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
Monday, January 26, 2015
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
Evolutionary (Science-Directed) Socialism: Part-II... BY SRI BHAGWAT PRASAD RATH
Albert
Einstein wrote, ‘Modern anthropology has taught us, through comparative
investigation of so-called primitive culture, in which the social behavior of
human beings may differ greatly, depending upon prevailing cultural patterns
and the types of organization which predominate in society. It is on this that those who are striving to
improve the lot of man may ground their hopes: human beings are not condemned,
because of their biological constitution, to annihilate each other or to be at
the mercy of a cruel, self-inflicted fate’.
Fifty thousand years back
humanity made the wrong choice in the mode of production. From that day the
social, political, cultural and intellectual life process in general moved in
the wrong predatory direction. (Refer Marx’s remarks in the first part of the
essay) The evils that afflict the modern society can be traced to that
day. The society of gatherers was mainly
dependent on females collecting food material (80% of the food consumed by the
family) from nature. The society was
peaceful, contented and affluent. Anthropologist
Marshal Sahlin writes in his essay ‘The Original Affluent Society’:-“Bushmen
who live in the Kalahari Desert enjoy a thing of natural plenty in the realm of
every day useful things, apart from food and water … they had no sense of
possessions.” Patricio Draper (Prof. of Anthropology New Mexico, University)
writes in his essay in the Book ‘Toward an Anthropology of Woman’, “ The point to be developed at some length is
that in the hunting and gathering
context, women have a great deal of autonomy and influence. Some of the contexts in which the
evolutionarism is expressed will be described and certain features of the
foraging life which promotes egalitarianism will be expressed… A similar degree
of mobility for both sexes, the lack of rigidity in-sex-typing of many
activities including domestic chores and aspects of child socialization, the
cultural sanction against physical expression of aggression, the small
group size…”
Thus writes the
anthropologist Peter Gray, ‘During the twentieth century, anthropologists
discovered and studied dozens of different hunter gatherer societies, in
various remote parts of the world, who had been nearly untouched by modern
influences. Wherever they were found- in
Africa, Asia, South America, or elsewhere; in deserts or in jungles-these
societies had many characteristics in common.
The people lived in small bands, of about 20 to 50 persons (including children)
per band, who moved from camp to camp within a relatively circumscribed area to
follow the available game and edible vegetation. The people had friends and relatives in
neighboring bands and maintained peaceful relationships with neighboring bands. Warfare was unknown to most of these
societies, and where it was known it was the result of interactions with
warlike groups of people who were not hunter gatherers. In each of these societies, the dominant
cultural ethos was one that emphasized individual autonomy, non-directive
childrearing methods, nonviolence, sharing, cooperation, and consensual
decision-making. Their core value, which
underlay all of the rest, was that of the equality of individuals’.
Again Peter Gray wrote, ‘If
just one anthropologist had reported all this, we might assume that he or she
was a starry-eyed romantic who was seeing things that weren’t really there, or
was a liar. But many anthropologists, of
all political stripes, regarding many different hunter-gatherer cultures, have
told the same general story. There are
some variations from culture to culture, of course, and not all of the cultures
are quite as peaceful and fully egalitarian as others, but the generalities are
the same. One anthropologist after
another has been amazed by the degree of equality, individual autonomy,
indulgent treatment of children, cooperation and sharing in the hunter-gatherer
culture that he or she studied. When you
read about “warlike primitive tribes,”
or about indigenous people who held slaves, or about tribal cultures
with gross inequalities between men and women, you are not reading about band
hunter-gatherers’. (How hunter-gatherers
maintained their egalitarian ways.)
Human beings are what they
are because of their brains which is a product of the culture of the hunter-gatherer
society. Our brain development came to a stop when the hunter-gatherer society
was replaced by hunter society fifty thousand years ago. Scientists say that research shows that
within the last twenty thousand years we lost about 20 percent of our brain
cells.
