Breakdown Of Social Order May Be Bi-product Of Pretense And Intellectual Indolence…

We see it dai­ly in the streets, in the alter­ca­tions between police offi­cers try­ing to do their jobs and defi­ant scofflaws who chal­lenge their author­i­ty.
In the ways that motorists ignore the rules of the road and do as they please.
It has been going on for years in the nation’s class­rooms as well, stu­dents defy and fight teach­ers because they know their par­ents will come to school prop­er­ty and assault teach­ers.
We see it in the way motorists oper­ate on the road­ways. In the way, peo­ple speak loud­ly on their cell­phones in places where they should­n’t, as if we all want to hear their con­ver­sa­tions.
We see it in the nation’s par­lia­ment, the uncouth coarse­ness which pass­es for a leg­isla­tive process.
And sure as night fol­lows day, some will instan­ta­neous­ly argue that our nation’s par­lia­ment is tame com­pared to some oth­er coun­tries.
As if a moun­tain of wrongs even­tu­al­ly equals right.
We could go on and on and on about the break­down in our soci­ety and at some stage, we have to ask what the hell is going on?

The mur­ders and the rapes, the bru­tal­i­ty being inflict­ed, broth­er on broth­er, neigh­bor on neigh­bor is inces­sant. Years ago a famed local psy­chol­o­gist blan­ket-labeled the entire Island, ‘mad”.
It would be wrong for me to argue with the diag­no­sis of a trained pro­fes­sion­al. Nevertheless, it just seemed too sim­plis­tic, and maybe even intel­lec­tu­al­ly lazy, to throw up our hands in exas­per­a­tion, and declare the entire Jamaica, .……mad.
So lets ratio­nal­ly dis­sect whats going on. Human beings will push the enve­lope as long as there are no con­se­quences for their actions. We Jamaicans are at the tip of that spear. From time to time I write about crime and the debil­i­tat­ing effect it is hav­ing on our coun­try, I argue repeat­ed­ly, that crime thrives on the acqui­es­cence of the nation.

When a new addi­tion to the delib­er­a­tive body, (the sen­ate), is engaged in a cru­sade to allow more exple­tives into pub­lic spaces, why would any­one won­der why a vale­dic­to­ri­an would feel empow­ered to infuse exple­tives into his address?
Hype.….Jamaicans thrive on hype, the young politi­cian reads his own press, and he is pumped on the adren­a­line that fame brings. To show his street bona fides, he pro­pos­es some­thing he ought to know is anti­thet­i­cal to the nation’s well­be­ing in the long run, but still, he per­sists.
Because the hype is far more impor­tant to him, than sim­ply being a good exam­ple to those com­ing up after him.
The Valedictorian could have walked away know­ing that for as long as he lives he will be remem­bered as that year’s vale­dic­to­ri­an, but the desire to gain a hype was far too strong a pull for him, and so he will be remem­bered as the vale­dic­to­ri­an who brought coarse­ness to the game.

Decency and deco­rum have become a thing of the past, those who ought to know bet­ter have become will­ing pas­sen­gers, on a train des­tined for derail­ment. The lev­el of crazy in our soci­ety is wear­ing thin on our pro­fes­sion­als.
Politicians fight­ing with doc­tors in hos­pi­tals. Teacher los­ing it in her class­room as a result of dis­re­spect­ful kid. Police offi­cer hang­ing onto the hood of a car for dear life because motorist knows he will not be held account­able for his actions.
This is law­less­ness, and it does not mean that the entire nation is mad. It means that those whose job it is to pro­tect our coun­try has failed dismally.

Our nation can­not claim that there is no tem­plate for suc­cess, there is.
We admire many nation’s suc­cess­es, we talk a great deal about them. The ques­tion becomes, “how come we can­not just copy what they are doing”?
The truth is that as soon as we get over our admi­ra­tion, and look at what it takes to get to their lev­el we back away because as a nation we lack dis­ci­pline.
We lack the dis­ci­pline to do what’s right. We lack the dis­ci­pline to sus­pend our affin­i­ty for the sweet sug­ary rush of cot­ton can­dy.
We tell our­selves that the nec­es­sary veg­an-diet could nev­er work for us in our unique cir­cum­stances. (Because of course, we are spe­cial), *sar­casm.*
And we con­tin­ue with the sug­ar rush. I think we all know where that will even­tu­al­ly take us.

Mike Beckles is a for­mer Jamaican police Detective cor­po­ral, a busi­ness own­er, avid researcher, and blog­ger. 
He is a black achiev­er hon­oree, and pub­lish­er of the blog chatt​-​a​-box​.com. 
He’s also a con­trib­u­tor to sev­er­al web­sites.
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