I loved the movie “I, Robot“. I don’t know if enough people paid enough attention to a key message there: there are rules, and then there’s fuzzy logic. There are so many ways in which we strive to protect ourselves. But we could easily tie ourselves into knots that are tough to get out of, if we’re simply too scared and there isn’t enough trust to go around. Stephen Covey, Jr., talks about the “speed of trust“, and how it costs people and societies tons to lose trust in one another. While this manifests in different ways in different societies, in the highly regularized places, it could result in a parent being arrested because they happen to carry pictures of their kids swimming in the buff. Or that immediate family will not have access to make any decisions (even potentially life-saving) about an 18+ year old “adult”, unless the person has signed a release form, and if they weren’t able to for some reason, well, too bad.
Where is that balance between the “protection from messing up” or “freedom to help” another’s life? In the absence of trust, I don’t know if there ever will be a balance achieved through regulation. It will be managing one fear or another. I wonder.
2 responses so far ↓
X --- // January 24, 2008 at 12:28 pm
This is where the so called leaders of human rights should realize that granting all demanding all freedom of thought and action is not necessarily the best thing to do. At 18, we get a lot of power, but thats pre-supposed with the fact that we are mature enough to use those powers freely and to our benefit too.
mutarjam // January 24, 2008 at 9:22 pm
Yup! There is such a thing as too much freedom. And too much regulation.