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Thoughts on Metro's good samaritan
By Fernando Bensuaski |
August 27, 2011, Saturday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
IT'S raining. I woke up, looked out of the window, and saw the rain.
Not the harsh rain of a storm unleashed by Eudora [Greek goddess of heavy rain] to destroy and cause harm; but the soft rain of Tlaloc [Aztec god of rain and fertility], which cleans and nurtures and offers heaven's forgiveness. The rain falls over the just and the unjust, the smart and the idiot, the rich and the poor, the caring and the indifferent.
Greg Carew, a 36-year-old South African, is not indifferent; he is a good samaritan; and he expressed shock that no one else cared enough to join him in helping another man ("Metro good samaritan 'sad' no Chinese helped," Shanghai Daily, August 24, page 5).
In my article published in the Shanghai Daily on the prior day to Mr Carew's news, I tried to deal with the issue of indifference.
Greg Carew did one better than I did: he demonstrated my thoughts in a much more effective way. He acted.
A Chinese friend of mine wrote me a note on my article. He said that if you help someone under similar circumstances, "the next thing that would happen is that the person will claim he was run down by the one who provided help."
The title "Good Samaritan" goes back 2,000 years when a man from Samaria, a mountainous area roughly in the northern part of today's West Bank of Israel, helped a man from Judea, the enemy from the south.
The good samaritan is not indifferent; the good samaritan does not think or analyze; he or she acts without passing judgment on the person needing help.
The good samaritan intuitively understands that "the quality of mercy is not strained; it drops as the gentle rain from heaven upon the place beneath it."
The good samaritan knows that mercy is twice blessed: it blesses him that gives and him that receives.
In the United States, where people generally try to help the befallen, there rose a rash of bizarre lawsuits claiming that the helper made the situation worse.
Starting in 1959, one state after another passed so-called good samaritan laws to protect the helper against action by the helped, to create legal immunity.
However, a man like Greg does not think in terms of legal exposure or legal protection.
Those are things of the mind. It is his heart that tells him to act; and his kindness is bestowed upon the person in need, pretty much like the rain that falls over the just and the unjust.
Fernando Bensuaski is managing director of Goshawk Trading Strategies Ltd.
Not the harsh rain of a storm unleashed by Eudora [Greek goddess of heavy rain] to destroy and cause harm; but the soft rain of Tlaloc [Aztec god of rain and fertility], which cleans and nurtures and offers heaven's forgiveness. The rain falls over the just and the unjust, the smart and the idiot, the rich and the poor, the caring and the indifferent.
Greg Carew, a 36-year-old South African, is not indifferent; he is a good samaritan; and he expressed shock that no one else cared enough to join him in helping another man ("Metro good samaritan 'sad' no Chinese helped," Shanghai Daily, August 24, page 5).
In my article published in the Shanghai Daily on the prior day to Mr Carew's news, I tried to deal with the issue of indifference.
Greg Carew did one better than I did: he demonstrated my thoughts in a much more effective way. He acted.
A Chinese friend of mine wrote me a note on my article. He said that if you help someone under similar circumstances, "the next thing that would happen is that the person will claim he was run down by the one who provided help."
The title "Good Samaritan" goes back 2,000 years when a man from Samaria, a mountainous area roughly in the northern part of today's West Bank of Israel, helped a man from Judea, the enemy from the south.
The good samaritan is not indifferent; the good samaritan does not think or analyze; he or she acts without passing judgment on the person needing help.
The good samaritan intuitively understands that "the quality of mercy is not strained; it drops as the gentle rain from heaven upon the place beneath it."
The good samaritan knows that mercy is twice blessed: it blesses him that gives and him that receives.
In the United States, where people generally try to help the befallen, there rose a rash of bizarre lawsuits claiming that the helper made the situation worse.
Starting in 1959, one state after another passed so-called good samaritan laws to protect the helper against action by the helped, to create legal immunity.
However, a man like Greg does not think in terms of legal exposure or legal protection.
Those are things of the mind. It is his heart that tells him to act; and his kindness is bestowed upon the person in need, pretty much like the rain that falls over the just and the unjust.
Fernando Bensuaski is managing director of Goshawk Trading Strategies Ltd.
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