36. MAN AND NATURE

36. MAN AND NATURE



Peace by piece 
by Celia Berrell

The world is getting smaller
and its breaking into bits.
Let’s put it back together.
Peace by piece
the puzzle fits.

Repairs can all be tended
by the tiniest of friends.
As working all together
peace by piece
the puzzle mends.

Earth as seen from space.

THERE is a general view that nature is steady, while man is both unsteady and capricious. Poets express this in beautiful songs, as in the following from the 1954 movie Nastik.

Nature and man

देख तेरे संसार की हालत क्या हो गई भगवान
कितना बदल गया इनसान कितना बदल गया इनसान
सूरज न बदला चांद न बदला ना बदला रे आसमान
कितना बदल गया इनसान कितना बदल गया इनसान

Dekh tere sansar ki haalat kya hogayi bhagwan

Kitna badal gaya insaan, kitna badal gaya insaan

Suraj na badla chand na badla na badla rae aasman

Kitna badal gaya Insaan

O Lord, look at the state of your world!
How much has man changed, how much has man changed!
Sun has not changed, moon has not changed, 
nor has the sky changed,
How much has man changed !

आया समय बड़ा बेढंगा
आज आदमी बना लफ़ंगा
कहीं पे झगड़ा कहीं पे दंगा
नाच रहा नर हो कर नंगा
छल और कपट के हाथों अपना
बेच रहा ईमान, कितना …

Aaya samay bada bedanga

Aaj aadmi bana lafanga

Kahin pe jagda kahin pe dhanga

Naach raha nar hokar nanga

Chal aur kapat kae haathon apna

Baech raha imaan, kitna badal gaya insaan.

Times have come which are unsuitable
Today man has become unsettled.
There is fight somewhere, there is riot somewhere
Man is dancing naked!
With guile and pretense, men are selling their faith!
How much  has man changed !

This is from the celluloid poet Kavi Pradeep. Here he is contrasting the social environment created by man, and the natural environment. The natural environment is taken to be unchanging, while man is changing his social environment in unwholesome ways.



Does man change?

Marcus Aurelius


Some philosophers however hold that over the years, humanity is by and large what it has always been: seeing and doing things in the same way. For instance, Marcus Aurelius writes:

"Think by way of example the times of Vespasian, and you will see all these things: marrying,raising children, falling ill, dying, wars, holiday feasts, commerce, farming, flattering, pretending,suspecting, scheming, praying that others die, grumbling over one's lot, falling in love,amassing fortunes, lusting after office and power. Now that life of theirs is dead and gone.....the times of Trajan, again the same....."

 [ Meditations. 4.32  Translation by Stephen Hanselman ]

( Vespasian was the Roman Emperor from 69 to 79 AD. Trajan was the emperor from 98 to 117 AD. Marcus Aurelius was himself emperor from 161 to 180 AD)

Here, we are told that in about a century, humans had not changed their ways significantly. They had carried on in much the same way!

Things are not the same!

Those living now in the second decade of the 21st century can hardly agree with either assessment fully. We know that both the natural environment, and the social structure have undergone tremendous changes due to human intervention. Things may seem the same, but they are not. We may be doing the same things, but not in the same manner or spirit!

Basic human nature has not changed. We are as prone to love and war, hatred and strife, struggle for power and position, given to scheming and flattering, now as in the days of Marcus Aurelius. But our methods and weapons have changed. Love is not steady, marriage is not for life but a contract of convenience, children are with single parents, old people are dumped in -what are atrociously called - "old age homes" which are anything but homes! War is not confined to combatants. We have lost our sense of right and wrong, and an intense relativism dictates and guides our actions. Utilitarian calculations have replaced moral concerns. We continue with old names, but they do not mean now what they meant in the past.

Sun is changing

While society has changed, nature is also observed to be not so steady, after all. Scientists tell us that the sun for instance is steadily changing. They estimate its life to be about 8 billion years, and it is now half way through- in about its 4.5 billionth year. A stage will come when it will burn up its hydrogen, become a red-giant star,[ finally assuming 150 times its present size ] and engulf Mercury, Venus and   Earth.  Though this will happen  in another 3.5 billion years, earth will become unlivable in another billion years!

