Saturday, May 9, 2020
Sad demise of Bhagwat Prasad Rath
I FEEL VERY SAD TO INFORM YOU ALL THAT SRI RATH PASSED AWAY RECENTLY AFTER PROLONGED ILLNESS AT HIS HOME AT AN AGE OF 85 YEARS AND SURVIVED BY WIFE AND FIVE CHILDREN
Saturday, March 28, 2015
Evolutionary (Science-Directed) Socialism: Part-VIII- By Bhagawat Prasad Rath
Seven
reputed intellectuals of the world met to discuss the present status of the
world and suggest a theory to guide
thinker – activists’ conscious of the ailing humanity.
The
intellectuals were Michael Albert, Editor Z Magazine, Leslie
Cagan,
an organizer who has been involved in hundreds of movements, events and
projects particularly in Cuba, Noam Chomsky, a professor of linguistics
at MIT in Cambridge and a tireless critic of U.S foreign policy, Robin
Hahnel, a professor of economics at American University in Washington
D.C. and a participant in diverse anti-war, community, socialist, and anti
–interventionist movements. Mel
King is a professor at MIT and director of the Community Fellows
program.
Lydia Sargent
edits Z Magazine and is a director,
playwright, and actor with the Newbury street Theater in Boston. She has been
involved in the feminist and anti-war movements.
Together they
wrote the book Liberating Theory.
Michael
Albert wrote, ‘…..establishing a humane society is the only way to attain
lasting liberation. Nonetheless, in
recent years “the left” has largely lost its capacity to project an uplifting
conception of human possibilities and a plausible picture of how people’s
potentials might be fulfilled. Since I
believe Liberating Theory can help reinvigorate our desires for
capacities to achieve a better future, I worked on and advocate its conceptual
framework and hope others will do likewise.’
Leslie Cagan wrote, ‘… I believe it will
be possible to bring fundamental, revolutionary change to this country. Out of the everyday struggles of people
through this nation and around the world, we learn new ways to name the
problems and define new solutions. At
the same time, our organizing and mobilizing needs a framework that gives
direction to our efforts.
………. I hope this book will be read by
people active in a wide range of political, social, and economic struggles, as
well as those just beginning to think about such issues. This book does not solve the problem or give
us magical formulas for organizing. What
I hope it does do is provoke discussion, open up debate, motivate further
theoretical work and play some role in inspiring us all.
Wrote Lydia Sargent, ‘As I drift further
from the events, ideas, and goals that contributed to my own radical
consciousness- raising, I feel more and more impatience, despair, even boredom
creeping into my political work and my life and getting a stranglehold on my
lofty reasons. I am haunted by the fear
that I will live out my life as a witness to the continued existence of what I
hate, without ever seeing the fruits of a hoped for revolution’.
Robin
Hahnel: Functioning separately, movements to overcome racism, sexism, classim,
and authoritarianism fail. Functioning
together and sharing aims and methods, they can succeed.
I helped write Liberating Theory because
I believe that to go forward radically we need to develop a new understanding
of society and ourselves suited to human potentials and able to promote
solidarity among people with different priorities. …….. I know that life and
society can be much better, and that we can make it happen.
Liberating
Theory takes into consideration the development in the field of
science.
To
quote the book, ‘Just as Marx and Engels paid strict attention to “state of Science”
in their time, we should keep up with contemporary developments. Ironically, however, though most contemporary
Marxists pride themselves on being “Scientific”, few bother to notice that
“state of the art” science has changed dramatically in the last hundred
years. While avoiding simplistic
mimicry and misapplication of scientific principles, we should update our
methods by seriously examining contemporary science for new ideas relevant to
our theoretical efforts.
Modern
quantum physics, for example, teaches that reality is not a collection of
separate entities but a vast and intricate “unbroken whole”. Ilya Prigogine comments, “The new paradigms
of science may be expected to develop into the new science of connectedness
which means the recognition of unity in diversity.” When thinking about phenomena, we inevitably
conceptually abstract parts from the whole in which they reside, but they then
exist as separate entities only in our perceptions. There are no isolated electrons, for example,
only fields of force continually ebbing and flowing in a seamless web of activity
which manifests events that we choose to call electrons because it suits our
analytic purposes. For the physicist, each
electron, quark, or whatever is, is a “process” and a network”. As a process it has a developmental
trajectory ……. extending through all time.
As a network, it is part of an interactive pattern… stretching
throughout all space. Every part
embodies and is subsumed in a larger whole.
In
Liberating
Theory there is in-depth discussion
of four interconnected topics. They
are 1. Community (The concept of one world). 2. Feminism (Man & woman
equality) 3. State –Abolition (Anarchism) 4. Economic Equality. No where in the world do we find progress in
any one field as visualized by the authors.
In every field the world has remained static or moved in the reverse
direction.
It
is unfortunate that the world thinkers are ignoring the only civilization which
was ideal in all the fields mentioned in Liberating Theory. This was the Sindhu
Civilization.
No
king or priest oppressed the people in the Sindhu Civilization (Archeology and
the Mahabharata). There were Yogis
guiding the people.
To
quote R. P. Chandra, ‘a group of stone statuettes found at Mohen-jo-Daro in a
mutilated condition seems to me to supply this missing link between the
pre-historic and the historic civilization of India. The only part of these statuettes that is in
fair state of preservation, the bust is characterized by a stiff erect posture of
the head, the neck and the chest, and half-shut eyes looking fixedly at the tip
of the nose. The posture is not met with
in the figure sculptures, whether pre-historic or historic, of any people
outside India; but it is very conspicuous in the images worshipped by all
Indian sects, including the Jainas and the Buddhists, and is known as the
posture of the Yogin or one engaged in practicing concentration.
According to the Buddhist texts Gautama
Buddha taught that austerities were not absolutely necessary for gaining
perfect knowledge: Dhyana-yoga (the practice of the four dhyanas) was enough
for that purpose………
Buddha says in conclusion, “Well,
Kevaddha, it is because I perceive danger in the practice of riddhi or wonders
(as well as mind and character reading), that I loathe, and abhor, and am
ashamed thereof.”
Survival
of the prehistoric Civilization of the Indus Valley------ from the book Studies
in the History of Indian philosophy Volume-I. Edited by Debiprasad
Chattapadhyaya…….
Buddha
was against miracles and mysticism.
The
elite of the Sindhu Civilization practiced the three philosophies Yoga, Samkhya
and Lokayat (collectively known as Aanwikhiki). Most of the women were enjoying
sexual freedom (Mahabharata and Jainism up to the period of Mahavir). There was egalitarianism in the Sindhu
society (R. Rajagopalan: THE SECRETS OF INDUS VALLEY;
archeologist R. S. Vist). The Sindhu civilization was free from violence
(Mahabharata and archeology). The elite of the society were fully rational
(Arthasastra).
Why
did the Sindhu civilization develop differently from other civilizations? The
answer is that this was the only developed woman’s civilization in the world.
No male- dominated civilization of the
world can give so much importance to non-violence by the elite and the absence
of wars. Yoga can only be the discovery
of women folk because all its values are matricentric. The presence of too many female figurines in
this civilizations also reinforces the idea that a female –centric civilization
developed in this Sindhu valley. Women’s sexual freedom and their choosing the
caring and sharing males as the fathers of their progeny was the key factor in
development of the human species. The
story of Sulabha in the Mahabharata supports this point of
view. The Vedas tell about Indra’s
killing of Vritra and Namuchi. Both were
Yogis (Mahabharata) and did not have wives.
(The Vedas and the Mahabharata) Sulabha was a scholar of Samkhya and preferred Janaka
as her sexual partner. Uddalaka episode in the Mahabharata shows that
even married women living in families had sexual freedom. Madhavi,
the daughter of king Jajati spurned kings and preferred to marry Galab,
an ascetic. Even great kings and warriors wanted their wives to mate with sages
and have children from them. The great
Vedic king Sudas is an example. He asked
his wife, the famed lady Madayanti to mate with Vasista, the sage.
These
women –centric societies led to a civilization free from predatory institutions
like the military, the priests, the sports-supporting and the ruling classes as
mentioned by Thorstein Veblen. Unlike women in the past who preferred caring
and sharing males as sexual partners, to day’s women are crazy to marry members
of these predatory institutions. So to
day’s competitive societies are becoming more and more violent and cruel as
days pass. Caring and sharing
people are marginalized as twenty first century advances.
The
great –ape species are five in number.
They are Orangoutang, Gorilla, Chimpanzee, Bonbon and Homospecies. In the past women of the last two species
were more powerful than men. Bonbon
women were indiscriminate in choosing sexual partners. Only among Homospecies women were
choosy. They chose sharing and caring
males to alpha males having powerful bodies.
This led to the diminishment of physical dichotomy of males and females
only among Homospecies.
Recent
scientific discoveries give credence to the female-centricity of human evolution.
The
Hindu (11th December-2014) contains an evolution-centered article
named Skulls Reveal the Dawn of Civilization
(by D.
Balasubramanian). To quote the article.
When and how did we humans turn “modern”
and technologically and culturally adept?
