Vol. 56, No. 11 — November 1975 —
Free and Responsible
People
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Everyone has the right to think
and act and believe as he will, but also the responsibility
to give an accounting sometime, somewhere, for what he chooses
to think and believe and do.
The freedom one enjoys in a democratic country like Canada
is not a matter of making absolutely free choice, but choice
conditioned by a duty to act according to the trust reposed
in one by fellow citizens. The foundation of a good nation
is the sense of mutuality its people have.
Some pursue liberty in a frantic way, as if liberation from
restrictions and laws were the greatest good in life. The
legal basis of freedom is obedience to certain social and
moral laws: a person may be free and yet under constraint,
he can be both disciplined and free. "Doing your own thing"
is not necessarily an evidence of freedom: it may be sparked
by pride, or a feeling of incapacity to measure up in the
customary environment.
The idea of freedom is not an abstraction: we have freedom
from and freedom to. The good society gives
its people the opportunity to realize ever greater human and
spiritual values. Like other moral virtues, freedom can only
be maintained by carrying out its duties.
A list of the liberties enjoyed by citizens of Canada would
fill a page of this Letter: religious liberty, political
liberty, and the civil liberties; personal freedom, freedom
of expression, and freedom of assembly and association. Every
freedom has its correlative responsibility.
Whatever a person's position in society, labourer or executive,
voter or politician, he has a duty to do his best. There are
some who feel that if they obey the law they have done all
their duty, but duty is not bounded by statutes. The sense
of duty covers all cases of right doing where there is no
law to compel you to do it.
"Duty is the sublimest word in the language," said Robert
E. Lee. "You can never do more than your duty; you should
never wish to do less." And Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote in his
Journals: "Don't tell me to get ready to die. I know
not what shall be. The only preparation I can make is by fulfilling
my present duties."
Duty is not a spectral figure, solemn and grim, stalking
us and making notes of our delinquency. It is more like a
guide, leading us to justify our existence by making the world
a little better than we found it. If we had a hundred space
platforms orbiting the earth, the human story would still
be told in terms of individuals discharging their duty responsibly.
The state of the world
An increase in the number of people who believe that nothing
else matters toward progress but mechanization is matched
by the number of people who feel helpless in face of the juggernaut
of impersonal power that surrounds them. The power of the
bomb, the all-knowingness of the computer, and the force of
violence affect everyone.
Peace and order and security depend upon the acts of responsible
people who reject the idea of mob rule, with its contempt
for human life and values. Preservation of the natural resources
which are the basis of maintaining life is attained by responsible
guardians who are aware of the limited capacity of the earth
to produce food and to absorb waste.
The principle of responsibility is not a creed taken from
some book of utopian philosophy. In some form or other it
is strong in the hearts of all except the most depraved and
graceless people; the thoughtless, the ignorant and the indolent.
Assuming responsibility beckons us out of useless dreaming
into resolute aim. It is positive, inviting us to make history
not by what we are against but by what we are for. It is everyone's
responsibility to think of what may be the consequences of
the things he does. This is the categorical imperative of
duty spelled out by Immanuel Kant: "Act as if the principle
by which you act were about to be turned into a universal
law of nature."
Duty in society
There are in this world hundreds of things which are right
but which cannot be legislated for; things that will never
be done unless someone is prepared to do them for no reward
except a feeling that he is contributing what is expected
of him to society.
If a person is to walk with his head held high he must make
his contribution in duty done, fairness, sympathy and good
taste. He may stand aloof from another person or crusade that
displeases him; but he should not therefore feel called upon
to make life uncomfortable for people who differ from him.
We are told by Anne Fremantle in The Age of Belief that
the Celts so hated the Saxons that they refused to try to
convert them, lest they succeed and the Saxons be saved.
Acceptance of social responsibility means among other things
not leaving others to do what we should share in doing. The
world is so complex that we must inevitably owe much to our
neighbours, but as far as possible every person should stand
on his own feet.
Noblesse oblige is a beautiful concept. It denotes
the moral obligation to display honourable and charitable
conduct. Human life depends upon a sense of obligation on
the part of those people who are in position to help others.
