Tomichan Matheikal's blog

Let alone acts of violence, every trace of evil is proof that mankind is still an unfinished product.  It is as if the evolution got stuck somewhere.  We have a highly evolved brain compared to the other animals.  But most human beings do not use the brain for promoting goodness, not even the welfare of our own species.  On the contrary, we compete with one another and are highly detrimental to our own species, to others as well as the planet.  The amount of money, energy and resources employed in destructive activities such as war and terrorism is much more than what is devoted to constructive and mutually helpful purposes.  In the process we also inflict much damage on the planet which sustains us.  Which other species is so self-destructive?  Yet we claim to have a sophisticated brain. Who is an evolved human being? An intellectual understanding of life and the world which instils compassion towards other creatures should idea...

In his well-known book, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, Samuel P. Huntington implied that peace was an impossible dream.  “People are always tempted to divide people into us and them,” he wrote.  For example, let us assume that the Saffron Brigade succeeds in creating a Hindutva India after the present  face-off with Pakistan is surmounted.  Let us imagine an India where everyone abides by the principles of Hindutva.  Will it be a peaceful nation?  Huntington would say that we would soon start dividing ourselves into us and them, us being the dominant sections and them being the marginalised sections.  That’s how human nature is.  There is no escape from clashes. Huntington has evidences from history to substantiate his argument.  “World War I was the ‘war to end wars’ and to make the world safe for democracy,” he writes.  What actually happened, however?  Communism and fascism with their various...

Arthur Koestler considered man an evolutionary blunder.  The lion’s share of the wealth we create is spent in war, terrorism and other destructive activities.  We have infinite gods with countless priests and yet we are not able to surmount the unbounded hatred we carry inside our little hearts.  We work miracles with science and technology but remain crude brutes deep inside us.  Is it all because of some evolutionary error? Arthur Koestler Koestler believed it was.  There is “a screw loose in the human mind,” he wrote in his book, The Ghost in the Machine .  He called the Homo Sapiens a "biological freak, the result of some remarkable mistake in the evolutionary process."  It is because the ape began to walk on two legs too quickly.  The whole mutation took place in too short a time for the human heart to change significantly.  The reasoning brain evolved, but the heart remained savage.  That’s what Koestler says. Koest...

Courtesy the Internet Dr Gerald Crabtree of Stanford University has hypothesised that the human mind has begun to lose its intellectual and emotional abilities.  Since Dr Crabtree’s essays are only available online for a price that I cannot now afford, I’ve decided to be content with this little information handed out by Manoj Das in his article, Are we facing an evolutionary crisis? in the Sunday magazine of The Hindu [3 Feb 2013].  I’m particularly fascinated by the scientist’s hypothesis that deep within man a hitherto ignored constituent of consciousness is demanding recognition. As a teacher and a voracious reader of serious books (boastfulness not intended), I’m slightly scandalised by what I see around in relation to man’s apparently declining “intellectual and emotional abilities.”  If I ask my students to read a book for a project, they go online and get a summary of the book instead of reading the book itself.  I tried a variation....