This was the theme of a symposium held several weeks ago at the Salk
Institute in California. Dr. Ann Gibbons
has given a lucid summary of the main conclusions of the symposium in the 24
October 2014 issue of the journal Science.
The experts attending the meeting suggest that “self-domestication”
turned humans into the co-operative species we are today.
………….. Dr. Gibbons mentions the work of
Robert Cieri and others…..They carefully measured and compared the features of
the skulls of archaeological specimens of the early humans (80,000 years old)
with those of more recent (some 10,000 years ago, and some contemporary)
ones. The sheer job of collecting
thousands of skulls, measuring their shapes, dimensions, features of individual
parts such as the brows, ridges between the eyes, shapes of teeth, size of the
cranial part of the skull (which house the brain) and so forth has been a
gargantuan task in itself. But they
persisted and found some remarkable differences of the human skulls over the
millennia. The brow ridges above the eye
have reduced over the years, teeth became smaller, the cranial volume came down
(smaller brains), and the faces shortened over time.
They have termed this set of charges in the
skull and head itself, as “crania-facial feminization”. This is because they claim that these changes
over the years have made the male faces look more like female ones. Over the last 80,000 years and particularly after
the early, middle and late stone age era), we have become less, “wild” and more
“delicate”……….
…….studies on animals, for example dogs,
have suggested that the genes that regulate robustness and aggression affect
the facial shape. These in turn lead to
lower levels of “aggression molecules” such as testosterone, stress hormones
and changes in the action of neural crest cells leading to changes in teeth,
muscles, bones and glands. See how much
the skull can tell.
Such changes have not been sudden or
rapid, but evolved over time. Growth in
human population size, beginning about 200,000 years age lead to higher
population densities, giving rise to the play of natural selection.
Humans started forming groups as early
as about 68,000 years ago in Africa and began their long migration across the
globe. In doing so, they formed groups
or societies over millennia, settling down in various places across the
world. Languages, customs, social mores,
culture, religions and technology began emerging. The main thread that bound each such society
has been tolerance, cooperation and leveling down of aggression. This, in turn, Cieri and others argue, led to
the evolution of technology-tools, taming and using fire, navigation, fishing
and birding, water harvesting and agriculture- all over the millennia spanning
the early middle and later stone ages (almost until 25,000 years ago)
Domestication of horse and cattle occurred.
All this could happen because we ‘self-domesticated’.
To day human brain has lost much of its
power of socialization. Families and societies are getting adversely
affected. Violence against women is devastating
societies. Surveys are increasing our
worries.
The
director of Children’s Movement for Civic Awareness (C.M.C.A) Sadasiva
says “We were not only taken aback by some of the views
and answers of the students, but worried for the country, especially about
violence against women and about being ‘ok’ with violating rules.”
Among youth (15 to 19 years) 55% say the
dresses of women excite them.
36% among girls and 44% among boys think
dowry should be given at the time of marriage or later.
65% among students say that boys and
girls belonging to different religions should not gather together in public
places.
Democratic consciousness is decreasing
day by day. The majority of youth is not
against military rule in the country.
(To be continued
in Evolutionary (Science-Directed) Socialism: Part-IX)
Bhagwat
Prasad Rath,
3rd
Line, Roith Colony,
At/PO/Dist. –
Rayagada –2
PIN- 765002,
Odisha.
Phone No.
06856-235092
Cell
No.-08895860598
www.samalochana1.blogspot.com
Sunday, March 8, 2015
Evolutionary (Science-Directed) Socialism: Part-VI--- by Bhagwat Prasad Rath
The Bhagvad Gita (Fourth Canto) calls
the Yogis Rajarshees who enjoyed the highest status in society.
‘A much-cited example, depicted on some
of the Harappan seals, is that of a big-nosed gentleman wearing a horned
head-dress who sits in the lotus position with an erect penis, an air of
abstraction and an audience of animals. ‘
(The Harappan World).
He must have been a Rajarshee.
To identify this figure with Shiva is a
mistake made by scholars steeped in patriarchal values. G. S. Ghurye
in his easy Epic and Historic
Siva, an Indo-Aryan God Shiva, (Vedic India) proves conclusively that their was
no Shiva figure in any seal of the Sindhu civilization. Siva, one of the
powerful Gods of Hinduism, later identified with Rudra, is a great warrior and
hunter. The main value that Harappan
Yogis and Yoginis exhibit is non-violence.
Harappan elite did not believe in any God. Their philosophies
(Aanwikhiki: Yoga, Samkhya and Lokayat) stress values based fully on
rationality. Devotion or BHAKTI as an over powering emotion, was not present in
pre-Christ India.
‘……… doubts surround the female
terracotta figurines which are often described as mother-goddesses. Pop-eyed,
bat-eared, belted and sometimes mini-skirted, they are usually of crude
workmanship and grotesque mien. Only a dust-eyed archaeologist could describe
them as ‘pleasing little things’. The
bat-ears, on closer inspection, appear to be elaborate headdresses or
hairstyles. If, as the prominent and clumsily applied breasts suggest, they
were fertility symbols.……..’
(The Harappan World).
The abundance of female terracotta
figurines indicates the presence of numerous Yoginis in society. More than fifteen hundred years later, the
non-violence- value- accepting Joginis were converted into blood – thirsty
Goddesses. This happened when the male value of violence over whelmed society
in the fifth and sixth century AD. The
hedonistic cult of Tantra became powerful and the SAKTI cult became prominent in Eastern India. The Joginis were sixty four in number where
as there was one warrior so –called Yogi, Shiva. Uma, a non- violent Goddess of the Upanishads
became Durga, a ferocious Goddess. Those
were the days when the non-violence preaching popular book, the Bhagvad Gita,
was converted into a book preaching violence (D.D. Kosambi: he based his remarks on Hiuen Tsang’s memoirs). Ancient Jainism speaks against the caste
system and the Brahmin hegemony.
The Mahabharata refers to the Joginis
in many places. They were sexually free
and roamed in the land (Sulabha, Jabala, Itara & many others). The Vedas
mention two women as chiefs of some communities. When Indra met them, he laughed and ridiculed
them because they were unfit to fight wars.
‘R. S. Sharma argues that evidence for
‘band’ organization (a pre-tribal stage in which a group of people not
necessarily related by blood come together for food-gathering, hunting or
fighting) notwithstanding, Rgvedic society on the whole was ‘tribal, pastoral
and largely egalitarian’. The main
source of subsistence was cattle and not agricultural products. Apart from cattle-herding, raids were a major
source of livelihood. He quotes the well
known remark of Marx that man-hunting was the logical extension of animal
hunting ……….’
CASTE: by Suvira Jaiswal
Animal domestication was also the
logical extension of hunting because it made the availability of meat through
out the year possible. Hunters soon
turned into warriors and made men and women of weaker groups their slaves. Such
a situation did not prevail in India during the period of the Sindhu
civilization.
In the book SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY IN ANCIENT
INDIA, D.P. Chatterji conclusively proves that the science of healing
reached the highest level possible in the world in that age. The Greek civilization of the later days
failed to reach such levels. ‘The Vedic
elite, steeped in superstitions and wrong beliefs, tried to control the flow of
free thought in India. Cosmologists and
mathematicians reached a high level in science. The Vedic elite were unable to
understand them.’ (Amartya Sen: The Argumentative Indian).
Lokayat was the best philosophy devised
by a matricentric society for the welfare of humanity. It is desirable to discuss this philosophy
which Kautilya thinks will build the best type of society in the world
(Arthasastra).
----- Lokayat is
the only philosophy in the world which preaches equality of all species which
seems to be the aim and purpose of nature.
-----Lokayat
accepts equality in status of both males and females.
-----Lokayat
abhors all types of violence. They
treated all animals as their kith and kin.
-----Lokayat
opposes all barriers to equality like the caste system, the self – created
feeling of superiority of any section of humanity (the Greeks treated non-Greek
people as inferior uncivilized Barbarians).
-----Lokayatikas
want to be perfectly rational in all their deeds and words (unlike European
rationalists, they believe that only a profoundly calm mind, free from self-
interest, anger, lust, strong attachment to worldly pleasures can be
rational. The word SUKHA used in this
context to convey a state of mind was misunderstood by the philosophers of both
the East and West because they failed to seek the true meaning of SUKHA
explained in the two famous books, the Gita and Dhammapada. SUKHA is the pleasure principle of nature
confined to the neo-cortex of the frontal part of the mind. The pleasure
principle of the reptilian mind and the pleasure principle of the limbic mind
(mammalian mind) are different.
Western
philosophers and scientists have not studied the controlling and pleasure
–giving- capacity of the pre- frontal cortex on which Yoga concentrates.
-----Lokayatikas
actively preached their philosophy among the people without any fear of death,
dishonor or loss of property. They
believed in deeds, not in words. They
risked the wrath of the rich and the powerful to preach their philosophy.
Charvak was killed by the greedy Vedic Brahmins with the covert support of the
Pandavas, when he condemned the Pandavas for the violence of the Mahabharata
war.
-----Lokayatikas
did not believe in life after death.