In spite of the research done
by Robin Dunbar and his colleagues, exactly why we developed such large brains
is a disputed subject. To quote from the book ‘Evolution and human behaviour’ written
by John Cartwright, ‘The rapid growth of the human brain, which for about 1.5
million years remained at about 750 cm3 and then in the past 0.5
million years doubled to its present volume, has led some, such as Geoff Miller
(1996), to suggest that a runaway sexual selection process must have been at work’
(Chapter: The Evolution of Brain Size).
When John Cartwright wrote the words ‘disputed
subject’, the book FEMALE BRAIN had not been written and thinkers had not made
a deep study of the original Mahabharata known as JAYA containing one twelfth
the size of the present Mahabharata. Both the books give sufficient evidence to
prove that ‘sexual selection’ is the cause of human brain development. Dunbar’s research also indirectly points at
sexual selection because in forming big societies females play an important
role. Males generally prefer solitary living (Orang Outang, lions), harem
building (Gorilla) and forming groups with males only (Chimpanzee, the Greek
warriors who were generally homo-sexual).
Louann Brizendine, M.D. writes in the book THE FEMALE BRAIN, “This means that women
are, on average, better at expressing emotions and remembering the details of
emotional events. Men, by contrast, have two and a half times the brain space
devoted to sexual drive as well as larger brain centers for action and
aggression”. ‘……….Men also have larger processors in the core of the most
primitive area of the brain, which registers fear and triggers aggression- the
amygdale. This is why some men can go
from zero to a fistfight in a matter of seconds, while many women will try
anything to defuse conflict ’.
‘Women’s tendency to defuse
conflicts was responsible for stopping male’s fights for women’s sexual favour
7 million years ago. In the case of other great apes, this type of role was not
played by their women folk. About 3.6 million years ago, human species in the
phase of Australopithecus Afarenses only among the great apes had their teeth
changed in shape to less- intimidating ones because of their non-use in male
fights for the sexual favour of women folk. As male -fights played no role in women’s
sexual choice; men resorted to carrying presents of gathered fruits to women.
Thus bio-pedalism occurred in the human species (Lovejoy)’.
‘That our mental instincts
haven’t changed in millions of years may explain why women, worldwide, look for
the same ideal qualities in a long-term mate, according to the evolutionary
psychologist David buss. For over five
years, Buss studied the mate preferences of more than ten thousand individuals
in thirty-seven cultures around the world-from West Germans and Taiwanese to
Mbuti Pygmies and Aleut Eskimos. He
discovered that, in every culture, women are less concerned with a potential
husband’s visual appeal and more interested in his material resources and
social status…….. Nevertheless, he found that, in all thirty-seven cultures,
females value these qualities in a mate much more than males do, regardless of
the females own assets and earning capacity’.
In the Mahabharata, we come across
many episodes where women want progeny from carrying and sharing males
(Yogis). Sulabha, a famous intellectual, adept in Samkhya philosophy,
approached Janaka for sexual favours. Ganga
approached the family of the saint kings of Santanu
for marriage purpose. Madhabi shunned kings and approached Rishi Galab to be her life mate.
Madayanti,
the wife of the famous Veda -mentioned king Sudas,
established sexual relations with Rishi
Vasista with the consent of her husband. Rishi Dirghatama became the father of king Vali’s children Anga, Banga, Kalinga, Brahma and Sumha with Vali’s consent. There was no
sexual jealousy among the males in that society. R. S.
Sarma writes in his book ‘Rethinking
India’s past’ (Chapter- Rethinking the Past) that a sexually – free Aryan
society still exists in India in Ladakh
area. To quote him ‘A case of the presence of an Aryan tribe in Ladakh valley
in Kashmir has been reported in the Times of India in Patna on 11 March
2006’. It refers to an Aryan tribe living in three
villages in the valley and suggests that they practiced agriculture. They are presented as fair people with good
eyes and noses. Though their colour is
not mentioned they seem to be white-skinned. They practiced polyandry and
polygamy and kissed one another openly.
