People leave their shoes outside this dental office on the sidewalk of a main street in Bangkok

What do shoes on the sidewalk of a busy city street tell about a society?    As it turns out, quite a bit.

People entering this Bangkok dental office leave their shoes outside on the busy sidewalk because they can.  They can because their society is so advanced that they know people won’t steal them.

Admittedly these are mostly flip-flops, but there is a nice pair of short leather boots there.   And, it should be noted that is on one of the main busy streets in town.

What other city of 9 million people do you know where you could do this?  This is really one of the greatest achievements of any society, yet few acknowledge it.  But only one word can account for it:  Love.   Enough people love their neighbor enough that this trust of their property has become a societal norm.  That in turn means that people are more like a family than cold and distant people sharing the same space.   Which then gives hope that this kind of ethic can be improved wherever it is found and it can spread to wherever it is not.