Corruption and a Culture -II

Corruption is a huge problem in many countries as it is 'OK' to be corrupt. In fact I've come across people who take pride in their corrupt activities and perpetuate such practices without analyzing the broad effects of it. One way to distinguish if a problem is specific to a section of people holding power or something that is present in a broader culture is to take out the powerful people out of the equation. Power is known to corrupt people across the globe and history has shown that repeatedly. Even the qualities and behavior of some powerful people seem to have common patterns that is cross-cultural.

It is widely acknowledged that good leadership at several levels (not enough to have one non-corrupt leader at the top) can mitigate the problem, but it may not be sustainable. It is easy to succumb to corrupt practices when the broader social context is supportive of that. Then it becomes a competition for who gets to abuse power and earn money/fame through any means. The prevalence of power abuse and corruption, especially in a democracy, can not exist independently of the wider population of people who support or reject it. That shows the existence of this problem in our broader culture. We need a change at a deeper and higher level that can create the social context where corrupt practices find it hard to flourish. The deeper level has to do with our value systems and the higher level has to do with social organization that lets people put pressure on leaders if they are found to be corrupt.

There have been several movements to deal with corruption and there are several dedicated groups working to create more awareness about the problem of it. Given the widely acknowledged existence of this problem, the framework in which we analyze the problem of corruption and power abuse is important. These are problems that touch both the moral domains of our existence and society's functioning and health. Hence it becomes imperative to use systems language to address the problem as it is one way to connect deontological moral systems (rule based ethical system) and utilitarian social organization.

The health of a system of individuals can be assessed just as the health of an individual can be evaluated. It is important to remember that there is no absolute definition of health even for an individual. Defining health for an individual during his or her lifetime is a complicated issue and varies with time and place. It is possible that people get habituated to a state of sickness and think that is the most healthy state possible for that individual. Sometimes to define the most healthiest state possible, it is important to envision an ideal state or look for people who have achieved extraordinary states of well being. Just as people are redefining health of an individual by including several factors such as physical, mental, spiritual and economic health, the way we assess a society's health needs to be changed.

A society or a country is a group of individuals living in a place with its own natural, ecological and human resources and who are in an open exchange of all these resources with the rest of the beings on earth. One important health indicator in a society is moral/ethical health as it determines how people interact with each other. Since all beings live in an inter-connected and inter-dependent system, it affects almost every aspect of our life and living. One useful way of thinking about it is to compare it with systems at other levels.

Several systems of understanding nature widely recognize that the universe is arranged as a holarchy of beings at multiple levels. A holon is simultaneously a whole with its own specific properties and also a part of bigger system where it is a component part. There are holons at several levels. For example, cells have their own unique properties, but are also part of tissues and organs. Like wise individual humans have their own unique autonomous nature and simultaneously interact with other people and beings in multiple ways to form a society. These ideas are discussed in great detail in Ken Wilber's book 'Sex, Ecology and Spirituality'.

The systems at all levels are organized according to certain patterns which results in their harmonious functioning. Studying these principles of organization and the nature of their dynamic behavior are the focus of several domains of science. In human societies, this principle of organization is expressed as ethical and moral principles. As free agents with several ways of organizing a society, people have experimented with several such principles. However such principles cannot be separated from the values people hold as it directly affects how people interact, treat each other and what is considered as wrong behavior.

Corruption and Cancer : Deontological systems derive its rule mainly through the application of reason as Kant would argue or through discovering such principles as in revelations. Some theorists like Penrose and several other thinkers of the classical eastern and western philosophical system argue that morality is built in to the universe and these principles are known just like how mathematical insights appear to mathematicians. Even though there have been several times in history when such insights were attributed to revelations from a divine source, it is easy to see their relevance to social organization. As ethical principles are principles by which groups of autonomous people are organized, it is interesting to see what happens in a society when such principles are ignored. The idea here is to see the link between the deontological system rules and utilitarian consequences through a systems level analysis at a higher level of organization.

One way to see such effects clearly is to look at a lower level of organization (that bears resemblance to the level of organization under discussion) and look for clear analogies. In this case, organization of the human body throws light on this specific question really well. Even though it is not an accurate comparison in every detail, it does have analogous characteristics to the organization of the society.

