Value Erosion & Social Policing

Master Hirannaiah, the popular Kannada actor, stated in his reminiscences, that one of the important changes that has occurred in society is the absence of "social policing." Earlier, if some child had committed a misdemeanour, & its parents were informed, they would be more concerned than the complainant & would ask him to deal out exemplary punishment himself (social policing). Nowadays, the parents do not even apologise to the aggrieved nor reprimand the child, but instead pick up the cudgels on behalf of their recalcitrant child.

This social policing was also earlier prevalent in western society as evinced in the story of Agatha Christie's celebrated detective Poirot's only recorded failure "The Chocolate Box." A mother, convinced of the incorrigible homicidal nature of her son, kills him herself.

We can contrast this noble behaviour with the recent instance of the mother of a man, accused of the most heinous crime, begging for his life, before his execution. There have been instances earlier, where in similar cases, mothers have begged for the privilege of killing their sons themselves (as in the Poirot story) & later killing themselves for the mistake of bringing such sons into the world. Here, rubbing salt into the wound, a female lawyer shockingly advised the mother of the ravished & murdered girl to forgive the accused! No wonder values have eroded all over the world.

Of course, even earlier, in Mahabharata, King Dhritarashtra supported his evil sons, but it was a rare exception to the general rule.

This erosion may be partly due to the rise of two professions (considered amoral by the layman) of law & politics, where taking a one sided stance of sanctifying one side & demonising the other, is the sine qua non of these professions. It is not rational to believe that the good Lord bestowed us & the people we like with all desirable qualities & completely denied the same to people whom we do not like.