Social Responsibility Gene
Julia Roberts declares that she would be pleased to smell like a French Fry if thats the price she has to pay to drive an eco-friendly vegetable oil run vehicle. And Richard Gere is kissing beautiful women to create awareness about HIV and AIDS. Watching a recent and highly popular talk show, i realised that all of filmdom and stardom are passionately involved in social causes. Of which, some are actually doing some serious good. Social Responsibility, therefore, is really Celebrity Responsibility. After all, they are the ones with all the brains and power and knowledge and higher understanding of things....or are they?
My aunt is not a celebrity. She fearlessly knocks on doors of people in her neighbourhood who waste water either by letting their pumps run relentlessly or leaving taps on etc., and speaks to them for an hour (or less, if the door is slammed on her, which it often is) about how people across the world dont get fresh water and how fossil fuel is used to generate the electricity that runs that pump and how it also treats the water etc. Her success rate is low enough for any intelligent person to realise the futility of her effort. She is intelligent. But she also knows that of the 100 people that she spoke to, 1 of them showed some signs of understanding....and that one more pump gets switched off regularly on time.
Her fight may be water and someone else's maybe dams being built on water bodies. Both may have vastly different backgroungs and socio economic conditions. Or not. If we were to analyse the culture/education level/ economic status etc to be able to arrive at what is the common to all those who are being socially responsible, we may find nothing. Except an ability to think, see the obvious, and feel empowered enough to know that they can do it.
My aunt is not a celebrity. She fearlessly knocks on doors of people in her neighbourhood who waste water either by letting their pumps run relentlessly or leaving taps on etc., and speaks to them for an hour (or less, if the door is slammed on her, which it often is) about how people across the world dont get fresh water and how fossil fuel is used to generate the electricity that runs that pump and how it also treats the water etc. Her success rate is low enough for any intelligent person to realise the futility of her effort. She is intelligent. But she also knows that of the 100 people that she spoke to, 1 of them showed some signs of understanding....and that one more pump gets switched off regularly on time.
Her fight may be water and someone else's maybe dams being built on water bodies. Both may have vastly different backgroungs and socio economic conditions. Or not. If we were to analyse the culture/education level/ economic status etc to be able to arrive at what is the common to all those who are being socially responsible, we may find nothing. Except an ability to think, see the obvious, and feel empowered enough to know that they can do it.
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