In the human body, the individual cells maintain their unique state in a dynamic manner and has semi-permeable boundaries through which it exchanges matter and energy with its surroundings. Most cells perform specialized functions and all these diverse cells form such a complexly organized human body.
One of the rules of organization is that when a cell's boundary encounters another boundary, it stops further growth. When such principles of organization are broken as in the case of cancer, the cells acquire an aggressive tendency and spread to other locations and uses the resources to divide itself. There are several factors like genetic predisposition and environmental factors that cause a cell to become cancerous.

In an analogous way in the society, the principle that protect an individual's unique characteristic and allow that individual to do anything he deems fit without harming or coming into conflict with another individual in a destructive way is captured in the idea of rights. Given that humans have a certain degree of choice in determining their actions, the rules of organization need to be flexible and broad enough to accommodate the choices an individual would make. Corruption and power abuse are akin to cancer in this regard that individuals' rights are being violated and what is rightfully theirs is also taken away from them. There are several factors such as predisposition and environmental factors that make people behave the way they do.

This analogy certainly helps to see the effects of ignoring certain principles of justice. It raises questions about the dynamic range of the system to accommodate such transgressions and survive/rebound from that state to a healthier state. One of the strategies suggested by Ken Wilber to deal with pathological holons is to arrest those arrogant holons and then integrate them if possible. In the society it translates to ensuring the proper functioning of justice system in a compassionate way. It is well recognized in modern civilizations, that the purpose of justice systems is to maintain the harmonious functioning of the society.

Tai Chi symbol adapted from http://www.chiinnature.com/TT_taichilogo.html

Eastern Philosophy and Complex Systems: Evolutionary biologists and Game theorists argue that even if a society starts off as a completely truthful society where every individual speaks the truth and every individual's right is protected, deception and slowly such corrupt practices spread to a point until it reaches an equilibrium. This idea has been the focus of several eastern philosophical systems like the Vedanta and Taoist schools.

In Advaita Vedanta system, it is widely recognized that righteousness and justice in a society declines at every phase in a four part cycle until the cycle repeats itself. Every cycle is divided in to four such epochs, where righteousness and justice declines by 25% in the society and towards the end of the cycle dramatic changes in the value system or in the world resets the cycle where it continues again. People have even discussed the conditions of living in each such epoch and the prevalent tendencies and dispositions of people which affect healthy living in societies.A similar cycle is known to Taoist Philosophers, where the Yin and Yang forces alternate and gets expressed in the society as similar balance between peaceful and disturbed conditions.

At this point I would like to speculate on the similarities in these systems to the 80-20 rule people have observed in several complex systems. It is the observation that in a system being categorized according to polar opposites, 20% of the fraction lie in one category and 80% in the other category. It then becomes important to understand the effects of upsetting such an equilibrium in a complex system and to know its effects. Will it fall into chaos and suffer irreversible damage or is it always so dynamic as to rebound to its initial equilibrium point?

The ideas in the classic 'I Ching- The Book of Changes' about abolishing the old patterns of behavior and establishing a new one offers great hope and is reflected in the following verses:

"Enlightened intelligence makes people joyful.
Great success comes through justice.
Since the revolution is proper,
All regret disappears.

Heaven and Earth abolish the old and
bring about the new,
Then the four seasons complete their
changes.

Tang and Wu abolished the old and
brought about the new.
They obeyed the will of Heaven
In accord with the wishes of people.

The time and meaning of abolishing the
old is truly great."


Cycles in Value Systems:

As Fritjof Capra points out in his book 'The Turning Point', "Cultural transformations are essential steps in the development of civilizations. The forces underlying this development are complex, and historians are far from having a comprehensive theory of cultural dynamics, but it seems that all civilizations go through a cyclical process of genesis, growth, breakdown and disintegration."  He also points out that "one of the essential elements in this cultural breakdown process seems to be a lack of flexibility. When social structures and behavior patterns have become so rigid that the society can no longer adapt to changing situations, it will be unable to carry on the creative process of cultural evolution".

