"It's better to give than to receive," appropriate more so in this season of giving, is a tenet most of us would have grown up with from our days in school, and to which we often dutifully adhered to in our state of innocence, as an act of giving for its own sake without the hope of reward.
As an adult, however, I wish to go further and draw on its ethical implications involving the act of "giving" and that of "receiving," the one being "better" than the other as an act of recognising genuine need in others and responding to that need without the hope of "receiving" in return as a form of reward.
Giving has almost become the mantra of the Kamla Persad-Bissessar-led administration, $55 million to the Christian churches being the latest in a policy of unfettered "giving" involving free houses for the "needy," rewards for sportsmen and women, national toy�giving and the like, and this, depending on where you stand, is a good thing once you have the resources to be so generous.
But some questions arise here! As far as this act of "giving" goes, being as pervasive as it is across the board, can it not create a dependency syndrome, taking away from the initiative and creativity of a people which are the engines to true progress in a society? What if, as seems the case with rapidly falling prices of oil, this resource base suddenly begins to diminish, where will the people turn when their will to work has dried up because of this cultivated sense of expectation of freeness?
If one uses the argument that this to "serve the people, serve the people," which is this administration's clarion, is this not a tragic travesty of the act of service, where this unrestrained giving destroys the work ethic of a people?
One of the greatest ironies of this "act of giving" freely is that it has virtually destroyed the natural propensity for hard work of a group traditionally in support of this administration as evidenced by the almost total absence of rural labour in communities. But one can't really begrudge any government for "free giving" for receiving votes for it's in the nature of the politics in this country, and no one can expect a government to be "selfless."
But does this act of giving to receive have to be so overt and obvious, merely the will of those trusted with the responsibility of using the people's money wisely and in their interest, but seemingly with no accountability about whether they approve or not?
And further, should this act of "free giving" continue to fuel the perception that it favours a select few for the "kickbacks" it can generate? Finally, should effective governance be based on winning the approbation of the people by appealing to their baser instincts through "freeness" in one form or the other, or should it be focused on making a people grow through strategies which develop their creative energies?
Taken together, what is this but a supreme bizarre violation of the act of giving as selfless generosity serving true need without the hope of reward? But maybe at this time of giving we can make reparation for this travesty in a simple act of giving to a child or a family that is really in need, the reward being in watching their eyes light up, all this of course, without the camera and the flash.
Dr Errol Benjamin
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