It's funny really that US style Christian sects led the way to individual freedom and responsibility are now they are at the fore front of a back lash against it.
It was I think an over reaction against what they believed was a godless socialist movement in the early part of last century. Good socialist however have always placed great stead on individual rights and obligations. Whether right or left in their political leading, the problem is as cities grow larger enforcing social norms through peer pressure become impossible. However we still see that in small towns, and that’s why I love living in 400 odd kms from a capital city. When people ask me how I am they actually want to hear the answer.

Kenny,

*WARNING* 'Bible verse coming up'

13You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature[a]; rather, serve one another in love. 14The entire law is summed up in a single command: "Love your neighbor as yourself."[b] 15If you keep on biting and devouring each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other. Gal 5:13

Mirko said:

"This disappointing trend will continue until the concept of the common good replaces the notion of individual rights as the basic moral currency."

The problem is, without a divine 'prod' to show us 'this' is the way- walk ye in it, we end up with a Dr Jayant Patell, someone who clearly felt that the only person he had to answer to was......himself.
Our natural inclination is to look after number 1.

The idea of the common good, is something we generally see in communities like the bush, where each person knows that unless they pitch in when their neighbour is down, he might not be inclined to pitch in when 'we' are down.

Cities have taken this sense of interdependance away from us. Community spirit is broken down. While we do have community organizations where we might, if we are lucky, see such a mutual helpfulness, generally when ur house burns down its left to the insurance company to fix.

I see Churches which are living as Christ would have them, maintaining the attitude of picking up the downtrodden, but interestingly, they don't do it for reasons people in the bush do, (as alluded to above) as in helping others or they won't help you, no.. they do it because (*Bible Verse warning*) 'The love of Christ constrains us' .. we are motivated not by the fear that we won't be helped, but by the love which Christ places in our hearts.

My heart sank when I read this

>>Remarkably the jury of public opinion is still out on the propriety of such conduct.<<

Surely we haven't sunk that low yet? To walk past someone who is dying, simply so that we might be "given a hero’s welcome" in our home town is one of the most appalling acts imaginable. The fact that stopping to help would in no way increase the danger to themselves, merely deprive them of subsequent bragging rights, makes it even more despicable.

And the jury is still out on this? Say it isn't so.

Mr Bagaric is right to point to the human rights movement as the tipping point of all this self-indulgence. When we place those rights over our obligation to be a part of society, and not simply bend the more gullible and well-meaning elements of society to our own ends, the result is very ugly indeed

We are "camped near the base of the moral mountain" all right. And digging furiously.

This bears further comment.....

Why do people in society 'change' in their thinking from regarding human life as FARRRR more important than individual (and most important) PERSONAL glory ?

At risk of inviting 'that old axe of yours' comments from those more familiar with my major themes, I want to outline again, what has been observed by philosophers such as Francis Schaeffer, J.W. Montgomery
that our values are ultimately shaped by the influence of Philosophy, via Art, Education and the Media.

The values described in the article, are those of the existential school, particularly exemplified in the writings of Neitzche and Sartre.

When God dies in the conscience of man, Mans inner life lives, but the life he now lives, is the one he chooses. Not answerable to anyone but his own values, and if unlucky the Law, and given a finite life span, which then...will he choose ?

Let life be 'intense'.... let me know I exist... let me FEEEL life.... its exileration, its exultation, its pleasures, its triumphs.... ah yes.. exist-entialism.

Yes dear Pericles, we are indeed digging, but perhaps not all are digging for the same gold... some look for fools gold.

For the record, if I had heard those screams, I would have tried to assist... I hope those who called the News but not the police have many sleepless nights.

An impassioned plea for community fairness and justice - but from one who also "pragmatically" advocates the legitimate use of torture?

http://www.theage.com.au/news/Opinion/A-case-for-torture/2005/05/16/1116095904947.html

Mirko, you can't have it both ways! This brand of utilitarianism creates a cultural and political atmosphere where the individual not only is dispossessed of his/her human "rights" but where the whole community loses its collective moral conscience.