He also notes that the dominant social institutions most often refuse to give way to these new cultural forces, but their decline is inevitable and this provides the creative minorities a chance for transformation into a new configuration.

As complex free agents, such dramatic changes in ethical behavior in societies is not independent of value systems. Some theorists like Pitrim Sorokin have observed a cyclical shift in materialistic, spiritual and a combination of both materialistic and spiritual value systems. These value systems hold different views of ultimate reality. The ultimate reality in the materialistic culture is matter alone and holds that spiritual phenomena are a manifestation of matter. It also professes a relative ethical system and sensory perception as the only source of truth and knowledge. The spiritual value system holds that true reality lies in the spiritual realms and consider inner knowledge as the source of ultimate truth. It professes super human standards of justice, truth and beauty. The idealistic phase is characterized by a harmonious blending of these two value systems leading to great achievements in arts, philosophy, science and technology as observed in several civilizations during their golden ages.

As the spiritual truths are realized mostly through an inner experience and deals with subtle and very subtle energies, the direct demonstration of it to people is a very difficult task. There are also huge lapses in the understanding of spiritual truths among followers of conventional religion due to the nature of such truths. So in spite of the existence of several religions and loyal followers comprising a huge fraction of humanity, it is widely acknowledged that we live in a time when the predominant value system is materialistic. That value system is reflected in the current socio-economic, humanitarian and environmental crisis. The shift towards an alternative culture started several decades ago in the developed world and that movement has been progressing steadily, spearheaded by several great leaders in all domains of human activity.

It is also reflected in the radical changes in the global culture as we inch towards the completion of the second decade of the 21st century. However there are several obstacles to such a transformation to establish an idealistic culture. These obstacles include oppressive and exploitative societal structures well supported by a growing criminal economy, corrupt governments and information media managed by parties with vested interests. Our effectiveness in dealing with these obstacles is going to be an important factor in determining the rate of such a transformation.


The Needed Change: 

Recent reports from nations such as India throw light on the nature of the problem. A government institute has released a report that 75% of GDP in one of the largest economies in the world is illegal. A predominant criminal economy by nature is exploitative and can easily turn in to an oppressive one even if that is not the case now. I believe there is a continuous range in the fraction of criminal economy among several nations.
Such a state of the system is not just about economy. It also affects the psychological and moral well being of individuals living in such a society. It is reflected in the paranoiac, cynical attitude of most people towards each other and in the lack of trust on several socio-political institutions even at global levels. Reestablishing a state of health in the society from such a state requires intelligent, wise, courageous and persistent action just like any healing process in a living system.

There are many forms of violence in societies. Physical violence, violation of rights, abuse of the mind through manipulation, coercion and systemic practices. Some violation of rights and exploitation may also be systemic cultural phenomena in some places. Some thinkers like Steven Pinker have suggested we live in much better times with less physical violence relative to historical times. I seriously wonder whether this conclusion will change when we include other forms of violence. It is possible that people are more lenient towards or more willing to commit subtler forms of violence compared to physical violence. Some of the reasons might be that physical violence is too risky for life and is dealt a severe punishment than for other forms of violence. When corrupt and exploitative practices spread in a system, people become more forgiving and supportive of such practices as it offers people with resources a great advantage. Beyond a point, even the prevailing notion of healthy practices change and corrupt practices are considered the commonly observed state of affairs.

In such a case the way we deal with each form of violence in an already corrupt society has to vary too. It may be the case that to defend against physical violence, people may have to use violent means. Where as to deal with subtle forms violence, people may resort to a more non-violent approach such as legal means or civil-disobedience and non-cooperation.

A billion courageous and truthful choices, billions of daring and wrong choices and billions of timely withdrawal in to comfort  have gone into creating this current situation in this world. The choices might have been habitual, traditional or even well thought out and examined choices. We have no other choice, but to accept the current situation as it is and involve in wise action to turn the tide to establish a healthier social context.

