Editors Note

Do you  really  care? 

As a way of giving feedback, one of our avid readers asked me to always include something about Vision 2016. In response, I have decided to touch on one  of the pillars of our national vision – a compassionate, just and caring nation. That Vision 2016 behoves us to be a just and caring nation, is not accidental.

This is because as human beings we enjoy an innate evaluating mind. Thus, one contemporary scholars, Donald Munro, argues that “the precise function of the evaluating mind…is to guide man’s innate social tendencies when they take concrete form. That is, the mind discriminates the specific requirements of a given situation and directs the social actions accordingly,…

it controls man’s other drives so that the social tendencies may be properly expressed in action.” Therefore and barring our animal constants (eating, drinking, sex, sleeping etc), as human beings we possess a very strong evaluating mind that enables us to discern right from wrong, nobility from baseness, propriety from impropriety in objects, acts, positions and events. Such advocates a strong bias towards what in Confucian theory is known as a “government by men, not by laws”.

The normative injunction here, which the vision pillar of a just and caring nation also captures succinctly, is for us, as a collective and individually, to conduct ourselves in a manner that will cultivate in us a sense of goodwill and moral judgement that will help us to become an affectionate, helpful and sympathetic nation. The emphasis here is love, which we all have as a natural instinct. Consequently, with love we do not need laws to act affectionately besides being helpful and sympathetic. However, I wonder whether a majority of us understand what caring really means or entails. I keep wondering because it seems many of us only understand caring as in being helpful and sympathetic to the less privileged. But ask yourself these questions: Do my actions on the road portray me as caring?

Am I doing justice to our children when, as driver, I play loud music in a combi full school kids on their way to class? Do I care that they need a peace of mind before class starts and would they be able concentrate after subjection to explicit lyrics? When I do not pay my utility bills or settle them on time, do I really care that doing so is disruptive and counterproductive to both the organisations that provide us with services and our ability as a nation to reach certain goals? As a medical practitioner, do I really care that I did not explain to my patient the side effects of the medication I administered? Do I really care that I always come late to work?

Do I really care that I spent the day less productive at work? Do I really care that I did not take action to fix that broken door, bulb or a leaking tap I always see every time I am at work? In pondering these questions, ask yourself as well, how or what effect do your actions have on the other person. The year 2016 is just four years away and my firm conviction is that coming up with a vision, our intention or aim was not to say 2016 is the starting line. We should be way ahead with the goals we set ourselves.

SO TAKE ACTION NOW!