Society's social obligations waived aside

If all humanity disregarded the good of society and only considered their own gain, the global society would rapidly disintegrate and degrade back into a barbaric state. All of society, society as a whole even, has a social responsibility to one another and if everybody waived that obligation our developed society over the last several centuries would be no longer. Even now the only reason our society has even come so far is because a few people, such as Nelson Mandela and Mother Teresa, have gone above and beyond their own share of social responsibility. But it should not be this way- everybody should be fulfilling their own share of obligation to society with no one person going so extremely above and beyond. But let’s assume it actually happens- everybody decides to only act out of self-interest and not even give a thought to their social responsibility.

 First the government would be greatly affected if every individual decided his only concern was to himself. Legislators and their respective committees would cow into their ‘sponsors’ that ‘donate’ tons of money to them. Bureaucrats, whom are hard to remove from office anyhow and have no fear of reelection, would take the easiest path and implement policies lazily. So if they were to implement a Medicare program they might try to cut corners if they waived aside their personal responsibilities. Bureaucracy would no longer regulate all the companies properly and thoroughly with concern for the human population’s safety. Really the whole idea of a government being there to promote the general welfare would be gone if social responsibilities were waived aside, and just like that, thousands of years spent in refining government would be thrown away.

After the government’s denigration businesses would grow monumentally with the government off their back regulating everything they did and without a thought toward social responsibility. What stops a biopharmaceutical government from using steroids in their drugs for added strength to show stronger results and stimulate more sales if there is no government regulation and they don’t feel an obligation to the health and safety of the public? Corporations would have no check on them society as a whole decides to waive aside any obligation they feel towards one another. We have spent so many thousands of years in civilizations all over the world trying to find a way to make sure businesses do not abuse the public, but all that work would just be unraveled. Our society would be brought to its knees if people wouldn’t even be able to trust their local businesses to be honest.

Lastly and most strikingly our communities would be literally nothing. The idea of a community predates humanity…communities of individuals have been developing since the first organisms. Literally the idea of working together, intertwined with the very structure of nature, is founded on social responsibility. If as a whole our society waived aside any social responsibility, we wouldn’t feel any need to protect or help our neighbors. If an ambulance showed up at one’s house, neighbors wouldn’t care to check on him. Even further, the concept of friendship would be gone. We would feel in no way obligated to help somebody that we call a “friend”. Even further the very unit of a family, a little hub of protection and safety and love, would be diminished. What would we be but wholly separate individuals with no care but ourselves? Can we even imagine such a world? It is the social obligations that we feel that draws the difference between our current society and that sad existence.

 

One's Obligations

            It is easy to agree with individualist theories and agree with philosophers like Thoreau that we owe nothing to society, only to ourselves, because it appeals to our personal desire and makes sense on a fundamental level. Aren’t we all sole units and hence isn’t our first and only obligation to ourselves?

The problem is that society and the whole world today has only made the progress that it has in the past few millennia because there have been people that put their own self gain aside for the good of the community. If all humanity disregarded the good of society and only considered their own gain, the global society would rapidly disintegrate and degrade back into a barbaric state. We would live in an every-man-for-himself society without any government or rein on society, where ethics and morals would no longer apply. Everybody who could take advantage of other people would take advantage of other people simply because they had the power to.  

            On the other hand if everybody put the good of society first before their own, we would be no closer towards recognizing an ideal state of society. Really, the world would simply be in anarchy because even though people are thinking of the society as a whole first, their personal motivation to do anything is dashed. Who would try to work hard for society when their personal efforts won’t amount to anything significant for themselves or even for society but be shadowed by the rest of the society as a whole? Whenever people work in teams naturally individuals begin to slack off because there’s little personal gain and their contributions won’t be significant in the final output.