Well its the way our society's gone. Even those who are claiming to be Christian in the new wave of fundamentalism...... believe their property and prosperity to be inalienable because "the lord provided it to me" rather than considering their own labor or the effects of our tax system or economy. The breakdown of our society and family relations is caused in big part by the vain drives and greed of a self-indulgent older generation and we would do well to see their natural attrition accelerated. Through a property boom, handouts to property investors, etc, our whole society has become me, me me and if someone else has missed out, well they didn't try hard enough or "God rewarded me with what I have" or whatever. When religion becomes industry cossetted by arcane tax exemptions, and charity, well who does bother giving. Who does bother doing anything. The left will be useless to question the problem, unless its Iraq, aboriginals or some other fashionable issue all else is forgotten. The middle class left will avoid economic questions as it will hurt the benefits they get from negative gearing, margin lending, using trusts etc...... When our government wants to do more for those who have more, we take from the bottom to give to the top. Many families have kids but don't want excessive responsibility or burden because of their increased materialist desires (I've worked hard I need the latest car, I want a plasma tv....so much greed and vainglorious drivel from our rich) While conservatives complain about a perceived overinflated sense of entitlement on the part of welfare recipients, what about the sense of entitlement of our middle and upper classes, and their connections to the corridors of power?

I agree that too much talk of rights centres around the role of the individual vis-a-vis the state, and as such it can be extremely limiting. It fails to take into account the very obvious fact that humans are social creatures and we live and even thrive in communities.

However, I just don’t see how an apparent rise in indifference to the plight of others is connected to the rise of a rights movement. The notion of individual rights is not necessarily opposed to the concept of the common good. Millions of people everyday around the world, sometimes in peril of their own lives, work through human rights frameworks in an attempt to secure for others the basic rights mentioned in your article: “life, physical integrity, liberty, food, shelter, property and access to good health care and education.” These people can hardly be considered as having a “me, me, me” approach to life.

While some may certainly use rights as a means to gain at an individual level, others will use those same notions and ideals to work for the common good.

I think the problem comes from a lack of understanding that rights need to be always couched in terms of responsibilities. It is a reciprocal arrangement, but it appears to have got lost somewhere along the way, and it is this, I believe, that has lead to rights frameworks being used and abused to uphold ridiculous “rights” claims and to ignore the well-being of others and the community at large.

Mirko uses recent examples from near the summit of Mount Everest and concludes with the following comment "The right not to care about others needs to be replaced by an obligation to assist others in serious trouble, when assistance would immensely help them at minimal inconvenience or little danger to ourselves".

If he is assuming that any rescue can be conducted at that location with minimal inconvenience or little danger to the rescuers then he clearly knows little about what is involved in reaching the summit of that peak.

As for the ethics of leaving an injured person there - I'd like to think that I would choose to do what I can but then I'm not the kind of goal focussed person that you need to be to get to the summit of that peak.

Anybody seeking to climb the peak should know that the death rate is extremely high. I heard some time ago that for every three people who reach the summit one person dies on the mountain, I don't know if that still holds and I don't know what proportion of people who attempt to reach the summit die.

I've also heard that anybody climbing the mountain has to pay a very large permit fee to do so - see http://www.nepalinformation.com/everest.htm and think $50,000US and up depending on the number of members in the team and the route taken.

I gather from what I have read that almost everybody at that place has almost nothing left in reserve - an attempt to do a rescue dramatically increases the safety risks to the rescuer.

Nobody is near the summit of Mount Everest by accident or out of necessity, all are there by choice and a choice that involves the acceptance of great personal risk.

As non-mountaineers we may question the sense in climbing the thing. To use the actions of those who make a difficult decision in an extrordinary situation as an example of the failings of society is another matter.

R0bert

Thank you for an interesting and timely article. I cannot imagine not thinking of others in relation to my own actions. Sure, I make a lot of mistakes, but I would never deliberately hurt another person. I would never ignore another human being in distress.

My mother once said to me: "Make your next door neighbour your best friend". I followed her advice. I have had many next door neighbours who have become close friends. I extend that same kind of caring to strangers whenever I can, when appropriate. If we don't have a "common good" in mind, what have we got - as individuals and as a society?

We could learn a lot from the "community" of Indigenous Australians.

