Think First
August 5, 2011 (Friday)
A man in a motorized wheelchair was about to enter an elevator in a South Korean store when the lady who first boarded the elevator pressed a button to close the doors. He was enraged. He backed a little, then rammed the doors, denting them. His rage possessed him, and he did it again. As he was doing it the third time, the doors gave way and he fell to his death into an empty shaft and on to the ground 19 feet below.
The store announced that its elevators would be redesigned to prevent the event from repeating itself. Authorities ruled faulty design as the cause of the incident. All agreed that the design should have been safer, taking into account the possibility of drunks and children banging into the doors.
Looks like South Korea is getting more like the U.S.A. every day. When it comes to shifting responsibility for bad behavior, harnessing the legal system to vindicate irresponsible behavior, we are the best. The successful lawsuit against MacDonald because their coffee was hot still stands out as such an example.
I’m sorry the man died. The cause of death, however, was not the elevator; it was a temper tantrum. Perhaps he had a medical problem that precipitated his action. Nevertheless, society should not have to keep accommodating bad behavior for whatever reason. We can control our emotions if we are aware enough of the consequences.
Somewhere along the way we have learned to shift responsibility for our misdeeds onto someone else. I remember a church member one day asking me for the chapter and verse of a scripture he thought was in the Bible somewhere: “Every tub shall sit on its own bottom.” He became angry when I told him it was not in the Bible. It should be there, right alongside the “Am I my brother’s keeper” reference. Balance, brethren, balance.