            As of today our society is comprised of mostly people that work towards their own personal gain and a few that feel a strong obligation towards society. This structure does not work either. Nelson Mandela (in honor of his recent death) and the South African Apartheid structure illustrates our current society impeccably. The National Party of South Africa had been enforcing apartheid, or racial segregation, primarily for their own self-gain as these white people in power are simply promoting themselves. In the end what it took for actually social progress was a man who put the greater good and society first- Nelson Mandela. Nelson Mandela suffered punishment and imprisonment on Robben Island before he could bring about the change he envisioned for the better of society in South Africa. Clearly our current society does not work either. Firstly, it is too slow and time taking when so many are not considering the good of society and secondly, it is unfair to those who finally sacrifice their own self gain for all of society’s progression.

            Obviously there is no clear cut answer towards the question “how should society behave as individual people when it comes to their obligations to themselves and the whole of society?” But I find that the best approach would be for all people of society to put their own personal gain first, as all people have a natural obligation first and foremost to themselves, but then to regard society as their second obligation. No decision should be made by an individual without regard to both his own good and the good of society. In this way no one person, such as the great and venerable Nelson Mandela, should have to carry society on their back but society is nurtured and allowed to progress forward.  

Gun Control

Should America have more gun control and place more restrictions on firearms? How could the answer possibly be no? Isn’t national security a top priority for this government, an institution constitutionally delegated to “promote the general welfare” of the civilian people of America, and hence mustn’t the government at the least place better control of these dangerous weapons of destruction in America? The number of shootings in past years has just kept increasing and unless we act now many more innocent lives will be taken or harmed by these firearms. Annually more than 30,000 people are killed by firearms annually, and yet some would even attempt to argue for looser restrictions on guns. Obviously firearms are in the wrong hands if there is such a ridiculous amount of gun violence annually. Hence it is the government’s duty to keep such weapons of destructions out of these wrong hands, and the only plausible way to do that is by increasing gun control and hence keeping the nation safe. There cannot be any question in that these guns are used for violence and result in high numbers of deaths and injuries as statistics prove that relative to other nations America has some of the worst gun violence. Seeing as 40% of gun sales in America have no background check, logic proves that gun control and restrictions, such as far more background checks, are the right way to keep firearms out of wrong hands and keep America safe.

When it comes to arguments for less gun control, the real statistics show that these ‘arguments’ do not even make sense. The most popular argument is that firearms should not be restricted because it is a guaranteed constitutional right by the Second Amendment. Those who make this argument forget that America’s founding fathers and framers of the Constitution purposely made an amending process because they knew far too well that they could not plan for all of history and that times would change. Times have certainly changed with the improvement of our police system and the increase of the destructive power of firearms. The second main argument against gun control is that it is a basic right to protect oneself with firearms. This argument does not make sense on so many levels. The first reason is that removal of all firearms is not the suggested legislation, but greater control so they stay out of the wrong hands. As long as someone who wishes to protect themselves passes background checks and is deemed psychologically healthy, they can still be authorized to own a gun. The second reason this is invalid is one can certainly protect themselves without the use of firearms, especially if the assaulter does not have a firearm, because of greater gun control. The third reason is that firearms are used far more for violence than self-defense. For every time a gun injures or kills in self-defense, it is used for attempted or completed suicide 11 times, 7 times in a criminal assault or homicide, and 4 times in an unintentional shooting death or injury. There are quite obviously far more people hurt at the hands of firearms than saved, but even with that considered greater gun control will be diminishing the number of times it is used in violence, not the number of times it is used in self-defense so much. Hence there is absolutely no logic behind the arguments against stronger gun control.

If not for me, your own family

If you don’t buy this chalkboard mug from me, I’ll be ruined and it would be on your head. If you don’t buy this mug, I will lose my job and it would be your fault. My whole life will be ruined if you don’t just buy one. Just because you wanted to go buy some silly sunglasses later and not simply give me a few dollars I would lose everything. I’ll not only become a laughingstock and lose my job, but I will never go to college and never get a job again unless you buy one right now. If you walk away right now, I will lose everything in my life just because of you. My life would become a failure and it would be all on your head. You’ll have to walk around the rest of your life knowing that you have caused this if you walk away right now. I’ll lose all the confidence I ever had and my whole future would just disappear if you won’t do this small little thing for me. As you leave and go to the mall and spend those few dollars, the key to my future, I’ll be fired from my job and be forced to watch in shame all that future that was ahead of me dissolve like a dream. But you’ll go happily along your way and never realize how you so easily destroyed everything I’ve worked so hard for. I will lose everything, but you’ll keep those few dollars, green pieces of paper that are nearly worthless to you but worth everything to me, and it would be your fault.