Whether one be a capitalist, a worker or a manager he has
this obligation to society.
Entry into the group called "noble" is open to citizens
of all classes. It requires only that we possess and practise
traits that are common among those who are noble. This brings
into being a new sort of aristocracy, made up of men and women
from all levels and walks of life: sympathetic, enthusiastic,
of clear vision and free thought, dedicated to greatness and
bigness of service to mankind.
Where duty leads
The significance of the family as a social unit continues
through all changes in the environment, but the obligation
of parents remains. The old pattern has disintegrated, and
a new system is growing in society. The historical functions
of the family are being pared away: economic, educational,
religious, recreational, and protective. There remains the
least institutionalized: affection.
The relationship is nearer one of friendship than of blood
affection, but the demands of duty between parents and children
cannot be evaded without loss of training for effective living.
Parents are the trustees, obliged to seek and to do the best
they can for their children, it is their obligation to see
that flushed and blundering youth is not left to stumble on
its own mistakes, with nothing to guide them but shocked looks
and sentimental talk.
Young people are not exempt from responsibility. They have
duties toward their parents and other aging people. The aged
provide a problem of national anxiety. Governments, welfare
organizations, churches, and the professions are expressing
concern.
The problem requires an organized co-operative approach
involving governments, health, education, and religious organizations,
and labour and economic agencies. It offers young people an
opportunity to show their worth as responsible citizens.
A society is described in terms of collective behaviour,
social usages, sanctions, status and sentiments. To have a
community, people must work together with common principles
and purposes. No one is rich enough, wise enough or safe enough
to do without a neighbour.
Increasing pressures
In the last quarter of this century communities have to
take into account many features that did not trouble them
in the first quarter: the proliferation of services combined
with an unprecedented industrial growth; an urban concentration
creating many new needs at the municipal level; urgent need
to control air and water pollution; to conserve oil, coal
and natural gas and find substitutes; to develop low-cost
housing, efficient urban transportation, and recreational
facilities such as parks, green belts and libraries.
All these involve responsible thought and work. Just as
in family life, life in the community requires a mixture of
dependence, sympathy, persuasion and compulsion. Those who
expect to reap the benefits of community life must undergo
the fatigue of supporting it.
It seems to some people much easier not to get involved
with others. Why, then, is it said: "It is better to give
than to receive?" Will Durant gives one answer in The Mansions
of Philosophy: "There is more pleasure in giving than
in taking, for all taking is submission, and all giving is
mastery."
Effective voluntary organizations provide an essential service
that is not available through governmental agencies. The chief
value of the work of a volunteer is not that he or she works
for nothing, but that the volunteer gives something of himself,
providing the compassionate, personal, supportive warmth that
is lacking in social security programmes.
There are three viewpoints, every one legitimate within
its area: that of the professional agency, that of the recipient,
and that of the volunteer. The recipient is undoubtedly more
efficiently served by persons who are qualified by training.
The recipient, however, needs more than competent diagnosis
and treatment whether his difficulty arises from physical,
mental or economic disorder. Government departments and agencies
do not provide what has been called "tender loving care".
And, finally, those who give voluntary service are reaping
for themselves a great value, because everyone needs the opportunity
to express his humanity.
The increase in the size of industrial units has been changing
the relationship of management and workers, and the change
brings with it a new challenge to the responsibility of the
leaders on both sides of industry. The worker is responsible
to management to do a good job honestly; the management is
responsible to act properly toward workers, the firm, and
the public.
Individual responsibility
It would be an error to suppose that only political representatives
and business executives are obligated. In a country where
all have votes, as we have in Canada, all are trustees, it
depends upon the integrity of each one, as voter and worker,
how well the powers of those in authority are used so as to
benefit all society.
A responsible person, says the dictionary, is a person you
can put confidence in. He faces up to the consequences of
his actions.
Responsible people are honourable people. Dean Swift defined
honour as judging one's own cause as though it were another's.
The responsible person is not guided by the answer to the
question "What would I like to do?" but "What is the right
thing to do?"
