Human Civilization can perhaps be viewed as one mega data set. However one rarely gets to contemplate on it because individual lives are governed by narratives. Right from the point when one begins to blink - a set of do's and dont's take over. As one grows up, a transition is effected every day from the ideal to the practical so much so that by the time the age of indulging in economic activity is reached, one is rendered incapable of thinking beyond a template - The Matrix!
The biggest casualty from my early years into adult hood has been morality. Growing up in the world of comic books and text books - almost every story, fiction or other wise had a moral lesson. It was a compelling narrative.
Interestingly with age, a different narrative took over - that of success, freedom and the good life. Morality then got dissected, intellectually rejected and worst of all made to look subjective.
All of this happened so organically that one can be forgiven for missing the effect!
Over the past 3 weeks, there have been incidents of molestation of a girl by a bunch of hoodlums in Guwahati and an incident in Mangalore where some activists interrupted a party and beat up those involved in the name of culture.
To make my stand clear, I unequivocally feel that both the hoodlums and the activists should be bought to book. The former should be severely punished and the latter should be made to realise that taking law into their hands is not done!
But on more reflection, I find it strange to say the least that almost every media narrative on the subject has chosen to flaunt the "morality is moral only when voluntary" angle.
So is Morality moral only when voluntary ?
My understanding says No! In my opinion, Morality is to live a life governed by a set of principles and guidelines to sustain the societal framework within which one operates.
It's a guideline which means one can chose to follow it or not. Consequently, it should not be enforced.
But here's where I break away from the current convention - There's nothing subjective about Morality. There's no your morality and mine, one cannot justify being immoral as the right thing.
In an ideal world, there proabably wouldn't have been a need for such guidelines. The world would be full of good people and 'Prevention is better than cure' would have been a non existent phrase.
But in the real world...the ordeal can be a bitch!
The 2 common arguments that I have seen made against morality are :
1. Conflicting with Freedom of expression
2. As long as one leads a non interfering life, one should be allowed to do what one wants.
The problem I have with point 1 is that Freedom is made out to be all about what to wear, drink and whom to do. This is bloody myopic and hypocritical especially when one has no qualms of putting on a uniform or signing a behavior claue for economic incentives. The Hindu had an article on the Guwahati incident today where the author attributed this nit picking to a narrative driven by consumerism. She stated beautifully that there are many other ways to feel liberated - seeking the pub and disco are not necessarily the right indicators.
Point 2 is blatantly wrong. Things that are seemingly non interfering are in reality very propagating. The doped dude in the rave party can potentially run over a few pedestrians on his way home. The drunk idiot may not think twice about molestation or any other lewd act. At a more fundamental level, they can cause harm to self , to close one's or someone unrelated. The world is interconnected now more than ever.
On the other side of the debate, leading a moral life can be overbearing, suffocating even. Religious substantiation of morality can sound dubious to the questioning mind. It's not attractive, is completely man made and sometimes gets in the way...
Which begs the question - Are morality and freedom mutually exclusive ?
Fortunately, I think not, but for both of them to co-exist, it would require one to understand the concepts of control, bounds/limits and societal obligations.
So, we need a narrative that helps us seek and gain that control, that awareness -
The issue however is that we have bought into one that promotes the (false) sense of freedom at the cost of morality. What we need is someone to tell us constantly -
That in the real world, actions have reactions, so follow the equivalent of a balanced diet in the way you lead your life.
The last thing we can afford is a toss off...
4 comments:
I've said it umpteen times before and I will say it again-Freedom defined is freedom denied.
Wearing a uniform or signing a clause is still voluntary, if I don't like either I can find other jobs without these requirements.
And why should the entire group of people have to suffer because one idiot can't handle himself properly? This is the same argument used to justify prohibition, an unwillingness to differentiate between drinking and drunkenness.
As for the action reaction bit, we already have laws for those whose actions end up harming others. This in no way justifies interfering
in the lives of others who are going about their business in a way that you can avoid if you don't like it.
If someone smokes in public, plays loud music late at night or similar, you have every right to complain to the authorities. In all other cases, feel free to avoid them, same applies to books and movies and works of art that you don't like.
Freedom undefined or Freedom unlimited is a pseudo intellectual fallacy. It doesn't exist in any society and for a good reason. Freedom needs to be objectivized and therefore it has to be defined. Think about it, would you want to live in a world where everyone carries his one version of freedom in his head and is able to justify his act based on that perception.
The same person who voluntarily wears a uniform or signs a clause will harp about freedom elsewhere where he/she doesn't have an economic incentive - That is hypocritical.
The point on an entire group of people suffering is naive - No govt., not even in the richest economies can afford to track on an individual basis - that's why there are laws. The effect that an individual can have has been brought to bear almost every living day - the dark knight rises shooting being the latest example. It has prompted a huge debate in the US on the freedom of procuring fire arms. SO how do we fix that ? Should we be saying that we should not let one idiot change our rights?
