ENCOURAGING GOOD SAMARITAN

These are the times of Social Darwinism or survival of the fittest. But there is a problem. The basic idea of Social Darwinism has been all misconstrued. So the advocates of this idea have reinterpreted it as competitive Social Darwinism. It is not just the survival of the fittest but survival of the fittest at the cost of the unfit. In simple terms the entire business of life has become a zero sum game, that is, you can only win when you make others lose. In business management parlance it becomes competitive advantage. That is the rule of the market forces — the principle of globalisation.  In more than two and a half decades of globalisation advocates have trumpeted only this principle. However, there is a basic fallacy in this advocacy of the market forces that the champions of globalisation have been clamouring for. They all shout at the top of their voice that the world is a global village. There lies the fallacy — it is a global village, yes, and not a jungle. Naturally advocating law of jungle in a village may not be done. Jungle is inhabited by animals whereas villages are inhabited by human beings. The rule of competitive Darwinism may thus not be the right law for the villages. The rule of the village should be peaceful co-existence — live and let live. What an irony that in the jungle there is less of chaotic individualism among the animals than in the human beings who are supposed to be superior due to their quality of compassion among other things. And social Darwinism as interpreted and advocated has become more like anti-social Darwinism. It is against this back drop that the biblical story of the Good Samaritan, one of the powerful parables told by Jesus Christ, is worth a recap. It is a didactic story told by Jesus in Luke 10:37. There was a traveller who was stripped of clothing, beaten and left half dead alongside the road by the robbers. A priest and a Levite who cross by, avoid the man in distress. Then a Samaritan happens to pass by. Though Samaritans and Jews despised each other, yet this person, the Samaritan helps the Jew. This parable was told by Christ to a lawyer who wanted to know what neighbour stands for in the commandment “love thy neighbour as thyself”. It is essentially love and compassion for all. It is from this basic idea that Good Samaritan laws are being derived. These laws generally provide basic legal protection for those who help a person who is in distress, say a victim of an accident. The laws protect the Good Samaritan from the liability of unintended consequences resulting from extending such help. The recent Supreme Court pronouncement protecting the good Samaritans on helping road accident victims is a welcome initiative that would go a long way in creating a good society. The National legal service Authority has been doing a yeoman service by encouraging such initiatives in legal aid and the role of Para Legal Volunteers (PLV) is certainly laudable. Such initiatives are needed in other domains also. Market forces on their own cannot ensure creating a prosperous and good society. It is only through the human system intervention that society will become a better place to live. The Good Samaritan laws are close to the theory Y idea of management principle that suggests that human beings are basically good.