Self-regulation is needed
If there is one weakness human beings have, it is the inability to self-regulate. Whether we are at a party, drinking, we often fail to recognise our own limits. We often see people so drunk they can barely talk or stand. The same goes for eating. Obesity has become quite common even in Namibia, where so many go hungry. We often eat far beyond our bodies' needs. Spending and retail therapy too applies, as does sex and the desire for power and control.
Self-regulation is tricky. It is a difficult principle to apply in your life if you are starving, poor or hungry. When there is always need, there will always be greed. On a far higher level, social pressure causes those who do not have so much need, and have so much of the basics wanting their lives, also to ignore self-regulation.
A case in point is the recent release of a pornographic video on social media.
Public comment is centred mostly around the fact that the woman was married and was cheating. In other words, it would have been okay had her husband released the video? Or is she more deserving of such humiliation because she was with her lover?
We do not know the facts surrounding her life or her marriage and even if those things were in order, we cannot possibly want to have the kind of society where, if you do not succumb to blackmail, you may be publicly degraded.
There are only two steps our government can take to ensure that self-regulation becomes more commonplace. In the first instance, take away the want and need of so many of our people. Give each man and woman a tangible tomorrow, the knowledge where their next meal will come from, and self-regulation will slowly follow. In the second instance, get the cybercrime bill passed, soonest. It is after all, 2017 and social media and the worldwide web are not new concepts. It is savage that a person, one who is engaging in a private and intimate moment in her life, could be so exposed to the world. Savage indeed. Self-regulation is key. Let us get that in our society.
Self-regulation is tricky. It is a difficult principle to apply in your life if you are starving, poor or hungry. When there is always need, there will always be greed. On a far higher level, social pressure causes those who do not have so much need, and have so much of the basics wanting their lives, also to ignore self-regulation.
A case in point is the recent release of a pornographic video on social media.
Public comment is centred mostly around the fact that the woman was married and was cheating. In other words, it would have been okay had her husband released the video? Or is she more deserving of such humiliation because she was with her lover?
We do not know the facts surrounding her life or her marriage and even if those things were in order, we cannot possibly want to have the kind of society where, if you do not succumb to blackmail, you may be publicly degraded.
There are only two steps our government can take to ensure that self-regulation becomes more commonplace. In the first instance, take away the want and need of so many of our people. Give each man and woman a tangible tomorrow, the knowledge where their next meal will come from, and self-regulation will slowly follow. In the second instance, get the cybercrime bill passed, soonest. It is after all, 2017 and social media and the worldwide web are not new concepts. It is savage that a person, one who is engaging in a private and intimate moment in her life, could be so exposed to the world. Savage indeed. Self-regulation is key. Let us get that in our society.
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Namibian Sun
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