The Psychological Backdrop of the State of Modern Mind
We started our blog entries covering the pervasive prevalence of the state of mental depression in today’s world, almost of epidemic proportion, which affects us all. The acute presence of the ailment is not due primarily to chemical imbalances in the body – to be treated with medicines and supplements. The psychological backdrop of the phenomenon deserves proper attention, so that the right kind of treatment of the social malady can follow. Indeed, the root to problems pertaining to sustainability in the modern/postmodern world lies in the psychological dimension where the key to the grave ecological and political challenges we are facing at the moment also may be found. Ethics after all originates from the area of human psychology rather than our collective academic or religious bodies of knowledge. This is because if the scriptural or institutional pronouncements are ultimately contrary to human tendencies, and the wellbeing of humanity at large, they fail to hold ground.
As pointed out in our previous blog postings, it is through establishing the state of harmony within that we become effectively cautious not to cause disharmony around. Cooperating with nature, instead of exploiting her at any cost, after all becomes a congenial move on our part with proper training of the mind, and need not be induced simply through legislative compulsion. On the other hand, to the extent the virtue harmony within is found missing, the legislative measures fail to bear their result by themselves. Similar considerations hold true of other areas of ethics that deal with human interactions.
Colonialism Then and Now
The industrial colonization of lands spreading in the 18th century is generally condemned today, even by the former colonizers. However, a new kind of colonization process is in place now when the target object is not land, but the human mind as such. Here at play is the universal colonization of the human mind. No races are left out; neither is any individual, young or old. The values that humanity has cultivated through millennia are being dumped fast, and supplanted by the ones propagated by the role models emerging from the media. The worlds of entertainment as well as advertisement thrive by pushing their messages consistently through ubiquitous mass and social media channels.
Today’s popular role models, often immature and lacking life experience, are commonly found to be addicted to drugs, sometimes perishing as a result of overdoses and the like, which only goes to demonstrate an inability to physically sustain themselves in the lifestyle. One simply wonders what abiding notes of sustenance they might have in store to share with others around, — notes, in other words, that carry the full-throated message of unity instead of disparity, divisiveness and hatred accompanying violence. We are not saying there is a dearth of talented people in their midst, nor that they are bad human beings per se. What we feel is that in a very important sense they happen to be wrongly oriented, and might end up doing a disservice to society, even though unintended, however attractive they may be to their admirers.
The personalities of these role models in society take shape through denial of the very nectar of life, which is harmony within, and the message the leaders carry for others not only fails to propagate the spirit of the virtue, but often ends up going against it. The same people we see as staunch activists taking up worthy causes (commonly referred to as ‘social justice warriors’), though they often do not know, unfortunately, how to approach the causes from the proper perspective without having made enough room for the virtue in themselves. Thus, activism tends to end up in actions benefitting people in the short run, instead of laying a strong foundation for the well-being of the society.
Ethics, we must note, does not exhaust itself with actions and their results, but also accommodates the mode of their performance which often determines the choice of actions following from action plans befitting a situation.
Human Rights and Human Dignity
Swami Vivekananda had an interestingly innovative way of defining atheism. An atheist, he says, is not the one who does not believe in God, but the one who does not believe in oneself. Of course, the one who does not believe in herself has to look for external means of satisfaction, for she does not believe that the primary route to satisfaction lies within. She has never ventured within in a serious and effective way, and tends to lead others along the way she herself pursues. Here comes the area of human dignity that is basically missing in today’s culture as shaped by popular media.
Human rights we value dearly, and try to protect at all costs. Proper legislative measures are placed for the purpose. However, legislative acts by themselves, followed up with policing, in conjunction with judicial measures, are hardly sufficient. The will to respect human rights in society, as stemming from the value of human dignity, must be present to prop up the system, failing which killings on the streets of urban America go unabated, as they do on a continual basis, in stark defiance of the right to life enshrined in their constitution.
