Santorum’s notion that suffering is just part of life, or even something to be valued, is problematic when asserted by a person of obvious wealth and privilege. In other words: it is easy for Santorum to talk about suffering when he and his family are manifestly not suffering (and, likewise, have the means to deal far better with potential suffering than do most in the society). ...
However, Santorum only has a point if, in fact, the only people who die or suffer because of bad choices (goodness, how easy would policy making be if that were true? In such a universe, welfare would be nothing be altruism). However, we know that it isn’t. Many people make a plethora of good choices, and yet find themselves bankrupt over medical bills. Likewise, some people make a host of really bad choices, and yet live to 90 in relative comfort. The universe is not so simple as Santorum and his ilk make it out to be. And even if we take his notion that suffering is a part of life (or ordained by the Heavens), there is the question of the degree to which the alleviation of that suffering is, in any way, a societal responsibility (btw, the Christian ethics that he supposedly lives by would say yes, it is).
I am interested less in the YPIS question than the very obviously incorrect theological assertion that underlies the notion that suffering is good. Back when postmodern conservatism was a thing, the one part with which I was most uncomfortable concerned the relative disinterest in the suffering of others (or, the alternative, that suffering was beautiful and thus ennobling). The impulse to not give a fig about others is strong, and abetted by the notion that people receive approximately what they deserve in life.* In my experience it usually takes the form of dropping a premise from an otherwise valid argument: "the world is such that people often have to suffer" "suffering is bad" "good things can often come out of suffering," in which the middle premise is referred to in a cursory way or dropped, with the end result being the belief that suffering is somehow inherently virtuous, a test of God that you're meant to pass. But in purely theological terms, suffering is bad: better to have lived in a world without it, and one does well to remember that there will be no suffering after judgment. The Christian who can't tell the difference between a blow and a caress is in a bad way.
*Ironically, this sort of position is usually attributed to Calvinists, but it'll be a cold day in hell before you catch a present-day Calvinist asserting this. Or Calvin himself.
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