Tags
#TimesUp, A society becoming more closed in on itself, Becoming Human, Cannes Film Festival 2018, Committed to fighting for our personal rights?, Ethic for our Ecology, For the common good, If only the Poor knew, Selma Hyak, Stop at the pearly gates of her own mansion, Take a pay cut, Taking responsibility towards others, Who decides?
Cannes Film Festival 2018. Photo: AFP, BBC News.
“Take a Pay Cut” – an Ethic for our Ecology
I am not sure how deeply and broadly Ms. Hayek wants the cuts to go, but here is a good example of her reasoning:
“If [male] actors ask such inflated fees it will leave nothing for actresses… If the movie’s budget is $10m, the actor has to understand that if he is making $9.7m, it is going to be hard for equality. Otherwise they will kill the movie.”
We can probably say this about the environment:
“If the earth can only sustain X, we have to understand that if the West consumes 80% of the resources, it is going to be hard for equality. Otherwise they will kill the planet.”
But who decides?
Will it be only the politically correct? the State? the entitled?
When a system incentivizes the wrong things, we can expect the wrong outcomes. After the world-wide financial downturn of 2008, bankers and executives continued to receive obscenely high bonuses.
How did the money get distributed then? Who decided?
How will wealth be distributed now? Who decides?
Under the paradigm of gender politics, Salma Hayek can make statements whose implications stop at the pearly gates of her own mansion. She would no more want me to “equalize” her wages than would her male actors, incentivized on the body of their work and by the demand of their popularity, want to give up their inflated contracts.
And now will you join me looking into the mirror and admit we are wrongly incentivized based on obscure, curious, and contradictory parameters too… or is it only me?
For the Common Good
In his book, “Becoming Human,” Jean Vanier wrote:
We will begin to work for the common good. On the other hand, if we commit ourselves to the making of a society in which we are concerned only with our own rights, then that society must become more and more closed in on itself.
Where we do not feel any responsibility towards others, there is no reason for us to work harmoniously towards the common good.
Indeed our society committed to fighting for our personal “rights” to the ignorance of the common good is being more and more closed in on itself. Pay equality, gun laws, health care – you name it, and you can argue in the paradigm of personal rights to the exclusion of taking responsibility towards others.
More Enigma Than Dogma 
Way to go Rusty! It truely is harder to see the log in our own eye. There is always injustice occurring in my life as i judge others of theirs. Entitlement is something we must battle in order to care for others state.The question I have is how far abroad do I have to go with my own caring for equality. If I look far enough I will find that I am privileged, but even in my own neighbourhood I can find inequality and do something about it.
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You ask the right question, and you arrive at the awareness of our privilege, even if/when others want more “privilege” than they already have – and more privilege than we think we have. I like how Vanier turns the conversation around from focusing on our rights/privilege (and thus become more closed in on ourselves) – to seeking the common good. I am not sure we can do that unless/until we are confident that God’s will is both for me as well as for the common good – and God is doing His will on earth as He does in Heaven; in other words, will I trust God rather than money?
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Yes. Trusting Father is liberating. Someone is batting for me and I must realize I am blessed to bless.
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