-----Lokayatikas
were out and out materialists.
-----Lokayatikas
were against all types of metaphysical speculations. They believed in what their senses dictated
(PRATYAKSHA PRAMANA). Lokayatikas of later days accepted inference (PAROKSHA
PRAMANA) also as the basis of truth. They vehemently criticized animal slaughter in
the Yagnas
and also the caste system.
-----Lokayatikas
did not believe in supernatural beings.
They opposed the theory of Karma and rebirth. This made them different
from the Buddhists and Jains.
-----They opposed
sacrifice (YAGNA). They abhorred animal slaughter in sacrifices.
-----Lokayatika
philosophers (Yoginis) were there in large numbers in the Sindhu
civilization. They accepted
‘non-violence’ as the supreme value of life. There was perfect sexual freedom
among both males and females.
-----In the
Ramayana, Lokayat Jabala places people’s welfare as a higher value than truth.
He requests Ramachandra to return to Ayodhya. Adiparba of the Mahabharata
places non-violence as a value above truth in the Kausika myth.
-----It is
unfortunate that Lokayat philosophers were presented as hedonists by many scholars of the West and East. Hedonism was present in Tantra philosophies,
not in Lokayat.
-----The
Gita tells that Yoga and Samkhya philosophies are the same. The Jaina Sutras say that Samkhya and Lokayat
are the same (D. P. Chatterji; Lokayat).
Lokayat philosophers were active among the people. In the Vedic Age, they incurred the wrath of
the Vedic Aryans. In the age of the
Buddha, they preached against Karmabad
(the theory of Karma) and the Theory of Rebirth. The Mahabharata was written by a Lokayat
philosopher because 1. It placed the value of non-violence above truth. 2. The
Mahabharata contains verses (SLOKAS) that vehemently criticize the Vedic priests
(Activities such as priestly work done in sacrifices, big and small; deity worship
by professional priests in temples and the use of astrological knowledge for predicting the future are nefarious types of work (The
Mahabharata: Santiparva). 3.
Every type of violence including the so-called just wars was condemned in
strong terms (Ahimsa Paramo Dharmah):
killing animals in sacrifices was
criticized in the legend of Uparichara Basu in the Mahabharata.
In the days of the Buddha, there was a
group of famous philosophers who belonged to the AJIVAKA CULT. All of them accepted non –violence as their
main value.
In the Modern age, Mahatma Gandhi proved that non-violent struggles lead to success without producing
ill-will among the opponents.
Controlling AMYGDALE violence through
the pre-frontal neo-cortex and increasingly harboring empathy for all living
beings (because of mirror neurons) is the specialty of human beings. Nature wanted us to serve its aim of the survival
of all the species. When carnivores
appeared, nature produced in them the tendency of self-destruction. The same
tendency of self-destruction (wars, terrible in-equality, exploitation of
weaker nations and climate destruction) is at present endangering human
survival because we have forsaken the path fixed by nature which devised the
female brain as the motor for choosing non-violence, non-competition and non-
hierarchy as the right path of
development (scientist Louann Brizendine).
In the present world we can advocate and stress matricentric values
nurturing socialism to save humanity from sure destruction.
Creative individuals are the most
important elements in human society. Creativity
only thrives in the social environment of liberty where a fierce sense of
individuality exists in extraordinary individuals and is tolerated by the
society. Those who think that ‘individuality’ is a gift of the western society
are requested to study the following verses of the Mahabharata.
‘A wise man shuns honour like poison;
he always welcomes insults and abuses as nectar.’
‘Neither attachment to wealth nor the
fear of losing one’s life should make a man leave the path of Dharma (love for
all living creatures of the world).’ All
sorts of collective selfishness like nationalism, racism and casteism should be
shunned by such a man.
The Buddha asked his disciples to
concentrate their attention on Dhamma alone and not to aspire for honour among his
lay followers and also the renouncers.
Aanwikshiki society of India, by giving
the highest place to the value of ‘nonviolence’ in society, created the proper
environment for extraordinarily creative persons. Such environment was not available even in
the twentieth century in Europe and the US. The propaganda machine of the
powerful media managed by capitalists creates only mass societies dominated by
the violent herd in every country, with very few exceptions. India is no exception. Such societies can not
nourish socialism.
‘A socialist society should create the
right atmosphere for creativity. Einstein writes ‘Europe today contains about
three times as many people as it did a hundred years ago. But the number of leading personalities has
decreased out of all proportion. Only a few people are known to the masses as
individuals, through their creative achievements. Organization has to some extent taken the
place of leading personalities, particularly not only in the technical sphere,
but also to a very perceptible extent in the scientific.’ (Society and Personality: Einstein)’
‘The lack of outstanding figures is
particularly striking in the domain of art.
Painting and music have definitely degenerated and largely lost their
popular appeal. In Politics not only are
leaders lacking, but the independence of spirit and the sense of justice of the
citizen have to a great extent declined.
The democratic, parliamentarian regime, which is based on such
independence, has in many places been shaken; dictatorships have sprung up and
are tolerated, because men’s sense of the dignity and the rights of the
individual is no longer strong enough.
In two weeks the sheep like masses of any country can be worked up by
the newspapers into such a state of excited fury that men are prepared to put
on uniforms and kill and be killed for the sake of the sordid ends of a few
interested parties. Compulsory military
service seems to me the most disgraceful symptom of that deficiency in personal
dignity from which civilized mankind is suffering today.’
(Society and Personality: Einstein)
Bertrand Russell writes, ‘If a society
is not to stagnate, it must contain individuals who think and act independently
and there must be sufficient toleration for such individuals to be effective.
Galileo was silenced by the Inquisition, and Italian science collapsed to
revive only after two hundred years; the work of Galileo was carried on in
France and Holland and England, where the tyranny of ignorance was less severe.’
Only a socialist society can give full
freedom to the dissident individuals.
Tagore’s songs (Walk alone even when no body is ready to follow you; Where
the mind is without fear and the head is held high; Even if your own people
desert you for your ideas, you should not bother about it) can guide the
socialists. Gandhi followed the ideals embodied
in these Tagore songs all most to the letter.
Bhagwat
Prasad Rath,
3rd
Line, Roith Colony,
At/PO/Dist. –
Rayagada –2
PIN- 765002,
Odisha.
Phone No.
06856-235092
Cell
No.-08895860598
Monday, January 26, 2015
Evolutionary (Science-Directed) Socialism: Part-VII ... BY SRI BHAGWAT PRASAD RATH
Society changes. Physical environment becomes different. Science makes new
discoveries and gifts new ideas to man kind. Socialists the world over churn the prevalent ideas
and struggle to bring new theories to enrich the mental geography of the world. One such
socialist group is in America. They publish the magazine ‘Analytical Monthly Review’. In the
September-2014 of this magazine Fred Magdoff’s article ‘Building an Ecologically Sound and
socially just Economy’ brings fresh air to the socialist fraternity.
Environmental problems are ringing a warning bellfor humanity. We can ignore
it at our peril. To quote Fred Magdoff, ‘Not just climate change, but also pollution of the air,
water, soil, and living organisms, the loss of biodiversity both aboveground and in the soil, the
extinction of species, and the overuse and misuse of both renewable and nonrenewable natural
resources.’ These issues plague the whole of humanity. Unemployment, inequality and poverty
should not be tolerated by any state. Economists plan for constant and perpetual growth. This
is not a sustainable proposition and must be abandoned.
The Brundtland Report (UN-1987) says that ‘development is that which meets
the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their
own needs.’
To-day illusive money is ruling the world. To quote from the book Ecology
Economy, ‘Money has come to exist more and more in token form-from notes to electronic
trading. In relation to massive debt, the whole edifice of money stands increasingly revealed as
a colossal illusion. Phantom wealth is created through a phantom mountain of debt. Andrew
Simmas’ Ecological Debt (2005) contrasts the impossible, un-repayable financial debts that
Third World governments owe to First World banks with a different level of real debt owed by
the world’s financial elites to the regions whose resources they have plundered.
Felix Padel, Ajay Dandekar, Jeemol Unni
‘Since the bailout of banks in the US and the UK-starting in 2008 with massive
injections of government funds –something of the insanity our present world financial system is
based on has become increasingly visible. Could wedo things differently? Are we mortgaging
our earth to pay for a style of living that can only be sustained for a minority of humans, for a
brief period?’
Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel- winner economist, is alarmed at the World Bank and IMF
imposed policies ruining the world, ‘Economics of the Fund-Bank kind is bad for many reasons.
It is intellectually dishonest, and does not really benefit countries or reduce their poverty;
profits created at human expense can be seen as morally bad, specifically bad Karma. The
destructive impact of escalating debt is the essence of bad economics.’
Ecology Economy
Why are the rulers of different countries accepting these wrong policies?
Actually, democracy has crumbled in all most all countries of the world. In the US, one percent
of people are deciding the policies and strategies of the government. (Stiglitz says that
2
American democracy is “of the 1%, by the 1% and for the 1 %”). Both the Republicans and
Democrats are controlled by the leading capital- owners, who are one percent of the public of
the US. In India the situation is not different. The two leading parties, the BJP and Congress,
are at the beck and call of corporation powers. The people of the democratic countries are
misled by the media owned and managed by the corporation elite.
