In the days, weeks and months leading up to the National Assembly elections of 24 March 2008, equity and justice was on everyone’s lips. It was a pre-National Assembly elections catchphrase. In the ensuing days, equity and justice passes more lips than it did previously. It is a post-elections expectation of the people. It is a hackneyed phrase now. (more…)
There is no denying that everyone loves to make love, but everyone does not necessarily love to make babies. Many a time, sensual pleasure or the irresistible desire for sensual pleasure takes precedence over the ultimate output of the art of love-making. Not everyone who makes love makes love to make babies. (more…)
Forces of self-interest may be categorized into two – converging self-interests and diverging or opposing self-interests. Sometimes the forces are like parents’ wish for their children. They are supplementary or complementary. If two and three is not six, five is assured. Other times the forces are akin to that of arch enemies’. They neutralize and cancel out each other. The resultant impact is either zero at best or negative at worst. If it is negative, the resultant is, sadly, more than the sum of its parts.
Converging self-interest is a positive, public self-interest. The oft-stated civic sense or civic duty or responsibility is the sum of the population’s positive personal self-interests. If every man, woman and child wants a clean city and rejoices in a sense of civic pride, wouldn’t trash be absent from where they are aplenty now? A clean home and environment is every individual’s self-interest. Broaden your self-interest a bit, cross over the fence and walk onto the walkway, the entire city is clean automatically.
We have a different mentality, quite the contrary. It is a public space, everybody’s. If nobody cares, it is not solely incumbent upon me to keep our public space clean. If your next-door neighbour litters, it is in your self-interest and your right to litter as well. It is better to incur blame deservedly rather than undeservedly. This has a multiplier effect. Littering is condoned. Our city is unclean. Trash strews the streets and clogs the drains. Who cares! No one single individual is culpable; everybody is, instead. But this has little or no effect on individuals.
As humans we are self-interested. We are greedy. It is our self-interest to be better or at least not worse off than the next-door neighbour. This entails in a lifestyle that is incommensurate with livelihood. Corruption is the next best alternative available and necessary to plug the gap. So it rears its ugly head. Synonymous with greed, self-interest breeds corruption. If the next-door neighbour sponges off taxpayers’ money, nothing would preclude anyone from resorting to the same means to keep pace with the next-door neighbour. Self-interest takes precedence over national interest. Nation is rendered corrupt. This is convergence of expressions of personal negative self-interests.
Should everybody carry a knife if self-defence is everybody’s self-interest? Or should everybody walk unarmed convinced that unprovoked harm is nobody’s self-interest? Is it a costly choice? The self-interest of the left leg is to stand firm to help the right to move forward and simultaneously be ready to move forward in turn. Either is always on standby for the other. That is why we move forward. Shouldn’t we learn by analogy?
