Asia (Page 2,439)

For too long, we have acted on the narrowest of our self-interests and focused on our disagreements, allowing differences and personal rivalries to become so toxic as to put out of mind and heart our interdependence, along with the vulnerabilities and dreams which so deeply make us human. Thus forgetful, we have forsaken our due responsibilities.

The results of this irresponsibility are right before our eyes and so openly expressed in the uncertainty and anger that are poisoning our politics and cultures and unjustly distorting our economies.

The evidence we cannot escape

Why has irresponsibility become so common? What has turned so many of us away from being good, considerate people and responsible leaders?

On all levels – international, national, regional, local, familial, individual – there is an almost irreversible lack of trust in institutions and in others.  Individual autonomy has been idolized, allowing atomistic and antagonistic self-absorption to run amok. 

The wondrous power of working together, which we call social capital, is collapsing all around us. Realizing our fullest capacities, which we call human capital, is under siege from technology and economies that all to readily use us for the benefit of others.

Today, our global community is neither prospering nor hopeful. For the first time in seventy years, there is trench warfare in Europe. In virtually all democracies, parties have become more extreme, adversarial and even dictatorial. 

Russia and China have formed an entente, insisting on a civilizational model that operates without the constraints of universal human rights. Military buildups continue around the world and even the use of nuclear weapons is casually threatened.

Minorities in France, Palestinians in Israel and African Americans in the US riot and protest a lack of inclusion in their national commonwealths. Hindus in India distance themselves from non-Hindus. Economic development disappoints in Latin America and Africa, leading to military coups and sectarian violence. 

Social media grow increasingly antisocial, fostering self-absorption, dehumanization of others and loneliness. Forest fires rage and floods devastate lives, with more such natural calamities to come. The rich get richer.

Remembering the way forward

Thousands of years of human and social development have illumined the folly of such carelessness toward others. Responsibility is a common teaching of all wisdom traditions. 

The Hebrew scriptures teach stewardship of God’s creation as our dignifying human vocation. Shinto proposes the presence of the divine in all aspects of creation from human commitments to all else that nature provides. Buddhism advocates the Middle Way of avoiding excess and seeking equilibrium with others and with nature. 

With the Beatitudes, Jesus summons the humility, mercy and hunger for justice that are at the heart of living equitably with one another. Jesus also gave us the parable of the Good Samaritan as a role model of taking responsibility. 

The Koran asks that we keep the balance (mizan).

Non-religious thinkers deduced similar principles of equilibrium for social harmony. In China, the Doctrine of the Mean proposes that to live well and happily, we thoughtfully balance our options and our emotions to avoid putting ourselves in a corner from which there is no escape. Aristotle similarly proposed living intentionally in harmony with the ups and downs of life. So did Cicero, who advised living with honor and foresight in making decisions.

What we can do together and what we must do together

How should our global community address these destabilizing conditions and the anxiety they have generated? With ethics.

Ethical wisdom restrains power and promotes prosperity.

This is not a time for blaming, for pointing fingers at others, for assuming that any one of us is exempt from changing or for making a contribution to our human destiny. As rational persons with sensibilities for empathy and compassion, each of us have inalienable responsibilities, as well as rights.

Expressing responsibility – the ability to respond to the moral demands of a moment or situation – engages our moral sense, as well as our creativity. Throughout history, only ethical imagination penetrates societal despair and inspires hope and only ethical engagement engenders reciprocities of responsibility.

Obviously, those who govern, who manage businesses and who lead social and cultural institutions must work hard, with courage and imagination, to regain the public’s trust.  But that will not be enough. Given the scale of our global problems, each of us now share similar duties to speak up for responsibility, to be responsible and so to make a difference for good.

The rich get richer, while the world confronts a hunger crisis. Wealth and income inequalities have widened markedly, creating disequilibria for societies and instability in their politics. With gross imbalance in the distribution of wealth, for some to save and others to share would responsibly promote the middle over the extremes. Gratitude for opportunity and humility in success should ethically guide our economic elites.

Although there are innumerable theories of ethics, with each religion or culture emphasizing particular features, the core of ethics is a recognition of our personal responsibility – making a commitment to others, making a whole out of individual parts, finding our place in relationship with others and by doing so, taking pride in who we are and in what difference we can make to the shared common good every day with what we say and what we do.

Responsibility comes from within us, from the quiet voice within that can speak to us at any time and in any circumstance. Responsibility works by linking us to others so that we are not alone. Irresponsibility, on the other hand, brings forth narcissism and loneliness. Narcissus died alone looking at his image reflected in the water. Relationships and responsibility bring us closer to authentic and confident happiness.

Our responsibilities more than our rights show the world who we are and what we are made of. But if we don’t know who we are, if we are at a loss for meaning and purpose, then how can we be responsible? Narcissus fixated on his image, on his superficiality, and therefore took no responsibility either for himself or for others.

Responsibility does not impinge on our rights. Rather our rights empower and require us to be responsible. Rights balanced by responsibility and responsibility balanced by rights bring us to equilibrium and a good footing in life. Such equilibrium is justice for us and for others.

Aggressive assertion of rights can easily open the door to resentments, personal and communal, to disputes small and large, and even to war. Therefore, our fundamental responsibilities must include seeking peace among persons and between nations.

In a perfect world, rights and responsibilities would be equally advocated. But in the push-and-pull of history, whenever fears and arrogance debase our natures, there are times when basic rights can be preserved or advanced only through the exercise of great responsibility.

As we ponder our rights, as we look to our freedoms, let us rigorously assume our proper responsibilities to generate the ethical balance we need so that all of us may prosper now, and in generations to come. 

Thus to bring justice to our global community, we must start with stepping up to shouldering our responsibilities.

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