Sun as red-giant star: Image from NASA

 In the mean time, the sun too continues to behave in cycles,  causing disturbances on earth,through waves of heat and cold; though the effects may not last long, the cycles get repeated. This is quite apart from the changing seasons.

However these things do not unduly disturb us Hindus whose scriptures tell us that even the Universe will one day disintegrate!

Man is changing the earth!

While this is the natural progression based on the life of the sun as projected by scientists, earth is already becoming unlivable due to human activity- its nature and scale.'Progress' based on human economic and industrial activity  in the last two centuries has polluted all the surface water on earth; it has polluted the rivers and the oceans; it has destroyed forests which precipitate rain and protect the soil; it has polluted the air and atmosphere. It has invented products and processes which directly affect Nature adversely and permanently, and in ways which affect the quality of life. It has led to extinction , and seriously threatens the existence, of many life forms on earth, the true function and significance of which even the so called scientists do not fully know.Pollution , global warming,and the risks of  nuclear energy are distinctly modern phenomena, due to our 'scientific advance'. Thus the nature surrounding us is not what it was at the time of Marcus Aurelius, it is not what it was even a century ago! These have brought about radical changes in our social arrangements too.

While every other life form on earth lives in ways as intended by nature, in harmony with it, man alone does things which go against nature , and yet calls it 'progress'! Such progress has made our water undrinkable , and the air unbreathable!

In fact, those who are over 70 can easily see how fast, and how irreversibly things have changed all around us in the last 50 years in India. All aspects of life have changed simultaneously. Nothing that we use today is exactly what it was a fifty years ago! Even our traditional food has changed in content and composition, though it retains its name and form! The institutions which provided stability and strength in times of stress in the past , like  marriage and family, religious orders and arrangements, local communities, etc have also changed radically. Or, they no more fulfill their old functions. Even the pace of life has accelerated, and life style altered.

The net result is that man has simply failed to comprehend and relate to his environment- natural or social- meaningfully. Both are being manipulated by him continuously, in accelerated ,unceasing wave after wave. Commercial interests have taken control of the details of living. 

For serious students of literature, this does not come as a  surprise at all. Poets and philosophers have been warning us of the forces of change. But no one foresaw the furious pace of the change. 

FUTURE SHOCK



Alvin Toffler in 2006. 
Photo: By Vern Evans (Flickr:AT 02)
CC BY-SA 2.0 Wikimedia commons)

 The author who best captured the situation was Alvin Toffler. In his 1970 book "Future Shock", he traced in sufficient detail the forces of change, their pace, direction and magnitude. He called 'Future Shock' that psychological state, based on a culture shock, where both individuals and societies were unable to cope with change- too much change in too short a time at too fast a pace. This is compounded by "information overload"- we have too much information for our understanding. The situation totally disorients both individuals and societies. Institutions and arrangements of the past would not help us. We are left dazed.

We must search out totally new ways to anchor ourselves, for all the old roots — religion, nation, community, family, or profession — are now shaking under the hurricane impact of the accelerative thrust.

Thus the present is not a smooth extension of the past,  the past is no sure guide to the future. Toffler also anticipated the era of personal computers, mobile communication ,internet and email, etc but warned us in 1998:

"Society needs people who take care of the elderly and who know how to be compassionate and honest. Society needs people who work in hospitals. Society needs all kinds of skills that are not just cognitive; they're emotional, they're affectional. You can't run the society on data and computers alone."

Disturbing trends

Cover of an old edition shown here for educational purpose.


I first read the book in 1974, and it has left a lasting and disturbing impression.Almost everything  that the author said has happened! This book is still relevant. Our youngsters would be shocked to know how relevant it is to India today! How mindlessly has India embraced 'future shock'!


Technological and natural environment
Toffler mainly deals with the  consequences of the industrial and technological changes created by man, during the three phases of the so called march of civilization: the agrarian, industrial and post-industrial society.[detailed in his book 'The Third Wave', 1980.] Other aspects of these changes have been studied by others like Lewis Mumford, Jacques Ellul. Man's capacity to adapt to change, individually and socially, has seriously lagged behind the pace of change. It is even more than the human mind can really absorb.