It may take a lot of time to deal with this sickness like any every other big social change. It can certainly be facilitated by good leadership and a change in value system that looks beyond limited notions of self-interest to understand the effects of  these corrupt practices on our moral nature and on the health of the broader society. Like any other complex problem, a multi-pronged approach is required to deal with it.

One would be to not support corrupt organizations and people involved in corrupt practices by not participating in their institutions. Such discrimination is easier for privately owned institutions than state-owned institutions. As I'm more familiar with the corruption problem in India in the domain of education, I would like to cite the example of corruption in education as an example. Most politicians (local,state and national level) own a college or a group of institutions of learning that charges exorbitant fee from their students for sub-standard levels of education. As pointed in the government report, that is one domain where a lot of illegal economic activity occurs feeding their income, which in turn is diverted to illegal vote soliciting and other huge ethical problems. If prospective students can avoid such institutions, despite some perceived personal loss and take up education in some other institution, it is as act of non-cooperation with corrupt organizations that will drain their strength. New formats of learning such as Open Online Courses for education from institutions of great standard can certainly help in this non-cooperation movement and offer alternative ways of meeting our educational goals with out supporting corruption.


The second approach would be to reform the legal apparatus to be more accountable and effective. This has been widely discussed by several legal experts elsewhere. These strategies can also be applied to other domains of corrupt activities to slowly drain their strength. All these changes can certainly be helped by a radical change in the value system of people.

I sincerely hope such ideas are at least discussed broadly taking into account all these various aspects of the problem in a framework that helps us see its effects on the health of any society and our experience of everyday life.

Random Notes on Society

1) When politics,especially dirty politics, pervades every aspect of human activity, the whole system falls into a state of torpor and paranoia that you can't see genuine growth there. You see that happening in education, justice systems, media and religion to the most extent. Sincerity and truthfulness in human relationships which is the only thing that renders human relationships more meaningful than contractual relationships takes a strong beating in those places. People live as cynical, hypocritical and paranoiac people ready to attack each other at any opportunity.  

2) It is important to free these domains from overt political influence and agendas, even if it is not possible to avoid subtle and minimal influences. 


2 a) The difference between slavery and service is choice. When you choose to serve others you are doing service and when you are forced to serve others you become a slave. Are you even free enough to choose that? There is no great potential in people with out having a mind of their own. You can have your own mind and choose to submit to a greater self and realize this great potential or you can lose your mind and lose that potential. 






                   [ Image adapted from www.theemotionmachine.com/] 

3) It is true that patience is not for the crime itself. You need to stop the crime and be patient with criminals. To be patient when a crime is happening, especially when you have the power, opportunity and authority to stop it itself a crime and stupidity. It is criminals who need compassion and tolerance, not their crimes. What we need is a liberal justice system, not a lax one. But what we have got is a lax one and not a liberal one. 

4) When most media outlets are owned by political parties and their leaders (some of them are even named after their leaders)..it is unreasonable to expect any impartial, unbiased truth in their reports, which is required for even looking at events and issues in a realistic and sincere manner..it is going to be their own propaganda i guess...Even if there are independent media outlets, it is possible they too are influenced to some extent...The way it works by focusing on every trivial detail of certain events and lives is only distracting and may even be a tactic to divert the attention of people from important issues and it is also the case that the more nonsense they talk, the more money they get...People have much less time to listen and learn about the events through these media outlets...So all they need to do is manage 5 minutes of reporting of an event..Everyone is left clueless and people can escape justice in a system where justice depends on public attention...

5) People argue whats wrong with the political doyens owning media outlets. It is in one way difficult to avoid their influence given their ambition for power. May be if they don't have their own outlets, they may resort to other illegal modes of influencing available media outlets. So in one way it is better they have their own ones. It is just that it almost borders on stupidity to take their accounts as truth especially in cases involving their own party. 

6) There is constant jig-saw puzzle going on with these media revealing some information and hiding information. It is certainly a time consuming process to ascertain the truth. However, it is not so difficult to see the obvious bull shit in their reports. At least it is important to pay attention to the obvious lies. 