Fine, if you won’t do it for me and all that I have ahead of me, at least do it for your family. Have a heart and go home today to create some lifelong memories with your family. Take home this awesome chalkboard mug and go home and sit with your kids and wife by the fire and have a real family moment. Don’t you love your family? Don’t you want your kids to grow up and think of you fondly? Make it up to them with this mug; go bring them this and sit around the fire drinking hot chocolate and drawing with chalk. Let your kids actually have a childhood and a true family moment without the internet if you actually love them. Let them sit with you and play some games over a chalkboard and some chalk as you did when you were a kid. Don’t you want to go back to your own childhood and live those warm family days and play once more with chalk? Give your children a chance to have those amazing memories that you cherish now. You’ll be depriving them of their childhood if you walk away right now. Take this mug home and stop to smell the roses for a bit and show your family some love. Let them play and draw on this mug with you and one day let them think back to their childhood with smiles. If you actually love your kids, you will buy one of these.

 

Private Education--Oppression or Benefit?

Should the government ban for-profit private education such as private universities and private schools? On one hand, the government stopping all for-profit educational institutions would be a devastating move to the economy and the quality of education. On the other hand, however, education would no longer be a business but more so as a service open to all so someone’s quality of education and even life will not be decided, for good or for bad, by their parents’ wealth.

If the government actually made private for-profit education illegal the results would be devastating in both the short run and the long run. Despite good intentions, the repercussions would be crushing because a whole industry in the economy will be closed down and the quality of education would be lowered immensely. The government already is immensely in debt so it would only increase the debt more if the government were to absorb the whole education industry. Moreover, the economy as a whole would be dealt a massive blow as all the business bent over universities and private schools would have to collapse and the job market would only worsen. Economically, it simply would not be feasible. Worse, the law would backfire and lower the quality of education for all because all the best education institutes in America are private and for-profit. If they were all collapsed by the government, even if the government set up public institutions that were non for-profit in their place, the quality wouldn’t be matched properly. In the short run the economy would just crash and in the long run the quality of education will be lower than ever before.

On the other hand, though, private institutions are currently doing even more harm, the result of years and years of oppression through high costs for high quality education, than the consequences of enacting legislation against for-profit private education. In this day and age, higher education isn’t at all a privilege but an economic necessity. To find a high end job one needs high quality education. But if a kid has what it takes to get into Harvard and has the prospective outlook of becoming very successful in his career, but his parents don’t have the money to send him there, how is it fair that he gets sidelined. Of course there are plenty of scholarship opportunities for students, but it is in no way egalitarian of America to allow easier admission to students from high-income families but force students from lower income families to pay through scholarships. Unless there is equal opportunity for every single person the people of America will remain oppressed. If all men are created equal truly, then why is it a child from a wealthier family stands a far higher chance of going to a higher quality university and becoming successful in his life than a child from a lower income family. It is in no way enough than all children stand a chance through public universities and scholarships, but all people must stand an equal chance in life or else they will be very much oppressed. The key to allowing all people to stand equal opportunity is through education being equally open to all. Very fundamentally, education should never have been and can no longer possibly be a business, but must be a tool that is open to all people, regardless of absolutely anything. Moreover, this sort of legislation can be enacted with ease if the government simply buys out each major higher education institute, and keeps the quality of the institution up, but lowers the cost so its doors are open to all. There may be short term repercussions, but in the long run our society will finally be equal for every single person will stand an equal chance at education, the key to success.

