We all contribute to and compete within a culture that places more emphasis on material gain and career/academic success than looking after our fellow man. For most of us, checking up on people we love is something we do in our spare time if we’re not too wrecked.
But work, business, money – that’s a separate part of life, and that’s just about winning.
The top priority from junior infants is to do well. The game was never, ‘look after others in your class/job so that we can all advance in a healthy way together.’ The person with learning difficulties is sent to a different room because they’d be ‘holding us back’. We could have learned how he learned every once in a while. Maybe some of us would have learned more that way too.
But we compete. As part of a team against another team, a nation against another nation, a religious group against another religious group, an individual against other individuals.
Argument, by its nature, creates a winner and a loser and is an attractive gamble – you might win. However, we are now intelligent enough to note that argument is an ancient method for ‘problem-solving’. Consultation can bring about a more beneficial outcome than right/wrong, as it takes all ‘arguments’ or information into account in order to pick out the best solution from all the multiple combinations of factors inevitably at play. Problem solving is complex and creative, not black and white.
Likewise, competition creates a winner – in this case Anglo, and many losers. Cooperation, like consultation but in action, respects the dignity and individual talents of each person, business, country or group.
It would be wise to consider deeply, each and every one of us, what our role and responsibilities are, on a day-to-day basis, to ensure cooperation and consultation begin to have a place in our lives.
Anglo aught to be brought to justice. There is not a single doubt in my mind about that. But if we take no notice of the deep rooted causes of this atrocity, then justice will treat the only symptom and not the disease. We can learn from this or advance none.