Cheers
Kay

Miko: You use emotive incidents to argue that individuality threatens the right to life and a positive life.

The state has the power to take those positives away. The individual has the responsibilty to jump in and keep the state in check. The state must not have the right to prevent this by fear and then oppression. We must keep this state rights vis true individual rights. Don't be fooled.

More people have been carried away in the boot of a car to their death by the state than sickos. History confirms this.
Isn't my my individuality being expressed here in a moral and outwards looking way? Our governments are the ones that are losing contact with their morality. Their inwards pointign moral compass is locked in.

Miko presents no logical reason for his assertion that from individuality it follows to one must be selfish, callousnesss, and so on. You don't convincingly establish a link.

You say that it is some sort of conditioned individuality that stops people from responding to situations like Juan Zhang and Lincoln Hall. No it is more likely a combinaton of fear, commonsense, lack of knowledge, misunderstanding, or the someone-else-will-do-it mentality. Your charge that the eight witnesses did not jump in because of a lack of morality is an assertion based on no evidence. You have presented your assumptions as fact. This has distorted the indivdual characteristics of that group.

I know plenty of people who would jump right in to help someone in trouble. I did the responsible thing a little while ago and have a detaching retina for my efforts. (It is to be "welded" back on soon). Haven't I as an indivdual the right to jump in and know that the state will be support me. The irony is that because I am well off. I would have to risk it to legal action. If I had hurt them, I would have been sued with the governments help. To be sure.

More importantly, haven't our returned service personnel got the right to state serving them for their sacrifice.

Miko says that to protect the positives we enjoy, we should give up our rights to privacy and reputation.

So how does the individual feed his or her family when they can't get work. They lose all the positives. Where's the boundary?
First give over right to privacy, then follows work, freedom of speech, liberty, and follows with hench men dragging individuals away.

The loss of individuality will see groups forming as way of expressing their individuality in safety. Soon some one will say that some group demanding their rights is affecting their positves. The catchcry: "Get rid of 'em, it's all good though because it is a positve for the community."

No in reality it will be a positive for the government/corporations of the day or another group or groups.
continued:
The right to individual opinion, responsible or not,will be the first right you to give over for the "greater good".

In a democracy the state must serve and protect the individual. Miko's thinking has the potential to distort this so that the individual no longer is paramount. The individual will blend into the state's ideal citizen and any one who shows individuality will be ostracised by the conditoned community and suppressed by the controlling state.

The individual's right to their individuality must be reverend.

Ah, the quandry of a utilitarian ethical theory.
Trying to get people to believe they have an obligation to act in a certain way without any real justification for that obligation.

http://alangrey.blogspot.com/2006/05/tangled-mess-of-utilitarianism.html

Rancitis. We live in a Democracy but the system is not set up to protect the individual. It’s all a farce.

My family has been trying to get serious allegations investigated of systemic victimization, misconduct, neglect, bullying and corruption aimed at my children for over 6 years.

http://jolandachallita.typepad.com/education/.

As individuals we have no rights or protection! No Politician apparently has the power to investigate individual complaints. No complaint handling system has the resources, funding, jurisdiction or responsibility to deal with individual complaints.

The complaint handling systems are set up to protect the system and the reputation of those in it that are abusing their power and the worse thing is that so many people know what is being done both within the system and outside the system and everybody turns a blind eye.

Until we fix up the problem of turning a blind eye within the system it will not flow outside the system and into society.

I think that the problem is ‘the culture’ and the processes set up by the system to cover up their misconduct and mismanagement. The system has been set up so that they treat people and regard people as a group and as such the system justifies not affording us our rights as individuals. Unless of course, we become criminals!

If you go climb a mountain, sail around the world, abseil down a gorge and find you need rescuing you should pay for the rescue or have insurance cover to fund it. It seems rather selfish to expect someone to wear the risk and expense to get you out especially when you are motivated by the prospect of fame and fortune. It seems even more selfish to step over the failed and fallen in the pursuit of your own mission.

Jolanda: Yes I have read through your post. What a trauma. It is truly a case of an individual trying to access a network that has its tentacles into other networks.

I read your daughter’s tooth story. Nice story maybe even another level of meaning there.