‘Perpetual growth’ is the formula constantly dinned into public ears by the
media and the state -controlled economists.’
‘Does the world need more growth, as mainstream economists and politicians
continually affirm, or a planned degrowth, as ecological economists advocate (Martinez-Alier
2010; Simms and Johnson 2010)? Does it need a different kind of growth? If so, what, and how
could his be managed? Herman Daly points out the logical fallacy in models of economic
growth.’
‘In its physical dimensions the economy is an open subsystem of the earth
ecosystem, which is finite, non-growing, and materially closed. As the economic subsystem
grows it incorporates an ever greater proportion of the total ecosystem into itself and must
reach a limit at 100 percent, if not before. Therefore its growth is not sustainable. The term
‘sustainable growth’ when applied to the economy is a bad oxymoron. (Daly and Townsend
1993).’
‘Rather, it (GDP growth) is an economic system that has basic internal forcesespecially the profit motive and competition among firms-that operate in such a way as to
promote exponential growth while simultaneously causing massive negative social and
ecological effects.’ Ecology Economy.
It is unfortunate that we forget that we are livingin an inter-dependant world.
‘All living beings are members of ecological communities bound together in a network of
interdependencies. When this deep ecological perception becomes part of our daily awareness,
a radically new system of ethics emerges.’ Fritj of Capra: The Web of Life.
‘Non-violence’ is considered as the greatest value of the Yoga system. The
Mahabharata places non-violence at a higher level than truth (Adiparba- Kausika Myth).
Violence shatters the web of life and disturbs the normal pace of nature.
Mining companies are making profit only because of state’s support.
‘Out of This Earth (Padel and Das 2010a: 373-95, with a CBA (cost-benefit
analysis) of Aluminium projects showed that making alumina and Aluminium can only make a
profit with huge subsidies on the price of electricity, water and transport, and by excluding
pollution costs, etc. as ‘externalities’. Also, any mining makes a profit only if the basic cost of
ore is kept abysmally low-far lower than it should be considering the huge environmental and
social costs involved. Keeping costs and prices low is what cartels are about.’ Ecology
Economy.
3
America’s top aluminium expert wrote: Aluminum making is dependent on vast
continuing grants of low-cost electricity…. (It) is no great maker of employment, uses little
skilled labor, and adds little to the independent development of an area…. The US cannot any
longer afford to make aluminium if it can be obtained in large enough quantities an on
favorable price terms from other sources. (Anderson 1951:21, cited in Padel and Das 2010a:
278).
Stiglitz writes, ‘Resources should belong to the people and governments should
represent the people, which means government can’t permit the appropriation of public
resources by the private sector….’(2011).
In the book Power and Morality two world-level sociologists Prof. Pitirim A.
Sorokin and Walter A. Lunden write, ‘When the morality and mentality of rulers and the ruled
are measured by the same moral and mental yardstick (and not by the double standard
discussed above), then the rulers’ morality and minds appear to be marked by a much stronger
dualism-by greater mental and moral schizophrenia than the morality and mentality of the
members of the ruled populations. The moral behaviour of ruling groups tends to be more
criminal and sub-moral than that of the ruled strata of the same society. The greater, more
absolute, and coercive the power of rulers, political leaders, and big executives of business,
labour and other organizations, and the less freely this power is approved by the ruled
population, the more corrupt and criminal such ruling groups and executives tend to be.
Morality and mentality of Rulers
Sorokin and lundenalso write in the book Power and morality:-
In regard to the captains of finance and wealth, it was said long ago that it is
easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for the rich to enter the kingdom of
God. The truth of this maxim is well confirmed by the experience of the past as well as by the
careful histories of the modern big fortunes and by the biographies of recent captains of
industry and finance, go-betweens, and some labour leaders.(1) These histories and
biographies show that in recent times, just as in the past, there are few, if any, big fortunes
amassed without crime, just as there are few captains of industry and finance, and few
powerful labour leaders that are free from criminalviolations of law and morality.
------Other Power elements: Criminality of captainsof finance and industry,
Labour Leaders and others.
Though computer scientists have discovered that nature moves in a particular
direction to produce the human species on the earth (Prof. Stuart Kuffman calls it order for
free), scientists generally accept the idea that man’s appearance on the earth is an accident.
Darwin made the greatest discovery of the 19
th
century but he gave competitionthe key role in
evolution. Male- dominated Euro- centric thinking biased Darwin. The same bias guides many
leading scientists of the world. Scientists like Stephen jay Gold and Lewontin raised their voices
against scientists having the race bias but they too for got that we would be living in a world
free from wars and aggressive nationalism, had female intellect directed world affairs. Non-
violence in the ambience is necessary for freedom of all the species on the earth. Man went
against nature’s direction when he gave importance to violence.
4
In the News paper Hindu of December-28, 2014 Harsh Mander write: - To draw
men into struggles against patriarchy, 1,200 activist from 94 countries converged in Delhi for a
conference titled Men Engage. “Patriarchy and gender injustice remain defining characteristics
of societies around the world with devastating effects on everyone’s daily life,” the conference
declared. Patriarchy constitutes “immense threats to human wellbeing” because “no matter
who we are, and no matter where we are in the world, these forces make our relationships less
fulfilling, less healthy and less safe. From an early age, they introduce suffering, violence,
illness, hate and death within our families and communities. They strip us of our fundamental
human rights and hinder our ability to live a life with love, dignity, intimacy and mutual respect.
They hamper the development of our economies and keep our global society from flourishing.”
A landmark UNFPA study confirms how closely men andboys in India conform to
these domineering models of masculinity. Ninety-three per cent men felt that “to be a man,
you need to be tough”; 60 per cent of men report that they are violent with their intimate
partners. Nine in 10 men felt that a woman must obey her husband, and three in four that, in
family matters, a man’s word should be final. Only15 per cent of men involve their wives in
making family decisions.
How devastating the unholy combination between capitalism and male
chauvinism can be, comes out in the book Churning the Earth, the Making of Global Indiaby
Aseem Shrivastava and Ashis Kothari.
The two authors went to an area which the Government wants to declare as SEZ
(special Economic Zone). An area of 25,000/- hectares will be in this SEZ. The state is displacing
the farmers of number of a villages with the help of the police and the anti-social elements
created and energized by the think tank of the reliance industry. In the words of Shrivastava
and Kothari:-
To be sure, some famers (hedging their bets) have sold a part of their land.
Others have made distress sales, given the tough economic conditions. But they have not
been able to take advantage of the compensation money. We asked a farmer in Pelpa who
was attending a meeting of the village elders (known as taus) what he did with the money he
had received from Reliance. He responded that he barely got to see the money. We asked
whether Reliance had paid him. ‘Of course,’ he responded, ‘but the boys took it away.’
Why did you give them the money, we asked. His response caught us totally off
guard.
My son put a pistol to my head and took the money away. This is becoming
quite common here. They (the boys and the young men) are only interested in three things:
gadi, daroo, bandook (cars, liquor and guns). Comewith me one evening after sundown to the
road which bisects the SEZ area. I will be able toshow you the line of new jeeps (SUVs) parked
along the road. Loud disco music blares out of thevehicles. The boys drink and make merry in
them till the early house of the morning. Our bahu-betis (daughters-in-law and daughters)
have stopped stepping out in the evening. It used to be very safe here. Now it isn’t. The boys
return home in the early hours of the morning, sleep till the afternoon, and in the evening
return to their favourite hideaway to repeat the routine. How many months will Rs.22 lakh
last if it is being burnt at this rte?
5
The farmer’s wife says, ‘This is not just the forced takeover of our land and
ancestral village, it is also the decimation of our culture and roots. Alcohol was always a
problem in our villages. Now, with easy money, alcoholism is a daily nightmare. Men are out
of control. Domestic violence is all too common. We do not belong to the city. And our own
village seems alien to us now. Hum toh kaheen ke nabin nabe (We belong nowhere now)…….
Rural society in Haryana is in a state of moral breakdown. A certain despair
haunts people here. It is the despair of ‘traumatized communities that have lost control over
their fate………….’
Globalization has led to lumpenization of the proletariat and the elite also.
Societies are becoming atomized as well as herd – like. Human society through millions of
years developed its intelligence and social abilities. Man lived in band societies. Human bands
consisted of about 148 members. Prof. Dunbar and his colleagues researched and came to the
conclusion that the volume of human mind was proportional to the number of members in a
band. Gibbons are not so intelligent. They live in bands of five or six. Chimpanzees live in
bands of 50 to 60 members. They are more intelligent than Gibbons. Socialized bands of
humans was definitely the contribution of the females of society. Big bands of humans gave
them safety from the predatory animals. To-day, within decades, we are under- mining our
heritage of millions of years. We are going in a reverse direction to evolutionally nature’s
intention of building a matricentric socialist society because we (the rulers and commoners)
are getting atomized and lumpenized at a fast pace.What to speak of band societies of 148
members? Even families consisting of a few members are breaking in different countries. Man
is a product of society. Lumpenization is an enemy of social values. To-day economic
Globalization and lumpenization reinforce each other. Economic Globalization is also creating
ecological disturbance. How to prevent both is thequestion that cries for answer among the
social thinkers of the world.
