Robert Pirsig (I do admire the way he thinks) in his book Lila describes an incident where he and a colleague are walking with the chief of a native American tribe. After some time a dog starts walking beside them. Pirsig's colleague thinks that the dog looks weird and asks the chief,” What kind of dog is that?". The chief thinks for a while and then says, "That is a good dog". The answer surprises them both because what they are referring to is the breed of the dog. This is what Pirsig describes is the dichotomy between the western culture and Native American culture. The western culture has devoted millions of dollars, human effort and huge universities to help humans understand what is what, while very little effort has been spent on finding out what is good. The problem according to me is not whether a government should try to imbibe good among its populace, rather than spend millions on academic institutions to understand our world. The problem according to me is whether the government or any other body has a right to determine what is good for its people.
I guess, the only country today which does that unabashedly is China, and also a few religious countries. What I will discuss is whether it is good for a government or a social organisation to enforce its view of what is right. The world has been evolving and in the process has seen various philosophies gain strength at different times. I will classify each of these philosophies into two categories: philosophies allowing individual freedom of thought, philosophies enforcing one view of the world. The world, and more so India, will be analysed with respect to four phases it has been through:
1. The golden age of Indian philosophy - The time of Buddha, Mahavir, Kautilya and many other schools of thought
2. The advent of Islam and Christianity its successes
3. Communism
4. Western Democratic Tradition
The first phase was when India was culturally and socially dominating the world. It was the time of intense thought and also freedom from dogma. The people were trying to escape from only one view of truth and as I have heard it was very common for people to adopt different schools of thought at different stages in their lives. Greece was going through a similar period with the great philosophers deviating from prevalent concepts of what is right and wrong and redefining morals. India and Greece were the success stories of that time and I believe their successes defined the morality of those times which allowed people to think for themselves.
The second phase defines the spread of Christianity in Europe and Islam from the Middle East to north India. Now both the Abrahamic religions are quite conformist. The church ruled over most of Europe through the middle ages while Islam kept making its conquests into Europe on one hand and eastern Asia on the other. Both the philosophies have a predetermined morality and both have enforced their concepts at times by use of violence. So while they succeeded, conformist thought became the norm while individual freedoms became old fashioned.
The third and the fourth phases almost came together. The freedom from the church created the renaissance and eventually led to the industrial revolution in Europe while the resulting inequalities led to the birth of communism. While democracy was adopted by most of west Europe and America, communism became the ideology in Eastern Europe and then China. Communism was definitely conformist, while pure democracy allowed individual the right to think for oneself.
My analysis brings me back to the same result I had come to when I was trying to analyse skepticism. Indian and Greek cultures progressed not for some inherent quality in them but essentially because at that time the two countries were socially, militarily and economically stronger. Islam and Christianity spread because the people who adopted them exercised significant control over the world affairs. Democracy and Communism had the world polarised because they were both supported by two very large and influential countries.
I will take the example of the concept of celebrity here. When Shahrukh Khan wears a certain kind of clothes, talks in a certain kind of way it becomes widely accepted. You look at the 60s clothes and find them funny. 15 years down the line our children will find our clothes in our old pictures funny. The point I am trying to make is that the concept of right and wrong keeps changing and hardly do we realise how we get influenced by personality (read celebrity) and society in our definition of what is acceptable and what is not.
There are two incidents I would like to describe here. James Watson (of the Watson and Crick DNA model fame) some time back made a statement which in essence meant that Africans had lesser intelligence. I was discussing this with some of my friends who were appalled at the statement saying that they were quite disappointed with him. The reaction to the statement was so unanimous throughout the world and he became a pariah and I believe he had to later take the statement back.
The second incident relates to Salman Rushdie and his book the Satanic Verses in which, I hear, he wrote something against Islam. A fatwa was passed against him as his life was at risk. Now though the western world's reaction was more social and political rather than actual physical violence but in both cases, non adherance to a particular point of view was not accepted.
