The Need for Individual Sacrifice: When Will People Start Thinking about Long-Term Benefits

Having been drinking almost nonstop during my free times (and as part of work) in Japan and Korea, I have been feeling quite puzzled as to how drinking happens in the U.S. Without convenient public transportation systems, people have to rely on cars to get to bars here in San Diego, yet somehow people (including Designated Drivers) just cannot be disciplined enough to not drink at all, leading to every outing ending up as a mild violation of the basic laws against Driving Under Influence (DUI).

Yet, it is at the same times kind of funny to see how DUI has become somewhat culturally tolerable over the past years. What is supposed to be the sympathy people feel toward the sad non-drinking driver guys became sympathy felt toward the driver guys who are sipping their light drinks so slowly as to make sure their blood alcohol levels stay below the legal limit. The limitations of the transportation system forced people to adjust, not by cutting back on living their lives, but by finding "loopholes" in the legal system.

It is unfortunate that the human tendency for maximum individual and group utility has been the main cause of greater dangers to the world. Risking DUI so that everyone can have fun is but a simple and trivial example. But the core principle beneath the behavior is exactly the same as the much more damaging tendency for humans to damage the natural environment (over-farming, over-grazing, over-exploitation of natural resources, and over-dumping of human-generated wastes) in exchange for greater standard of living.

Eventually, such human desire for short-term benefits are bound to bite back at the humans in the long term. Drink-and-drive obviously make the late-night roads more dangerous for everyone. And deliberate alterations to the natural environment are bound to change the environment in ways less suitable for current ways of human habitation. Just because the instigators of these harmful individual choices may not be the main victims does not mean that people should not take into account the effects on others during their decision-making processes.

As I mentioned in a previous post, the strength of human society lies in its flexibility to change according to the situation without losing its organizational abilities. Yet, often, the changes associated with the flexibility are painful and not everyone will be a winner at the end. But to ensure that the entire society does not fall apart, some individuals will have to give up their selfish desires for comfort, wealth, and other benefits. This is especially in the needs of collective safety in the face of increasingly sophisticated technology.

As humans invent more and more machines for rapid, precise works, there are no longer anything in the environment that can be an obstacle. Whether it be massive rocks, ubiquitous plants, or dangerous animals, humans are increasingly able to remove them whenever we feel like it. The feelings of power only made people forget the needs for compromise with the environment. We, after all, do not live in isolation from the environment but as part of it. Only by taking into the concerns of the environment can we survive in harmony and peace.

The same is true for human society. No human can survive on his or her own without taking from the society. The society provide every person with the basic needs for survival, whether it be food, medical care, clothing, housing, or social warmth for emotional health. No benefit should come without a certain cost. And the cost, for each individual to live the society we benefit so much from, is the need to take into consideration the well-being of every other person within our society.

Hence comes the need for individual sacrifice. It is often just too tempting for one to do whatever he wants and as he fancies, but if we think about the long-term effect on others, we should begin to comprehend the need for a system to restrain individual desires. Often, the harm of the individual desires cannot be completely stated in legal frameworks, and sometimes they are not even entirely covered in codes of ethics. At such circumstances, we as responsible individuals can only turn to our sense of self-sacrifice...

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