Explain common, different and conflicting goals by giving suitable examples?

(a) Development involves thinking about our aspirations or desires and about the ways in which we can work towards achieving these desires/goals.

(b) Different goals: Different persons in the society have different aspirations and goals.

(i) One may desire to be a doctor while another person an engineer. There is no conflict between the two.

(ii) They can fulfil their aspirations or desires.

(c) Conflicting goals: Sometimes two groups of persons may desire conflicting things. For example, industrialists may want construction of more dams for generation of electricity. But this may submerge the land and disrupt the lives of people who are displaced-such as tribals. They might resent this and may prefer small check dams or tanks to irrigate their land. Thus what may be development for one may not be development for the other. It may even be destructive for the others.

(d) Common goals: Besides more income people may seek other goals such as equal treatment, freedom, security and respect of others. All these may be common goals for all.

All these are important goals. In fact in some cases these may be more important than more income or more consumption because material goods are not all one needs to live. The quality of life depends on non-material things such as friendship.

From above, it is clear that people have common goals, conflicting goals and different goals in life for their development.

(e) Mixed goals: Similarly for development, people look at a mix of goals. For example, if there is respect for women, there would  be more sharing of housework and a greater acceptance of women working outside. A safe and secure environmental may allow more women to take up a variety of jobs or run a business. People have developmental goals about better income as well as other important things of life.