A person's responsibility is not compressed within an external
code of rules. The laws of the land do not cover nearly all
the obligations people have for their own conduct. For example,
the "seven deadly sins" listed by Dr. James Stalker in his
book of that name are: pride, avarice, luxury, envy, gluttony,
anger and sloth. Not one of these is mentioned in the Criminal
Code of Canada as a crime.
No individual can count himself out of the duties associated
with good living. One danger faced by democracy is what Viscount
Bryce, at one time British ambassador at Washington, called
"The fatalism of the multitude... a sense of the insignificance
of personal effort."
What is needed is not the chivalry of romantic knighthood,
but a helping hand, though discharge of responsibility may
very well be accomplished in the true spirit of knighthood:
rescuing the oppressed, redressing wrongs, abolishing evil
customs, and suppressing injustice.
Albert Einstein, called by his biographer "Maker of Universes",
declared: "I realize how much my own outer and inner life
is built upon the labors of my fellow-men, both living and
dead, and how earnestly I must exert myself in order to give
in return as much as I have received."
In need of help
Canadians have acquired a good level of living by good means:
work and prudent spending. The hard thing is to learn how
to use the good things of life properly.
We reached our feeling of adequacy - where all felt needs
are met - somewhere not far removed from the consumption levels
of a pioneering society, but the sum of pleasures in modern
life is much greater, and we are reaching for more. This recalls
the order given to Moses: "When you reap the harvest of your
land, you shall not wholly reap the corners of your field,
neither shall you gather the gleanings of your harvest." The
good things of life are to be shared with others.
Artificial standards of living are based on shifting definitions
of what constitutes a decent livelihood. Good food, good housing,
and good education are primary needs, but the radio receiver
and the television set are no longer toys for the wealthy
but pieces of functional furniture.
Examples of the failure of some citizens to keep up with
rising standards may be seen among Canada's native people.
The old economy of the Indian and Eskimo people is not valid
today. Living off the land is no longer feasible, even if
the people were content to live in a pre-industrial way.
Across Canada there are zones of natural goods - forests,
plains and mines - and zones of industry, but these divisions
do not segregate Canadians into those who have and those who
have not. Citizenship obligations transcend such divisions.
As Paul MacKendrick wrote in The Roman Mind at Work:
"Romans at their best believed that no privilege is deserved
unless its holders exercise it with due regard for the rights,
and due resolve to improve the lot, of the underprivileged."
Hunger is not all that people suffer from. The poor and
deprived are not only those who are hungry. They are also
those whose level of employability is considered relatively
worthless, whose work can be exchanged for only small amounts
of money, incapable of meeting the standard of life they see
all around them. Living in poverty means that a person has
insufficient access to the goods, services and conditions
of life which have come to be accepted as basic to a minimum
standard of living.
Dian Cohen said in her column on the business page of the
Montreal Star in March: "There are still children in
Canada today who are physically and mentally retarded because
they have not eaten properly since they were born. There are
still Canadians who will go to bed tonight fully clothed because
they are inadequately sheltered."
The Third World
Canada's responsibility does not end with its own people.
No state can be completely sovereign in the sense that it
is in no way affected by what happens beyond its boundaries,
Dr. L. P. Jacks wrote in My Neighbour the Universe:
"My neighbour is the organized totality of existence. This
it is that claims my duty, my service, my love: this it is
that I am to love as I love myself."
Many governments have accepted a commitment to help the
impoverished nations to free themselves from the bondage of
want. Young people especially seem to realize that Canada
is not made up of a citizenship separated by some mysterious
distinction from the rest of the world. They have a feeling
of oneness in human development.
Lester B. Pearson, chairman of the Commission on International
Affairs, said: "Concern with the needs of other and poorer
nations is the expression of a new and fundamental aspect
of the modern age - the awareness that we live in a village
world, that we belong to a world community."
Many nations were left behind by the technological revolution,
and large parts of the world do not yet have knowledge that
permits the attainment of a reasonable level of living. They
are trying to move from a primitive, preliterate colonial
past into an industrialized future with no time for an intermediate
present. Their wants are continually expanding as the people
come into closer contact with the West.
Some persons object to the use of "underdeveloped" as it
is applied to these nations, but the word has no critical
implication, meaning simply that modernization lies ahead.