(To be continued in Evolutionary (Science-Directed)Socialism: Part-VIII)
Bhagwat Prasad Rath,
3rd Line, Roith Colony,
At/PO/Dist. – Rayagada –2
PIN- 765002, Odisha.
Phone No. 06856-235092
Cell No.-08895860598
bagwat_prashad@rediffmail.com
satyabhamajankalyantrust@rediffmail.com
www.samalochana1.blogspot.com
www.samalochana.blogsome.com
discoveries and gifts new ideas to man kind. Socialists the world over churn the prevalent ideas
and struggle to bring new theories to enrich the mental geography of the world. One such
socialist group is in America. They publish the magazine ‘Analytical Monthly Review’. In the
September-2014 of this magazine Fred Magdoff’s article ‘Building an Ecologically Sound and
socially just Economy’ brings fresh air to the socialist fraternity.
Environmental problems are ringing a warning bellfor humanity. We can ignore
it at our peril. To quote Fred Magdoff, ‘Not just climate change, but also pollution of the air,
water, soil, and living organisms, the loss of biodiversity both aboveground and in the soil, the
extinction of species, and the overuse and misuse of both renewable and nonrenewable natural
resources.’ These issues plague the whole of humanity. Unemployment, inequality and poverty
should not be tolerated by any state. Economists plan for constant and perpetual growth. This
is not a sustainable proposition and must be abandoned.
The Brundtland Report (UN-1987) says that ‘development is that which meets
the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their
own needs.’
To-day illusive money is ruling the world. To quote from the book Ecology
Economy, ‘Money has come to exist more and more in token form-from notes to electronic
trading. In relation to massive debt, the whole edifice of money stands increasingly revealed as
a colossal illusion. Phantom wealth is created through a phantom mountain of debt. Andrew
Simmas’ Ecological Debt (2005) contrasts the impossible, un-repayable financial debts that
Third World governments owe to First World banks with a different level of real debt owed by
the world’s financial elites to the regions whose resources they have plundered.
Felix Padel, Ajay Dandekar, Jeemol Unni
‘Since the bailout of banks in the US and the UK-starting in 2008 with massive
injections of government funds –something of the insanity our present world financial system is
based on has become increasingly visible. Could wedo things differently? Are we mortgaging
our earth to pay for a style of living that can only be sustained for a minority of humans, for a
brief period?’
Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel- winner economist, is alarmed at the World Bank and IMF
imposed policies ruining the world, ‘Economics of the Fund-Bank kind is bad for many reasons.
It is intellectually dishonest, and does not really benefit countries or reduce their poverty;
profits created at human expense can be seen as morally bad, specifically bad Karma. The
destructive impact of escalating debt is the essence of bad economics.’
Ecology Economy
Why are the rulers of different countries accepting these wrong policies?
Actually, democracy has crumbled in all most all countries of the world. In the US, one percent
of people are deciding the policies and strategies of the government. (Stiglitz says that
2
American democracy is “of the 1%, by the 1% and for the 1 %”). Both the Republicans and
Democrats are controlled by the leading capital- owners, who are one percent of the public of
the US. In India the situation is not different. The two leading parties, the BJP and Congress,
are at the beck and call of corporation powers. The people of the democratic countries are
misled by the media owned and managed by the corporation elite.
‘Perpetual growth’ is the formula constantly dinned into public ears by the
media and the state -controlled economists.’
‘Does the world need more growth, as mainstream economists and politicians
continually affirm, or a planned degrowth, as ecological economists advocate (Martinez-Alier
2010; Simms and Johnson 2010)? Does it need a different kind of growth? If so, what, and how
could his be managed? Herman Daly points out the logical fallacy in models of economic
growth.’
‘In its physical dimensions the economy is an open subsystem of the earth
ecosystem, which is finite, non-growing, and materially closed. As the economic subsystem
grows it incorporates an ever greater proportion of the total ecosystem into itself and must
reach a limit at 100 percent, if not before. Therefore its growth is not sustainable. The term
‘sustainable growth’ when applied to the economy is a bad oxymoron. (Daly and Townsend
1993).’
‘Rather, it (GDP growth) is an economic system that has basic internal forcesespecially the profit motive and competition among firms-that operate in such a way as to
promote exponential growth while simultaneously causing massive negative social and
ecological effects.’ Ecology Economy.
It is unfortunate that we forget that we are livingin an inter-dependant world.
‘All living beings are members of ecological communities bound together in a network of
interdependencies. When this deep ecological perception becomes part of our daily awareness,
a radically new system of ethics emerges.’ Fritj of Capra: The Web of Life.
‘Non-violence’ is considered as the greatest value of the Yoga system. The
Mahabharata places non-violence at a higher level than truth (Adiparba- Kausika Myth).
Violence shatters the web of life and disturbs the normal pace of nature.
Mining companies are making profit only because of state’s support.
‘Out of This Earth (Padel and Das 2010a: 373-95, with a CBA (cost-benefit
analysis) of Aluminium projects showed that making alumina and Aluminium can only make a
profit with huge subsidies on the price of electricity, water and transport, and by excluding
pollution costs, etc. as ‘externalities’. Also, any mining makes a profit only if the basic cost of
ore is kept abysmally low-far lower than it should be considering the huge environmental and
social costs involved. Keeping costs and prices low is what cartels are about.’ Ecology
Economy.
3
America’s top aluminium expert wrote: Aluminum making is dependent on vast
continuing grants of low-cost electricity…. (It) is no great maker of employment, uses little
skilled labor, and adds little to the independent development of an area…. The US cannot any
longer afford to make aluminium if it can be obtained in large enough quantities an on
favorable price terms from other sources. (Anderson 1951:21, cited in Padel and Das 2010a:
278).
Stiglitz writes, ‘Resources should belong to the people and governments should
represent the people, which means government can’t permit the appropriation of public
resources by the private sector….’(2011).
In the book Power and Morality two world-level sociologists Prof. Pitirim A.
Sorokin and Walter A. Lunden write, ‘When the morality and mentality of rulers and the ruled
are measured by the same moral and mental yardstick (and not by the double standard
discussed above), then the rulers’ morality and minds appear to be marked by a much stronger
dualism-by greater mental and moral schizophrenia than the morality and mentality of the
members of the ruled populations. The moral behaviour of ruling groups tends to be more
criminal and sub-moral than that of the ruled strata of the same society. The greater, more
absolute, and coercive the power of rulers, political leaders, and big executives of business,
labour and other organizations, and the less freely this power is approved by the ruled
population, the more corrupt and criminal such ruling groups and executives tend to be.
Morality and mentality of Rulers
Sorokin and lundenalso write in the book Power and morality:-
In regard to the captains of finance and wealth, it was said long ago that it is
easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for the rich to enter the kingdom of
God. The truth of this maxim is well confirmed by the experience of the past as well as by the
careful histories of the modern big fortunes and by the biographies of recent captains of
industry and finance, go-betweens, and some labour leaders.(1) These histories and
biographies show that in recent times, just as in the past, there are few, if any, big fortunes
amassed without crime, just as there are few captains of industry and finance, and few
powerful labour leaders that are free from criminalviolations of law and morality.
------Other Power elements: Criminality of captainsof finance and industry,
Labour Leaders and others.
Though computer scientists have discovered that nature moves in a particular
direction to produce the human species on the earth (Prof. Stuart Kuffman calls it order for
free), scientists generally accept the idea that man’s appearance on the earth is an accident.
Darwin made the greatest discovery of the 19
th
century but he gave competitionthe key role in
evolution. Male- dominated Euro- centric thinking biased Darwin. The same bias guides many
leading scientists of the world. Scientists like Stephen jay Gold and Lewontin raised their voices
against scientists having the race bias but they too for got that we would be living in a world
free from wars and aggressive nationalism, had female intellect directed world affairs. Non-
violence in the ambience is necessary for freedom of all the species on the earth. Man went
against nature’s direction when he gave importance to violence.
4
In the News paper Hindu of December-28, 2014 Harsh Mander write: - To draw
men into struggles against patriarchy, 1,200 activist from 94 countries converged in Delhi for a
conference titled Men Engage. “Patriarchy and gender injustice remain defining characteristics
of societies around the world with devastating effects on everyone’s daily life,” the conference
declared. Patriarchy constitutes “immense threats to human wellbeing” because “no matter
who we are, and no matter where we are in the world, these forces make our relationships less
fulfilling, less healthy and less safe. From an early age, they introduce suffering, violence,
illness, hate and death within our families and communities. They strip us of our fundamental
human rights and hinder our ability to live a life with love, dignity, intimacy and mutual respect.
They hamper the development of our economies and keep our global society from flourishing.”
