About relationships generally
“Our Gross
National Product, now, is over $800 billion dollars a year, but that Gross
National Product… counts air pollution and cigarette advertising, and
ambulances to clear our highways of carnage. It counts special locks for our
doors and the jails for the people who break them. It counts the destruction of
the redwood and the loss of our natural wonder in chaotic sprawl. It counts
napalm and counts nuclear warheads and armored cars for the police to fight the
riots in our cities. It counts Whitman’s rifle and Speck’s knife. And the
television programs which glorify violence in order to sell toys to our children.
“Yet the
gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the
quality of their education or the joy of their play. It does not include the
beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages, the intelligence of our
public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our
wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our
compassion nor our devotion to our country, it measures everything in short,
except that which makes life worthwhile. And it can tell us everything about
America except why we are proud that we are Americans.”
Robert Kennedy, speaking at the University of
Kansas March 18th 1968
“Each of us is defined, and enriched, by our
relationships to others. It's the strength of our relationships, the
warmth of our friendships, the time we have with our partners, parents and
children, the respect we're given in the workplace and by our peers, the
achievements we forge collaboratively and collectively, which generate real
happiness and fulfilment."
Michael
Gove, Member of UK Parliament
“Everything seems to conspire these
days against distant goals, life-long projects, lasting commitments, eternal
alliances, immutable identities… One cannot build the future around partnership
or the family either: in the age of ‘confluent love’, togetherness lasts no
longer than the satisfaction of one of the partners, commitment is from the
start ‘until further notice’, and today’s intense attachment may only intensify
tomorrow’s frustrations.”
Zygmunt Bauman
“… I
realise how much my own thinking has changed since it became almost second
nature to approach a subject from a relational perspective. The disappointment
is to realise how little understanding government has of relationships – within
itself, with public servants, with the electorate (not the same thing as the
popular press), even with its own supporters in Parliament. Nor does it seem to
have much understanding of professional or institutional relationships…”
David Faulkner, retired UK senior civil servant