The Only Path to Success--Your's

On more than one occasion each and every one of us has been presented with the very best well-worn out path but cut out our own path to success. But is it legitimately true that even listening perfectly to the very best advice would not be as successful as one’s own thinking and decision? Each and every one of us have been told and advised on what would be best for us allegedly by those who are “experienced”. By following it we never glean or learn any knowledge, the whole point and fundamental key to being successful.  This has been best put by the late G.K Chesterfield, a man famed greatly by his quote “I owe my success to having listened respectfully to the very best advice, and then going away and doing the exact opposite.”

Theoretically, in no situation will doing what we think is best ever lead us away from learning. As humans it is our nature to learn best from trial and error. So we, humans who succeed in life from learning from our mistakes, must not ever blindly follow advice on a matter. If we do what we think is best, then we can learn from our failure or find that what we thought truly was the best. Conforming to advice will only lead us away from success because we will never learn anything.

Let’s say you are trying to do your homework, but one question just has you completely stumped entirely. Your friends, the great experts on everything who always know what to do, advise and tell you to just leave it blank because your teacher normally is relaxed with this stuff. But on a whim you decide not to take their advice but to just try out whatever comes to mind and show it to your teacher. Incredibly, not only is your teacher okay with it, but even gives you extra credit for trying such a difficult problem. Your own path of trial and error has just led you to find the very best success, understanding of how to deal with your teacher. You just learned and understood how best to deal with your teacher. A great lesson earned from nonconformity and individualism, true success has just come your way through your own path of trial and error and now you have reached true success.

Say you are walking into your first ever job interview. Those who always take the conformist approach and never try anything new, the “experts” have been advising you all week on how to dress and how to look professional, but you decided not to follow them.  You take your own approach and wear sweatpants and a sweatshirt to the interview because you think it will help you connect better with the interviewer. When you arrive you find yourself surrounded by professionally dressed people, so you lose all your confidence for the interview and don’t get the job. Are you still successful? Very much indeed because you still learn a very valuable lesson, that could never be learned for you by other people. You will now know that being dressed professionally works out better and just how valuable it is, a lesson those that simply won’t be received by following advice blindly to dress professionally. True success, knowledge gleaned and learned from humanely natural trial and error, cannot be achieved by listening to even the very best advice.

 

 

The Very Best Advice

On more than one occasion each and every one of us has been presented with the very best well-worn out path but cut out our own path to success. But is it legitimately true that even listening perfectly to the very best advice would not be as successful as one’s own thinking and decision? I personally owe all my success to not conforming to the strict path of everyone else but doing what I believe in sincerely. More specifically, when we are all told explicitly what is best for us, true success can only be found if we do what we think is the best for us, for only then will we ever learn.

Theoretically, in no situation will doing what we think is best ever lead us away from learning. As humans it is our nature to learn best from trial and error. So when we are given advice on something and anything, if we conform to it, we don’t learn anything. But if we do what we think is best, then we can learn from our failure or find that what we thought truly was the best. Conforming to advice will only lead us away from success because we will never learn anything.

Let me now prove that success cannot be derived from success with specific examples and situations. At a conference earlier this year, I was placed into a team of kids and presented with a global challenge. The team and I collaborated together and collected many diverse ideas and when we were done I compiled them all together and reorganized the separate ideas into one main concept. But the whole time the clock was ticking down to our presentation, and I had yet to prepare my own speech. Our team counselor gave me very good advice on working on what I had to say and I paid very meticulously close attention to his advice, but went off and did the precise opposite. I kept working and helping everyone else’s presentation to make sure they captured the right idea and all the pieces would fit together cohesively instead of doing my own presentation. About an hour before our team’s presentation only did I compile what I would say myself and found that it was in no way enough time to become fluent in my long speech. My team won the challenge because the presentation was so cohesively pieced together and I learned to allocate myself more time in general, so in the end of the day it was not listening to the very best advice that allowed me to be successful.

The Storm

The storm came in fast from the North, constantly picking up speed. The thunder rolled across the plains and into the small town, becoming louder and louder second by second. Down came bright flashes of light that were gone just as soon as they came. These were immediately followed by great roars of thunder that shook the town. The dark sky of the storm cracked open once more over the small town and down came a bolt of lightning right upon a great oak on the edge of a main street. The lightning tore the great trunks right open with a loud crack and the rumble of splintering wood over several seconds. The tree fractured into two great halves down the middle before the side hanging over the road ripped downward through the air and into the power lines. As the impact of tree’s destruction reverberated off the buildings the lights across town shut down one by one. The town was plunged into the complete darkness of the storm.