But since the days of 'Future Shock' which continues to be relevant, serious scientists have studied how man's activities in the name of progress have impacted the environment, and how unsuitable the earth is becoming as our habitat. The rising science of ecology since the days of Rachel Carson is revealing the serious nature of the damage, often irreversible, being caused by man, in the name of progress and development, with the aid of modern science! But this is yet to be fully acknowledged by the so called scientific community, and appreciated by the educated public and its leaders.

 India could have avoided many of the pitfalls if we had followed a different line of development, but our leaders lacked wisdom and courage; they merely followed the ways of the West as progress, and we have repeated and inherited all their mistakes, misdeeds and misery. Present PM Modi too is following the same route!

Ancient literature is full of accounts of people who have cried, in every age, that it has deteriorated, compared to the past! But what we are witnessing now is unprecedented by all objective standards. The earth and air, water and sky are not now what they were  a mere 50 years ago- as measured by scientific instruments! Even the chemical composition of our food has changed! There is now practically no food item which is not touched or treated by some chemical at some stage! There is no one power or authority which controls things or can call the shots. We in fact do not know for sure who runs the show! Things are going on pretty much as an orchestra without  a conductor!

 I do not like to conclude a piece on negative lines, but here I see no glimmer of light, unless we make bold to say that the answer to change is even more change, even faster change ! Let us keep travelling just for the fun of it, even if we do not know the direction or destination! Is it any consolation  that this is what is supposed to happen in this Kali Age, according to our own sacred books ? Relief in the form of an Avatar comes, but at the end! The age promises relief only to individuals who strive spiritually! How we wish we could return to  simpler ways, and say with the poet:

Therefore am I still 

A lover of the meadows and the woods 

And mountains; and of all that we behold 

From this green earth; of all the mighty world 

Of eye, and ear,—both what they half create, 

And what perceive; well pleased to recognise 

In nature and the language of the sense 

The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse, 

The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul 

Of all my moral being. 

William Wordsworth.
Tintern Abbey Lines
July 13, 1798

24. MAGIC OF WORDS

24.MAGIC OF WORDS

www.theodysseyonline.com

MANKIND is madly in love with its own words- words it can utter and write. Politicians in India live out of their words, of which there is an endless supply. Most of their words mean next to nothing, recalling the words of Macbeth:

And be these juggling fiends no more believed,
That palter with us in a double sense,
That keep the word of promise to our ear,
And break it to our hope.

Economists: spin doctors

 But here, so called economists can't be beaten- either for the number of words they spin, or for the little sense they convey. In college in the late 50s, we learnt that the job of the Reserve Bank of India was to control inflation (ie ensure monetary stability), while promoting/facilitating  economic development :" growth with stability ". If one read the annual reports of the RBI since then, one would learn a hundred ways of  rephrasing this idea, but not much about inflation, leave alone controlling or taming it!.   Our efforts to even accurately measure it have slackened. Why bother about measurement when you can manipulate?

The world of books

www.awesomefoundation.org

 Writing is more lasting than talks. And more fascinating. Good writing is difficult, but that has not daunted would be authors. According to publisher Berret Koehler, while traditional sources published 3 lakh new books in the US in 2015, 7 lakh books were self published by the authors! Thus over a million books were published, while 13 million older publications were available for sale! It is said that an average nonfiction book sells less than 250 copies a year, and less than 3000 in its lifetime! Now, the author himself has to assume the main responsibility for marketing! It is said that the UK publishes more books per head of the population than even the US, though the average person is said to read not more than 1 -5 books a year!

Blissful without books!

We in India are quite blissful. Our youngsters do not read anything  other than their prescribed textbooks, and may be, just newspapers after leaving college! I think there are other reasons than the spread of Internet and mobile phone for this. It has something to do with our academic structure and standards.

We acquire reading habits through example, peer pressure, parental influence or guidance and direction from the teachers or mentors. The subjects we study have also a bearing. Half a century ago, most of us studied  'arts' subjects ie history, economics, political science, literature, philosophy etc. Most 'bright' students took up science or maths group. Later 'commerce' stream became popular. [Now, the former 'arts'  subjects are divided into humanities (history, philosophy, literature,ethics, comparative religion,criticism and appreciation of 
arts ) and  social sciences ( political science, economics,sociology, anthropology, psychology and geography). Our 'arts' subjects were limited and simple. We did not have so many  burdensome branches back then in India.  The syllabus was not heavy, diversions few, and left us ample time for general reading, ( and idling) which the very nature of the subjects demanded and fostered.

