Could we live reasonably?
Independence is the greatest gift we can give another person. That is why the best parents are those who help children stand on their own feet. It is a social world in which how we get along with each other determines the happiness and comfort of life for everyone. Our ability to sustain ourselves, then our family, then our society is the root of sharing the planet. We can only do that if our body and brain are used as purposefully and energetically as possible. “True patriotism springs from a belief in the dignity of the individual,” said Eleanor Roosevelt. My way of putting it is “You will be as free as the freedom you give others”.
Lofty ideas and stirring words with which most people will agree. Translating them into the management of ten billion creative, ambitious people trying to handle a turbulent climate and a little-understood developing technology is a somewhat different matter. A car full of people depends principally on the driver for its safety. If the passengers misbehave, create hazardous activity and cause chaos by persistently changing the destination they too can bring the car to disaster. Our planet is a vehicle and we are its passengers. How must we behave?
Our lives are finite, perhaps not forever but at present. The planet, by comparison, is, if not eternal, at least a good deal more durable. How we treat it will depend entirely on what we think is our responsibility for future generations. For many those generations are largely family. As the foundation of a good society a family is important. A family is a group of people who, by virtue of their birth, are related to each other. Genetic and physical proximity determine that.
Our brilliance in creating technological assistance for our individual efforts has given us opportunities to develop who we are way beyond anything other species have achieved, or even apparently could achieve. The brain input for such achievements has been made available by repeated mental exercise-enhancing communication, understanding and questioning. Why have we not used the same brain training processes to discover our personal potential, the basis of a compatible society and how to live reasonably?
We have competed mostly to excel at the mechanics of life, to the exclusion of finding our purpose as humans and the capabilities of a cooperative society. We have used our reason but not to learn what reasonable means. Instead we have allowed ourselves to be turned into competitive juggernauts. What else are the world’s autocrats? Very dangerous indeed.
In 1954 I asked a particularly stupid marketing manager of one of our agency’s clients what was the reason for a decision he had made that I thought would be disastrous. After sizing me up and down for a minute or two he replied “Reason, hell there is no reason. It’s just company policy.” His business went rapidly downhill but was, in the end, rescued – largely by someone who produced a good reason for its existence.
Does “Just company policy” sound a bell with you? If so, I hope it will also ring the bell of a need to pay more attention to reasonable living. We are experts in everything else.
Which university or seat of learning will be the first to introduce a programme to learn personal reasonableness? Which organisation will announce the arrival of sanity?
Will you ask a few to consider it? Doing so could help ensure today’s bread for many who may starve and tomorrow’s rice for those we hope will see our species grow.
“Reason? Hell, there’s every reason. We want to be better people.”
Good morning
John Bittleston
We’d be interested to know how you think we should encourage people to be reasonable.
Please tell us at [email protected].
24 March 2025