A landmark UNFPA study confirms how closely men andboys in India conform to
these domineering models of masculinity. Ninety-three per cent men felt that “to be a man,
you need to be tough”; 60 per cent of men report that they are violent with their intimate
partners. Nine in 10 men felt that a woman must obey her husband, and three in four that, in
family matters, a man’s word should be final. Only15 per cent of men involve their wives in
making family decisions.
How devastating the unholy combination between capitalism and male
chauvinism can be, comes out in the book Churning the Earth, the Making of Global Indiaby
Aseem Shrivastava and Ashis Kothari.
The two authors went to an area which the Government wants to declare as SEZ
(special Economic Zone). An area of 25,000/- hectares will be in this SEZ. The state is displacing
the farmers of number of a villages with the help of the police and the anti-social elements
created and energized by the think tank of the reliance industry. In the words of Shrivastava
and Kothari:-
To be sure, some famers (hedging their bets) have sold a part of their land.
Others have made distress sales, given the tough economic conditions. But they have not
been able to take advantage of the compensation money. We asked a farmer in Pelpa who
was attending a meeting of the village elders (known as taus) what he did with the money he
had received from Reliance. He responded that he barely got to see the money. We asked
whether Reliance had paid him. ‘Of course,’ he responded, ‘but the boys took it away.’
Why did you give them the money, we asked. His response caught us totally off
guard.
My son put a pistol to my head and took the money away. This is becoming
quite common here. They (the boys and the young men) are only interested in three things:
gadi, daroo, bandook (cars, liquor and guns). Comewith me one evening after sundown to the
road which bisects the SEZ area. I will be able toshow you the line of new jeeps (SUVs) parked
along the road. Loud disco music blares out of thevehicles. The boys drink and make merry in
them till the early house of the morning. Our bahu-betis (daughters-in-law and daughters)
have stopped stepping out in the evening. It used to be very safe here. Now it isn’t. The boys
return home in the early hours of the morning, sleep till the afternoon, and in the evening
return to their favourite hideaway to repeat the routine. How many months will Rs.22 lakh
last if it is being burnt at this rte?
5
The farmer’s wife says, ‘This is not just the forced takeover of our land and
ancestral village, it is also the decimation of our culture and roots. Alcohol was always a
problem in our villages. Now, with easy money, alcoholism is a daily nightmare. Men are out
of control. Domestic violence is all too common. We do not belong to the city. And our own
village seems alien to us now. Hum toh kaheen ke nabin nabe (We belong nowhere now)…….
Rural society in Haryana is in a state of moral breakdown. A certain despair
haunts people here. It is the despair of ‘traumatized communities that have lost control over
their fate………….’
Globalization has led to lumpenization of the proletariat and the elite also.
Societies are becoming atomized as well as herd – like. Human society through millions of
years developed its intelligence and social abilities. Man lived in band societies. Human bands
consisted of about 148 members. Prof. Dunbar and his colleagues researched and came to the
conclusion that the volume of human mind was proportional to the number of members in a
band. Gibbons are not so intelligent. They live in bands of five or six. Chimpanzees live in
bands of 50 to 60 members. They are more intelligent than Gibbons. Socialized bands of
humans was definitely the contribution of the females of society. Big bands of humans gave
them safety from the predatory animals. To-day, within decades, we are under- mining our
heritage of millions of years. We are going in a reverse direction to evolutionally nature’s
intention of building a matricentric socialist society because we (the rulers and commoners)
are getting atomized and lumpenized at a fast pace.What to speak of band societies of 148
members? Even families consisting of a few members are breaking in different countries. Man
is a product of society. Lumpenization is an enemy of social values. To-day economic
Globalization and lumpenization reinforce each other. Economic Globalization is also creating
ecological disturbance. How to prevent both is thequestion that cries for answer among the
social thinkers of the world.
(To be continued in Evolutionary (Science-Directed)Socialism: Part-VIII)
Bhagwat Prasad Rath,
3rd Line, Roith Colony,
At/PO/Dist. – Rayagada –2
PIN- 765002, Odisha.
Phone No. 06856-235092
Cell No.-08895860598
bagwat_prashad@rediffmail.com
satyabhamajankalyantrust@rediffmail.com
www.samalochana1.blogspot.com
www.samalochana.blogsome.com
Evolutionary (Science-Directed) Socialism: Part-III.... BY SRI BHAGWAT PRASAD RATH
Scientific
outlook and attitude should guide the social, cultural, political, economic
activities and knowledge systems of a socialist society. The law of fallibility
accepted by science as its chief hallmark should guide the socialist
society. In the past, scholars made
distinctions between social sciences and physical sciences. No doubt laws discovered by different fields
of knowledge are different to some extent. The laws of classical physical sciences are different from the laws of bio-logical
sciences. But all the fields of
knowledge should be governed by the scientific attitude which includes the law
of fallibility. The Buddha declared that
his sayings should be subjected to the law of fallibility and the principle of
rationality. That his followers did not
follow his advice is another matter. Religions like Hinduism, Islam,
Christianity and Sikhism are based on belief alone. Religions which are
expected to increase the reign of love and peace collide and bring ruin to
humanity. When rationality is guided by
self interest or self-group interest, it creates havoc in society. This sort of rationalism which boosted nationalism,
imperialism, capitalism, racism and patriarchy has demonized large chunks of humanity
and brought modem civilization, which is mostly the legacy of the West, to the
brink of colossal disasters threatening the extinction of all the living
species. Like the Greek Civilization, the Vedic civilization, too, believed in
superstitions, racism, de-gradation of the women folk (patriarchy). Sciences, which should help humanity, are at
present endangering human life and happiness in the whole world. When a great
scholar like Will Durant thinks that, in
spite of the world wars, humanity has advanced because less number of people
died in the wars than were saved from fatal diseases because of the discoveries
of science, it smells of European arrogance that places quantity at a
higher level than values (Is Progress Real?). The elite of
Germany were famous in many fields of knowledge including science and
technology. Nobody can accuse them of not being rationalists. They were
responsible for creating the most heinous and the worst murderous machine in
the world. Einstein resigned from the membership of the Prussian Academy of
Sciences. He wrote, ‘I gave as my reason for these steps (resignation) I did
not wish to live in a country where the individual does not enjoy equality
before the law, and freedom of speech and teaching ……..I also call upon all
sensible people, who are still faithful to the ideals of civilization in peril,
to do their utmost to prevent this mass-psychosis, which manifests itself in
such terrible symptoms in Germany today, from spreading any further’. Is this psychic distemper temporary and skin
deep or has it affected the
European psyche at deeper levels, lying dormant but
flaring at times. Truman’s decision to
blow into dust two populous cities of Japan is also an example of this sick
psyche.
Carl
Sagan writes in his book ‘The Demon-Haunted World’. ‘(Science) is more than a
body of knowledge; it is a way of thinking……..Avoidable human misery is more
often caused not so much by stupidity as by ignorance, particularly our
ignorance about ourselves’.
He
again writes, ‘The scientific way of thinking is at once imaginative and
disciplined. This is central to its
success. Science invites us to let the
facts in, even when they don’t conform to our preconceptions. It counsels us to carry alternative
hypotheses in our heads and see which best fit the facts. It urges on us a delicate balance between
no-holds-barred openness to new ideas, however heretical, and the most rigorous
skeptical scrutiny of everything-new ideas and established wisdom. This kind of thinking is also an essential
tool for a democracy in an age of change’………….
‘One
of the great commandments of science is ‘Mistrust arguments from
authority’. (Scientists, being
primates, and thus given to dominance hierarchies, of course do not always
follow this commandment). Too many such arguments have proved too painfully
wrong, Authorities must prove their contentions like everybody else. This independence of science, its occasional
unwillingness to accept conventional wisdom, makes it dangerous to doctrines
less- self-critical, or with pretensions to certitude. ‘
Einstein
writes, ‘For whereas formerly it was
enough for a man to have freed himself to some extent from personal egotism to
make him a valuable member of society, today he must also be required to
overcome national and class egotism.
Only if he reaches those heights can he contribute toward improving the
lot of humanity’.
Again
he wrote, ‘Any social organism can become psychically distempered just as any
individual can, especially in times of difficulty. Nations usually survive these
distempers. I hope that healthy
conditions will soon supervene in Germany ………..’
When
Gandhi was asked to speak about European civilization, he said, ‘it is a good idea’.
America
exploded two atom bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki and within seconds lacs of people
became ash. Today the US, the world leader
in science and technology, is the most dangerous war- mongering nation in the world. The Middle East is a destabilized region in to-day’s world.
Noam Chomsky says, ‘If some Extraterrestrial species were
compiling a history of Homo sapiens, they might well break their calendar into
two eras: BNW (before nuclear weapons) and NEW (the nuclear weapons era). NEW, of course, opened on August 6, 1945, the
first day of the countdown to what may be the inglorious end of this strange
species, which attained the intelligence to discover the effective means to
destroy it self, but- so the evidence suggests-not the moral and intellectual
capacity to control its worst instincts.’ (How Many Minutes to Midnight?).
