‘I am better than thou...’

Published October 24, 2014
The writer is senior adviser, Pakistan, at Open Society Foundations, associate professor of economics, LUMS, and a visiting fellow at IDEAS, Lahore.
The writer is senior adviser, Pakistan, at Open Society Foundations, associate professor of economics, LUMS, and a visiting fellow at IDEAS, Lahore.

IF a person is wearing a police uniform or even a ‘no fear’ T-shirt that many police guards now wear, they will not obey any traffic law. If they are on a motorcycle, even a private one, they will surely violate all traffic signals.

Almost every police vehicle is seen to be doing this. It does not matter whether there is an emergency or not, whether they are chasing someone or just taking a senior police official’s children home from school, or delivering his lunch, the driver of the car feels impelled to use flashing lights and break every queue on the way. Almost all drivers of government vehicles (with green registration plates) feel obligated to act as if no laws apply to them.

Why do people feel it is important to tell the world that a particular car belongs to a particular type of person? Plates that read ‘senator’, ‘MNA/MPA’, ‘press’, or ‘advocate’ are quite common. Are they announcing to the world that the laws do not apply to them because they belong to some privileged group?


There is a stronger desire to show that the laws apply to others, and not to us.


There seems to be a very strong desire in our society to not only distinguish ourselves from others, but to actually try hard to show that we are better than them. There is a need to show that where the laws apply to others, they do not apply to us or that we can get away with violating them while others cannot. To emphasise once more, the desire is not only to distinguish ourselves from others, but to show that others are somehow not equal to us, that they are smaller than us and of less worth than us.

This attitude seems to go deep and permeates almost all forms of interaction we have with each other. On talk shows on television, participants do not just present their arguments about issues and the strength of their arguments, they, more often than not, try to show that they are better than others: better politicians, better journalists, better experts and, sometimes, even better persons. That is the battle. This is also the reason a lot of the times that talk shows degenerate into shouting matches where the ability to outshout someone becomes, in the end, the only means of winning the battle.

Conspicuous consumption has, for long, been an issue for Pakistan. There is a link between conspicuous consumption and the desire to show one’s ‘superiority’ over others. Why do Pakistanis have such a strong taste for bigger cars? Why is the demand for smaller, more efficient and economical cars not very apparent? It is interesting that Indian middle class seems to have a preference for smaller, more efficient cars while in Pakistan, the middle class preference seems to be for bigger vehicles. And as we move up on the income scale the preference for larger cars becomes stronger. Mercedes seems to have a special status in Pakistan, although with the increasing number of such vehicles on the streets, its value as a status symbol just might change.

The excessive expenditure around marriage is underscored by a similar sentiment. It is seldom for the comfort of the guests or to give the bride or groom a better start in life. It is more to signal one’s superiority, uniqueness and exclusivity.

A lot of us mix up ‘self-esteem’ with ‘pride’. Self-esteem does not require showing that others are any less than us. Pride can take us in that direction. Having self-esteem and confidence in oneself are virtues. If pride comes with a feeling of superiority and the desire to show that, it becomes a very negative and destructive force — for oneself and for society as a whole.

Unfortunately, there is a desire to show others as lesser individuals than us in almost all aspects of our interaction with them. Basing our interaction with others on such a desire cannot be conducive to the development of positive relations among individuals.

Sylvester Stallone’s attitude in the movie Judge Dredd portrays him as someone who, because he is the law, cannot break the law. Most of the time, we have a similar attitude towards ourselves. Laws are good for other people but we are above them and are not subject to them. Land rights are inalienable and we cannot even redistribute land to the poor (there is a Federal Shariat Court judgment about land reforms being un-Islamic), but the army can take land to make housing schemes.

The Securities Exchange Commission of Pakistan makes rules for all companies to follow, but the SECP cannot even think of imposing these rules on many companies owned or run by privileged interest groups, including the army. The Lahore Development Authority has allowed, in many parts of the city, owners to have their premises declared as commercial and to conduct commercial activities even in residential areas. I live next to a boutique/spa. But in a neighbourhood, where a judge has his home, the court deemed it fit to give a stay order against commercialisation. Is that neighbourhood different from where I live? Or is it that some people are special?

Freedom exists within the laws and not outside of them. These laws are meant to apply to all and equally. Self-esteem and pride in oneself do not have to depend on showing that the other person is somehow beneath us. Our society, by and large, seems to have fallen into a trap where people feel that they can only establish their worth by showing that others are not equal to them. This attitude and its prevalence can only undermine societal values and outcomes for all of us. Apparently, the devil was not punished with eternal damnation, despite his earlier piety, for refusing to bow before Adam, but for believing that he was superior to Adam.

The writer is senior adviser, Pakistan, at Open Society Foundations, associate professor of economics, LUMS, and a visiting fellow at IDEAS, Lahore.

Published in Dawn, October 24th, 2014

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