrenheit 9/11 and Roger and Me), just a lot of people Moore lets talk about what they think they are entitled to in a country by the people and for the people—why they think getting what they're owed is worth the communal price. As has been said by others more qualified than I, the new style suits Moore far better and shows a new maturity in his directing. Even if you hated Fahrenheit I think you'll find a lot to love in Sicko.

If you haven't seen the movie, go see it. If you hate Michael Moore, go see it, and if you hate me for telling you to go see it, go see it. It's a terrifically made film, an actually entertaining two hours, and a very important examination of what we mean when we say "democratic values."

So that's the very broad "good" about the film. Let's talk about some of the bad. First, Moore's film is almost entirely interviews with average Joes. Anyone seeing the film should understand Moore is trying to make a good movie when he chooses which interviews to put in. Quite obviously he chose his best that made for the best overall movie. That doesn't mean he didn't come across some people who disagreed. Just because Moore makes it seem like the consensus in favor of free health care is universal in countries that have it doesn't mean it is. Individual anecdotes never prove anything, one needs statistics with a sample size greater than one. All the movie proves in the scientific sense, is that the people he interviewed feel the way he does. Although, his lack of proof doesn't prove him wrong.

In fact, I'm very forgiving of his short of statistics approach (he does give some improtant and persuasive ones like the fact that the United States is ranked 37th worldwide in health care). One has to understand that Sicko is trying to carve out the emotionally persuasive case for Universal Health Care. Given that many Americans still cringe at the thought of socialized medicine (or anything socialized for that matter) the emotional revulsion is probably the first issue that needs to be addressed. Let Sicko show people that things quite obviously aren't the disaster they've been hearing so long and some important starter analysis, let people challenge their subconscious assumptions on a conscious level, the deeper logical reasoning will follow and the real paradigm shift can begin.

For a review of Sicko as a movie and not as an argument, check out Chad Webb's . It's a goodie..