The term "Third World" is now used to describe the group
of developing nations, especially of Asia and Africa, that
need capital, knowledge, training, agricultural productivity,
planning and exports. Aid will do the most good in those countries
which are themselves making sustained and disciplined efforts
to mobilize their own material, intellectual and moral resources
for investment in their own economic future.
It is important that in doing our duty to others we respect
their feelings. When helping the under-dog we need to remember
that from their point of view that makes us the over-dog,
and their pride suffers.
We should speak no soft words for pity's sake without accompanying
action, nor should we display sympathy for the people
to whom we are in duty bound to give help, but sympathy with
them. The distinction is seen in an entry in Pepys' Diary:
"Was fain to stay a great while because of the rain, and there
borrowed a coat of a man for 6d and so he rode all the way,
poor man, without any."
Living responsibly
What is it to live effectively responsible? It is to establish
ourselves in the central undertaking of human life, in mutually
fulfilling relationship with fellow humans. We need to remain
human. Machines were introduced to be the extension of people's
hands, but men are in danger of becoming an extension of the
machine, functional robots, doing even good deeds mechanically.
Human beings are more and more refusing to be regarded as
statistics. B. R. Sen, Director-General of the Food and Agriculture
Organization of the United Nations, said: "What the world
needs most today is not merely a wider exchange of material
benefits, essential though it is, but also a conscious dedication
to the right of man to grow to his full stature, regardless
of the place of his birth, the colour of his skin, or of the
faiths and beliefs he might cherish."
"All the high religious - Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism,
Islam, Taoism" - wrote Dr. A. P. Davies in The Meaning
of the Dead Sea Scrolls, "exalt the same principles and
point to love and brotherhood as the path to the good life,
both for individuals and for society." The responsibility
is not to feed the deserving hungry, or the industrious hungry,
or the amiable and well-intentioned hungry, but simply "feed
the hungry."
Act with sensibility
Liberty and duty are twinned with right reason, as the angel
Michael said to Adam in Paradise Lost. Shouldering
responsibility does not mean carrying all the world's problems.
The Golden Rule does not prescribe that a person shall take
no care for his own interests and his own welfare. The person
who wishes to remain free must continue to carry a very substantial
load of personal responsibility for his own well-being.
Sir John Lubbock, writer of scientific works, member of
parliament and compiler of the first list of The Hundred
Best Books, said: "We must be careful not to undermine
independence in our anxiety to relieve distress. There is
always the difficulty that whatever is done for men takes
from them a great stimulus to work, and weakens the feeling
of independence; all creatures which depend on others tend
to become mere parasites."
People need to be concerned about filling their role, about
developing the "let's do something about it" attitude. Do-Democracy
is democracy based on genuine participation through which
a person answers positively the questions: "What duty do I
owe to my country, to my neighbours, to my friends?" He will
thus make history something more than a period to be lived
through. He will be actively engaged in making history.
Acceptance of responsibility leads in business to the use
of power and authority justly and sympathetically; in society
it leads to a co-operative effort to improve the living conditions
of all people wherever they live, and in personal life to
the greatest fulfilment of an individual's capacity, large
or small as it may be.
In My Neighbour the Universe Dr. L. P. Jacks wrote:
"The meaning of right and wrong covers a man's relations to
the entire universe and not merely his relations to his brother
man in society. A human being has duties to the whole universe
in which he finds himself living.
"Of these duties the chief is to get to understand as much
of the universe as he can, and then, in the strength of that
knowledge, to do his utmost toward making it a better
universe than it would have been if he had not happened
to be born, by creating some bit of new value, though it be
only making two blades of grass grow where one grew before,
or mending the broken leg of a sparrow - in other words, by
bringing to bear all that he knows about the universe on the
guidance of his own conduct as a citizen of it."
To act in that way is to assume responsibility as a free
human being, as a Canadian, and as a part of the universe.
Published by RBC Financial Group. All editions from the RBC
Letter collection are available on our web site at www.rbc.com/responsibility/letter.
Our e-mail address is: rbcletter@rbc.com.
Publié aussi en francais.
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