They are Buddhists by religion.
Under modern protests they gave up polyandry and open kissing’. The Nair
society in Kerala, till recently, was matricentric in character. Nair
women preferred to have children from Nambudri
Brahmins rather than from their Nair
warrior husbands.
The Hunter Gatherer period of
human history was the golden period of human development. It is better to call it ‘The Gatherer Period’ as man was not the
hunter but the hunted in that period. Predatory animals stopped hunting human beings
when the discovery of fire and the formation of big- band men –women mixed societies
of more than 100 individuals made human- hunting difficult for predatory
animals. Whatever meat was available in that period was not because of hunting
but scavenging. Fifty thousand years ago
when man improved the killer apparatus,
the hunter society came into being.
The Gatherers who were mainly from the women folk lost their importance. They started choosing hunters, who were
having high status in their societies, as their sex –mates.
When man had reached the
stage of Lucy (Australopithecus Afarensis) in the Pliocene era, the male -
female body dimorphism was 1.7: 1, but,
unlike Bonbons and Chimpanzees, the canine teeth of human- beings showed no
male - female dimorphism. This was
because of sexual selection. Initially
human society was not like Chimpanzee
society but Bonbo (Dwarf Chimpanzee) society, peaceful and women
–dominated. In Bonbo society, women
chose their sexual partners indiscriminately.
In the case of Human females, they chose their sexual partners amongst
those who did not fight each other. Till to day, it is not the females who are
responsible for our wars, but, our males.
The female brain has
tremendous unique aptitudes – outstanding verbal agility, the ability to
connect deeply in friendship, a nearly psychic capacity to read faces and tone
of voice for emotions and states of mind, and the ability to DEFUSE CONFLICT.
(What makes us women?: THE FEMALE BRAIN by Louann Brizendine, M.D.? )
‘If you can read faces and
voices, you can tell what an infant needs. You can predict what a bigger, more
aggressive male is going to do. And
since you’re smaller, you probably need to band with other females to fend off
attacks from a ticked off caveman-or cavemen…...If you’re girl, you’ve been
programmed to make sure you keep social harmony’.
The Birth Of
The Female Brain: THE FEMALE BRAIN.
A Socialist society must be a Matricentric society. Matricentricism
is a word coined by the great thinker Erich Fromm. It is different from
matriarchy. Like Patriarchy, Matriarchy
leads to domination of the females in society.
In a matricentric society men and women enjoy equal power. Matricentricism works only at the cultural
level. All the members of society have love for
others. They give importance to the caring and sharing attitude. Thus
wrote Fritjof Capra in the book ‘Uncommon Wisdom’. ‘It seems that at the very basis of our
health problems lies a profound cultural imbalance, the overemphasis on yang, or masculine, values and
attitudes. I have found this cultural
imbalance to form a consistent background to all problems of individual,
social, and ecological health. Whenever
I explore a health problem in depth and try to get to the roots of things I find myself coming back to this imbalance
in our value system’.
(The Big Sur
Dialogues ).
In the past, there were two
societies which were totally matricentric.
One was that of Israel in the pre-Biblical age. The other was the society of pre-Vedic India.
