The War Within - Between Good and Evil, Bheemeswara Challa [books for 7th graders txt] 📗

and air
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pollution. The ‘materialist menace’ might be a modern phenomenon but matter,
as separate from spirit, has always been a part of the human condition. So has
been the spiritual aspiration to be relieved from the coils of matter. It is that
one-percent that controls power and public policy making. That is the reason
why governments are unresponsive to the plight of the poor, and contribute to
culpable failure of the state and its laws which are tilted to favor the interests of
the influential in society and are detrimental to the basic needs of the minorities
and the marginalized, the homeless and the landless. The plutocracy that rules the
world is not only leading to the accelerated extinction of other species, which, if
unchecked, will make human life unsustainable on earth, but also to the casting
away of vast sections of society to the vultures and wolves of penury, destitution,
and deprivation.
Much of what we seek in life, much of what human life has long been
associated with, is coded in one word: progress. Henry George wrote in his
classic Progress and Poverty, “Many of the characteristics, actions, and emotions
of man are exhibited by the lower animals. But man, no matter how low on the
scale of humanity, has never yet been found destitute of one thing of which no
animal shows the slightest trace, a clearly recognizable but almost undefinable
something, which gives him the power of improvement—which makes him
the progressive animal”.94 But what denotes progress? In common usage, it
signifies the movement forward, an improvement, or advancement towards a
goal. What is the goal that humans should seek to reach? It is the improvement
and advancement towards material well-being that is commonly construed as
progress. Such identification has long been in the works but it took a decisive
turn with the Industrial Revolution where we paid, and continue to pay, an
apocalyptic price. Instead of trying to achieve ‘moral’ movement, we got ensnared
in an insatiable, maybe insane, drive towards satiation of both inane and wanton
wants. How to reverse the course and change the coordinates and compass is the
central challenge. If we can meet this challenge, other challenges like climate
change, social disintegration, and social and moral entropy will, at the least, lose
their bite. We have to learn to radically refocus, redirect, realign our intellectual,
psychic, scientific, technological, even spiritual resources to face up to the realities
of the emergent world. And if we can do that no problem is insurmountable. We
don’t have to go back to the Stone Age or become neo-Luddites. But we must
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give up this craze for speed, smart phones, cyborgs, and endless automation,
which exact a huge environmental cost. The more we rely on appliances the less
capable we will become to act without them. And automation, it has been said,
breeds automation, and human beings become optional, or unnecessary, to get
human work done. How can the most ‘intelligent’ creature on earth be so stupid
as to choose self-destruction through self-replacement? The answer comes from
writer Sue Halpern: “the priorities are clear: money first, people second”.95 Put
differently, we are prepared to downsize, de-skill, and de-dignify ourselves to
empower companies and make businesses more profitable and the rich richer.
But can we blame it all on money? What about our much-touted free will and
freedom to make choices? Frankly, and really, we don’t know.
One thing we need to get straight. We tend to think that the pervasive
predatory role of money is a part of the modern malaise. The truth is that
money or wealth was always integral to human existence, a kind of thorn in
the flesh, an evil, but necessary nonetheless, like evil itself. The message from
the scriptures is mixed. One the one hand, we came to terms with the reality
that, as a social animal, we have to live with it. On the other hand, we also
recognized its addictive, divisive, and corrupting character. The Gospel96 says
that Jesus cautioned his disciples about the seductive power of money and said,
“It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to
enter the kingdom of God”. And an ancient Hindu text, the classic Arthashastra
by Kautilya (who is also known as Chanakya) states, ‘Dhanam moolam idham
jagat’—the world revolves around wealth. This aphorism is much quoted and
also equally misunderstood and misapplied to justify reverence for money. It
actually conveys the contrary caution, that one should live for better ideals than
for basal desires and worldly pleasures. But it is also important to learn that
ancient wisdom and traditions also recognized the reality of money in human
life, provided it is pursued righteously. Times and things have dramatically
changed since the time of Kautilya, who is believed to have lived in the 3rd
century BCE. But money remains supreme and unrestrained, if any, stronger
and more intrusive and invasive. It has given birth to an assortment of ‘isms’
like materialism, consumerism, capitalism, communism, etc. And it has driven
technology in the wrong direction, towards the mass production of goods,
gadgets, and gizmos for the well-to-do and the tech-savvy bourgeoisie.
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One of the greatest challenges we now face is to induce and orchestrate a
sea change in our relationship with money. In fact, if we could develop the mindset
and means to ensure that it is spread equitably and justly across competing needs
and priorities in the human population, it will have a tremendous boost to a
fairer and far less fractious world. On the one hand, it will lift over a billion
people out of acute poverty, and on the other hand, it will make it possible to
do research and development on technologies that are currently still-born for
want of funding, and which are critical to solve any nagging and pestering social
problems like climate change, mass illiteracy and ill health. We must move from
grudging acceptance to recognition without reservations that it can do a world of
good to the world. One of the hotly debated issues now is about a ‘world without
money’, and how, and if, such a development will be a bane or a blessing. The
hope is that such a world would be fairer, kinder, and gentler. There will be no
rich or poor, and no money-power. It is hard to tell how such a utopian world
might actualize. While other mechanisms like UBI (universal basic income) are
worth intellectual pursuit, the more practical pursuit is to try to turn money
around from the Biblical root of evil to a 21st-century catalyst of social justice.
