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What is -
the Golden
Rule
the Ethic of
Reciprocity
Agape
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The following column is from
Jim Taylor's
SharpEdges. The Golden Rule is about relationships, and Jim puts the
issue of relationships into very practical, and pointed, terms in this
article.
Why Can't We Make the Connection?
We seem to be
suffering from an epidemic of stupidity in the otherwise idyllic Okanagan
Valley.
To me, intelligence involves more than passing tests. It implies
the ability to make connections, to link causes and effects, to take
overviews, to see broader patterns…
By that definition, stupidity means failing to, or refusing to,
make those connections.
A Girl Guide leader told me about organizing her crew to cleanup a
stream bed. After they finished, one of the girls thoughtlessly tossed her
gum wrapper on the ground.
As I write this column, B.C. has had some 1500 forest fires
already, with more than 450 still burning. But some smokers still flip
smouldering butts into tinder-dry grass.
Too many don't make the connections between actions and the bigger
picture. During the hottest day of the year, a Vernon homeowner decided to
set fire to the brush pile in his back yard. Only prompt intervention by
neighbours prevented the fire from spreading.
Lack of respect
But this is not just about fire.
Neighbours spent a day cleaning up the beach in front of their
house after a weekend party. Beer bottles smashed on the beach, lawn
chairs thrown into the lake, picnic tables trashed…
Further along the waterfront, a small band of yahoos on dirt
bikes, ATVs, and 4-wheel-drive trucks shredded a hillside with their
knobbly tires.
These idiots fail to recognize that as they do to others, they
encourage others to do to them. When they casually wreck a child's
paddleboat, they create a social climate in which $20,000 of accessories
lavished on their Honda Civic becomes equally vulnerable.
It's more than mere ignorance. It's an intentional unwillingness
to make connections.
Refusal to learn
It has to be intentional. Because far
less gifted creatures can do it.
When we brought our first dog Brick home from the SPCA, we didn't
know he wasn't housebroken. And I don't mean just going outside for his
personal emergencies. He knew nothing about living in a house, period.
He chewed holes in my leather jacket. He tore the covers off my
Bible. He scattered all over the house the contents of the compost pail,
the bucket of fireplace ashes, and a box of loose-leaf manuals for a
course I was supposed to teach the next day.
One day we came home to find that he had torn open a 12 kg bag of
flour. Then he dragged it through the house, leaving a trail of flour two
inches deep on our carpets.
But I have to say, in Brick's favour, that he rarely made the same
mistake twice. Once he realized that he was not allowed to chew up a
ruler, he never touched it again.
No, he chewed up my socks instead.
It took him about three months to learn that “No” didn't refer
merely to the fireplace matches, Joan's pantyhose, or the TV remote
control. “No” meant “None of the above.” Ever.
That's a big step for a dog. He had to develop general principles
from specific instances.
Dogs, I understand, have roughly the reasoning power of a
two-year-old child. If a two-year-old has that capability, why do so many
adults seem to lack it?
These persons treat individual experiences just as literally as
Brick did. They clean up garbage in their own yards, but don't expand that
notion to our atmosphere. Their businesses count on customer loyalty, but
don't reciprocate with loyalty to employees. The values that they proclaim
for home and family don't make it to the car lot or boardroom.
I shall refrain from saying anything about Iraq and Lebanon…
Making connections
Tragically, some elements of our social
system actively discourage people from making connections.
The Vatican clamped down on Liberation Theology in Latin America,
ostensibly because it was influenced by communism. With 20/20 hindsight, I
suspect it was more because Liberation Theology's “base communities” were
learning to make connections.
These small autonomous groups read about Moses' struggles to free
the Hebrew slaves in Egypt. About the prophet Amos' censure of merchants
who cheated customers. About Jesus' denunciations of the rich and
powerful, and Paul's inspired visions of equality…
And they made connections between their own lives and the power
and privilege of the elites who controlled their countries.
We should do the same.
Agribusiness conglomerates pay Indonesian peasant farmers to grow
pineapples for export to our supermarkets. The Indonesian farmers then
have to use that cash to buy expensive produce – fruit, vegetables, rice,
grown elsewhere – that they would otherwise have grown on their own land.
As a journalist, I sat in on a study group on mission strategy at
a United Church General Council.
Part of the group wanted to discuss boycotting products from
Central America or the Philippines as a protest against economic and
political systems that penalized peasant farmers. A second group thought
that “mission study” meant fund-raising to send missionaries overseas – or
analyzing development projects funded by Canadian foreign aid.
“But you can't pass your responsibility off onto others,” a young
woman protested. “We're part of what's going on in the world, whenever we
buy goods from repressive regimes.”
The point suddenly got through to one portly gentleman. “You
mean,” he spluttered, “that every time I buy something in the supermarket,
I've got to think about where it came from, and what that government may
be doing? That's impossible! I'd go nuts!”
Despite his protest, though, he had made the connection. He may
choose to spend his dollars to support an oppressive system, or he may
choose to shop for Fair Trade coffee at, say, Ten Thousand Villages. But
he can no longer make those purchases without thinking about where the
product came from.
Only by making intelligent connections -- between past and
present, distant and near, individual and collective -- can we hope for a
better future.
to comment, please email
comment@goldenruleradical.org
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