why do some people think they know what is good for others?

If I was asked why do some people think they know what is good for others, I would answer that because they think that they are like everyone else and that since they know that something is good for them that it is good for other people as well. This relatively aligns with the arguments in the chapter of the book where they say that people do this because they think they are helping. They think that if they do actually know something about anything, they would have this sense of responsibility to act on it. But I think this is not really a good way of giving people direction in what might be good for them. I say this because by letting people tell other people what is good for them, the receiver is not making the decisions and decisions that is not your own would often not give happiness. An example that I can think of is when parents choose the course that their children would take. Its good if the course that the parent chooses is the course that the child actually likes, but what if he/she doesn’t like the course? What then would happen? The child didn’t have the decision and would feel like they are living not their lives but the life their parents want them to live. They won’t give that much effort since the decision was not theirs and they are not accountable of that decision.

Another example is on how the United States handles issues around the world. How the US handled North Korea was an example on how other people actually think they know what is good for others. The US thinks that only because they have the power, the ability and the knowledge about nuclear weapons that they are allowed to intervene with the decision of the North Koreans. But again, this issue has another side, which since the US has the knowledge about nuclear weapons is that they might have a say on the issue. One can also say that the US has a sense of responsibility being one of the countries that gives the example to other countries.

Another example of this that I truly hate is when religious people think that they actually know what is best for other people. That they would say something and if one person does not follow, they would be branded as non-believers or that they will go to hell. In my opinion this kind of people are actually not who they say they are. If they actually were followers of their faith, they would know that this kind of behaviour is not what is good for the people they handle since this would make their faith unwanted and people would hate their faith. And these people might generalized everyone who might be under that same faith.

This is where globalization come in. globalization provides a less varied and more uniform way of thinking that through globalization, differences in religion, culture and even in personality can be identified and acted upon accordingly so that the proper “knowing” of what is good for others is practiced. Where one does not assume that what they know is the best for someone else and is open to possibilities of having other bests for others.