In these societies, religion had no role. We have clear evidence regarding the
pre-Vedic Indian society. The Mahabharata in its earliest form JAYA contains a lot of information. Regarding
Matricentricism and the Israel society Murray Bookchin writes in his book. ‘The
Ecology of Freedom’: ‘The emergence and dissolution of hierarchy’. In any case, some ten thousand years ago, in
an area between the Caspian Sea and the Mediterranean, nomadic bands of
hunter-gatherers began to develop a crude system of horticulture and settle
down in small villages, where they engaged in mixed farming………The development
of horticulture, or gardening, was probably initiated by women. Evidence for this belief comes from studies
of mythology and from existing preliterate communities based on a hoe-gardening
technology. In this remote period of
transition, when a sense of belonging to a relatively fixed social community increasingly replaced a nomadic outlook,
social life began to acquire entirely new unitary qualities that (to borrow a
term devised by Erich Fromm) can best be called matricentric. By using these terms, I do not wish to imply
that women exercised any form of institutional sovereignty over men or achieved
a commanding status in the management of society. I merely mean that the community, in
separating itself from a certain degree of dependence on game and migratory
animals, began to shift its social imagery from the male hunter to the female
food-gatherer, from the predator to the procreator, from the camp fire to the
domestic hearth, from cultural traits associated with the father to those
associated with the mother. The change in emphasis is primarily cultural,
“Certainly ‘home and mother’ are written over every phase of Neolithic
agriculture,” observes Lewis Mumford, “and not least over the new village
centers, at least identifiable in the foundations of houses and graves,” ……..Today,
one would want to replace some of Mumford’s words, such as his sweeping use of
“agriculture”, which men were to extend beyond woman’s discovery of gardening
into the mass production of food and animals.
We would want to confine “home and mother” to early phases of the
Neolithic rather than “every phase”. ……….
“……………If
anything, women’s stature in inscribing her sensibilities and her hands on the
beginning of human history has grown rather than diminished. It was she who, unlike any other living
creature, made the sharing of food a consistent communal activity and even a
hospitable one that embraced the stranger, hence fostering sharing as a
uniquely human desideratum. Birds and
mammals, to be sure, feed their young and exhibit extraordinary protectiveness
on their behalf. Among mammals, females
provide and produce of their bodies in the form of milk and warmth. But only woman was to make sharing a
universally social phenomenon to the point where her young-as siblings, then
male and female adults, and finally parents-became sharers irrespective of
their sex and age. It is she who turned
sharing into a hallowed communal imperative, not merely an episodic or marginal
feature”.
‘Finally,
we cannot ignore the fact that women’s foraging activities helped awaken in
humanity an innate sense of place, of oikos.
Her nurturing sensibility helped create
not only the origins of society but literally the roots of civilization-a
terrain the male has arrogantly claimed for himself. Here “stake in civilization” was different
from that of the predatory male: it was more domestic, more pacifying, and more
caring. Her sensibility ran deeper and
was laden with more hope than the male’s, for she embodied in her very physical
being mythology’s ancient message of a lost “golden age” and a fecund
nature. Yet ironically she has been with
us all the time with a special genius and mystery; one whose potentialities
have been brutally diminished but ever present as a voice of conscience in the
bloody cauldron that men have claimed for their “civilization.”…………. ‘In the
remains of early Neolithic villages, we often sense the existence of what was
once a clearly peaceful society, strewn with symbols of the fecundity of life
and the bounty of nature. Although there
is evidence of weapons, defensive palisades, and protective ditches, early
horticulturists seem to have emphasized peaceful arts and sedentary
pursuits. Judging from the building
sites and graves, there is little evidence, if any, that social inequality
existed within these communities or that warfare marked the relationships
between them’.
The
crucial role in human evolution was played by women’s choice of caring and
sharing males as sexual partners. That
this type of choice was prevalent in ancient India can be affirmed from the
numerous episodes in the Mahabharata. Probably
this type of society developed and continued in Israel also. That the most
intelligent men and women of the ancient
world lived in matricentric pre-Vedic India can be proved from the fact that
the elite of the Mohenjodaro – Harappa society were free from any conception of
God and any type of violence. There were no kings or priests in that society
(archeology and the Mahabharata).
World
history teaches us that war- loving societies have not produced good
philosophers, scientists or creative
artists. The two famous Greek cities
were Athens and Sparta. Sparta produced only great warriors. Today Israel is
one of the worst violent states in the world which has embraced aggressive
nationalism of the Hitlerian variety. A
little more than twenty percent of the Nobel laureates in science are Jews. Six million Jews live in America. Eight million Jews live in Israel. American Jew community produced one hundred
twenty six Nobel laureates in science.
