The Shoe is on the Other Foot

I remember one of my uncles on my mother’s side who was unmarried – just like me. I will not mention his name. He was a distant relative of my mother.

He had quite a pathetic life. He was shunned by society and this is something I have had experience with so I know it is difficult to deal with it. I have my philosophy books to console me and keep up my spirits. My uncle didn’t. He basically drank himself to death and died quite young. When he was just in his 50s.

I remember mocking my uncle with the cruelty of youth and gloating over his misfortunes. Now the shoe is on the other foot. People have exactly that attitude towards me.

I don’t like it and I am not supposed to. But I can’t really complain.

In both our cases – that of my uncle and me – family troubles were the cause of our misfortunes. Basically that meant we were not properly respectful and obedient towards our elders.  

Basically I think this is natural to a feudal society where obedience is held in high regard. I think it was one of our state level politicians of yesteryears who wanted everyone in the country to go in for compulsory military service to learn discipline and obedience. 

Obedience may be necessary in the army. It may also be important in a feudal society where equality is not stressed upon and science is given short shrift. But if we want to be a modern society with a strong defence and a strong economy then a scientific temperament will have to be stressed upon. And science is no respecter of authority or conventional knowledge.

So much for obedience except where it is really essential (i.e in the armed forces).

Now I don’t mean to knock everything about the feudal societies down. One of the spokesmen of Iran during the current war mocked the USA saying that while the civilization of Iran has survived 6,000 years, that of the USA has lasted only about 250 years. Think what you like. Traditional and feudal societies have a track record of being stable and having survived. They must be having a deep knowledge of human nature and must be satisfying the deepest instincts of the majority of the population. It remains to be seen if the same can be said of the USA.

But at the same time I think we cannot avoid taking the risk and trying to inculcate a scientific temperament in our youth. Humanity will have to deal with threats to its survival, if not now then within a couple of hundred years when the natural resources of the planet run out. We need scientific inventions to help us meet those challenges. So the way forward out of the upcoming crisis is more science and not less.

For more on the subject please refer to the book – The Basic Writings Of Bertrand Russell. Russell was an eloquent champion of science all his life and in his book he has said all we need to know about why we need to give more importance to science – especially in India.

As an inducement I will repeat one of the points I made in one of my earlier articles. Economic progress and modern warfare both depend on scientific inventions. And both are necessary to national security. So for the sake of national security (even if we don’t care about the fate of humanity a couple of hundred years from now) – for the sake of national security we need to stress on science.

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