Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Fallacious dreams have reappeared in other garbs. Propagation of democracy, or capitalism belongs to the same mindset

God pent in the mire and Technocapitalism
RY Deshpande Mon 22 Oct 2007 04:26 PM PDT Permanent Link
Can technocapitalism be an opportunity for shaping the future in any decisive way? I wonder. Such a claim by the protagonists of science in moulding society is not all that new; it has been made in its arrogance at every stage after the Industrial Revolution. It was not very long ago, just a century ago, and it happens all along, that the top physicists and savants were saying that they were at the finis line of the discovery and what would remain to be done would be only tying up the loose ends. Materialism in its strident days was very sure of it. However, it didn’t happen. In fact, cannot happen? Came quantum mechanics and shattered the old dreams. But the unforgiving thing is, those very fallacious dreams have reappeared in other garbs. The theory-of-everything today forebodes nothing much different from the earlier cozy feeling of understanding all that has to be understood, man the master of nature and builder of humanity. That itself makes one suspicious of science coming to the aid of ailing we. This is in physics, the prince of science, and the problem of social issues, and deeply more of social transformation, of shaping the destinies is far more complex than can even be conceptualised.
What happened to Socrates? and to Christ to whom we offered the flower of suffering? to Priscillian of Avilla in 385? to Giordano Bruno in 1600 who became a martyr in the cause of free thought? And so on. When in 313 Constantine hoped to unite the Empire, there also grew heresies in the Church itself. In the process, the king imposed decisions. This went on increasing afterwards. The fallacy was the use of Religion for the consolidation of the State. The false start was already made. Today we won’t be enacting much of a different drama in imposing Reason on the soul of mankind. Propagation of democracy, or capitalism, more or less belongs to the same mindset. And then Reason itself is sacrificed at the altar of Religion. Science has brought rewards no doubt, but rewards are always there, everywhere. But can rewards in a certain domain justify the methodology of that domain in every other domain, in other human occupations? One might like it to be so, but one’s insistence will amount to another kind of dogmatism. The basic human psychological factors, be they individual or collective, have to be scrutinised and handled by going into their sources rather than probe them by external means such as the much-vaunted scientific methodology which belongs to just one particular province. It will be fatal to make a fetish of technocapitalism as the guide of human destinies...
The situation is so daunting that it looks to be totally beyond man’s best effort to succeed in it. Man can be a conscious helper in the process, and that is what is expected of him, but the radical transformation is beyond his capacity and capability. If it were so, it would make the coming of the Avatar superfluous. And yet we have our work to do. If we can consciously prepare ourselves to receive what is being given, then we would have fulfilled ourselves. Among a thousand aspects, technocapitalism could be just a small minor aspect. While we should feel proud about it, it cannot be glorified in the context of the great things awaiting us. Spiritual truths belong to a different order and howsoever powerful the mental conceptions be they cannot lead us to the spiritual truhts, though the spiritual truths might slip in them in some way. The Mother spoke of the mantra that has the power of immortality, immortality in the, and of the, physical itself. If we recognize such to be the evolutionary destiny as the next future, then we must prepare ourselves for it. That is the expectation, the desideratum. Will we recognise it? RYD

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