Are we no longer our brothers' keepers?Guyana Chronicle December 12, 1999
THERE lay a wounded woman writhing in a pool of blood. She was seriously injured by broken glass and in immediate need of emergency medical help. And there came passersby and police, ignoring pleas for help, stepping around her, laughing and moving on, unconcerned, along their merry way! This occurred in Georgetown last week. We now live in a society where such crudity of mindset, says Stabroek News, "seems to abound." How come? It used to be that pity was a natural instinct in our traditional society that made people go unhesitatingly to each other's assistance. "There, but for the grace of God, go I," served as a moral springboard. One question: "Where are the good Samaritans?" Another question: "Are we no longer our brothers' keepers?" The disappearance of good Samaritans has been cyclical over the ages and theories of explanation have been many. Likewise, there are several analyses of the "brother's keeper" idea. Two that are quite appealing come from French philosopher, Jean Jacques Rousseau, on the former, and religious thinker, Reinhold Niebuhr, on the latter. The insights of both theorists throw light on the Guyana incident. In his 1754 essay, `Discourse on the Origin of Inequality', Rousseau pondered citizens' behaviour in an effort to understand if the human was instinctively `good' and selfless, or `bad' and selfish. His points and conclusion were eloquent. From examples of harm not being halted, he found: "In riots and street brawls, the populace flock together, the prudent man sneaks off! It is the dregs of the people, the market women, that part combatants and hinder gentle folks from cutting one another's throats." In one example about murder, he found: "(a witness) mutters to himself, `You may perish for aught I care, I am safe' and that is what matters." The human was not always like that, said Rousseau. He became transformed by the rise of individualism and subsequent perversions of it. Individualism used to be an empowering concept that gave humans self-esteem from individual achievements that benefited them and their communities mutually. But even in its emergent years the concept corroded. The outlook became one of me, me, me, and to heck with everyone else! This perverted focus has been back for sometime with the rise of globalised values, and is seen in the narrow self-gratification cocoons that envelop so many citizens. The major cause in his time, said Rousseau, was the dislodging of the instinct of pity from human conscience. And the helpmate was reason. Individual man had, of necessity, to be a thinking person and found it valuable at times to reason away pity in order to justify wrongdoing and ease self-guilt. Said Rousseau, "Man had in his instinct alone everything requisite to live in a state of nature (uncivilised world); but in his cultivated reason he has barely what is necessary to live in society." And thus, thundered the thinker paradoxically, "I dare almost affirm that a state of reflection is a state against nature; and that the man who meditates is a degenerate animal!" Or, as we say in the Caribbean, "Think too long, decide wrong!" In his book, `The Responsible Self', Reinhold Niebuhr identifies three types of individual mind-sets that people follow in hopes of living good, purposive lives. The first is rugged individualism. The second is law-abiding citizenship and the third is the near whole selflessness. The rugged individualist provides a vision of self where the human is in charge of his own actions in the search for good for himself and society. In his own time, he makes unforced choices and is comfortable living with the consequences whatever they might be. Such an individual can reason himself into strange non-action or action as in the example of nonaction for the hapless injured woman. The law-abiding citizen has a vision of self that compels living life and taking actions based usually on what is the law. This vision has man being responsible and responsive to certain pragmatic rules that authorise and circumscribe his conduct. This means that human actions in trying to be responsible and responsive citizens must be conditioned by obedience to laws, and these stem in some way from God's will. In the Guyana example, this partially explains why many would-be good Samaritans dialed 911 and flagged nearby police and other people in cars for help. The third vision of self, i.e., the near wholly selfless conception of self, acknowledges aspects of validity in the previous two metaphors. However, this one focuses more deliberately on the limits of human capacity to interpret reality and make choices based on applying reason alone to circumstances. The human is seen more as a social rather than individual being. A person is able to exist and become properly and fully developed only in relation to the welfare and well being of other humans. It is an outlook that champions interlocking interdependence among individuals and, like the late Mother Theresa, holds firmly that "I am my brother's keeper." Most of us tend to lead our lives according to combinations of these three visions, depending on context and circumstance. And this is reasonable given the dynamism of the human beast. It is clear, however, that in the circumstances of that very badly hurt woman lying in the streets of Georgetown, those who abandoned pity and selflessness portrayed themselves as less than human. Shame on them!
|