In
the essay ‘Approaching Socialism’ (Analytical Monthly Review: July to
August-2005) Harry Magdoff and Fred Magdoff wrote ‘The variety of structure and
organization of past civilizations is truly striking. It was not so long ago- in the span of human
existence-that the native peoples in North and South America had a very
different consciousness than that imposed by the invasions and conquest of the
European armies and settlers. Thus
Christopher Columbus wrote after his
first voyage to the West: “Nor have I been able to learn whether they held personal
property, for it seemed to me that whatever one had, they all took shares of …
They are so free with all they have that no one would believe it who has not
seen it; of anything they possess, if it be asked of them , they never say no;
on the contrary, they invite you to share it and show as much love as if their
hearts went with it.”
The
missionary du Tertre writes from the Caribbean in the 1650s, ‘they are all
equal, without anyone recognizing any sort of superiority or any sort of
servitude…. Neither is richer or poorer than his companion and all unanimously
limit their desires to that which is useful and precisely necessary, and are
contemptuous of all other things, superfluous things, as not being worthy to be
possessed….” And Montaigne wrote of three Indians who were in France in the
late sixteenth century. They explained
to him about the common Indian custom of dividing the people into halves,
groups with special and separate duties for ritual or administrative reasons,
such as the summer and winter people of the various North American tribes. The Indians were struck by the two opposing
groups in France. “They had perceived
there were men amongst us full gorged with all sorts of commodities and others,
hunger-starved, and bare with need and poverties begged at their gates: and
found it strange these moieties so needy could endure such an injustice, and
they took not the others by the throat, or set fire on their house….”
‘We
have briefly referred above to societies in which economics was subservient to
social relations. That changed
dramatically in the evolution of capitalism as private property, money and
trade for gain came to the forefront.
Social relations became but reflections of the dominating force of
society’s capitalist economics instead of the reverse’.
(Approaching
Socialism)
Indigenous
communities teach us about the glory of human relations. The question that
haunts humanity is what lies wrong with modern civilization. Have we the will
and sufficient time to over come our psychic distempers? Here we can discuss the topic human
nature. Human nature has not been constant in
different countries and different ages.
Harry Magdoff & Fred Magdoff write, ‘…..the consciousness, behavior,
habits, and values of humans can be so variable and are influenced by the
history and culture that develops in a given society. Not only has so - called human nature
changed, the ideology surrounding the components of human nature has also changed
dramatically. The glorification of making money, the sanctioning of all the
actions necessary to do so, and the promotion of the needed human
traits-“unnatural” and repugnant to Aristotle- is now the norm of capitalist
societies. ’
What
lies wrong with Indigenous communities is their lack of scientific
outlook. They have their shamans who
believe in mysticism, miracles and in a number of deities who guide and guard
their lives. The Aztec society
sacrificed human beings to propitiate their great God.
The
tribe of pueblo Indians in Mexico has won the admiration and wonder of the
western thinkers. Einstein wrote:-
‘Under
the hardest living conditions, this tribe (pueblo Indians) has apparently
accomplished the difficult task of delivering its people from the scourge of
competitive spirit and of fostering in them a temperate, cooperative conduct of
life, free of external pressure and without any curtailment of happiness.’
Religion and
science: irreconcilable?
Pueblo
Indian society is mercifully free from sexual jealousy. Unfortunately this
society has become stagnant and lacks movement at the social and cultural
level.
Latin
America has produced some of the best theoreticians of socialism in the
world. Regarding the urban areas of
Latin America Kees Koonings and dirk
Kruijt write in their book ‘Fractured Cities’.
‘The
first issue and the starting point is the long-standing syndrome of urban
poverty, inequality and social exclusion.
Although this has been part and parcel of Latin American patterns of urbanization
over the past century or so, the new neo-liberal model that dominated the past
two decades has intensified this pattern to a considerable degree.’
‘A
second issue addressed throughout the book is the withdrawal (if not failure)
of the (local) state, especially of its public security functions. The widening of so-called governance voids
and the un-rule of law is now acknowledged as an important element in the
relationship between urban exclusion, insecurity and violence. In many cases, the police and the judiciary
are ineffective in dealing with crime and violence, or worse, are among the
active protagonists. This failure is
partial or selective, however, roughly following a class colour divide; hence
‘state abandonment’ might be a more appropriate term. As is clearly demonstrated by Elizabeth Leeds
for Rio de Janeiro (in Chapter-2), Wil Pansters and Hector Castillo Berthier
for Mexico City (in Chapter-3) and Roberto Briceno – Leon for Caracas (in
Chapter-6), local official security forces are often ineffective owing to
disorganization, lack of vision, political disputes or an overly militarized
approach to law enforcement and public security. In Rio de Janeiro and particularly in
Medellin, the police have even been part of a veritable urban war. As a result, in many Latin American cities,
the police are highly distrusted and often seen as a threat by inhabitants of
low-income neighborhoods.’ (Introduction:
the Duality of Latin American Cityscapes). Can Latin America become a truly
socialist country without a sea change in their urban areas? Socialist thinkers of Latin America are
proposing socialism based on protagonist democracy which is definitely an
improvement in the socialist theory; but it does not solve all the problems
that bedevil humanity.
In
India the vulnerable sections of the population, women, children and the aged
people are being harassed. This
harassment increases from year to year.
Society becomes more and more nuclearized as days pass. In the American
Society divorces are ruining families.
Children are becoming more and more anti –social from year to year. Pornography and war-mongering have become the
hall marks of American Society.
Scientists
have rightly discarded the theory of gene – determinism but the theory of
neural determinism (brain) can not be thrown away dismissively. When certain areas of the brain are damaged
due to accidents or otherwise, the personality changes completely. Scientists have made the discovery that
within the last twenty thousand years humans have lost 20% of their
brains. Prof. Robin Dunbar and his
colleagues discovered that social evolution always precedes the increase of
intelligence in the human brain.
Amydale
which is responsible for the violence in human nature is controlled by the
prefrontal cortex only in the human specie. Mirror neurons which are
responsible for empathy are not so many in other species. This
shows the direction in which evolution was moving. Nature wanted to produce a
species which would make its task of the survival of all the species easier.
Has human nature changed for the worse? Has
humanity abandoned the evolutionary path fixed for it by nature? The questions
need answers from scholars.
Scientists
who simulated nature with in computers to study evolution that took place with
in millions of years came to the conclusion that in evolution nature follows a
particular method and evolution has also a particular aim.
W. Daniel Hillis is a computer scientist; cofounder and
chief scientist of Thinking Machines; corporation editor of several scientific
journals.
He wrote ‘The engineering process doesn’t work very well
when it gets complicated. We’re
beginning to depend on computers that use a process very different from
engineering- process (evolutionary process of nature) that allows us to produce
things of much more complexity than we could with normal engineering’. “Close to the Singularity”
‘I said to the Computer “Computer, would you please make a
hundred million random sequences of instructions. Now, execute all those random sequences of
instructions, all those programs, and pick out the ones that come closest to
what I wanted.” In other words, I
defined what I wanted to accomplish, not how to accomplish it.’
Einstein wrote ‘For the scientists, there is only “being”,
but no wishing, no valuing, no good, no evil-in short, no goal’.
‘From this it might seem as if logical thinking were
irrelevant for ethics, scientific statements of facts and relations, indeed,
cannot produce ethical directives.’
Einstein’s question was
‘What
is the origin of such ethical axioms? Are they arbitrary? Are they based on
mere authority? Do they stem from experience of men and are they conditioned
indirectly by such experiences?’
The Law of Science and The Laws of Ethics (Sane voices for a
Disoriented Generation).
From what the leading computer scientists have discovered by
simulating evolution in side the computer, ethics does not seen to be an
arbitrary system of knowledge. It seems Nature has chosen for us a system of
ethics which we are violating at our peril. Scientist like Lynn Margulis, James
Love lock, Fritjof Capra, Andrew Glikson (Earth and Paleo-climate scientist) all
have tried to discover the ethical part of Nature’s command to humanity.
The questions and the problems raised by Einstein also
troubled J. Doyne Farmer who is a physicist, as well as a leading computer
scientist, an internal professor at the Santa Fe Instite, USA.
J. Doyne Farmer wrote, ‘In the last half of this century,
the view has emerged that life and consciousness are natural and inexorable
outgrowths of the emergent and self-organizing properties of the physical
world. This fundamental change in our view of consciousness and life gives us a
new way of looking at ourselves and our beliefs, and of understanding how we
fit into the universe.’
(The
Second Law of Organization)
‘It seemed really important to know why we were here, and to
understand the meaning of life. It was
upsetting to me that these question, which seemed to lie at the foundation of
everything, didn’t have any good answers.
The easy solutions just didn’t fit.
My brief preadolescent foray into religion left me with nothing but the
realization that people have a desperate need to understand these questions.
……….’
Regarding the
artificial world created in the computer, he said ‘It’s a
symbiotic system, in which everything co-operates to make the metabolism work
–the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. If normal replication is like monogamous sex,
autocatalytic reproduction is like an orgy. We were interested in the logical
possibility for this to happen – in an artificial world, simulated inside a
computer, following chemical laws that were similar to those of the real world
but vastly simplified to make the simulation possible.’
