Two rules make social life possible and endurable:
1.
You
can’t always have what you want and sometimes you shouldn’t want what you want.
(I will explain in a moment).
2.
A
good rule is one which can be broken if circumstances demand it.
Whatever Lola Wants, Lola gets makes us smile not least because the
words do make us want Lola. But not all our wants have quite so much charm about
them as Lola’s. Some wants are just greedy, some are nasty (I want to see you dead). Some are
reasonably upgraded to the level of Needs
(I just need some money to get started
again) and some get further upgraded to Rights
though not always reasonably.
The language of Rights once served an excellent purpose,
notably in establishing goals for international organisations. Countries signed
up to Declarations of Human Rights and then found that other countries wanted
to hold them to account for non-compliance. Those Declarations also gave
individuals and movements access to a rhetoric in which to couch their appeals.
But the language of rights becomes useless when too many
people use it to assert what are really no more than their wants, and
more or less regardless of how others
might be affected. Social media provide
forums where a cacophony of voices can shout out claims to competing and
incompatible Rights. You end up thinking that they are immature rather than
deprived of something. The language of Rights is totally fucked.
The possibility of co-operating with others breaks down if
you don’t accept that you can’t always have what you want. In democratically
organised polities, if you lose an election you are supposed to accept that you
have lost - however upset you may be - and hand over to the winner. Not so
Donald Trump. He is not prepared to lose; declares himself the Real Winner, the
True Winner; denounces and bullies those who disagree and, in general, seeks to
undermine democratic process. It would be merely pitiful if there wasn’t about
a third of the American population still cheering him on and even reading the absurd Tweets. Even President Bolsonaro
did not put up a serious fight against losing. That so many Americans can still back Donald Trump indicates that the USA has a really serious problem
in functioning well as a society.
Part of self-discipline - unknown to Mr Trump and to millions on Twitter - is that you
recognise that something you want is not always something you should try to get because of how others would be affected. Doing things which are illegal often
falls into that category, though not always. Regardless of what the law says,
you can still judge that the adverse effect on others would outweigh any good
which might accrue to you from some particular action.
That thought is one which sharp-elbowed people have trouble
with, starting in my country with NotInMyBackYards who don’t want new housing in their
very expensive neighbourhoods, thank you very much.
More generally when we accuse people of a sense (or excessive
sense) of entitlement and privilege we are in effect, saying that
they are unable or unwilling to balance their own wants against those of other
people. They are just Me, Me, Me people. Often it works and Me, Me, Me will get
you Likes by the thousand and if you are really lucky the hundred thousand.
There is not just one Donald Trump in the world; there are hundreds and
thousands, some of them female, and many of whom become Celebrities because they have so,so many Followers awaiting today's new photograph. It's hilarious, really.
So that’s the first Rule: You can’t always have what you want
and you shouldn’t always want what you want. What about the second?
Societies and most obviously big societies are governed by
many thousands of rules most of which we don’t even know exist. A huge cadre of
people earn their living by enforcing those rules and can really only do so if
they believe that rules will fit every case. They don’t and the system
isn’t working if there is no mechanism for over-riding a rule to achieve some
greater good. A stickler for rules is not only a pain in the arse but someone
who gets in the way of achieving better outcomes in difficult situations.
In my country a good example is provided by the way the
Ministry of the Interior (the Home Office) treats people who arrive in the
country illegally. I agree entirely that it does create problems: some of those
entering illegally will do so because they are criminals of one kind or another
and intend to pursue a criminal career; others may be agents of a foreign power
intent on causing disruption (though it’s true, some of those have been
welcomed with open arms including, I guess, university students acting as
agents of their home country’s regime). Some
need medical care and housing and all the rest and there is already a very long
queue of people waiting for those things so really you should take your turn.
But the overall response is rule-obsessed, unimaginative, and
hugely expensive. It is also actively and deliberately unpleasant.
An alternative approach would acknowledge that rules have
been broken but would try to make the best of a bad job. A preliminary
assessment might simply try to establish whether an illegally-arrived person could go to work while awaiting a decision on
their future. So you’re a doctor? Yes. Can you prove that? Yes. OK. Would you
be prepared to work in some capacity in the NHS? Yes. Great, then let’s set
something up.
But they’ve Broken the Rules!
Yeah, but a good rule is one which can be broken in the right
circumstances and this looks like a right circumstance: this person has a
medical qualification; we need people with medical qualifications; they need a
job. It’s win-win.
Of course, it’s opportunistic and it doesn’t suit the
bureaucratic mind. But it might achieve more overall good than current
rule-bound approaches. And it would free up resources to attend to those who
have arrived with less to offer than the
(stereotype) medical practitioner. But even among those with less to offer there
will be fit young people who could pick fruit or build houses in NIMBY backyards. Go for it!
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