Skip to main content

Blend the saint and the hunter

 

Outside a church in Kerala

Philosopher Spinoza identified three ethical systems that human beings generally tend to follow. One of them centres on the heart, the second on passion for power, and the third on the brain.

The first is the way of the saints and religious people. Jesus and the Buddha, Mahatma Gandhi and Mother Teresa followed this path of the heart. These people consider everyone as equally precious, resist evil by returning good, identify virtue with love, and inclines to total democracy in politics.

Conquerors and dictators follow their passion for power. From Alexander the Great to Narendra Modi (whose greatness has apparently been acknowledged by quite a few million people of India), many people who were perceived as “strong” leaders or rulers belong to this category. Spinoza argued that for these rulers some people are superior to others. They don’t care two hoots about equality and such stuff. They relish the risks of combat, conquest, and rule. They identify virtue with power. They love to create an elite class around them.

Aristotle and Albert Einstein and others like them who follow the light of the brain and intellectual faculties identify virtue with knowledge and wisdom. This last path is the ideal, according to Spinoza, since it examines the given reality from multiple angles and gives due importance to both the heart and the brain. You can’t let the heart run away with its effeminate emotions. [Spinoza considered love a feminine virtue.] Letting the ruthlessness of power take over the entire spectrum of human activities is worse. Spinoza considered power and its ruthlessness masculine. The ideal is a harmonious blend of the heart and the power-instinct, the philosopher said.

People like Jesus and Gandhi end up on the cross or in front of a pervert’s gun-barrel. They may eventually be elevated to the most high positions: Jesus became God and Gandhi became Father of a Nation. Dictators bring about the destruction of a lot of people though they may also become heroes for certain groups. Much of their brutality may be masqueraded as noble acts in the name of culture or race or something like that.

Those who choose to follow the path of the intellect don’t kill anyone and generally don’t end with a pervert’s bullet in the heart though intellectuals are not always safe in countries ruled by dictators. There are times when we should let the heart make the decisions, and there are times when we need to put the foot down firmly. On most occasions, however, a harmonious blend of the heart and the assertiveness is what produces noble thoughts and deeds.

We often project love as the greatest ideal. This is a terrible mistake just because most people are incapable of the kind of love that our religions preach. This is why our religions are pathetic failures even after centuries of being in practice. The entire teaching of Jesus was founded on love and yet there has been no religion that committed acts of unpardonable cruelty as Christianity. The history of Islam is not much better. Hinduism today seems to be competing with these rivals to usurp their shocking historical positions.

People should be taught to forge a harmonious blend between the soft sentimentalism of the saint and the ruthless pragmatism of the hunter. Religions have failed miserably and dictatorship is not desirable. Why not try out something different? This might even work, in the long run.

 

PS. Provoked by Indispire Edition 341: Do you feel one must first have a relationship with self before focusing on others? How important is “self-love”? Do you have “me-time”? #SelfLove

 

Comments

  1. Well, you have a point there. I appreciate that leaders or rulers perceived as strong in some (or several) sections of people do tend to consider certain people as superior to others, not paying two hoots for equality (and justice as well). And yes, they are fond of creating an elite class around them.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. These traits have been around for centuries. Spinoza mentioned these categories and the traits three centuries ago.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Country where humour died

Humour died a thousand deaths in India after May 2014. The reason – let me put it as someone put it on X.  The stand-up comedian Kunal Kamra called a politician some names like ‘traitor’ which made his audience laugh because they misunderstood it as a joke. Kunal Kamra has to explain the joke now in a court of justice. I hope his judge won’t be caught with crores of rupees of black money in his store room . India itself is the biggest joke now. Our courts of justice are huge jokes. Our universities are. Our temples, our textbooks, even our markets. Let alone our Parliament. I’m studying the Ramayana these days in detail because I’ve joined an A-to-Z blog challenge and my theme is Ramayana, as I wrote already in an earlier post . In order to understand the culture behind Ramayana, I even took the trouble to brush up my little knowledge of Sanskrit by attending a brief course. For proof, here’s part of a lesson in my handwriting.  The last day taught me some subhashit...

