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| Thursday, 18 March 2004 |
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Development and the god - dog dilemma by Afreeha Jawad Whatever the divides, what is noteworthy is that such divides were furthered towards system gains and expansions. Just in case you wonder what I'm trying to point out - some of these have already been concern areas of bygone 'Ringside Reviews', with the exception of man's God/dog state. As Dr. Subangi Herath - Senior Sociologist, Colombo University states - the rise of civilization and culture, while producing highly creative men who led their people into life's absolute values, also with its accompanying development, exposed man to 'needs diversity' - invariably relegating him to lower moulds. Perceiving this finding was regretfully interesting - the asymmetrical consequence of culture and civilization. Development's intensity - indeed a well woven web in which man increasingly got enmeshed with the exposure to countless needs and desires, is noteworthy. The increasing needs thus rested on the growth and rate of development itself. Hence, we observe, with the passage of time, more numbers bent on yielding to materialism at the expense of the more positive and sublime values within them. This certainly does not mean that culture and civilization are bad. After all, it was such that resulted in charismatic leaders and high brow personalities with a remarkable inclination towards creativity. The earth - believably 45 billion years old - has seen the entry of Saints, sages, rishis, painters, musicians, poets, writers and the like - all a result of civilization's familiar environs. That's as far as the good news of civilization goes. However, the bad news is all what followed development - a drive towards quenching the endless desires it created. Like the shadow that follows, civilization and culture was not without its positive and negative results. While on the one hand it helped produce enlightened people, on the other it brought about an upsurge of human capital below bestial state - the latter's numbers even outreaching the other. This two way swing in fact could be viewed as extracting the God/dog state in man. While low speed civilization with least needs enhanced men's godliness, its rival of a high speed nature harnessed their 'dogly' existence - the wide disparity in numbers of both 'states' was noted which is why the present chaotic state - even threatening to efface man from the earth's surface. Often heard is the lame excuse of 'biological drives'. However, man with his sense of reasoning is better equipped than animal to directing such drives towards universal good. At least that's what makes man a far cry or shall we say distant smile from animal. Exploiting the so called 'biological drives' is an exploitative system with the kind of pecuniary thirst that is most needed to be up there - of hegemonic control power, authority and every other thing falling in line with the 'currency drive'. Little wonder then why Machiavelli ruled all humans to be bad and wicked to be handled as such and Rousseau who spoke of moulding man's different impulses. That man itself could be collectively directed towards commonality of thought. Rousseau, come to think of it was not wrong. One may now ask why the system does not favour whipping up men's godliness? If it does, the resultant increasing numbers, in the divine sphere would work against the 'money-fond' system. Thus noteworthy is that in every sphere, a preference of kindling the grosser self exists while undermining the best in man. To nurture and foster the worst in man collectively of course, is what is best for the system. Escalating needs also saw the emergence of power and authority. "Need providers' always had overwhelming control over what they offered to entice man's "base self'. As a result, those that owned resources monopolised same while driving the rest to peripheral territory. While in that deprived state their unrefined senses were played upon which in modern day terms is the political economy which is why aggressive and fierce competition has set in amidst fallen values. Competition, sad to say, is mistaken as being 'part of human nature' - so says the system and people simply acknowledge such as gospel truth. Every negative aspect is looked at as 'human' - ironically, the positive characteristics of a Godly nature are conveniently dumped. Many a time we've heard of godly characteristics being sarcastically referred to as 'goody goody' - a sort of not quite the 'done thing'. Contrastingly, otherwise, behaviour is upheld and even emulated. These are times when wrongs have become norms. If it is not so and there is a slant towards absolute values, the perverted system is at stake. This then points out to why the dogliness in the God/dog dichotomy is promoted. |
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