Listening to voices of reason
'The Age of Reason' is a collection of three pamphlets published in
the 17th Century by British radical and American revolutionary Thomas
Paine. What became a very popular and influential work, his work was
able to shake the then dominant belief system. He did it through
critical commentary of the then powerful social, religious and political
order. According to a Wikipedia account, Paine's The Age of Reason "was
a bestseller in the United States, where it caused a short-lived deistic
revival. British audiences, however, fearing increased political
radicalism as a result of the French Revolution, received it with more
hostility."
Questioning accepted basic norms of society is never easy. Paine
called for free rational discussion of ideas spiritual and material,
that reached beyond dogma and popular belief systems of the time. In
human history, from time to time we have seen the likes of Thomas Paine
question the existing order causing ripples of change enabling more
enlightened thinking on issues that impact human development.
Centred power
One of the messages under the heading Humanity Rising posted on a
Face Book page by the Occupy Wall Street activists had a photograph of
Mahatma Gandhi with the following lines along side 1. First they ignore
you 2. Then they laugh at you 3. Then they fight you and 4. Then you
win. It added, "We are at stage 3. Hang in there!"
Mahatma Gandhi |
Rupert Murdoch |
The world around us is seeing a new kind of change. And the hope is
that this time around it will be a change we all can believe in and not
mere election time promises that fizzle out on meeting the realities of
the happenings on the Wall Streets of this world. A recent publication
on the city of New York, boasted that apart from being the world's
financial capital and the home for the United Nations head quarters,
seven of the world's top eight global advertising agency headquarters to
be based in that city. It also boasted that the city was the home for
internationally influential newspapers, large publishing houses, most
prolific television studios, biggest record companies in the world and
being a major global centre for the television, music, newspaper, book
and magazine publishing industries."
That's some power to reckon with and as we read and discovered
earlier this year of the exposures of Rupert Murdoch's media empire,
these can go to unjustifiable ends to push ideologies and positions, far
remote from what is desired by humanity at large. Often they act as
catalysts in making and braking political leadership to hold desired
positions together.
One percent syndrome
Such is the power activists now call the power of the 'one per cent'.
In these recent developments we perhaps are witnessing the emergence of
another 'Age of Reason'. This time what's being questioned is the might,
inapt ways and dogma of those who hold access to resources and the
unholy unions between them and the advocates they have set in place in
the seats of power in the political institutions around the world.
For decades now we saw the emergence of info-communications and other
technologies leading to making what some called the 'global village'. We
saw its apparatus being used to create movements in attempts to bring
pressure on world leaders to make rational decisions on managing climate
change, poverty, epidemics and deal with issues of social justice. We
also saw the same technology being used to push more and more useless
production of 'stuff' we never needed for our rightful existence and may
not need now. It was those who designed and produced them that
determined we needed them. We could recognise this imposing thrust on us
today, as the art (or science) of marketing and promotion. Many channels
of communications are at work to make us believe we need them. There is
an ongoing attack on our subliminal minds to make us believe that what
we want is that 'what is thrown at us'. We saw its use to transfer funds
from money market to money market creating havoc even in several once
prudently managed economies in Asia a decade or so ago, and it continues
to happen all around us even today.
Plastic money
We saw how bubbles of plastic 'money' supported the growth of trading
businesses, where there was no real hard production of useful goods or
services. A good hard work ethic was replaced by what some called a
'smart' work ethic. We saw hordes and hordes of 'stuff' produced, often
more of the same functional application where we could have done with a
few, touted as providing 'consumer choice'. We saw real estate markets
inflating to burst-out loud leaving behind trails of homeless and poor
in the US. While there is a new consciousness emerging all around us
with movements against corruption, injustice, corporate greed, placing
too much pressure on the environment and waste of resources, there is
also a counter movement developing to maintain the status quo.
I was in disbelief to see a recent programme on Bloomberg television,
where Indian villagers were being introduced to plastic credit cards,
touting it as a gateway to bringing prosperity to their lives. Upon the
experience of the burst of credit bubbles in the US, the reported
initiative did not make any moral or economic sense to me as a viewer,
for I am one who believes that media has a social responsibility to
uphold.
Inner contradiction
Most of the time it's our self-interest, reluctance to step out of
our comfort zones and the protective instincts in us that keeps us away
from examining dogma and reaching out to examine reason. I remember
reading Leo Tolstoy write "everyone sooner or later clearly or vaguely
experiences the inner contradiction "I want to live for myself alone,
and want to be a rational person; but it is irrational to try to live
for myself alone."
He also went on to tell the world at large "In the name of God, stop
a moment, cease your work, look around you". That perhaps is what the
doyens of the '1 percent' around the world ought to do; stop for a
moment to listen to the voices of reason and act to correct the
injustices around, perhaps a turn around in the current models in use is
in order.
In the charter of Buddhist inquiry The Kalama Sutta the Buddha is
said to have said "It is proper for you, to doubt, to be uncertain;
uncertainty has arisen in you about what is doubtful. Do not go upon
what has been acquired by repeated hearing; nor upon tradition; nor upon
rumour; nor upon what is in a scripture; nor upon surmise; nor upon an
axiom; nor upon specious reasoning; nor upon a bias towards a notion
that has been pondered over; nor upon another's seeming ability; nor
upon the consideration; 'The monk is our teacher.', when you yourselves
know: 'These are bad; these are to be blamed; these are censured by the
wise; undertaken and observed these lead to harm and ill,' abandon them.
It's time now for careful inquiry, for it could well be, too late to
postpone it.
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