The aftermath of reading the article written by a friend on ethics started a thought process in my mind. It had triggered the thread which resulted in this post. You can read the article here: What are we becoming?
My friend says that Ethics is what we are when nobody is seeing us. Yes, I agree it definitely is. When I sat and thought how do we imbibe the thought of being ethical when nobody is watching you? Like for the example it’s very difficult to make a person (including me) understand and follow a traffic signal when there is no policeman. The human tendency to do what’s not to be done also plays a role in it. For a few people its like a drug to break the rules and create havoc, it gives them a high.
For the people who believe in god and the Hindu mythology which talks about Karma and rebirth, I am not sure what ethics they follow in the society. This doesn’t mean that they do not have ethics, but its just that Are they following the ethics designed as per mythology or the ones designed by the Criminal rule makers, ministers who themselves break them at ease and go un-noticed. People usually watch and learn and then follow it. Only after they get a certain level of maturity that is when they grow wiser, they look back at themselves, what they have done and then analyze what’s right and wrong. Off late we have heard lot of incidents on rape at places like Noida. The common man doesn’t get to know what happens to the culprits. In some cases we might have seen ministers or wealthy producers of votes to the political parties go free when they are found at fault.
There’s a saying ‘Yatha raja, thatha praja’ which means As the Ruler so the Ruled. When there are lots of misdeeds happening by the rulers themselves, even the ruled try to think of crooked ways of leading a life. It can be taking bribe, using foul language on a street, spitting the chewy pan liquid on the roads, urinating public places, harassment of men from women and vice versa. The list can go on and on. What I really want to say is, when we talk about ethics, you need to go by the moment. It’s the moment which can tell you whether you are ethical or not. If you are carrying an injured person in your car to hospital and you break the signal, it definitely is ethical according to me. Also to add on to this, we need to be ethical to ourselves and our beliefs, the values within us and not to the traffic policeman. One day when you ask yourself how you lived your life? You should be able to answers keeping your head up. Let’s not go by the old saying I have mentioned here, as it will not lead us anywhere considering the rulers we have chosen. The society plays a major role in creating criminals and converting ethical to unethical. By the time a medical student completes his PG, the system would have eliminated all thoughts of the word ‘service’ in their minds. The system drains out every single pie and also the every single second of their life to get into a PG course. It’s harsh to expect them to provide service after that. The same happens when they attain the Post graduate status and join a private hospital. Amidst this world of competition, every person is under the constant pressure of being unethical and working against his beliefs. Its Time we think at the moment, what’s ethical and not ethical rather than making a set of rules to follow every time.