ethics – Mallaband-Brown

What would you change about modern society?

Something needs to change. As the world gets more complicated, resources diminishing, people may be becoming more selfish?

But is that because we see so much more of the bad things going on in the world? It is only since film and TV and then the Internet that we have been able to see wars and conflicts in real time. We are not always sheltered by time or censorship of terrible events. Computers give us access to horrendous content that could change the way we think. But statistics show that in some countries crime has decreased considerably over the years.

As countries seem to be heading towards populist, right wing agendas, perhaps we should look at the ethics of news, bring in compassion and empathy. We could go back to religious rules, like turning the other cheek, enacting laws so that the weapons of war are not easily available, or working against theft and violence. But it doesn’t have to be a religious interpretation. Not all of those rules make sense. Why not work with humanitarian or humanist ethics? Listen to world courts and follow their precepts.

If compassion and empathy were taught in school we might not change the current situation but we could change our futures or our children’s futures.

There’s so much politics going on in the world. But what’s worrying in a lot of these elections is the idea that if a party lose they won’t accept the result. Clearly there are some states and countries where elections have been rigged. This is usually in dictatorial states where the regimes never change and the results come out with votes for the incumbent party getting more than 90% of the vote. Places like Russia, China or North Korea spring to mind.

What is more important than some form of fair elections? Free and fair must be the goal.

But recently accusations of stolen elections have occurred in countries where ballots have been normal and peaceful. If the incumbent official lost they generally accepted the result, but not any more. Like spoilt children they cry out ‘its not fair’ , or ‘he cheated’ its almost like leaders have temper tantrums. Weird conspiracy theories are thrown about and as humans are great at storytelling there is a tendency for some of these accusations to stick even where it has been proved that no corruption occurred. There are even attempts to change the rules to disenfranchise some voters.

So where now? People need to be grown up about it. Stop pretending that vote have been miss cast. Allow the real majority to take the chance to rule, and let’s have some sanity. Lying to the public and causing violence and disruption and distress is clearly wrong.

Mallaband-Brown

Tag: ethics

I would make compassion and empathy classes mandatory in schools.

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