In the everyday life situation, within the precincts of the prime Canadian radio network CBC, prominent media personality Jian Ghomeshi had been defying the human right of a female employee working under him in the organization, as vouchsafed by his own formal apology in court offered recently, demonstrating the lack of dignity on his part in causing violation of the right to privacy and intimate freedom of his subordinate. The victim’s rescue calls addressed to the workplace went virtually unheeded apparently on account of the tremendous popularity the man held in the media world. Thus the world of aesthetics where the highest of human values is manifested, human dignity paradoxically becomes a casualty. This can happen only when music is treated as a commodity for sale, emphasizing its sensory attractiveness, like other commodities, as a car or a house is, ignoring to a large extent its special appeal in the world of values.
When we consider the other women who complained against Ghomeshi for mistreating them during their intimate relationships with him, they were deeply hurt as their cases were dismissed in court. However, they were thoroughly devastated in that they felt their dignity trampled upon in the judicial process they went through coming to realize that the system does not have room for its protection. This only shows that human dignity is beyond the jurisdiction of the legal system, though it is the basis of our humanity.
Harmony Within
As mentioned previously, human rights we can attempt to protect with legislative measure, though often without success if they are not grounded on respect for human dignity. The basic question is: How to ensure human dignity in society, bereft of which the rights fail to be protected? There cannot be further legislative measures for it! Putting emphasis on, and ensuring strict practice of etiquettes will not achieve the task; the formal compliance of etiquettes must need to be prompted by an inner mechanism of the internalization process where the virtue harmony within plays its role. A public figure in our case, demonstrating contempt for human dignity arising out of a lack of the virtue harmony within ends up transmitting a wrong message in society. The society in its turn had failed to instill the needed virtue, and the follow-up dignity, in him under the system in operation around him.
The concept of human dignity gets incorporated within one’s personality as harmony within grows. One gets the lead from society. Respect of human dignity needs to be taught at homes and schools; the message must also percolate from the media. Along with introduction of sex education at schools at an early level the message of respect for human dignity needs to be transmitted, viewing sex in the context of dignity and not just extraction of pleasure. The whole society needs to fall in line in a holistic way. The collusion between psychology, politics and the business world that exists today targeting the global mind for a tight colonial enslavement needs to end. Psychology must make room for the fact that pleasure does not make humans happy by itself.
When children enter shopping plazas, they need not be greeted by attractive things harmful for their health and wellbeing, placed at a proximate distance only to promote revenue generation. Eateries need to stop selling disguised poisons to make money, leaving the concern of safety largely to the discretion of the consumer.
Relevance of Swami Vivekananda’s Secular Spirituality Today
The secular world tries to protect the human being with the shield of human rights, which unfortunately does not go very far in protecting the true freedom that is her very own, — her dignity. Bereft of the rights, as the colonized people are, she can still hope and strive to gain them back and become herself only if she has her sense of dignity residing within, the faith in herself, as Swami Vivekananda points out. Today’s colonization of the human mind well succeeds in eating into the very faith in human dignity, thereby turning human beings into suffering robots. The feeling of freedom and dignity, however, still persists from the deep unconscious, even after mental colonization has set in, with the result of epidemic depression.
The modern day psychologist of the secular world often seems to advise us to look upon ourselves as rats and apes, whose real salvation lies in unhindered enjoyment of the libido, while pursuing the so-called values of the aesthetic and spiritual levels are just means of adjustment to society, as Freud will have it, – escape routes, in other words, that ultimately do not deliver the real satisfaction the individual deserves. In this secular route the aim is satisfaction which unfortunately does not satisfy. Swami Vivekananda goes beyond modernity. He has sympathy with secularism in not positing entities beyond the realm of science, though he does not want to compromise with the depth of the human mind from where satisfaction and self-reliance emerge with practice. This practice is the true meaning of yoga which belongs to the realm of secular spirituality where values lie.
For Swami Vivekananda, secular spirituality is compatible with science, though not reducible to it. The values do matter. They make the human being what she is. When the system around us seems to compromise with human dignity in promoting music and show for entertainment, we need to have a fresh look at how the system needs to be restructured in order for us to be true to ourselves and happy, prompting us to actions efficaciously beneficial for all. Here we cooperate with nature and adopt ways that are ultimately pleasing in having freed ourselves from the colonial bind.
Reflecting on the occasion of the International Yoga Day on the 23rd of June we take our inspiration in secular spirituality, which transcends the bounds of religion, from Swami Vivekananda, the yogi who first introduced yoga to the West starting with America in 1893.
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