Lucifer and some reflections

Let me start with a disclaimer: this is not a review of the Malayalam movie, Lucifer . These are some thoughts that came to my mind as I watched the movie today. However, just to give an idea about the movie: it’s a good entertainer with an engaging plot, Bollywood style settings, superman type violence in which the hero decimates the villains with pomp and show, and a spicy dance that is neatly tucked into the terribly orgasmic climax of the plot. The theme is highly relevant and that is what engaged me more. The role of certain mafia gangs in political governance is a theme that deserves to be examined in a good movie. In the movie, the mafia-politician nexus is busted and, like in our great myths, virtue triumphs over vice. Such a triumph is an artistic requirement. Real life, however, follows the principle of entropy: chaos flourishes with vengeance. Lucifer is the real winner in real life. The title of the movie as well as a final dialogue from the eponymous hero sugg...

Abdullah’s Religion

O Abdulla Renowned Malayalam movie actor Mohanlal recently offered special prayers for Mammootty, another equally renowned actor of Kerala. The ritual was performed at Sabarimala temple, one of the supreme Hindu pilgrimage centres in Kerala. No one in Kerala found anything wrong in Mohanlal, a Hindu, praying for Mammootty, a Muslim, to a Hindu deity. Malayalis were concerned about Mammootty’s wellbeing and were relieved to know that the actor wasn’t suffering from anything as serious as it appeared. Except O Abdulla. Who is this Abdulla? I had never heard of him until he created an unsavoury controversy about a Hindu praying for a Muslim. This man’s Facebook profile describes him as: “Former Professor Islahiaya, Media Critic, Ex-Interpreter of Indian Ambassador, Founder Member MADHYAMAM.” He has 108K followers on FB. As I was reading Malayalam weekly this morning, I came to know that this Abdulla is a former member of Jamaat-e-Islami Hind Kerala , a fundamentalist organisation. ...

Violence and Leaders

The latest issue of India Today magazine studies what it calls India’s Gross Domestic Behaviour (GDB). India is all poised to be an economic superpower. But what about its civic sense? Very poor, that’s what the study has found. Can GDP numbers and infrastructure projects alone determine a country’s development? Obviously, no. Will India be a really ‘developed’ country by 2030 although it may be $7-trillion economy by then? Again, no is the answer. India’s civic behaviour leaves a lot, lot to be desired. Ironically, the brand ambassador state of the country, Uttar Pradesh, is the worst on most parameters: civic behaviour, public safety, gender attitudes, and discrimination of various types. And UP is governed by a monk!  India Today Is there any correlation between the behaviour of a people and the values and principles displayed by their leaders? This is the question that arose in my mind as I read the India Today story. I put the question to ChatGPT. “Yes,” pat came the ...

The Ramayana Chronicles: 26 Stories, Endless Wisdom

I’m participating in the A2Z challenge of Blogchatter this year too. I have been regular with this every April for the last few years. It’s been sheer fun for me as well as a tremendous learning experience. I wrote mostly on books and literature in the past. This year, I wish to dwell on India’s great epic Ramayana for various reasons the prominent of which is the new palatial residence in Ayodhya that our Prime Minister has benignly constructed for a supposedly homeless god. “Our Ram Lalla will no longer reside in a tent,” intoned Modi with his characteristic histrionics. This new residence for Lord Rama has become the largest pilgrimage centre in India, drawing about 100,000 devotees every day. Not even the Taj Mahal, a world wonder, gets so many footfalls. Ayodhya is not what it ever was. Earlier it was a humble temple town that belonged to all. Several temples belonging to different castes made all devotees feel at home. There was a sense of belonging, and a sense of simplici...