re YOU your brothers keeper? - communities across the globe, of different cultural, religious, economic heritage/tradition have grappled in one way or the other about the question of whether we can/should take responsibility for the actions of others (relatives, friends, neighbours). This is a question which remains somewhat mysterious and most definitely paradoxical! Take for example the contrast which follows: in most modern "western!" societies, the only person who can legally be responsible for their actions (providing that they are an adult in law), is the person him or herself - so if a 31 year old male were to steal something from a grocery store and get caught, it is he (and he alone) who will answer to the courts for his actions. At the same time, if he were to steal 6 or 7 times, certainly people who know him and his family begin to raise questions (usually to each other and in speculation - as to whether his behaviour is somehow the result of the kind of upbringing he had....often pointing to some potential, hypothetical and often unsubstantiated inadequacy on the part of his parents, (or even more so if he had an absent parent - indeed even more so if he has a sister who has also been caught stealing in the past!)
NOW, let's take the a quick look at the opposite type of scenario - using for example internationally known athletics champion USAIN BOLT, or champion swimmer and multi-gold Olympic medallist MICHAEL PHELPS, or for that matter long-time tennis champ ROGER FEDERER - people who are somehow directly (or almost directly) associated with such persons - parents, siblings, neighbours and others who may have impacted the lives of these persons before they attained remarkable success will no doubt initially be given the benefit of the doubt by many others (i.e. those persons must have been a positive influence on the life of the famous person in question)......only through the passage of time are the realities of each situation brought out into the open- and even then we cannot be sure.
Certainly entire home communities and even entire countries go so far as to suggest (and this is often further hyped by certain media) - that they have a right to claim that that person's success is somehow a natural product of his community/culture/country etc..
.....BUT IN ALL THIS - IS THERE NOT SOME BALANCE TO BE STRUCK? ARE THERE NOT MANY OPPORTUNITIES FOR ADULT MEMBERS OF ANY AND EVERY SOCIETY TO LEND A HELPFUL HAND INSTEAD OF TURN A BLIND EYE AND IS IT NOT POSSIBLE TO DO THIS WITHOUT BEING BLAMED WHEN THINGS GO WRONG (OR BEING PRAISED WHEN THINGS GO RIGHT)? GIVEN THAT THERE ARE 7 BILLION PLUS HUMANS SHARING THIS LITTLE PLANET - ARE THESE TYPES OF POSITIVE ACTIONS NOT A PART OF OUR NATURAL ROLE IN LIFE? - Tell us what you think: (& please don't forget to cast your vote in our opinion Poll.)
NOW, let's take the a quick look at the opposite type of scenario - using for example internationally known athletics champion USAIN BOLT, or champion swimmer and multi-gold Olympic medallist MICHAEL PHELPS, or for that matter long-time tennis champ ROGER FEDERER - people who are somehow directly (or almost directly) associated with such persons - parents, siblings, neighbours and others who may have impacted the lives of these persons before they attained remarkable success will no doubt initially be given the benefit of the doubt by many others (i.e. those persons must have been a positive influence on the life of the famous person in question)......only through the passage of time are the realities of each situation brought out into the open- and even then we cannot be sure.
Certainly entire home communities and even entire countries go so far as to suggest (and this is often further hyped by certain media) - that they have a right to claim that that person's success is somehow a natural product of his community/culture/country etc..
.....BUT IN ALL THIS - IS THERE NOT SOME BALANCE TO BE STRUCK? ARE THERE NOT MANY OPPORTUNITIES FOR ADULT MEMBERS OF ANY AND EVERY SOCIETY TO LEND A HELPFUL HAND INSTEAD OF TURN A BLIND EYE AND IS IT NOT POSSIBLE TO DO THIS WITHOUT BEING BLAMED WHEN THINGS GO WRONG (OR BEING PRAISED WHEN THINGS GO RIGHT)? GIVEN THAT THERE ARE 7 BILLION PLUS HUMANS SHARING THIS LITTLE PLANET - ARE THESE TYPES OF POSITIVE ACTIONS NOT A PART OF OUR NATURAL ROLE IN LIFE? - Tell us what you think: (& please don't forget to cast your vote in our opinion Poll.)
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