7) I've often heard people describe India as the spiritual capital of the world...That is just as much a lie as anything else here.. It is just like any other place with money. Ego and power driven politics....Out of several components in religion, there is this religious identity component for which people are willing to die if manipulated by demagogues as it is part of the ego structure. ..There is this truth and philosophy component in religion which most people don't know or don't bother. Naturally most people are not willing to fight for it as it involves the hard work... it takes a lot of courage, truthfulness and several other virtues to fight for it...I think it is the very rare fraction I guess...what triumphs is the identity based ego response...which pretty much loses the whole point of it all...Spirituality is about truth, transcendence and inclusiveness... Just using these names for political agenda is just perverse....


8) When someone criticizes something about the state of the world they experience, there is always some one defensive about their country or world.. They immediately ask what you have done...Well it is annoying to some extent... All I need to do is do my part properly, do the duties of a citizen in the social role I'm in...If there is some wrong happening in front of my eyes, report it or stop it..Then I also have to earn my bread and live...Asking them to save a country is akin to this situation... A relative of a patient or the patient raises concern to the physician, who is treating, about the way he does his job. He is genuinely concerned about the way the physician is working...So he asks the physician, Hello Doc.. I'm not sure what you are doing is good as I'm feeling a lot of pain, is there any way to do it better..It doesn't make sense for the physician to hand over the scalpel to the patient and shout "why don't do you do it yourself " and make a drama. I'm sorry that is what you are paid for. Since most people are involved in politics, they naturally think everyone can do everything which is lame. It is a serious confusion of roles....


9) This is not my country nor my world
..I don't own it... I'm just a citizen in it.. I'm not sure if it makes sense for a cell in a body to call the body it's own..This is just one aspect...Even though at a deeper level I'm everything...


10) You don't call a nation sick just because of some criminals. Dealing with crime is part of our living. It is a manifestation of some human nature in some people. But when governments do things like criminals and justice fails big time, the whole place is sick and will only rot. Nations around the world suffer from Justice and Security Deficiency Syndrome (JSDS). It's akin to AIDS. When the immune system starts working for viruses, the body becomes sick and dies. Justice and Security systems comprise the immune system of a society. When both start working for criminals and criminal politicians any nation will only rot and will eventually perish... 



11) Strange to see the extra spicy culture blaming partying as a western influence...Never knew all Indians were ascetic through out the history of this place..I thought this people had somras parties with apsaras (may be my history knowledge is questionable)..This apparently is not a campaign against addiction or even illegal drug and things like that...Defining partying,with may be western music, as a western influence only shows the ignorance of this place's history or may be jealousy at a rival's thriving pub business...Indian identity definition by local politicians has always been an obnoxious thing i guess....I'm sorry I've to defend those hard working "Westerners" spending their lives in those computer farms growing more apps all the time...


12) At the end of a life of egotistical nonsense, a moment of silence and of truth informs that you have lived a life worthy of a pig. It is just too much to take..it is just crushing...so no moment of silence please... Life is not inherently meaningful...it is created in constructive actions.. In neutral and supportive actions we let others create meaning...There is no meaning in creating confusion and destructive actions unless the destruction roots out rotten old structures..The point is unless we kill the pig in our minds, democracy is government for the pigs, of the pigs and by the pigs....

13) Some of my friends have expressed their dislike towards my negative comments about the country and the world at large... I'm just trying to be realistic i guess. Take the example of India. It is very much into domination hierarchy..which has already led to widespread slavery and exploitation. The politicians are into egocentric politics (in tamil it is called Kaiyavecchan politics) which only worsens the development efforts and living itself.. In a billion strong country with more than half a billion marginalized population, its journey into actualization hierarchy seems a remote possibility...India's 25-30% is equal to the population of most developed countries. Even if they do really well (which they certainly do), they may appear to be doing better than many developed countries, while the remaining 70% don't get much in terms of opportunities. Good luck to all these publicized efforts..Until people don't come out of their false pride and slavery mentality, it is going to be mostly futile...