Compulsive reading

 Besides, the very teaching method was different. There would be a syllabus, prescribed text books, recommended reference books. The lecturer would take up a topic, give an outline and assign a subject for us to write on. Often, there would be serious discussions in the class room, and the lecturer could not cover a topic fully. At the end of the year the formal syllabus remained uncompleted. But we had by then learnt how to study. We would go to the library, consult various books, take notes and then submit our essays. There was no question of sticking to one book.[Lecturers in most colleges would dictate notes, and most students who just aimed at a pass would be satisfied with that.] Though we were free to read anything in the library, some books would not be issued. I was once on a spree of reading all the Thomas Hardy novels available. But being a Catholic college, the principal had ordered that Jude The Obscure should not be issued!

 In the post-graduate classes, there were only books of reference, which were beyond our means! We had to go to the library to read them. In our college, the lectures were confined to three hours in the morning. The afternoons were "library hours" where attendance was compulsory. The professors kept track of the books we read, of which a record was kept. If we read too many general books, they would caution us that we should be more focussed on the subject as we had an examination to face! There was no question of anything being considered 'out of syllabus'!

[However, one general defect in the system was that we were not required to read even a single classic work in the original in any subject even at the post graduate level! Thus we would learn  Keynes' "General Theory" without actually having to read it! [ It is however doubtful how many could have read it, even among the faculty! It is a tough book.] We would go to Dudley Dillard or Alvin Hansen, at the most! I liked Dillard more. Incidentally, more people are Keynesians without having read him, like most people talk of Gandhi without having read him.]

Rote learning now!

 The situation is different now.  Engineering and  Medicine, followed by Commerce , Science and Management/ Business Studies have become the preferred subjects, as they are perceived to provide better employment or earning prospects. The syllabus is heavy, but well defined, and subjects many. The stress is on percentage of marks, even decimal points are critical! The books are prescribed, and learning is  by rote! You cannot go beyond the book, nor question the teacher even if he/she is wrong! These professions are also such as to induce tunnel vision. In the humanities and social sciences, the scope is wider, but the establishment view is indoctrinated  in the name of education. One does not really find a "liberal scholar" now. As the American Chesterton Society said in a recent communication:

Our educational institutions have done away with classical thinking. They have  abandoned truth, beauty and goodness, replacing it with relativism, ugliness, and self-indulgence. Our students are not taught the real lessons from history, they are not taught to strive for virtue, and they are certainly not taught to honor God. They are not any of the arts, especially the art of thinking. The passing on of bad ideas has taken place in the academy but it has been simply reinforced in our arts, our entertainment, our media.

[Communication dated 24 May 2017

 Perhaps, we can't blame the youngster alone for not acquiring the habit of wider reading.

Reading-is it a virtue?

 Not reading- is it such a bad thing?  Yes, not reading good books is plain bad. How else do we connect with the world of ideas and the great minds behind them in any field? That is the only way we grow ! As Tom Butler- Bowdon said recently:

Every book is a kind of mental edifice erected by the author, and we enter the house that they have built. This is why reading is such an intimate experience. You can be reading someone who died five-hundred or a thousand years ago, but it is like a friend is right there with you in the moment, having a deep conversation that means everything.

[  email 15 June 2017 ]

 Every generation gains an idea of the enduring bases of its civilization through its old literature.This imparts the sense of its stability and continuity.But we have to exercise discretion in what we choose to read.

Social sciences

Most of the general books on socio-economic matters,  especially by Indian authors are not worth reading. They are generally not original, and only repeat or echo the American/leftist views on most things. The books prescribed by the universities are also of leftist orientation. The problem with these books is that they do not discuss fairly the other points of view. Our youngsters do not lose much if they do not read such muck. But there are great authors in all subjects all over the world, especially outside the academic orbit, and it is indeed a misfortune if we do not read their books which contain the fruits of latest research in the disciplines. And sometimes something beyond the disciplines themselves: like the works of Rachel Carson,  E.F.Schumacher or Fritjof Capra. These works caused a fundamental shift in our consciousness. 
On the contrary, so many people have got the Nobel Prize in the last 100 years.  Has the world really benefited from their labours? The Nobel Prize is a huge hoax these days.

