Comment by bibelo
2 days ago
I totally agree with the article and the examples. Problem here in France is the same: many people do not care. I would not say it's a majority, but a minority is enough to ruin other people's lives.
I'm really annoyed by the noise. From the deafening motorbike engine in the street, to the idiot with his speaker vomitting rap music, to the neighbor having a party until 3AM, they do not care.
Why is that? Mostly because modern western civilizations promote a me-first culture. Look at these personal developpment books: it's mostly about caring for yourself, barely about the others. When it's about the others, it's to advance your interests.
We do not learn from infancy to put others' interests first. Basic principles and values like selflessness are taught NOWHERE. When a problem arises here in France, you get yet another law to restrict and punish. We should just teach peoples to care for others.
I'm longering for a world when people care, where people who are "lovers of themselves", "not open to any agreement, without self-control, without love of goodness" will have disappeared,
and where "there is more happiness in giving than there is in receiving", where this is applied: "All things, therefore, that you want men to do to you, you also must do to them", will be the standard.
It's not just the West. I'm Indian and it's 2x worse there.
Don't have a ton of experience in Paris, but I stayed at the Yotel at Charles De Gaulle once. The first room had dirty bedsheets, and the lamps were broken. I called the guy to give me another room, and he just goes, 'there's no problem' And I was left wondering—what is 'problem' reserved for? A fire?
I agree also with most of the rant but the part about state/municipal jobs looks a bit unfair to me. If you have ever volonteer or worked for this kind of job, you could find that many people are so ungrateful: only few care to answer polls or attend public meetings, almost nobody cares about the why. But when something changes, lots of loud mouths shout rants like this one. People sometimes don't imagine how hard this is to have basic consensus on anything when there is lots of people in a group. Doing anything is also so complicated nowadays with the numerous parts involved in any decision, each one having their own priority set and timelines, the constraints of the law...
The care is certainly not the only reason of having broken things.