The great storm, picking up speed now, came crashing through the town and released a torrential downpour. The heavy drops came in fast and strong, whipped into a downpour by the great winds. The rain only added to the great rumble of thunder that never let in. The storm's winds belted around the town with such tremendous force that the all the windows vibrated violently from the pressure. The bleak sky that had been blocking the sun turned into a massive cloud of darkness, alternating between lighter shades of gray and dark shades of gray. The immense storm’s sky lay connected by bright blue lines of lightning unleashing cracks of lightning and thunder ever few seconds.

The storm reached its climax as an even larger bolt of lightning streaked across the dark sky and struck town hall. The immediate seconds after the bolt were filled with pin-drop silence, before the great roar of thunder finally caught up and slammed into the buildings of the town. It boomed along the streets for a good ten seconds before turning into an echo and rolling away. By the time the crack of thunder let down, the rain had lightened up considerably. It let in from a torrent to a light rain and the wind came down considerably. Just as quick as the storm had been in arriving and unleashing tremendous force it had left. The steady boom of thunder died away, and the dark clouds of the storm passed overhead and beyond the town. The storm died away within a matter of seconds, and out came the intensely missed sun.

The Black and White Suits of No Emotion

The heavy white door swung open into the white walled conference room, void of all but a black square of a table in the direct center of a room and four equally distanced and identical black chairs. And in entered the four suits of the white conference room, and each took a black seat around the black square of a table. The only discerning detail on each suit was which white personal office desk was his outside in the main area. As for their attire each suit had the same black suit, white shirt, black tie, black pants, and that empty and unemotional facial expression that said nothing and everything all at once.

After the suits had all taken their seats, suit #1 passed out the identical folders containing the files with the large ‘Confidential’ mark on them. The other three suits opened the folder and paused to look up to wait for orders in perfect unthinking unison. Suit #1 resumed talking, “We have direct orders to terminate the contracts of these two hundred and twenty seven employees for our banking firm.” The rest of the three suits nodded in near non-human precision and agreed in unanimity. Suit #2 replied with a “Yes sir. It will be done sir.” Suits #3 and #4 replied firmly with a “yes sir. Whatever it takes sir.” Suit #1 resumed talking once more, “Profits have been down last month. Orders have been given to foreclose all the defaulted loans on that white list in front of you. You and your teams are to accomplish these tasks in one month’s time. Dismissed.” Suit #1 stood up, and with a quick ad uniform nod from suit to suit, they fled out of the white room into the black and white main area of the office. The four suits filed into the black elevator at the end, and stared ahead in pin drop silence for the twenty seconds from the tenth floor to the lobby of their banking firm.

As each suit pushed open the doors of the large block-like and indiscernible building of the firm, the black and white suits of no emotion filed out in uniform heading down the street of the colorful and human New York. By the laughing college kids, and the late and rushing businessmen of colorful ties, and by the arguing hot dog vendor with the mustard and ketchup stains, the black and white suits of no emotion passed in identical unison and uniform.  

All you’ve heard about on the news for the past few weeks have been Syria. The media has been all over the conflict in Syria and it’s all you ever get to hear about on the political agenda anymore.

But just take a step back. Forget your own personal opinion for just a second. Don’t worry, I’ll play along too; this has nothing to do with what I think is the right move or what you think is the right move. Just stop and forget your own opinion on the correct course of action. This is not about what is right or what is wrong politically. Step back and take a look at the bigger picture.

How do we get our information? How do we know what is going on around us? The media. From social networks to news channels and websites, the media is what gives us our information. Based off of this information we form ideas and suggestions come into play with our thinking. So if we form ideas from what the media tells us, we are very vulnerable to the media, right? Precisely. But you already understood that to some part; certain news channels or papers are going to be biased- they’ll try and convince you of something or another.