That said, I agree that there is a difference between drining and drunkeness just as there is in using a fire arm for protection and to harm others.
My point is that we need to be incentivized to be responsible with our freedom. That cannot be achieved by spreading narratives about some theoritical stifling of freedom at the cost of everything else.
The point on laws is also wrong because it is akin to saying - why avoid cancer when there are medicines ? If laws could prevent issues, we'd all be living in Wonderland.
Avoiding something or somebody is also possible only to a certain extent, I think people are naturally disposed to ignore at first. But if there were some way to look at data, we'd realise that the subset of people who truly keep to themselves and do their thing is a minority. Most others influence or adversely effect those around. In the real world, avoiding may not be an option...
How does one avoid a drunkard in a family or in a slum or any one of those environments where awareness is at a premium ?
The whole point of the post is to bring about the flaw in the current narrative. If instead of crying foul for some warped idea of freedom, the media and the arm chair intellectual community and their herds of rats had instead looked at the incident end to end and come out with something that would encourage folks to be responsible.. - it would have been a job well done.
Dink the activists and the hoodlums by all means, but also encourage the lady to be prudent and the party goers to be in control - That's all I ask..
Freedom undefined or Freedom unlimited is a pseudo intellectual fallacy. It doesn't exist in any society and for a good reason
It does. The only boundary present is where your freedom to do x unavoidably infringes on another person's freedom not to be affected by x. Watching a movie, drinking in a pub, all these are activities that do not affect non participants.
Smoking in public - yes it does, because you are infringing on the ability of the other person to enjoy fresh air, and he has as much right to be in that public place as you ( so you can't tell him to go away).
Putting up a provocative hoarding in a public place where no one can avoid noticing it - yes.
Showcasing a movie about lesbianism in India - don't like it? don't watch it.
MF Hussain's depiction of Indian goddesses? Again, no one forced you to go and look at them.
How I behave in private, what I watch, what I think, what I do is nobody's business but mine. And the Mangalore location was a private party, that was gatecrashed by these hoodlums.
It has prompted a huge debate in the US on the freedom of procuring fire arms. SO how do we fix that ? Should we be saying that we should not let one idiot change our rights?
Yes, exactly. This is reductio ad absurdem, to suggest that it was just free access to guns that led to this sort of behavior. There are millions of responsible gun owners in the US who DON'T go on the rampage like this. This is the same argument some people use to justify banning violent video games, because apparently Anders Brevik the Norwegian shooter also used to play COD or Counterstrike.
The point on an entire group of people suffering is naive - No govt., not even in the richest economies can afford to track on an individual basis - that's why there are laws. The effect that an individual can have has been brought to bear almost every living day - the dark knight rises shooting being the latest example.
Which is why law enforcement exists, to weed out the individuals who violate other people's rights.
How does one avoid a drunkard in a family or in a slum or any one of those environments where awareness is at a premium ?
There could be any number of factors - unemployment, bad parenting, poor upbringing, bad role models..
Why is the response to this that normal people who don't get drunk and behave this way should pay the price? Why should my being able to enjoy a social drink responsibly be held hostage to these people?
If a person misbehaves for drunkenness, book him under the law for drunkenness in public. Don't start preaching about the morality of drinking to the public at large.
And banning liquor, for example, only serves to drive it underground (Prohibition in the US only led to the growth of the bootlegging gangs of Chicago).
One solution proposed for this is for factories to hand over the salary to the wives of the workers, to prevent them from blowing it up on booze. Another one is to keep liquor shops shut on pay day. Both have had mixed results in India.
We should be reforming the unavoidably harmful elements in society to fit in properly with others, not doing the opposite and structuring it so that regular people who mind their own business suffer.
There is no real 'private' in a society. You assume Private parties are silhouetted happenings, they rarely are. That is because the folks who carry out immoral practices in private carry them out to the public. This is un-quantified, but the schmuck who gets doped in the private party lures a couple of innocents the next time around. What happens in private will reflect in unwarranted public behavior - make no mistake about it. It's not hard to figure the reason for this, it's because the mindset - the driver of behavior is location agnostic...
What MF Hussain did was idiotic - and I'm willing to bet that he knew exactly what he was doing.. - the publicity hound that he was! He just painted the garb of creativity over it and the idiots who have been oversold on liberalism bought it..- but that's for a different topic!
Bottom line - Nothing in reality is really private.
I am not suggesting that anything should be banned.., In my post, I have clearly stated that the narrative needs to change to encourage control and balance and responsibility.
Video games should not be banned, guns should not be, nor should drinking..But their usage should definitely be ratified
The message should be - "Be responsible!"
not "Stop Moral Policing"..
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