APPEAL TO PITY: WHAT HAS KEPT US IN THE ABYSS

CHAPTER TWELVE

Barring all the risk that I run, I want to delve into this topic. Yes, a subject that I personally deem as highly controversial. Deeper and older as this subject is to me, I want to take the risk of wading into it as a matter of urgency, in view of   its adverse effects it has had on us(some Ghanaians)  over the years. 

I don’t intend by this piece to absolve myself of guilt. Indeed, it is never my intention to display the ‘Holier than thou’ attitude in this regard.

My major motivation for wading into this subject is a quest to expose this menace of an attitude that continue to keep the average Ghanaian in the morass of penury want and emotional distress. 

Having personally suffered its stings and witnessed others suffer the havoc its wrecks, I think I have the moral authority to interrogate the subject, toe-stepping as I have indicated it is.

  

An Appeal to Pity.

I first read of this phrase in one of my English classes in my University Days. English classes were better not missed. The risk of losing out on an unannounced quiz will virtually compel your presence. In fact, I never witnessed an uncompromising commitment to roll calling in my four years Undergraduate Programme than my English lectures did.

 English is a subject we have always taken for granted. From my secondary school days we were largely under the impression and the myth that English language is never learnt. Aware of the complacency among students with the subject, perhaps, there couldn’t have been any other way to change student’s seemingly indifferent attitudes towards the subject than his religious commitment to springing surprise quizzes and roll calls. 

Appeal to Pity was one of the Fallacies one needed to remember, not even understand, I order to avert the scourge of trailing the English Paper.

Like any other student I had to commit to memory all the Fallacies we were taught, exist. Our tried and tested strategy of Chewing and Pouring, a legacy that almost all university education in Ghana (in don’t know how it is in other parts of Africa) are guilty off, however, provided assistance.

Back in school I learnt it the usual way. I didn’t give it the deep thought that it required. In fact, in some occasions, one had to even chew the examples that our references had given.

But, like Paul who learnt to think as elderly growing older, I have come to terms with how the phrase plays out in the real world, after school. I have come to realize that theories do not exist in vacuum. Indeed, though couched in flurry academic phrases, theories are a reflection of society and product of the theorists’ real world experiences.

At this juncture, I wish to share the explanation of what the phrase an ‘Appeal to Pity means’ and attempt to make a case for the claims I have made in the introduction above.

This is purely not for academic purpose. It is intended to expose the negatives, the tendency to appeal to pity possess to us on both the micro and macro level of our lives.

It is to this extent that I will restrain from providing the strict academic explanation of what the term means, as provided in my lectures .At this stage, I am more inclined to explain the concept in the plainest form, having high regard to how it relates to or plays out in the real world.

To Appeal to Pity in its simplest explanation is to attempt to justify an inability, negligence with pity. In most instances, people who are unable to discharge a due responsibility resort to pity for a defense. Needless to say that the excuses that are advanced to justify the negligence or inability to redeem a responsibility or obligation usually have no bearing on the responsibilities that is required to be discharged.

May be a popular biblical parable will be more effective in illustrating the point.

In the Bible three servants were said to have been given bags of silver to ostensibly invest. We are told the first and second servants were given five and three silver bags, respectively, whereas the third was given one silver bag. The caveat that their apportionment was commensurable with their abilities is instructive.

On his return, the Master called for an account to be rendered. Having achieved their targets, the first two servants received commendation for their diligence. The last of the servant having failed to meet his target attempted to resort to pity as a tactics for his failure or inability. Let’s hear him out:

‘‘Master, I knew you were a harsh man, harvesting crops you didn’t plant and gathering crops you didn’t cultivate. ²⁵ I was afraid I would lose your money, so I hid it in the earth. Look, here is your money back’’-(Mattew 25:24)

The above defense by this sluggish servants epitomizes and encapsulates the fallacy that I discuss in this piece. In any case, how was reference to the Master’s alleged behavior relevant to the responsibility he was given? What was the correlation between the servant’s failure and the master’s temperament? In any event, how come the other servants made strides in the face of the Master’s alleged behavior? 

I am inclined to believe that the servant’s reference to the master’s behavior was an attempt to court the master’s pity. Thus, he wanted to get his Master thinking in this way:

‘‘Hmmmm. It’s a pity that you didn’t invest out of fear. I know of my temperament. Indeed, I have been praying to God to change it for me. Okay, next time don’t act out of your fear of me. I am sorry, I will work on myself. Sorry for your loss’’.

On the contrary, the master, discerning his servant’s inferior tactics for pity, chided him in no uncertain terms, calling him a lazy and wicked servant.

The Average Ghanaian

I wish I could extrapolate this analogy to what happens in the whole of Africa. But knowing that doing same opens me up to the fallacy of hasty generalization, I will not proceed on that line.

 The average Ghanaian will always want to resort to this inferior tactic of pity to defend one commission or omission. We seem comfortable saturating our excuses with pity, thinking that we are smart enough. 

Most unfortunately, this tendency translates in wherever and whatever we do as people. From our Homes, Offices, transactions and relationship with others we make strident attempt to give piteous excuses why we couldn’t do what was expected and required of us.

I normally do not give examples in my write ups. I believe that if people can understand the concepts that undergird my write-ups, then they should be able to relate and apply them to the realities of their experiences. I don’t want to run the geographical/cultural risk that many writers who give incessant examples do.

On this occasion, however, the urge to do what is atypical of my writing style is so tempting. I will yield to this temptation but with a great sense of discretion. I want to be implicit and restrain enough, knowing that examples in these respects are not hard to find.

Have we ever heard our Governments and other State actors speaks on these questions below? Check their responses within the ambit of what I discuss in this piece. Perhaps you may understand the concept better:

Why don’t we have regular supply of Electricity?

Why can’t we manage our Economy, without donor support?

Why can’t we maintain fiscal and monetary discipline?

Why can’t we provide decent housing for affordable prices?

Why can’t we pay workers, decently?

Why can’t we develop our entertainment industry?

Why can’t we revamp state owned assets?

Why can we cushion Private sector to employ more?

Why can’t we develop lesser known sports?

Why can’t we conduct free and fair elections?

It is needless to say that most of the responses to the above and many others have been grounded on pity. We vote people into government to solve our problems but they end up calling for our pity and giving us streams of excuses for their inability to do one thing or the other.

I know I can’t discuss this in terms of the relationship that exist between families, friends, workers, employers, many but for space, without getting emotional. 

But I know you are reminded of the excuses your friend tended, failing to honor an obligation or redeem a promise. What about what your employee said when he absented himself? What about the excuses our parents give for shirking a responsibility? I will never forget some of the excuses my mates gave in order to be absent from a class presentation. Need I remind you of your bosses’ unredeemed promises? The same tendency we exhibit at the micro level of family or friendship is exactly what we transfer into the macro level of public service.

The consequences of always appealing to pity is self –evident. Not only does it keeps us in the woods, it ends up making us more dishonest and farcical in our dealings with others.

Until we wean ourselves from these inclination we should not fantasize about development -either personal or national.

We must learn to be honest, eschewing all forms of pretense and insincerity with all the courage we can muster. Needless to say that we have to be diligent and proactive in order not to dabble in this menace.

Samuel Osarfo Boateng

samuelcreasta@gmail.com