Also an early primary schooler who is at secondary–school level is something worth investing in and encouraging.

I recall my own daughter. Teachers wanted to hold her back in pre-school. A January baby turning five in first year. We knew that she’d be fine as she was very advanced. Always reading, hanging with the older girls. We disagreed with teachers who wanted to hold her back. The orthodoxy of the day was to hold them back to so they would fit in better with people of their level.

I was held back because I have two minor disabilities. The thinking was I would be better able to cope. My disabilities have nothing to do with my intellect, but most people equate it to “slowness”. So school totally bored me. Bored, bored, bored and ended up a trouble maker. I hated,with a vengeance, school and books. I hung with the “misfits”. My best mate for a while was an Indigenous fellow.

So with that in mind I wasn’t going to have my eldest held back. So the Education Department sent someone out to assess my daughter . They agreed that she hadn’t developed enough for school. I said, ‘”Give an example.” They said. “For instance, we asked her what do you do with your ears? She answered: “Open them”. “She is still confusing her eyes with her ears,” they protested. My wife and I looked at each other and laughed. I brought my four year-old in and my wife asked her, "What do you do with your eyes?"

"Open them".

"What do you do with your ears?"

"Open them."

"Why do you open your ears?"

"Because Daddy is always telling me to."

My daughter went on to become the youngest PHD in Australia.

One thing to say to Jolanda's protagonists. “Open your ears!”

Jolanda: I would not compare my daughter’s situation to your nightmare, but can relate because of recent events and other experiences. I mention it because the education mob supported us. They gave some credence to the parent’s knowledge and admitted their own inadequacies and ignorance.

The inadequacies in your case are being covered to, I think, protect the system and for political reasons.

In Jolanda’s case internal govt. emails offered the ultimate insult. “The other issue to bear in mind is that some members of staff have reportedly felt concerns about risk of harm to XXXXX’s children arising from her behaviour and their involvement in the complaints.” That is a personal attack and, I think, a malicious attempt to discredit you and shift blame.

Also I can relate to the keeping up of appearances.

“Re Further response to Ms. ………. ‘Looks fine. We, I believe, have demonstrated a genuine attempt to cooperate with the demands of Ms. …...’” Note the word: “demonstrated”. So long as one has “demonstrated a genuine attempt” rather than actually doing your job and finding a solution is a bit like hoping in a race car and going brrrrm, brrrm to demonstrate your driving abilty.

Jolanda says: “They could only investigate a small percentage of the thousands of complaints that they received and that they had many complainants like my families but that they did not have the resources to investigate them.”

Rancitas says: “’Many complaints,’” sounds like there is something wrong there. How many others are there getting a raw deal for “the greater good.”.

In the case of the eight witnesses, if one of them had had the individuality to not rely on someone else or the police or whatever, the rest may have jumped in.
In Yolanda case, if the network did not ressist her right to dissent or the individual right of people in the network to assist, then this could have been nipped in the butt right at the very start.

Public interest can only be served by putting the family first before its interests. True happiness to you and yours.

Thank you Rancitis. It really helps to know that others see the injustices and the failures that my children and family are having to deal with. I really appreciate your support.

The scary thing is that this is the process that the system uses to deal with any complaint that could negatively impact on the reputation of the Government and especially if it is due to failures of the Government and/or their policies. This is why the abuse of Aboriginal children has never been addressed and this is why there is so much abuse and neglect of children. Nobody is required to care enough to do the right thing, their first priority is to protect the reputation of the Government.

I have told the Department of Education that until my family is afforded procedural fairness and the matter properly and fairly dealt with and my children are protected I will continue to fight for our human right to be heard and to be treated fairly and I will do whatever I have to do. These are children that they are systemically neglecting and targeting. It is just so wrong and the fact that so many people in positions of power know about it and do nothing shows a "serious systemic failure" in the protection of children and that means that the system is failing in its duty of care.

It's just so wrong and unfair.

I am glad things worked out for your daughter.

Jolanda. Jus' to clear something up. I have three daughters. One died during pregnancy, the next one is the one I referred to in my post and the youngest is the one fighting mental illness. Best wishes.