14) In some places like Tamil Nadu,India, some political leaders control movie production houses and other media outlets. Thankfully, only some of the movies have political propaganda and the rest of it is mostly for fun. But the problem lies in people's lack of discrimination between cinematic reality and conventional reality. Even though such a phenomenon is observed across many cultures in the world, it is just more pronounced here which reflects in politics to a greater extent. It is a strange culture where movies, politics and everyday life is so enmeshed that some people fail to discriminate all three in their minds. May be it has to do with great importance given to Arts in that culture which later transformed into sometimes obsessive fascination with movies or may be due to some other reason. The problem doesn't lie there. It lies in the fact that in a predominantly criminal economy, some movies get funded by criminal organizations and the tremendous profit goes into feeding the growth of that criminal empire which is used for creating oppressive structures. It is a clever strategy to take people's money and use it for their own oppression and exploitation. Sadly, most people are not aware of it as they don't have clear information about the actual nature of organizations funding the movies. 


15) Political leaders seem to forget the reason they were elected in the first place. Even though it happens to most people in many jobs, it is a very responsible position akin to a facilitating healer. They have many people and mechanisms to remind themselves about that. But still they forget they are meant to protect the rights and interests of people and start exploiting and oppressing them. It is such a sad thing that people vote for the deprivement of their own rights. 

16) Some political leaders in India (i believe it happens in many other places too) have this great ability to create such an aversion towards their own culture by forcing their cultural prejudices and beliefs down the throats of people. The first reaction from people like me is of course to vomit every such thing and stay away from it. Sadly, most of the times if you are not discriminating, that aversion includes many beautiful things in that culture. 

17) It is high time people realize that grand lies and fabrications do not sustain the human society nor this planet earth. Truth is essential to the survival of humanity over even hundreds of years even with in a culture. And there is a natural attraction towards truth among many people for that, moral and aesthetic reasons. The pursuit of true, good and the beautiful seems to be the noble pursuit across many cultures. It is only civilizations and local pockets of people and groups that are in the dark ages mostly stray away from it. Dark ages don't happen overnight. It starts with small pockets and groups of people who celebrate ignorance in many ways and slowly spreads to other places. It subtly influences many others and forces them to adopt their values or perish. Likewise there are naturally seeds for a golden age, which starts in a similar way. There are always a substantial fraction of people who hold on to their truths and way of life despite the predominance of the other force. 

The Backward Guy - The Idea of Self-Respect in India

                                                   

I was declared a backward guy the moment I was born. Yes, in the country where I was born the government as a matter of policy and practice divides people into 4-5 classes based on a number of castes. The classes are termed Forward, Backward, Most Backward, Scheduled Class by the government each comprising of several castes. People like me have to take solace that at least the government has only 4-5 classes, but people in the country recognize thousands of them.

                                                           Angelica L. Reeves

I never bothered about this division when I grew up, despite the fact that I often saw a section of people discuss and fight about this issue in passionate terms. However, once you reach high school it is not possible to ignore it as people start talking about it much more fervently as these classes determine the required scores to get admission to colleges for education and jobs later on. It is just that the Forward class people need more scores to get admission in to a college than all the others and Backward class people need more than the Most Backward and Scheduled classes, but lesser than the Forward classes and the required scores keep decreasing with each "lower" one. My initial concern was not the societal benefits of affirmative action in the name of caste as the same uplifting of individuals can be done through other factors. It was about the implied assumptions that go in to characterizing some one as belonging to forward, backward and most backward classes. One certain implication is that it is a characterization of who I am.

I felt as if the government and the people of my country are teasing me and defining what I'm capable of. Imagine the Mother of India saying to me, "Son, You are just a backward guy not capable of anything better and so I offer you concessions so that you can get ahead in life. Hmm..I hope you don't mind people looking down on you your whole life time". Yes, Mother. But who are you to call me backward when I'm 1 hour old. You haven't even seen what I'm and What I'm capable of. When I ask this question, Mother India either starts ridiculing me angrily or hides behind her noisy masses whose volume keeps on increasing just like her population.

It is the nature of this system that I've to trade my self-respect for these divisions perpetuated by this country's people. It not only deprives me of my self-respect, but also perpetuates a slavery mentality among most people in my country. People even go out in the streets saying that they are backward, most backward,etc. asking for concessions. By such actions they don't mind acknowledging the fact they are by nature backward or even most backward..The sad thing is  that these people even use the word equality a lot.

