Duties come before rights

While waiting for a friend of mine outside a box junction in Balham this evening, I noticed an interesting thing. It is illegal for vehicles to enter a box junction unless they can see their way clear for leaving it. On this occasion a “minicab” had actually parked in the box junction to let a woman out – on the corner of the junction, blocking traffic from three directions.

It was there for some time – we’re talking two or three minutes. Eventually a woman got out, and a man behind sounded his horn. Did the woman look embarrassed and apologise for the obstruction? Of course not. She raised her fingers and scowled at the man, then disappeared into a pub.

What must have been going on inside this woman’s mind? It can only have been “I wanted to do that so I will do it. I don’t care what you think” – as is so prevalent these days. This seems like a trivial incident, and we all see them every day. One can hardly walk 10 minutes in London without witnessing some kind of vulgarity or insensitivity (10 seconds on Oxford Street). But society comprises of trivial things, the strands that (should) join us together are many and thin, and the fact we see them broken every day should be of serious concern to us.

These issues boil down essentially to a sense of “rights above duties”. Not only is this sense morally wrong, it is also self-defeating. Only when you care about others as much as yourself can you ever live any kind of fulfilled life. Some people know that. We must insist that all people understand it.