The Second Law of Organization
‘The Paradox that immediately bothers everyone who learns
about the second law is this: If systems tend to become more disordered, why,
then, do we see so much order around us? Obviously there must be some thing
else going on. In particular, it seems to conflict with our “creation myth”: In the beginning, there was a big bang. Suddenly a huge amount of energy was created,
and the universe expanded to form particulars.
At first, things were totally chaotic, but somehow over the course of
time complex structures began to form.
More complicated molecules, clouds of gas, stars, galaxies, planets,
geological formations, oceans, autocatalytic metabolisms, life, intelligence,
societies….’
‘And it’s important to stress that no one is saying the
second law of thermodynamics is wrong, just that there is a contrapuntal process
organizing things at a higher level…….’
‘Social evolution is different from biological evolution:
it’s faster, it’s Lamarckian, and it makes even heavier use of altruism and
cooperation than biological evolution does.
None of this was well understand at the time (Darwin’s and Einstein’s
time)’
‘Many of us believe that self –organization is a general
property - certainly of the universe……..’
Scientists
became aware that the laws of the physical worlds are different from the laws
of the living world.
Fritjof
Capra was a physicist. He wrote in his book: - ‘The Web of Life’ ‘………..Physics
has now lost its role as the science providing the most fundamental description
of reality. However, this is still not
generally recognized today. Scientists
as well as non-scientists frequently retain the popular belief that ‘if you
really want to know the ultimate explanation; you have to ask a physicist’,
which is clearly a Cartesian fallacy.
Today, the paradigm shift in science, at its deepest level, implies a
shift from physics to the life sciences’.
Deep Ecology- A
New Paradigm.
Nobel
Laureate, Erwin Schrodinger, a physicist, wrote a science classic ‘What is
Life? The Physical Aspect of the Living
Cell with Mind and Matter.’ He wrote that the laws of Life Sciences are
different from the laws of classical physics. The material world is governed by
the second law of Thermo-Dynamics ‘the law of entropy’. Accordingly
every order changes into disorder, all the heat contained in matter
dissipates, all energy disappears leading to a dead world of matter. In the birth of life and its progress, anti-
entropy triumphs, disorder leads to
order, heat and energy go on increasing. He wrote ‘It is by avoiding the rapid
decay into the inert state of ‘equilibrium’ that an organism appears so
enigmatic…………..’ How does the living organism avoid decay? The obvious answer is, by eating, drinking,
breathing and (in the case of plants) assimilating. ………..’ (It feeds on
‘Negative Entropy’).
Christopher G. Langtion is a computer scientist; visiting
professor at the Santa Fe ‘Institute, director of the institute’s
artificial-life program; editor of the journal Artificial Life. He wrote:-
We don’t specify the selective criteria externally. Rather, we let all the “Organisms” interact
with one another, in the context of a dynamic environment, and the selective
criteria simply emerge naturally. To any
one of these organisms, “nature,” in the computer, is the collective dynamics
of the rest of the computerized organisms there. When we allow this kind of interaction among
the organisms- when we allow them to pose their own problems to one another –
we see the emergence of a Nature with a capital “N” inside the computer, whose
“nature” we can’t predict as it evolves through time.
‘If you look at the architecture of most of the complex
systems in nature- immune systems, economies, countries, corporations, living
cells- there’s no central controller in complete control of these systems. There may be things that play a slightly
centralized role, such as the nucleus in a cell, or a central government, but a
great deal of the dynamics goes on autonomously. In fact, many of the emergent properties that
such systems get caught up in would probably not be possible if every thing had
to be controlled by a centralized set of rules.
Nature has learned how to bring about organization without employing a
central organizer, and the resulting organizations seem much more robust,
adaptive, flexible, and innovative than those we build ourselves that rely on a
central controller.’
A
Dynamical Pattem
Stuart Kauffman is a biologist; professor of biochemistry at
the University of Pennsylvania and a professor at the Santa Fe Institute. This highly –talented Professor almost summarized the findings of
the computer scientists who simulated the process of evolution in the
computers
He wrote, ‘Although Darwin presented natural selection as an
external force, what we’re thinking of is organisms living in an environment
that consists mostly of other organisms.
That means that for the past four billion years, evolution has brought
forth organisms that successfully coevolved with one another. Undoubtedly natural selection is part of the
motor, but it’s also true that there is spontaneous order’.
Stuart Kauffman devised the phrase ‘ORDER FOR FREE’ to explain evolution.
To quote Kauffman, ‘But if there’s order for free then some
of the order you see in organisms is not due to selection. It is due to something somehow inherent n the
building blocks. If that’s right, it’s a
profound shift, in a variety of ways.’ Using his ideas, he hoped to devise
processes for making new genes. He said, ‘within five years, I hope we’ll be
able to make vaccines to treat almost any disease you want, and do it rapidly. We’re going to be able to make hundreds of
new drugs.'
All the computer scientists interested in evolution agree on
one point. Nature should be left free
to move in the direction it chooses.
Socialism is a natural product and will prevail if we do not interfere
in the work of nature. Matricentricism is nature’s choice. Matricentric values
constitute the core of evolutionary socialism. We can not have true socialism
if male-values dominate society. The
addition of a few needed patricentric values to the core matricentric values
leads to creativity (Ashis Nandy: Self-Images Identity & Nationality). This
is ideal for a development – oriented socialism.
AS Kauffman says freedom is the base on which evolution
stands. Freedom is another word for
non-violence. In a group no member can enjoy freedom if there is violence. Violence leads to domination and domination
leads to control. In the process of evolution order comes only if there is no
controller. Evolution is self-
organizing and spontaneously leads to order.
In the News paper Odisha Post (24.01.2012) there was an
article titled “Male Sex Drive, the root of all evils”. In that essay it is written, “The Institute
of Cognitive and Evolutionary Anthropology claim that it is actually the male
warrior instinct which has helped men evolve to be aggressive to outsiders
(philosophical trans-actions of Royal Society ‘B’) ‘……. In contrast, women are
naturally equipped with a ‘tend and befriend’ attitude, meaning they work to
resolve conflicts peacefully in order to protect the children.’
We have interfered with the processes of nature. The evils haunting human society are only
because of our interference. Nature was using female brain as a motor of human
evolution. That led to a matricentric
society where aggression and hierarchy were absent. Aggression and hierarchy
are present in the male brain only, not the female brain. (The Male Brain by
Louann Bridzendine, MD). Males and females enjoy equal status in matricentric
societies.
In Frontier August 24-30/2014, Saral Sarkar writes in the
essay ‘PC’s Critique of ‘Socialism’.
“Paresh Chattopadday (PC) is right in almost all points
(Frontier, August 3-9, 2014). The
question that must now be asked is: Does it make any sense at all to still try
to create socialist society that Marx and Engels had envisioned?.......... Also, PC’s awe-inspiring scholarship is of
little use unless he presents his conclusion as to the question “What is to be
done today”.
‘Drawing our attention to the book LIMITS TO GROWTH (1972),
he calls for a paradigm shift in our thinking and activity.’
‘As for revolution, I would like to quote Walter
Benjamin. He wrote: “Marx says
revolutions are the locomotive of world history. But perhaps it is entirely
different. Revolutions are perhaps the
attempt of humanity travelling in a train to pull the emergency brake.”
If it was not true when Benjamin wrote this, it is true
today. In the same sense, another German
author, Carl Amery, wrote in the general sense: ‘Political activists have till
now tried to change the world in various ways.
The point however is to preserve it.’
What is to be done? Our task is to preserve the biosphere
and change the world’.
(FRONTIER August 24-30, 2014).
If it was not true
when Benjamin wrote this, it is true today.
In the same sense, another German author, Carl Amery, wrote in the
general sense: ‘Political activists have till now tried to change the world in
various ways. The point however is to
preserve it.’
What is to be done? Our task is to preserve the biosphere
and change the world’.
(PC’s Critique of ‘Socialism’: FRONTIER for the month of August
24-30, 2014).
Nature needs the
existence of all organisms to act spontaneously. Some may fade away without any interference
by other organisms because they fail to find the proper ecological niche for
their nourishment and existence.
Andrew Glikson is Earth and Paleo-climate scientist of
Australian National University. He wrote:-
‘A good death is often envisaged as a slipping away, in
advanced age, surrounded by family. In
such circumstances, society goes on undiminished. We can think of a good extinction in similar
terms. A species slowly flickers out,
surrounded by newer, better adapted species.
This is not the kind of extinction that is occurring at present. ..
These extinctions destabilize ecosystems in the way that such deaths
destabilize society.’
Evolution of the Atmosphere, Fire and the Anthropceine
Climate Event Horizon: Andrew Glikson.
“If the bee
disappeared of the face of the earth, man would be left four years to live”. Nobel winner Maurice Maeterlinck ‘the Life of
the Bee’ The Hindu young world 01.07.2014.
(To be continued in Evolutionary
(Science-Directed) Socialism: Part-IV)
Bhagwat Prasad Rath,
3rd
Line, Roith Colony,
At/PO/Dist. –
Rayagada –2
PIN- 765002,
Odisha.
Phone No.
06856-235092
Cell
No.-08895860598
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