Now let’s apply this idea to Syria. Certain media sites or channels will probably try and convince you of a particular course of action to take in regard to the crisis. But in regard to Syria and the tensions in the Middle East, the media’s bias extends further than just what course of action to take. The media is extremely biased in its view on Syria and its people, not just on intervention in Syria. This article is about how Syria is portrayed by the media.

Take this picture and this quote for example:

This image was found on BBC news under the title, “Syria Profile”, as one of the three pictures used to give a general overview of the nation as of one week ago. The caption is “Syria’s conflict has steadily turned to a civil war.” This image however does not in any way show a legitimate conflict between the two sides. This picture looks far more like an extremely stereotypical image of a terrorist of Arabic origin. To validate my argument that there is in no way a ridiculous image like this came from a reporter, how on earth would a reporter or anyone be doing for that matter in a car with a man with an automatic weapon in the middle of the Syrian civil war taking pictures?!?! Obviously this is not a picture of the real event. Moreover, it is not an accurate representation of the real event. This kind of picture promotes the idea that the Middle East’s and Syria’s people are terrorists and the civil unrest is just terrorism. But it is these kinds of pictures of Syria that have been popping up all over social media and news media the last few weeks. What happens when people see images like this is they assume that this is what Syria and the civil conflict is like over there because it is the only source of information. Another idea on the media to keep in mind is how whenever you hear about the conflict, you do not hear the root of the conflict. Basically the media projects a terrible view of Syria and its people and this picture is a classic example of just how it promotes these kinds of ideas, but is just one of many.

Vishesh. Since I was a little kid, I’ve been told the story of my name. In Tamil, an ancient language of India that exists to this day, my name means ‘special’. But the word, ‘special’, has one more Tamil character tacked on at the end so it would be pronounced visheshem. சிறப்பு means special but my name is spelled சிறப். I also found out a little belatedly that I had been pronouncing my name wrong all these years. I pronounced it with a flat e, as in ‘pet, and broke it into two syllables as in vish-esh. It was supposed to be pronounced as vi-shesh, and the e was supposed to be pronounced like the ‘a’ in ‘maze’ and the first ‘sh’ was to be just a‘s’. Confusing, I know. But besides the breakdown of my name, I used to wonder if being ‘special’ was actually good or bad.

When I was 5, I lived in Australia, and like most 5 year old's, the world made absolutely no sense whatsoever. But I remember reading this one book from the school library vividly. I no longer remember the plot only that it had to do with monkeys, but the last line of the book stays with me to this day. It said, “There was nothing wrong with being different, odd just meant special.” I remember thinking, ‘well, if being odd is just being special, and if my name means special, doesn’t that mean I’m odd and different?’ I wondered if that meant I shouldn’t try to fit in with everyone else or was different from everybody else. Being special sounded nice, but it also sounded like I was the oddball.

Later on in life, I continued to contemplate the deeper meaning and connotations of my name when I became more competitive. Whether it was sports or grades or some kind of contest, I was just plain competitive and going in I always thought about what my name meant first. I’d always say to myself, “Special, right, let’s show that today.” Of course, life isn’t always just winning, so whenever things didn’t go my way, which is to say often, I’d scorn the meaning of my name. Maybe because my name was one character of from ‘special’ I was always supposed to fall a little short of being special. So firstly my name probably meant I was supposed to stick out, now it meant I was always going to fall short? My name was not coming out to be all that, rather I wished it was different.

Just a few weeks ago, though, my outlook on my name changed pretty dramatically. I was at an international leadership conference in Halifax, Canada, and I was placed in a team of 20 against 5 other teams to come up with a solution to the problem of sustainability in cities in 1 week. We were the under dogs from the very beginning, and I was to lead my team in getting the answer. Before four others and I went up to present, a consultant from our team told me to “live up to the meaning of my name”, which he knew because he knew Tamil as well. As if by charm and against all luck my team managed to come out on top, and that brought me a new outlook on my name. Perhaps it did not been I was to stick out or always fall a little short but that perhaps there was a lot in store for me and I had great things ahead of me.