Philosophy of Public Service & Misplaced Value System

A Faceless Name That Renounced Its Fame

Chris Nolan’s Batman Trilogy, would always remain a huge source of inspiration for the whole generation, particularly for people in public service. A brilliant story of benevolence, sacrifice and renunciation, that still resonates with me. This may be regarded as little exaggeration of a fiction, but such a story of rejuvenation, intrigues us to delve deep into the underlying philosophy. Right from my childhood I always take pride of our (Indian) rich culture and value system. But a lot of time the same belief takes a beating whenever I encounter a better illustration, and compelled to think who they draw their inspiration from.

In the chaos of “Survival of the Fittest”, “Cut Throat Competition” is the naked truth. The value system is completely irrelevant and a misplaced theory in contemporary time. Plenty of doctrines suggest relinquishing the result of your good Karma ‘deed’, though very difficult in practice. Why would somebody give up his/her hard earned something, if so we should revere such a saintly person in high esteem. The possible impetus for any such generous act could be name or fame. Well, I have a better example, think of a person who could even happily sacrifice his name let alone forgoing all his good deeds and embracing somebody else’s bad deeds, just for public good. This is as good as somebody who saves a dying man, takes all the blame on himself and disappears into oblivion, accrediting the actual killer with all the glory.

The simple factor of anonymity, stands “Bruce Wayne, the man behind the mask” out in the crowd of superlative philanthropists. The uncanny attitude towards the commitment, presents altogether a difficult proposition, while the very beneficiaries do swear word for him. The essence of the story is, nameless philanthropy is absolutely a rare phenomenon to find. Nevertheless, this is a very high standard to replicate by our leaders in public service, otherwise a self centric lot. The current class of leaders crossing across party lines are very busy in competitive populism and rhetorics. Whole political dispensation is so miserable that even the most optimist ones too very disappointed. Why just leaders, high standards in life is rare in every walk of life, a generous doctor, an honest accountant, a non-partisan judge are rather bookish terms. The subjects like honesty, national character, sacrifice are less celebrated and rather ridiculous syndromes.

However there is much more rotting problem beneath this despicable attitude, the very value system in our foundation. Centuries of Tom Macculay’s well intended educational system professed little about morality. Education as they defined is limited to wider spectrum of knowledge sans of values. We learned to become a master mathematician but not necessarily an honest one. You can’t blame anybody, the ill paid teachers can hardly afford time for any moral lessons, nor the parents, busy making ends meet. And the usual casualty here is generations of mankind, passing absolutely zero values to their successors. The system as a whole never displayed any sensibilities around this responsibility.

“What we sow is what we reap” and obviously we have a fairly knowledgeable but morally weak generation, the value is almost lost in our genetic order. We see everything from the prism of monetary benefits and opportunism as a fashionable trend. I strongly recommend, revisiting our value system and strengthening the very foundation structure of our social infrastructure. The ad-hoc approach of gold plating is rather counter productive with dismal long term result. This is absolutely meaningless, if we destroy the very institution of family in one hand and feel very unsecured for lack of family support on the other. The rise of nuclear family has witnessed equal rise in old-age homes and both the distanced families long each other for support causing spiraling after effects.

The first school of value system lies at the bottom of social pyramid, the family. Any attempts to plant a substitute or weaken the institution is simply disastrous. The same school once inculcated values of philanthropic anonymity within us.