It is well acknowledged. Ours is a violent society. Taking this into account, we are constantly taking corrective and preventive steps, mostly in the form of rules and regulations intended to curb violence. Sometimes, such rules may become a yoke, which we overlook, that too, even when our freedom is infringed. Society, however remains as violent as before.
Why? What Can be Done?
'The Moral Libertarian Perspective' By TaraElla opened up a few fresh thoughts in me.
I agree, back in eighteenth or nineteenth centuries when libertarians became a force to be reckoned with, these was no 'big busuness'. The tyrannies they felt were always coming from governments of the times. And countering it, they could manage with a few ideas here and there, including a few related to restructuring the goverments. But now, in this era, we are using the same ideas against the tyrannies of today, most of which originate out of conglomerates. Not only that those ideas fail to stop it, but also affect the productivity of business, something of concern to all.
Presently, no state is able to address moral issues in an appropriate way, since they all resort to a collective response. Naturally, this leads to unsavoury results. Morality, being an individual attribute, needs treatment also of such a genre. For this, we need to come up with appropriate designs, both for the structure of the state and its government.
Which is the most fundamental of all laws? I think Lenz's law fits here the best. Though well known in connection with things like electrical machinery, this law is the one that can doubtlessly explain everything in plain terms, including those abstract. Also, even the ones that are rather imponderable, and are part of the unfathomable human.
Roughly put, the law is like this.
The ultimate effect of every reaction is to nullify the action which gave rise to it.
Let us take a few examples and see how this applies to life and living.
Hunger makes one eat, and eating takes away hunger.
Tiredness leads to rest, and rest stops tiredness.
Ignorance calls for learning, and learning puts a stop to ignorance.
Good many examples can be cited from our political landscape. Where, parties or ideals grow, die, and resurrect for no specific reason. Though we tend to link this with things like charismatic leadership, the truth is, nothing else but the Lenz's law of politics is in action.
For all activities performed by all species of life, it is possible to arrive at a relationship or transactional specification. When guided by this law, this can become, say, an equation. Living, in fact can be expressed as some such equations in action, where we manipulate the LHS to obtain a desired RHS, or vice versa.
But there is one exception, will. In case of human, in almost all cases, and in case of all other forms of life, in a few cases, this introduces a non-linearity. Which is nothing but the propensity to manipulate both the LHS and the RHS at the same time, for no specified reason. In fact, will, is nothing but the freedom, one has, or the readiness, one shows, towards such a manipulation. And, will gets valued in direct proportion to the abstractness of the willed matter.
As long as one can manage to keep living a life clear of abstractions, Lenz's law is all that is needed to make a mathematical model for qualitative analysis of one's life, and even for a more useful quantitative study of the complete flow of life. And, one can see that the transactions where Lenz's law do not fit are the ones that lead to social strife.
We Need a Lifestyle that Fits our life Better
It seems, humankind was not endowed with the ideal mental faculties for understanding the world. Else, since mankind was in existence for millions of years, they would have been appreciating things uniquely. And would have started to master human specific activities, say read and write, much earlier. In fact we would have been having a seamless flow of life, where, all that we explore, learn, and imbibe, would be in sync with everything else, just as it is with all other forms of life.
Also, for everything we notice, we are in fact coming up with quite a few conclusions and explanations, which, even if are confusing and damaging, look grave enough for at least a few. Hence, someone is there to espouse each inference, however useless, vague or inconvenient, it turns out to be. Human race, perhaps is not one designed for appreciating the world, as well as reacting appropriately in the natural turn itself, to all events and circumstances?
Let us revisit the origins of knowledge, a much celebrated one that separates us from the rest. It seems, when people started to wonder, ‘why things are as they are’, or, ‘why things behaved as they did', and when someone mostly answered as to, 'how', they all chose to be happy and jumped to the next question. Thus, the earliest of exponents, the path or conclusions of whom all would have been of great use or influence to subsequent generations, left the 'why's unanswered. And knowledge is nothing but the accumulated version of those answers.
As a result, knowledge dwells a lot on ‘how’, and as a result of it, we tend be full of answers to questions that may not arise at all. (‘What’ could be a question of every inquisitive mind, ‘how’, only of those who would like to learn to do.) But those answers effectively leave out most of what we wonder as wonder itself. And, at any time, each of us feel encouraged to align with the facet of the wonder that grabs our interest the most.
That leaves a wide gap between the actual reality and our perception of it. That is why, all the natural philosophers, whether of Ancient Greece, India, or elsewhere, chose to dedicate much of their time in looking for the essence of reality. Their answer was always abstract, since it enabled them to keep those gaps filled without the need of anything real and substantive. Some of them found the answer in 'stability', and some others specifying it as nothing but a state of 'constant change'.
Times changed. All those who followed the ancients, kept themselves busy in trying to redefine those abstract concepts. Every definition opening up some more such ideas, fresh insight into the essence of reality is constantly on the make. A new unfilled gap is thus generated, whenever an existing one gets filled by whatever was signified by the current level of abstraction.
I feel we need to revisit knowledge. In fact the existing notions of our society are not at all a good fit, as far as arriving at an optimum living style for ourselves. For example, there is room for re-defining theology and materialism, while replacing all the abstractions with something real. Perhaps, that will trigger the true lifestyle, we should have been having all the while.
Whenever I remember my days with the navy, this is what comes to me first. An issue to confront us, almost every day, used to be something related to mutual disagreements. Headaches like interdepartmental rivalry, ego clashes between naval branches, or other differences fueled by the socio-educational background of each one of us, were always there, ready to flare up at the next spark. In the beginning, as young and inexperienced, we could not solve such issues in full, and had to take advice and instruction from our superiors.
I found one thing common in all such advices, more so, in the instances where we could succeed instantly, convincingly. 'Remove generalizations as much as you can, and bring down the issue to certain specifics. You will find much of the issue evaporating away during the transition itself.'
I think this is what is missing, when we deal with ourselves, particularly about contentious issues like social harmony and peace. Firstly, we are not paying sufficient attention to specifics of any issue. As a result, what appears to us is a version that is unrecognizably clouded by whatever are the current priorities. Moreover, we vitiate the prevailing atmosphere by shouting out with all our might, whatever local ripples or undulations, one may happen to notice, as far as the social fabric go.
Why?
Because, not only that it is easy to do so, but also there is no danger of a retort from someone who gets blamed in the process. Also, it is not an easy, straightforward job to locate the specifics of any issue. More often than not, one will find oneself only, at least as one of the reasons for the same. If corrective or punitive actions follow, naturally, one will have to be ready for the same too.
This perhaps is the most significant issue, the early humans faced, and which we continue to face. How to escape from blame, when logically, one is blameworthy? Perhaps each one pointed to the other one as more blameworthy, which, over many such iterations, metamorphosed into what we term as generalization. Here, everyone gets blamed without putting the blame on someone.
Over time, generalization, and its root, abstraction, have taken over the heart of the human intellect. We overlook everything else, leaving the vitiated atmosphere, as it is.
How else but violent, human society will be? Being a thinking animal, we should have known better. Empiric and specifics, we need to address, while viewing all abstractions as nothing else but distractions.