There is a special problem for Indians in accessing books by foreign authors. Most new books come late to our attention here in India, and most serious books are outrageously costly. For instance, Howard Gardner's book  "Frames of Mind" on the theory of multiple intelligences, which has a bearing on learning, costs Rs.1000 even in paperback. This may not be costly for those in the IT sector, earning salary in dollar standards,but not for the others. Books of poetry are difficult to get, and burn a big hole in the pocket. We do not have good libraries.Most libraries have mainly pulp fiction. However,with online booksellers, we can get most books as and when they come out, but the price is high. Though we are also beginning to get used books at low prices, many classic nonfiction works are still costly by our standards.

 80 years after its publication, Lewis Mumford's 'Technics and Civilization' is still not available in our libraries, and not affordable in the market.  The same can be said of the books of Jacques Ellul. We have to depend on extracts even from online sources. 

Our youngsters are consequently deprived of the chance to get in touch with some of the original minds who had reservations about our industrial civilization. They develop a one-track mind based on what they are told in  college.






Religious studies

But the real danger is from foreign authors writing on Indian issues, especially our religion and philosophy. Most of our youngsters lack even rudimentary knowledge in these matters. They may follow some form of ritual or worship, but they do not know beyond. Our educational system is peculiar: it exalts the foreign religions, while denouncing  or disowning our own. This is our secularism! Indian students do not learn about the ideals and practices of ancient India from sympathetic, or even neutral interpreters.They do not know about the philosophical or psychological bases of our religion. Most of them have lost touch with the original sources, thanks to Macaulay whose system still continues with reinforced leftist  vigour. We cannot check if someone misquotes or misinterprets.

  Foreigners learn Sanskrit, read our originals but with an agenda. They interpret them without practice,understanding,  experience or objectivity or sympathy! Their motive is not right understanding or devotion to truth, but to denounce India and make it a colony of America.But they write well, very well indeed. In the circumstances, if  our youngsters are exposed to their works without prior knowledge or preparation, they are likely to be misled.This is already happening.

 As Wilfred Cantwell Smith of McGill [later Harvard] University said long ago:

"....... it would be equally idle to deny that it is full of danger, both to our studies and to the world. There is the danger of 'being used'; of subordinating knowledge to policy, rather than vice versa. There is the subtler danger of acquiring seeming knowledge, that is in fact false. For it happens to be a law of this universe  in which we live that  you cannot understand persons if you treat them as objects. You misinterpret a culture if  you approach it in order to manipulate it. A civilization does not yield its secrets except to a mind that  approaches it with humility and love."

[Quoted in Dr.V.Raghavan: An Anthology On Aspects of Indian Culture, Raghavan Centre For Performing Arts, Chennai, 2002; page 222.]





Meaning of religion


In fact, Smith is noted for another important idea about religion.He said:

"One's own 'religion' may be piety and faith, obedience, worship, and a vision of God. An alien 'religion' is a system of beliefs or rituals, an abstract and impersonal pattern of observables. A dialectic ensues, however. If one's own 'religion' is attacked, by unbelievers who necessarily conceptualize it schematically, or all religion is, by the indifferent, one tends to leap to the defence of what is attacked, so that presently participants of a faith - especially those most involved in argument - are using the term in the same externalist and theoretical sense as their opponents. Religion as a systematic entity, as it emerged in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, is a concept of polemics and apologetics" (p. 43).






As the Wikipedia article notes:

The terms for major world religions today, including Hinduism, Buddhism, and Shintoism, did not exist until the 19th century. Smith suggests that practitioners of any given faith do not historically come to regard what they do as religion until they have developed a degree of cultural self-regard, causing them to see their collective spiritual practices and beliefs as in some way significantly different from the other. Religion in the contemporary sense of the word is for Smith the product of both identity politics and apologetics:

[ This is a correct assessment. G.K.Chesterton had indeed said something like it. Hindus had no name for their religion- it was just sanatana dharma. Buddha called his way simply "Dhamma" or Dharma. It was only the foreigners who invented the names and created differences. ]

Beware of foreign authors!

