WHAT will people say? This was an important rebuking question the elders would ask us whenever we, the children, misbehaved.
It was an appeal for order, to make amends for wrongdoing. In some cases, the question was followed or accompanied by a smack.
Once you were a grown-up the idea of being smacked by your parents wasn’t plausible. However, on its own, the question – what will people say? – carried the same weight as when it was accompanied by a smack or a whip.
It was a deep, ethical question that sought to evoke a sense of shame on the part of the offender or would-be wrongdoer.
An individual’s shameful conduct meant his entire family’s standing in the community was more likely to be sullied by attracting ridicule.
The uttering of these words – what will people say? – by elders suggested you had done or were about to do something horribly wrong. You had to stop it to safeguard not only your integrity but that of the family.
But it didn’t mean that those called to order did not do wrong and disguised it as right. However, they knew wrongful conduct – in whatever form – was a disgrace to their family. The question was internalised. Before you thought of embarrassing your family, you would ask yourself: What will people say?
Many of those raised under strict discipline will know what I’m talking about.
Like other institutions such as churches, schools and others, the family has always been particular about its reputation. This extends to politics.
“When people fail to live up to their own sense of worth they feel shame and when they are evaluated correctly in proportion to their worth, they feel pride,” writes political scientist and philosopher Francis Fukuyama in his controversial book The End of History and the Last Man.
“The desire for recognition, and the accompanying emotions of anger, shame and pride are parts of the human personality critical to political life,” he writes.
Indeed, the question – What will people say? – presupposes that a person has a “sense of worth” and its retention or survival is dependent on the person’s actions.
These actions can be judged by others whose views might enhance or diminish a person’s sense of worth. The outcome, as Fukuyama says, could be anger, shame, pride or prestige. Why, you might be asking, am I going on and on about what appears to be a philosophical issue?
As South Africans we need to answer the questions:
l Do we have individual and collective senses of worth?
l Do we have the capacity to ask each other the important question: What will people say?
l Can we be angry, ashamed or proud depending on our own actions individually and collectively?
Recent events in our country suggest we may need to discover our sense of worth.
One need not recount all the horrible incidents that have so far become the defining feature of 2013.
The latest – the death of a Mozambican man at the hands of rogue cops – shows that we may be losing our sense of worth, demonstrated by the way we treat others.
The kind of political leaders we have and how we go about elevating them should trigger the big question: What will people say? Or, rather, what will other world leaders say?
It’s a question about accountability to each other as human beings. It’s not about institutional or legal accountability, which gets flouted by the powers that be with impunity. In many cases the idea of resorting to institutions and rules – products of human beings and thus vulnerable to manipulation – has somehow become a mechanism to absolve ourselves rather than to be accountable.
The consequence is that our individual sense of being ashamed is diminishing faster than the South African rhino population.
Thus, Limpopo police commissioner Simon Mpembe could buy a white BMW X5 using taxpayers’ money and go on to respray it black for “security reasons” by digging deeper into the public purse.
He could not wait for two weeks to have the car with the “right colour” delivered to him.
Politicians get their homes renovated and security upgrades are done at exorbitant amounts financed by the public purse because government “guidelines” allow it.
But can’t the politicians pause for a moment and ask the question: What will people say?
Before a trusted teacher and relative rapes a child, can’t he pause and ask: What will people say?
Could it be that the “people” referred to in these questions are themselves deprived of any ethical content?
Mpumelelo Mkhabela is the editor of the Sowetan
Our sense of worth is reflected in our actions
It was an appeal for order, to make amends for wrongdoing. In some cases, the question was followed or accompanied by a smack.
Once you were a grown-up the idea of being smacked by your parents wasn’t plausible. However, on its own, the question – what will people say? – carried the same weight as when it was accompanied by a smack or a whip.
It was a deep, ethical question that sought to evoke a sense of shame on the part of the offender or would-be wrongdoer.
An individual’s shameful conduct meant his entire family’s standing in the community was more likely to be sullied by attracting ridicule.
The uttering of these words – what will people say? – by elders suggested you had done or were about to do something horribly wrong. You had to stop it to safeguard not only your integrity but that of the family.
But it didn’t mean that those called to order did not do wrong and disguised it as right. However, they knew wrongful conduct – in whatever form – was a disgrace to their family. The question was internalised. Before you thought of embarrassing your family, you would ask yourself: What will people say?
Many of those raised under strict discipline will know what I’m talking about.
Like other institutions such as churches, schools and others, the family has always been particular about its reputation. This extends to politics.
“When people fail to live up to their own sense of worth they feel shame and when they are evaluated correctly in proportion to their worth, they feel pride,” writes political scientist and philosopher Francis Fukuyama in his controversial book The End of History and the Last Man.
“The desire for recognition, and the accompanying emotions of anger, shame and pride are parts of the human personality critical to political life,” he writes.
Indeed, the question – What will people say? – presupposes that a person has a “sense of worth” and its retention or survival is dependent on the person’s actions.
These actions can be judged by others whose views might enhance or diminish a person’s sense of worth. The outcome, as Fukuyama says, could be anger, shame, pride or prestige. Why, you might be asking, am I going on and on about what appears to be a philosophical issue?
As South Africans we need to answer the questions:
l Do we have individual and collective senses of worth?
l Do we have the capacity to ask each other the important question: What will people say?
l Can we be angry, ashamed or proud depending on our own actions individually and collectively?
Recent events in our country suggest we may need to discover our sense of worth.
One need not recount all the horrible incidents that have so far become the defining feature of 2013.
The latest – the death of a Mozambican man at the hands of rogue cops – shows that we may be losing our sense of worth, demonstrated by the way we treat others.
The kind of political leaders we have and how we go about elevating them should trigger the big question: What will people say? Or, rather, what will other world leaders say?
It’s a question about accountability to each other as human beings. It’s not about institutional or legal accountability, which gets flouted by the powers that be with impunity. In many cases the idea of resorting to institutions and rules – products of human beings and thus vulnerable to manipulation – has somehow become a mechanism to absolve ourselves rather than to be accountable.
The consequence is that our individual sense of being ashamed is diminishing faster than the South African rhino population.
Thus, Limpopo police commissioner Simon Mpembe could buy a white BMW X5 using taxpayers’ money and go on to respray it black for “security reasons” by digging deeper into the public purse.
He could not wait for two weeks to have the car with the “right colour” delivered to him.
Politicians get their homes renovated and security upgrades are done at exorbitant amounts financed by the public purse because government “guidelines” allow it.
But can’t the politicians pause for a moment and ask the question: What will people say?
Before a trusted teacher and relative rapes a child, can’t he pause and ask: What will people say?
Could it be that the “people” referred to in these questions are themselves deprived of any ethical content?
Mpumelelo Mkhabela is the editor of the Sowetan
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