Vulnerable responsibility – Small vices for caregivers

Roger Burggraeve, Linus Vanlaere, Laetus O.K Lategan

Description

The authors have developed the ethical imagination inviting a sense of “otherness” towards the vulnerable self, rebounding care for the other as a way to understand our everyday neurotic (normal) tendency of small vices as the propensity and possibility for responsibility towards the other. The authors, inviting the reader into troublesome feelings such as laziness and anger, bring a Levinasian horizon into focus, so that even in the midst of laziness, there remains the small goodness to set the self free to care for the other, meeting the demands, challenges, hesitation, shuddering, tension and shocks of such alterity, of living “otherwise”.

Sujets

• Littérature Sud-Africaine
• Littérature sud-africaine
• Tension
• Science
• Challenges
• Les Démons de la nuit
• Anger
• Vulnerable
• Social sciences
• Morality
• Responsibility
• Health care
• Shock (musical)
• Laziness
• Shock
• Goodness
• Caretaker
• Small Vices
• Caregiver
• Philosophy
• Vulnerabilidad
• Philosophers
• Healthcare

Informations

• Publié par: UJ Press
• Date de parution: 01 décembre 2018
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781928424178
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

VULNERABLE

Small vicesforcaregivers

Linus Vanlaere Roger Burggraeve Laetus O.K. Lategan

VULNERABLE

Small vicesforcaregivers

Linus Vanlaere Roger Burggraeve Laetus O.K. Lategan

Vulnerable Responsibility – Small vices for caregivers

Published by Sun Media Bloemfontein (Pty) Ltd.

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ISBN 978-1-928424-16-1 (Print) ISBN 978-1-928424-17-8 (Online) DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.18820/9781928424178

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This printed copy can be ordered directly from: [e-mail] The e-book is available at the following link: https://dx.doi.org/10.18820/9781928424178

Contents

Introduction ................................................................................................

Chapter 1 WHAT DO I CARE ABOUT THE OTHER? .............................................. Antipathy as leverage for good care

Chapter 2 LAZINESS? WHAT LAZINESS? ................................................................ Caregivers also have a right to be lazy

Chapter 3 “I’M ONLY HUMAN” .................................................................................. Mediocrity as a imulus for good-enough care

Chapter 4 “I DON’T ALWAYS SAY WHAT I THINK” ............................................... Hypocrisy as a mediator of care that remains human

Chapter 5 “I SOMETIMES SAY EXACTLY WHAT I AM THINKING” .................... Anger: keeping committed care on the boil

Chapter 6 “I AM NOT DOING IT THIS WAY ANY LONGER” ............................... Disobedience as a ‘virtuous vice’

Chapter 7 CARE ETHICS IN THE WAKE OF EMMANUEL LEVINAS ................... A philosophical poscript

About the authors .....................................................................................

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Introduction Anthem for ‘lost souls’

Many books have been written on the subject of good care and ethics. The crop of books already available on the market is suïcient to îll a subantial library. Almo every book contains a wealth of inspiring and valuable ideas. So why yet another book? Hasn’t everything already been said about good care and ethics? Shouldn’t we rather concentrate on putting all these great ideas into practice?

Our ‘egg of Columbus’ is to be found precisely in this la queion. As care ethicis, we cannot rid ourselves of the impression that today, more than ever, an ideal image of care is being cultivated. This is the image of the “humanly desirable”, to adopt Paul Ricoeur’s expression. This image might, of course, inspire and appeal to caregivers to do their be. The ideal picture of good care, as it is presented in the vision and mission atements of care organisations, poses the challenge to keep care relevant. This image imulates the continued search to determine how the welfare of the other can be be served, in the same way that a dream incites and imulates.

However, this ideal image can also place too much of a burden on the shoulders of caregivers. The pressure this ideal image puts on caregivers may be so great that, while it inspires and appeals to them, it also discourages them. This risk is certainly present when insuïcient attention is paid to oering support to the caregivers themselves to deal with the obacles they encounter, and which might prevent them from putting the ideal image into practice. In this sense, care does seem to be a madcap job.

A continual confrontation by one’s own limitations results in feelings of powerlessness and anger, and may lead to burn-out or depression. Research on the well-being of caregivers in geriatric care, for example, has shown that emotional exhauion is a central issue. Research conducted on caregivers who

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Vulnerable Responsibility

have taken it upon themselves to care for a family member, for inance, also indicates that many are close to emotional exhauion.

Any person trapped in a situation where too much is expected of him/her runs a high risk of discouragement and even burn-out, or at the very lea of becoming indierent or disengaged. The original longing of caregivers to oer good care is ill present, but it may have become ied. They give care in a diant and uninvolved way. This detached, business-like care is in eect a kind of rategy for survival. For the caregiver, however, it is no less exhauing, and the care-receivers may also suer as a result.

A kind of ‘attainable’ ethics could be what is needed, that can take vulnerability into account in order to avoid the collapse of caregivers as a result of their responsibilities – or even their attempting to ee from them. This means îr of all, that human imperfection mu be taken into account. While pursuing the care ideal, in everyday life caregivers come up again limitations, not lea again the limitations from within. In addition to the external limitations, such as the context of insuïcient time, or policy that ipulates other priorities, there are also the personal limitations of the caregiver him-/herself, namely in the areas in which he/she possesses imperfect knowledge or skills, depending on the individual personality and character. Ethics are also precisely related to this ory of îniteness in the que for ‘good-enough’ caring. This is a queion – to appeal once again to the popular expression of Ricoeur – of pursuing what is “the mo humanly possible” in a world that is characterised by what is imperfect.