What I essentially mean is that though the western culture seems to promote individual freedom it finds itself at times incapable of accepting difference of thought. The problem that I am trying to solve on a personal level is to find out whether I am right in supporting democracy and opposing intolerance. If success is the criteria then it would be impossible to determine. I guess this decision too like most has to be a personal one, which means less rational and more emotional.
I guess, the only country today which does that unabashedly is China, and also a few religious countries. What I will discuss is whether it is good for a government or a social organisation to enforce its view of what is right. The world has been evolving and in the process has seen various philosophies gain strength at different times. I will classify each of these philosophies into two categories: philosophies allowing individual freedom of thought, philosophies enforcing one view of the world. The world, and more so India, will be analysed with respect to four phases it has been through:
1. The golden age of Indian philosophy - The time of Buddha, Mahavir, Kautilya and many other schools of thought
2. The advent of Islam and Christianity its successes
3. Communism
4. Western Democratic Tradition
The first phase was when India was culturally and socially dominating the world. It was the time of intense thought and also freedom from dogma. The people were trying to escape from only one view of truth and as I have heard it was very common for people to adopt different schools of thought at different stages in their lives. Greece was going through a similar period with the great philosophers deviating from prevalent concepts of what is right and wrong and redefining morals. India and Greece were the success stories of that time and I believe their successes defined the morality of those times which allowed people to think for themselves.
The second phase defines the spread of Christianity in Europe and Islam from the Middle East to north India. Now both the Abrahamic religions are quite conformist. The church ruled over most of Europe through the middle ages while Islam kept making its conquests into Europe on one hand and eastern Asia on the other. Both the philosophies have a predetermined morality and both have enforced their concepts at times by use of violence. So while they succeeded, conformist thought became the norm while individual freedoms became old fashioned.
The third and the fourth phases almost came together. The freedom from the church created the renaissance and eventually led to the industrial revolution in Europe while the resulting inequalities led to the birth of communism. While democracy was adopted by most of west Europe and America, communism became the ideology in Eastern Europe and then China. Communism was definitely conformist, while pure democracy allowed individual the right to think for oneself.
My analysis brings me back to the same result I had come to when I was trying to analyse skepticism. Indian and Greek cultures progressed not for some inherent quality in them but essentially because at that time the two countries were socially, militarily and economically stronger. Islam and Christianity spread because the people who adopted them exercised significant control over the world affairs. Democracy and Communism had the world polarised because they were both supported by two very large and influential countries.
I will take the example of the concept of celebrity here. When Shahrukh Khan wears a certain kind of clothes, talks in a certain kind of way it becomes widely accepted. You look at the 60s clothes and find them funny. 15 years down the line our children will find our clothes in our old pictures funny. The point I am trying to make is that the concept of right and wrong keeps changing and hardly do we realise how we get influenced by personality (read celebrity) and society in our definition of what is acceptable and what is not.
There are two incidents I would like to describe here. James Watson (of the Watson and Crick DNA model fame) some time back made a statement which in essence meant that Africans had lesser intelligence. I was discussing this with some of my friends who were appalled at the statement saying that they were quite disappointed with him. The reaction to the statement was so unanimous throughout the world and he became a pariah and I believe he had to later take the statement back.
The second incident relates to Salman Rushdie and his book the Satanic Verses in which, I hear, he wrote something against Islam. A fatwa was passed against him as his life was at risk. Now though the western world's reaction was more social and political rather than actual physical violence but in both cases, non adherance to a particular point of view was not accepted.
What I essentially mean is that though the western culture seems to promote individual freedom it finds itself at times incapable of accepting difference of thought. The problem that I am trying to solve on a personal level is to find out whether I am right in supporting democracy and opposing intolerance. If success is the criteria then it would be impossible to determine. I guess this decision too like most has to be a personal one, which means less rational and more emotional.
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