Platitudes and
positive thoughts are like palliative drugs: they make us feel comfortable in a
world full of evil and negativity.
Beyond the comforts of a drug, they provide little else. Otherwise our world would have been a paradise
by now because there is never a dearth of platitudes and positive thoughts
thanks to the increasing number of religious activities, cults, gurus, and what
not.
The naked
truth is that life is drenched in evil in spite of all the gurus and cults,
motivational therapies and mass spiritual exercises. Why?
Social
psychologist Philip Zimbardo proved experimentally that social situations
affect individual personalities and stimulate behavioural patterns. In simple words, we behave in certain ways
because the society demands us to behave thus.
With little provocation, formerly good people will discard their values
entirely, he showed. It is easier to
make people do bad things than good. We
are all susceptible to the lure of “the dark side,” he argues in his 2007 book,
The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How
Good People Turn Evil.
It is easier
to get people to perpetrate atrocities on fellow human beings than make them do
benevolent social work. No dictator would
have succeeded without the support of thousands of people who were ready to
torture, rape and kill for them. No mass
murders will take place without the support of some social or political
system.
More often
than not, religious rituals and spiritual exercises are platforms for people to
wash away the sins they have committed hitherto so that they can go on
committing more. The rituals and
exercises fail because they do not change the society and it is the society
with its manipulative systems that actually determine human behaviour. It is also true to say that religions uphold
the manipulative social systems; both support each other as they need each
other.
If we want a
world of goodness we should create social and political systems which sprout
and nurture goodness. We now have
systems which feed on greed, jealousy, hate, and other evils. They reproduce themselves.
On the other
hand, if we have a system which encourages people to cooperate with one another
there will be more cooperation than competition because most people go by the
public behaviour. But can we really have
such social systems? Even the
incarnations of various gods didn’t succeed in creating such systems!
So what’s the
conclusion? If you really want to be
good, stay away from society as far as possible. Dealing with our own inner devils is far
easier than grappling with those out there.
***
PS. This post
was inspired by Indispire Edition 139: “The ten
head of Ravan (ten social evils) you would like to kill this Dassera.
Atrocities on women? Judging beauty by skin colour? or some others? And in
which order?” I shied away from
the topic all these days. It continued
to haunt me, nevertheless. I could never
bring myself to make a list of the evils let alone prioritise them. Life is beyond any list, beyond neat
compartmentalisation. Ravana cannot be
done away with except in comforting myths.
So I chose to take a very realistic look at the theme.
Wonderful write up. The Lucifer effect - the book is worth a read to understand the alluring power of evil.
ReplyDeleteA lay person may not find the book engaging. But the argument is interesting and gripping.
DeleteGreed , jealousy has so much taken over that goodness seems to be a distant dream..
ReplyDeleteYes, it's only become worse.
DeleteEven I failed to list the ten 'evils' because the line between good and bad can blur any minute. Liked the quote by Hubbard you used. Don't know about God, but could go well with any one of us.
ReplyDeleteI think if people actually created their own god and devil instead of borrowing them from their religions it would have been better. Those who take the pains to discover the god and devil within are far better human beings than those who borrow them.
DeleteAbsolutely agree with your thoughts. I have myself been experiencing this issue off late!
ReplyDeleteGlad to hear your endorsement.
Delete