Traditionally Indian youngsters have understood their religion only by osmosis. As in any culture, many things are taken for granted, practised and only subsequently reflected upon, and that too by a few. [Not everyone using the latest mobile phone knows the details of the technology involved in it.] But since Independence, Indian educational system has been deliberately distanced from the roots of the majority or core culture. Most youngsters passing through the system lack any knowledge and appreciation. In such circumstances, if they get exposed to prejudiced foreign authors what will happen?



The problem is complicated by two factors:

1. The books by foreign writers are edited, printed and published well by international publishers which also promote them world-wide. They easily get entry into foreign academic institutions and libraries. and enter the academic circuit through the influence of the academics occupying university chairs, who form a mutual admiration circuit- especially against Hindus. [ It is an irony that most American academics defend and are sympathetic to Islam, in spite of its advocacy of terrorism, while they are hostile to and prejudiced against Hinduism, which has never dipped its hand in the neighbour's blood! ]

2. Modern Indian writers are also mostly following the foreigners' line. They cannot access the original sources and rely on translations. They also echo foreigners' approach, ideas and interpretation in order to gain foreigners' approval and appreciation (real or bogus.) and to look 'modern'. Most Indians still feel flattered if a foreigner writes a book on Hindu religion, without caring for the motive or substance! Unfortunately, some Indian publishers bring out cheaper/affordable Indian editions of such books! Foreign publishers like OUP or Penguin have been in India for long but they have no loyalty , love, or even sympathy for India and its cause or culture. They usually promote views antagonistic to Indian tradition and its indigenous knowledge systems. They are the living representatives of Macaulay now in India. Macaulay is not dead.

Learn from the old Indian savants

Those Indians who know the original sources and have real knowledge and practical experience cannot write English at all, or well enough. A generation or two ago, we had authorities like Alladi Mahadeva Sastri,  Dr.Radhakrishnan, Dr.R.D.Ranade,Dr.V.Raghavan. We have our Vivekananda and Sri Aurobindo than whom none can write better in East or West. But our youngsters do not read them! Our education system has alienated our youth from our own roots and masters! It has de-Indianised us.

Editing Indian books

 Indian publishers do not care to edit books professionally. Internationally, even the best  authors depend on editors. And a good editor is not over-awed by a celebrity name. Many popular and good authors openly acknowledge the editors. [ It is said that even Jim Corbett's books owe much to the editor at OUP.] To know a subject and to even write is one thing, but to write and publish a book is different! Unfortunately, even an institution like Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, which has been in the business for over 60 years and specialises in books on Indian culture do not edit their books well. 

Words are weapons

There is no doubt that words and catch phrases capture the imagination of the masses and the elite alike. Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, Democracy, Freedom, Socialism, Liberalism, Secularism, Progress, Modernism, Scientific Temper, Revolution, etc are words which sway millions across the globe. But ask the people their meaning- even most so called educated people would fumble.   Academics too are slaves to some ideas of long ago: evolution, natural selection, Freudian concepts, etc.  As they are entrenched in their establishments, it is not easy for new ideas or contrarian views to gain ground there. However, the educated public in the West  are now conscious of basic ideas like Entropy, Environment, Ozone hole, Global Warming, Pollution, GMO, etc. We can indeed write a comprehensive history of the last century on the basis of the words mentioned in this one paragraph!

Human society moves on the wheels of words. They create bonds but also cause alienation.  It is good to remember, as Thomas Hobbes said:

Words are wise men’s counters, they do but reckon by them; but they are the money of fools, that value them by the authority of an Aristotle, a Cicero, or a Thomas, or any other doctor whatsoever, if but a man.


--- Thomas Hobbes, (1651), Leviathan (1651) Pt. I, Ch. 4, quoted by Steven Pinker in The Stuff of Thought (2007), p. 151



When I pronounce the word  FUTURE,
the first syllable already belongs to the past.

When I pronounce the word SILENCE,
I destroy it.

When I pronounce the word NOTHING,
I make something no nonbeing can hold.

-Wislawa Szymborska
Polish Poet, Nobel Laureate in Literature, 1996.


Photo: Polish News Agency PAP





Note: 
I have only considered English language books.