The problem here is that the concessions offered are not based on any economic inequality which is a real factor in allowing us access to resources that will let us compete with other people. I've seen many rich folks belonging to the scheduled and backward classes and poorer folks belonging to the forward class and vice versa. In fact all these classes may have the same or similar inequality in income distribution within each group. By just taking in to account the class, this system rewards richer folk with access to resources a certain edge in access to resources for furthering their prospects. It makes sense to offer cheap training opportunities and resources to people from poor communities as it is part of the process of uplifting individuals living in unfortunate circumstances regardless of identities and reducing inequality in the society. But that is not the way things work here. It is important to understand the ideas of respect and equality to deal with this problem so rampant in the society that so often goes under the deceiving hide of uplifting.



The Idea of Respect:

Schopenhauer defines three ways or aspects through which people derive self respect. The first aspect is deriving respect from what we have in terms of wealth, education, skills, physical beauty, strength, fame and power. The second aspect is deriving respect from how we look in the eyes of others. The third aspect is deriving respect from who we are as individuals. This includes our character, intentions, will, and our true being with as much as potential as anybody else in one aspect or the other. Some deep philosophies and science point to even more deeper shared realities among all beings and that there is an eternal aspect to our deeper selves. It is also widely recognized that people differ in which aspect they draw their self-worth from.

The whole idea of caste or class divisions based on caste is a definition of who I'm, based on some supposed difference in my fundamental nature of being and not based on my profession or my image among others as I don't have both at birth. It is also the case that one aspect affects the other even though they are distinct. What we have affects to what extent we realize who we are and how we are viewed by others. Since these interactions happen in all possible ways, defining what we are without any real basis leads to oppression in all other spheres and in many ways lead to loss of self-respect and slavery mentality. People with such mentality can be easily exploited and oppressed without any protest. On the other extreme, people have started using their class identities (not necessarily their economic status) to demand so many things from governments. Their loud protests for equality conceived in a distorted way is in fact a tacit acknowledgement of what some people in society have defined their nature to be. Such mentality is in fact considered slave mentality.


The Idea of Equality:

The tricky idea of equality has been misunderstood by nations across the globe through out history and has led to several revolutions and wars. An important question is to define equality in a way that is approachable in a society taking in to account the huge differences in disposition, talent and access to resources among people.With a fuzzy and unrealistic understanding of equality, people have committed grave crimes over several centuries.Some prevailing notions of equality in the society varies from sentimental notions of equality of all human beings in all aspects and some very unrealistic economic equality notions such equal wages for all jobs and works.

There is a huge amount of empirical evidence that there are huge differences among people in their dispositions, talents, available resources at birth and in several kinds of intelligence. This creates a cycle that perpetuates through several generations as people with better resources may get a competitive advantage in acquiring more resources for life. Only in a just system can there be any hope for upward mobility even in an economic sense or moving to a higher plane of existence in an existential sense for people born into ordinary circumstances.

A reasonable idea of equality that can be achieved in a society with great effort includes equality in terms of access to justice regardless of social identities and status, access to the basic needs of life like good food, clean water, fresh air and a reasonably neat place to live and possibly access to opportunities for developing the vast potential people hold. Such a conception of equality is not new in this world. This is in fact the grand vision of the founding fathers of several great nations.

Reinforcing divisions in society supposedly based on the inherent nature of people and perpetuating oppressive and exploitative structures remains a great obstacle to achieving such a grand vision of a healthy human society. These efforts are also not being helped by people's focus on short-term benefits that come with such policies and sometimes their unquestioned submission to whatever values the society dictates to them. People have to share the blame equally with the oppressors for such a sad situation.

Ways to come out of this situation needs to be explored in multiple ways and needs to be shared with people through several means. A country and the world with its vast human potential remaining in such a state of ignorance and mental slavery doesn't befit the collective intelligence of humanity nor this great earth full of intelligent beings. This greatly rests on the coming generations of people in every country on earth. With them lies the hope for this world and the great effort has to be continued now with a greater awareness of its significance.