I was watching the flight path on a flight. The screen changed and I could see the map of the country in to which we were landing...below the map I noticed the following words - "This map depicts the physical boundaries and should not be interpreted as the political boundaries." guess the airline was being careful as any misrepresentation could ground them or cause a problem that would be expensive.
It is a real shame that every thing we say must have a qualification or some fine print as in the case above. The legal consultants have a field day with this.
In every walk of life, we have got in to a bad habit of wondering what are the liabilities attached. Eg. The doctors ask for all tests to be done because they are worried that patients will take them to the cleaners if something went wrong later. This has actually increased the cost of health care in all countries and getting health insurance has also become a problem. The same goes with other professionals. A large part of the fee that we pay professionals is today an overhead related to "Professional Indemnity Insurance". Chartered Accounting firms pay millions of dollars of out of court settlements to manage this. The same goes to doctors.
I was driving in a taxi in London and chatting with the taxi driver. He was telling me that after dropping me off, he had to go to school to pick up his child. He went on to add that these schools call him or his wife if their child is suffering from a cold. They say that the school will not accept children with symptoms of flu because this will impact other children (absolutely correct stance to take) and it could lead to litigation later if parents feel that the child was neglected by the school. He told me with a sad smile on his face, "This never happened when I was at school. The teacher would just take me to the sick room and ensure I was taken care off. I would be asked to rest and then go home when someone came to pick me up at the time when school was over. The school would take a call if it was serious enough to take the child to a hospital and inform parents. Today, parents are called if the child just sneezes."
Gone are the days when I would just cycle up to my friend's home hoping that he was there. I would turn up and his whole family would welcome me with a smile on their faces. The same would happen when he came over to my home to play. Today, we do not go over to someone's house without calling. While in smaller towns and villages in India you do see people walk across few streets to visit one another, this is just not prevalent in larger cities. Even in cases of emergencies, we ask friends if we can come over. What is friendship if it needs permission at all times? I do understand not taking someone for granted and for respecting privacy. But, are we forgetting how to live as a society?
The underlying tenet of most of what we do is trust. If there is a deficit of trust, it would become difficult to live. We are now making it difficult for ourselves to live. Our laws are enacted to punish the handful of people who live in this society. Yes, laws are needed to ensure we live in safety...but, I am not sure that it would be a great life if we were to live because laws exist. It would be a better place if we live because trust exists and laws are there only as a safeguard.
