On
Being Wayward & Incalculable
Today scamp is being displaced by soldier as the highest ideal of
human being. Instead of wayward
incalculable, unpredictable free individuals, we are going to have
rationalized, disciplined, regimented and uniformed, patriotic coolies, so
efficiently controlled and organized that a nation of hundred million people
can believe in the same creed, think the same thought and like the same
food. Clearly two opposite views of
human dignity are possible, the one regarding the scamp and the other regarding
the soldier, as the ideal, the one behaving that a person who retain his
freedom and individuality is the noblest type and the other behaving that a
person who has completely lost independent judgment and surrendered all rights
to private beliefs and opinions to the ruler or the state is the best and the
noblest thing.
Instead of men, we have members of a class, instead of ideas and
personal prejudices and idiosyncrasies, we have ideologies or class thoughts,
instead of personalities, we have blind forces and instead of individuals we
are masses. We are all progressing
towards the model of ants.
A doctor who prescribes an identical treatment for an identical
disease in two individuals and expects an identical development may be properly
classified as a social menace because he forgets the individual capacity for
reacting in a different manner from others.
The Doctrine of
Individual
If there are social philosophies which deny the happiness of the
individual life as the final goal and aim of civilization, those philosophies
are the product of a sick and unbalanced mind.
The final judgement of any particular type of culture is what type
of men and women it turns out.
It is not surroundings, but our reactions towards them that count.
In all this moving panorama of human history, I see only flux and
change, determined by man’s own wayward and incalculable and unpredictable
choice.
Those who desired to order their national life would first regulate
their home life. Those who desired to
regulate their home life would first cultivate their personal lives would first
set their heart right. Those who desired
to set their hearts right, would first make their wills sincere. Those who desired to make their wills sincere
would first arrive at understanding. Understanding
comes from exploration of knowledge of things.
When the knowledge of things is gained, then understanding is
reached, then the will is sincere. When the will is sincere, then the heart is
set right. When the heart is set right,
then the personal life is cultivated.
When the personal life is cultivated, then the home is regulated. When the home life is regulated, then the
national life is orderly and when the national life is orderly then the world
is at peace.
From the Emperor down to the common man, the cultivation of personal
life is the foundation of all.
It is impossible that when the foundation is disorderly, the super
structure can be orderly. There has never been a tree whose trunk is slender
and whose top branches are heavy and strong.
There is a cause and a sequence in things and a beginning and end in
human beings affairs. To know the order
of precedence is to have the beginning of wisdom.
No comments:
Post a Comment