We must believe that money and moksha, like science and spirituality, are not
antagonistic but capable of coexisting. In other words, make as money as one
can, but ensure that it is spread and shared as broadly and deeply as possible.
And make sure it reaches those corners where it can flower the potential of the
downtrodden and the dirt poor. Financial technologies can help bridge the gap
between social mission and profit motive. Public policies and social norms must
support activities that induce money to flow where it is needed the most, and
turn society itself into what we may call a ‘sharing society’. Money need not
always be morally corrosive or socially disruptive; it can be morally uplifting
and socially equalizing, if channeled properly. There are other motivators besides
money, but money by its weight as a critical need in today’s world can be a
powerful inspiration. We need a new genre of social entrepreneurship that is
capable of merging ‘public purpose and private profit’. Along with the other
two ‘M’s—morality and mortality—, it is another, perhaps the most important,
dimension of contextual-change. What is now perceived as an impediment has
to be turned into an instrument for social empowerment. For the real obstacle
to common good and human enhancement—which science is focusing all its
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energies upon through the medium of the machine—is not money, but our own
unchecked mind. Money is neutral; not the mind, which is both monkeyish and
malicious. Money can do both good and bad, but as long as the mind dominates
our consciousness, money is likely to do more harm than good. Which means
that without consciousness-change, we cannot expect much good to come out
of money. In short, we must fundamentally change the place money occupies in
our conscious mind as a giver of good things of life to a catalyst of an orderly
and just human society. We need a critical mass for such a change, and that must
come from the millennials who are tech-savvy, but morally adrift, wandering
around, trying to find some meaning for why they are alive and what they should
choose to do with their time. If that happens, the world will be a far better
place, less fractious and more peaceful, less miserable and happier. And that
will certainly make every human relationship and institution more stable and
synergistic. More than anything else, it will greatly aid the forces of good and
virtue in the ‘war within’.

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Chapter 4
Towards a New Vocabulary of Morality
Malice and Morality
One of man’s enduring aspirations is to become an authentically moral being. And the single most important obstacle has been the malice entrenched in our mind. Living in a brutal world like ours, one of the very few things that gives us some satisfaction and a hint of hope about our future is that, although we arose from brutes, we are better—better because we can judge right and wrong, and therefore we are, or can be, more responsible and responsive in our earthly conduct. It is another matter that none of such assumptions are any longer accurate. We live in a morally ambiguous and ambivalent world, in which everyone wants to be moral, and most think they are, and yet morally macabre things continue to be done and no one feels responsible or remorseful. But to begin with, in such a compromised and corrupting world, what should one do to remain rooted to our moral moorings? How this has come about is a subject of scholarly discourse, whether it is hard-wired by nature or acquired through evolution. Some say that morality is simply an instinct just like sexual desire. Theologists like William Craig posit that, “If God does not exist, objective moral values and duties do not exist”. Philosopher Patricia Churchland argues in her book Braintrust that it is a ‘false dilemma’ to claim that ‘either God secures the moral law or morality is an illusion’, because ‘morality is grounded in our biology’. And atheists like Sam Harris attack both moral absolutism—that some things are absolutely right or wrong no matter the circumstances—and moral relativism—that moral or ethical statements, which vary from person to person, are all equally valid and no one’s opinion of ‘right and wrong’ is really better than any other—, arguing that moral values are in reality moral facts, and as facts they can be scientifically understood by studying brain and behavior. All this inevitably raises the matter of the ‘problem of evil’. In fact, it is a double problem of evil. Some ask: what is the essential nature of this evil and wounded world, and is there any way out of this woe and misery? From the other side, some ask: why should this essentially good world harbor any evil, and how can we live
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with it wholeheartedly? Is evil a perennial characteristic of finite existence, or are
we responsible for the experience of evil? We must remember that, much as we
might wish, we cannot get rid of evil. For, as Socrates said, “Evils, Theodorus, can
never pass away; for there must always remain something which is antagonistic
to good. Having no place among the gods in heaven, of necessity they hover
around the mortal nature, and this earthly sphere”. Science, which so far left
such matters to religion and philosophy, is now trying to step in and make a
difference. Recent research by neurologists like Michael Stone (The Anatomy of
Evil, 2009) indicates that violent criminals have amygdalae (the region of the
brain believed to play a key role in the emotions) that are smaller or that don’t
function properly. Views of people like Sam Harris and such findings are in sync
with the current scientific chorus: everything, good, evil, empathy, compassion,
aggression, love, addiction, even mind and consciousness, is simply a matter of
our brain. If it is malstructured or malfunctioning, or the internal balance is
disturbed, things go haywire and we misbehave. Other experts argue that our
brain is a big part of