But there is more. In addition to the limitations that make caregivers vulnerable and which they can only deal with in a matter-of-fact sort of way, they are also vulnerable from an ethical perspective. They are in fact not only imperfect, but also fallible. By fallible we mean that they can and do make miakes: they fail and make miakes and they do not always have the be intentions. Caregivers are not superheroes continually seeking to do good without the slighte hint of impatience or harshness or cowardliness. What parent has never been alarmed by his/her own behaviour when he/she reacts sharply to his/her child? Caregivers are human too: they are imperfect beings, often having to face their own limitations and those of the context in which they work. They are fallible: that is to say, they are not always virtuous and caring, not always the model of goodwill and commitment. Strange as it may sound, this is the adage of this book: fortunately, caregivers are fallible!

This is the reason for the choice of a kind of ‘slow’ ethics; ethics that refuse to lay claim to perfectionism in caregivers, in the name of a “continually improving – exacting – caring”. Caregivers are not moral superheroes, completely good, hone, well-balanced, etc. Perhaps they are even better

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Introduction

caregivers as ‘anti-heroes’, not always on the ball, sometimes clumsy, vain, jealous, ubborn, absent-minded, short-tempered, and so forth. They are the image of the ordinary – and thus fallible and imperfect, ju as the care-seekers are. In spite of – or thanks to? – their shortcomings, they are nevertheless ill sensitive to the imperfections and suering of others. At the end of the day, it is often exactly these anti-heroes who allow their hearts to speak. It is precisely for this reason that we are convinced that ethics also need to take the ethical vulnerability of the caregivers into account. This means: take into account a number of vices that are very human. There are, in particular, vices of which it is said that there is absolutely no place for them in caregiving. Think for example of a vice such as laziness. Or antipathy. Or anger. Displays of such qualities may seem to be inconsient with good caring. Yet these are human, all too human, qualities. If ethics can only give the message “that is not allowed!” (and that is the end of the matter) then these qualities don’t disappear but go as it were underground, and they make up a sort of insidious poison. In this book, we seek to acknowledge that caregivers can and do experience troublesome emotions, and do have negative qualities, but that we need to op suppressing them. It’s okay for them to be there. Only when their right to exience has been identiîed can a basis be eablished to tackle them.

What’s more, we have the crazy conviction that some of these vices can actually have a positive eect in caregiving. From vices or troublesome feelings such as antipathy (Chapter 1), laziness (Chapter 2), mediocrity (Chapter 3), hypocrisy or doing-as-if (Chapter 4), anger (Chapter 5) and disobedience (Chapter 6). Some virtues or virtuous aspects come to light that actually make good care possible. We may speak of a paradox: small vices as a lever for virtuous caring!

The vices explored in this book make a ‘perfect imperfect whole’. The chapters may be read independently and in random order, depending on the intere of the reader. They each hold up a part of a mirror. All the chapters together do not give us a complete (mirror) image. That is what is characteriic of ethics that are not heroic: it always falls short. It does not oer a clean-cut and complete argumentation. To put it in Rik Torf’s (former Rector, KU Leuven) words: “It is not a blueprint for a high-minded life and does not oer seven guidelines for a perfect human exience.”

Only six vices are discussed in this book, not seven – a consciously chosen incomplete number. This this is intended as an incomplete initiative to allow care ethics to înd their own departure point in the human vulnerability of the caregivers, namely from both their unavoidable imperfection and their ethical fallibility. In speaking of caregivers, we mean everyone who is moved to care, voluntarily or involuntarily, professional caregiver or ‘accidental’ carer. We would like to inject a small and mischievous antidote into responsibility and caring, so that this caring will be good care and yet remain liveable and do-able.

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Vulnerable Responsibility

Imperfection and fallibility cannot exi without humour. Humour puts things into perspective and makes it possible to live with what is imperfect, in ourselves and around us. It also gives us a smidgen of hope in dealing with our own fallibility. Caring is as a whole good-enough caring, which allows us to penetrate to the heart of every worthwhile caring. This is why we can do no less in the înal chapter than lay bare our ethical soul, namely how everything that is dealt with in the discussion of the six vices for caregivers is an expression of our own care-ethical perspective on caring.The fragility of the care-seeker elicits from us a sort of vulnerable responsibility that is the heart of worthwhile caring as a relational happening. The înal chapter is also conceived as an extra chapter, a philosophical poscript that does not add anything more to the foregoing chapters, but does reveal their inspiration and incitement, embedded in and inspired by Emmanuel Levinas’ thinking on responsibility.

So this book is about caring for care-givers, speciîcally focused on the social sciences part of being a health professional.

This book is also about us. We wrote about what we saw when we had the courage to look in the mirror, in the hope that readers will also recognise themselves in it. We hope we are reecting on an everyday reality in making our less appealing traits visible to all and sundry. People may be sceptical about our reections on care. They may even înd it laughable. But should this be the case, we take comfort in Leonard Cohen’s ‘Anthem’, in which he sings: “There is a crack in everything – that’s how the light gets in.”

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Linus Vanlaere Roger Burggraeve Laetus O.K. Lategan