Lack of community

You may well wonder what it is that connects the killing of that grand old lion Cecil, the downfall of Lord Sewel and the claims for parliamentary allowances by Baroness Wilcox.

It strikes me that it displays the now ingrained sense of entitlement which permeates and disfigures society at all levels, exhibited most clearly by those designated as the great and the good.

The three subjects seem to have lived in a private bubble, protected by their own insouciance and oblivious to the impact of their selfish actions until the outcry in the media exposed them.

They all took for granted that they could ignore the anti- social consequences of their conduct.

What appears to have happened i n Western society, exemplified by these egregious instances, is that concern for one’s own rights eclipses any sense of responsibility to the wider community. We are rapidly forgetting that we live in an interconnected world, to the detriment of community cohesion.

This endemic cancer of individualism has propelled people to believe that their own wishes, ambitions and actions define the limits of their own world, creating a self-absorbed perspective which is only ever punctured occasionally when it hits the headlines.

until a proper balance is struck between i ndividual rights and community responsibilities, we are going to be faced with more outrageous cases of this type of unacceptable behaviour. Denis Bruce, Bishopbriggs,

east Dunbartonshire.