Posted on March 6
Are you a good or a bad person?
If you own a car, you’ve experienced the same thing dozens of times as I have: you pull into a crowded grocery store parking lot, you drive slowly from one aisle to another looking for a free spot and , when you finally find one, you find that it is occupied by an abandoned cart. One day when I was removing the obstacle from the path to park my car, I thought to myself that we could probably classify human beings into two groups: those who bring their basket back to the place indicated and those who do not. don’t. The good and the bad people. It may seem intransigent, but I tell myself that the people who leave their basket lying around in parking lots must be the same people who don’t pick up their dog’s droppings, who water their driveway or who go honking their horns for weeks in neighborhoods residential in the name of a not entirely clear freedom.
Recently, I was amazed to come across an article that discussed the “shopping cart theory”. It says, basically, that we can determine the character of a person according to, you guessed it, if they bring back their basket or not! It clarifies my thoughts: there is nothing illegal about leaving your basket anywhere. No sanction is provided for by law. It is of no consequence. Also, and this is where it gets interesting: the person who takes the trouble to bring back his basket is not rewarded in any way. There is no apparent gain for her. This theory, posted anonymously on Twitter, has no scientific support (I would have liked to know that I had the same idea as someone with a Nobel Prize, but too bad), nevertheless it is interesting . It is civic sense that pushes us to return this basket rather than looking for excuses to leave it lying around. (There’s a ti-guy paid for that! I don’t have time, these 10 seconds that I would waste will ruin my day.)
I dare to put here the definition of the Larousse on the meaning of the word “citizenship”, you will agree like me how rare this quality is: Dedication to the community. The definition is longer, but I’ll stop here, as I feel like I’ve found the solution to the environmental crisis, the wars in the world and the derogatory comments on social networks.
Civility. Dedication to the collective good. And we’re talking about devotion here, but we mustn’t freak out either: we’re not talking about sacrificing one’s life to donate all of one’s organs to sick children, or abandoning one’s house to offer it to less well-off people. We’re talking about bringing back your grocery cart.
A gesture that I do every day without feeling like a hero, simply because I don’t want to harm the people who will come to park after I leave. The House of Commons will not offer me a medal, we will never hear about this very small, banal gesture in my daily life (unless I brag about it in the newspaper, of course).
Am I a good person just because I bring my grocery cart? Of course not. The list of things that I could be blamed for is probably quite long. (I eat meat! I threw away a pot lid that recycles! I wash myself with soap that may have been tested on rabbits!) My goal is not to lecture, much less to pose as a model of good citizenship. I just tell myself that it’s a bit sad to see that for things to really change, for major changes in society to take place, laws have to be born. On the road, there are prohibitions that concern safety, but also civic sense: driving at 140 km/h on the highway constantly changing lanes is perhaps exhilarating, but it endangers everyone around . Basically, it lacks civility. There will undoubtedly be laws to come which will concern recycling, the consumption of drinking water, everything that relates to dedication to the community, to the protection of the common good. Because some people think it doesn’t concern them. “Anything is allowed as long as I am not forbidden to do so, and when it is forbidden, I will either adapt or take part in demonstrations to signal my displeasure. It is easier to change a behavior when it becomes illegal than when it serves the community.
I come back to it and I’m stubborn: life would really be simpler, more pleasant and lighter if everyone brought back their damn basket.