Israel Jews can claim only six Nobel laureates in science as their own.
The military mentality of the Jews may have been partially responsible for this
phenomena. Intelligence is a hereditary product. We have
seen, in the case of the peacock’s tail, how sexual selection can exert
powerful force and bring about rapid change that flies in the face of natural
selection. The
credit for uncommon Jew intelligence goes fully to the Jew women folk of the
past matricentric Jew society. They preferred caring and sharing males as
sexual partners. This led to the extra
ordinary growth of intelligence in the Jew society.
Einstein
says in the essay ‘IS THERE A JEWISH
POINT OF VIEW? ‘How strongly
developed this sense of the sanctity of life is in the Jewish people is
admirably illustrated by a little remark which Walter Rathenau once made to me
in conversation: “When a Jew says that
he’s going hunting to amuse himself, he lies.”
The Jewish sense of the sanctity of life could not be more simply
expressed.’
In
India after the Aryans came, the people who built the Sindhu civilization left
their lands and got scattered in many parts of India. Most of the Dravidians
who constituted the Sindhu society went to the South. Later the elite of the
Sindhu civilization became the Brahmin community. The present Tamil Brahmin
society is steeped in superstitions. The caste system and untouchability (A
horrible custom) that plague the whole of India are present in virulent forms
in Tamil society also. Tamil Brahmins
constitute about 0.2 percent of the Indian population, yet they have produced the
three Nobel laureates of India. V. S.
Ramachandran, a great world -level neurologist, Ramanujan, a great genius in the field of Mathematics, Viswanath
Anand, a world champion in the field of chess in the past and many other
world-level scientists and
mathematicians are products of this community.
Next to Tamil Brahmins, the Bengalis also produced some world -level
figures in many fields. Extra -ordinary
persons like the Buddha and Gandhi are India’s great gifts to the world. The presence of extra- ordinary intelligence (both
social and general) in many communities in India is due to the legacy of the
past matricentric societies. Women of the pre-Vedic past, chose caring and
sharing males (Yogies) as their temporary or permanent sexual partners.
The
Sindhu civilization was an egalitarian one.
R. S. Vist, the archeologist who
excavated Dholabira asserted that there is enough evidence regarding the fully
egalitarian nature of Dholabira society. Socialists the world over should make
a deep study of this civilization which gave the highest place of honour to the
philosophers. Even in the Mouryan age, this system of highest status being
given to the philosopher in society continued (Megasthenes and Arthasastra). The
Greek philosophers dreamt of such a society run by philosopher -rulers but
produced a highly in- egalitarian society.
In
an essay of the news paper ‘Orissa Post (24.01.2012)’ named ‘Male Sex Drive,
the root of all evils’ it is written, ‘The
Institute of Cognitive and Evolutionary Anthropology (Oxford) 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 seek to
resolve conflicts peacefully in order to protect the children, according to the
researchers’.
In
his essay ‘Self as a Political Concept’ (Self-Images, Identity and Nationality):
Ashis Nandy writes ‘Among the hundreds of often non-cumulative studies which I
came across then were certain running themes.
I shall crudely summarize ……I found that a large number of these studies
mentioned that, as compared to the highly competent, the highly creative
showed, if they were men, qualities more associated in the American Society
with femininity……….’
How
important matricentric values are for the development of humanity can be gauzed
from the above two paragraphs.
(To be continued
in Evolutionary
(Science-Directed) Socialism: Part-III)
Bhagwat Prasad Rath,
3rd
Line, Roith Colony,
At/PO/Dist. –
Rayagada –2
PIN- 765002,
Odisha.
Phone No.
06856-235092
Cell
No.-08895860598
satyabhamajankalyantrust@rediffmail.com
www.samalochana.blogsome.com
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