The African Ethic of Duty and the "Big Bang Theory"

My students have often looked very surprised when I tell them that marriage and other family relationship in the African society I come from are based more on duty than on love. They seem concerned when I tell them that in their over 35 years of marriage, I never heard my parents tell each other that they love each other. My students seem even more concerned when I tell them that my parents never told me that they loved me. They seem to think that my upbringing was seriously skewed because of lack of such sentimental utterances. However, I remind them that the way my parents showed their love for us was not by saying that they love us but by showing that they love us. Such is the case with the relationship we have in the family. We do not tell our relatives that we love them. We show love by what we do for them, by how we treat them. And what we do for them is what we have the duty to do. The Ghanaian philosopher Kwasi Wiredu has described this way of relating to each other as an ethic of duty, noting that this way of life is common to many African societies. In this context, relationships are held together by the obligations which people have to be there for each other both in times of need and in times of plenty. This ethic of duty is also connected to the name of the German philosopher Immanuel Kant but Kant addresses the question differently and we shall not get into that here.

What I want to get into at the moment is that this ethic of duty manifested in an African society can be seen in a very popular American TV show called the Big Bang Theory. The characters in the show include four male scientists (technically, three male scientists and one engineer) and two female scientists and one actress/waitress. However, the life of the show seems to turn around one of the scientists (Sheldon Cooper from Texas) who is a social misfit. One of the major characteristics of Sheldon is that he can be very annoying and is often seen as a burden to the group. This is because he thinks that he is too advanced a human being to learn a basic, necessary skill, such as driving. Because he cannot drive, it falls on his friends in the relationship to take him to work and other places he would like to go. His relationship with his friends is sometimes fractured by this very thing. Yet their friendship is sustained not so much by profession of love as the understanding of the obligation they have towards him. What would happen to him if they did not help him? One of the things that seem to maintain their relationship with Sheldon is the sense of duty that they have towards him.

Such is the case with African ethics. Just ask Africans abroad who have to send money to relatives back home almost every month. It is annoying and burdensome but such is the case with an ethic of duty. It is sustained by obligation not love.