An old man was walking on the beach at dawn when he noticed a young man picking up starfish stranded by the retreating tide, and throwing them back into the sea one by one. He went up to him and asked him why he was doing this. The young man replied that the starfish would die if left exposed to the morning sun. "But the beach goes on for miles, and there are thousands of starfish. You will not be able to save them all. How can your effort make a difference?" The young man looked at the starfish in his hand and then threw it to safety in the waves. "To this one," he said, "it makes a difference."
- David Baum, quoted by Jonathan Sacks
I've been reading Jonathan Sacks very wise and thought-provoking book, "To Heal a Fractured Word". In it he notes the difference between a culture of responsibility, and a culture of blame and rights. He explains these as follows:
When things go wrong, it is rarely our fault. Something or someone else is to blame: poverty, discrimination, a difficult childhood, the educational system, psychological abuse, the media, the government, junk food, or any other of the proliferating varieties of exculpation. An employee, fired for consistently showing up late to work, sues his employers on the grounds that he is the victim of "chronic lateness syndrome".
Sacks notes that not only does this look at whom to blame, it is also a backward looking way of looking at the past. It doesn't actually learn lessons from the past, because it is a fatalistic way of looking at what has happened.
The opposite culture, he ventures to suggest, is a future looking one. As with the Jewish people, when they suffered, they did not look for someone to blame, but took responsibility for their own future. The lesson from the past was one of responsibility for the future, and the question was not "Who can I blame?" but "What can I do now?" Not a counsel of despair, or of presumption, but one of hope.
In the face of seemingly overwhelming odds against doing something, and considering the "Green" showing at the Jersey elections, I would venture to suggest this is the way ahead. Green issues were put on the agenda very firmly even if the Green candidates did not get in. And they won't go away. It is the ostrich mentality of "business as usual" that will have to adapt, because the world is changing, and in ways which make the Green agenda ever more relevant.
At the moment, the difference that can be made is small, because the voice is not always heard, and people are deaf to what they do not want to hear. But any difference can be an important difference, as the tale above shows.
- David Baum, quoted by Jonathan Sacks
I've been reading Jonathan Sacks very wise and thought-provoking book, "To Heal a Fractured Word". In it he notes the difference between a culture of responsibility, and a culture of blame and rights. He explains these as follows:
When things go wrong, it is rarely our fault. Something or someone else is to blame: poverty, discrimination, a difficult childhood, the educational system, psychological abuse, the media, the government, junk food, or any other of the proliferating varieties of exculpation. An employee, fired for consistently showing up late to work, sues his employers on the grounds that he is the victim of "chronic lateness syndrome".
Sacks notes that not only does this look at whom to blame, it is also a backward looking way of looking at the past. It doesn't actually learn lessons from the past, because it is a fatalistic way of looking at what has happened.
The opposite culture, he ventures to suggest, is a future looking one. As with the Jewish people, when they suffered, they did not look for someone to blame, but took responsibility for their own future. The lesson from the past was one of responsibility for the future, and the question was not "Who can I blame?" but "What can I do now?" Not a counsel of despair, or of presumption, but one of hope.
In the face of seemingly overwhelming odds against doing something, and considering the "Green" showing at the Jersey elections, I would venture to suggest this is the way ahead. Green issues were put on the agenda very firmly even if the Green candidates did not get in. And they won't go away. It is the ostrich mentality of "business as usual" that will have to adapt, because the world is changing, and in ways which make the Green agenda ever more relevant.
At the moment, the difference that can be made is small, because the voice is not always heard, and people are deaf to what they do not want to hear. But any difference can be an important difference, as the tale above shows.
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