Social Morality
It is sometimes said that all morality involves social relations. This is well said; for instance, if the judge has a proper sense of justice, men who go to court obtain satisfaction. Similarly love, kindness, generosity and other qualities can be manifested only in relation to others. The force of loyalty can be demonstrated only in our relations with one another. Of patriotism, nothing need be said. Truly speaking, there is no aspect of morality the benefit of which accrues to the practitioner alone. Sometimes it is said that truthfulness and other virtues have nothing to do with the other person and are entirely personal. But we must admit that by telling the truth we prevent harm to another we do him an injury.
In the same way, when a man disapproves of certain laws or customs and withdraws from society, even then his acts affect society. Such a man lives in a world of ideals. He does not worry that the world of his ideals is not yet born. From him the mere thought that the prevailing standard is not good enough is sufficient to impel him to resist it. He will constantly try to change other people's way of life to his own. This is how prophets have caused the world's wheels to change their course.
So long as man remains selfish and does not care for the happiness of others, he is no better than an animal and perhaps worse. His superiority to the animal is seen only when we find him caring for his family. He is still more human, that is, much higher than the animal, when he extends his concept of the family to include his country or community as well. He climbs still higher in the scale when he comes to regard the human race as his family. A man is an animal or imperfect [as a human being] to the extent that he falls behind in his service to humanity. If I feel my wife's injury or that of my community, yet have no sympathy for anyone outside the circle, it is clear that I do not have any feeling for humanity as such; but I have, simply out of selfishness or a sense of discrimination, a certain feeling for my wife, my children or the community which I hold as my own.
That is to say, we have neither practiced nor known ethical religion so long as we do not feel sympathy for every human being. Now we know that the higher morality must be comprehensive; it must embrace all men. Considering our relation to mankind, every man has a claim over us, as it our duty always to serve him. We should act on the assumption that we have no claim on others. He is merely ignorant who would here argue that the man acting in this manner will be trampled in the world's scramble. For it is a universal experience that God always saves the man who whole-heartedly devotes himself the service of others.
According to this moral standard all men are equal. This is not to be interpreted to mean equality of position and function for all. It only means that, if I hold a high place, I also have the ability to shoulder its duties and responsibilities. I should not therefore lose my head and believe that men with smaller responsibilities are my inferiors. Equality depends on the state of our mind, and until our mind reaches that state that state, we shall remain backward.
According to this moral standard no nation can rule another for selfish ends. It is immoral of the American people to reduce the aborigines to an inferior status and run the government. A civilized race coming into contact with a savage one owes it to the latter to raise it to its own level. The same standard rules that the king is the servant and not the master of his people and that officers are not there to enjoy power but to make the people happy. If the people in a democratic State are selfish, that State comes to no good.
Moreover, according to this law, the stronger members of a State or community have to protect, not oppress, the weaker ones. Under such a government there can be no starvation; nor can there be happy while we see our neighbors languishing in misery. The man following this high moral standard will never amass wealth. He who would be moral need not be scared away by the thought that few follow this ideal morality; for he is master of his morality, not of its results. He will be considered guilty if he does not practice morality; but nobody will find fault with him if his immoral behaviour has no consequence for society.
Personal Morality
'I am responsible for this,' or 'This is my duty': this is a moving and wonderful thought. A mysterious, resounding voice seems to say, 'To thee, individually, O man, is given this task. Whether defeat or victory, both belong to thee. Thou art what no one else in the world is, for nowhere has nature created two similar objects. Thou hast a duty which no one else in the world can do, and if thou dost no do it that loss will stand debited to thee in the world's balance-sheet.'
'What is that duty I owe to myself?'
Someone may quote the verse :
Call not man God for man is not God
Yet man is not distinct from God's glory
and answer, 'My duty is to rest secure in the belief than I am a ray of God's light.' Another may answer that the duty is to have sympathy and fraternal regard for others. A third may answer that it is to revere parents, care for one's wife and children, and acquit oneself well with brother, sister or friend. Alongside of all these virtues, it is also a part of my duty to respect myself even as I respect others. As long as I do not understand myself, how shall I understand others? And how shall I respect one whom I do not know? Many holds the view that the obligation of proper conduct arises [only] in relation to others and that, in the absence of contact with others, one may do just as one pleases. He who holds this views does not know what he says. In this world none can, with impunity, act as he pleases.
Let us now see what our duty is to ourselves. Let us take, first, our private habits which are unknown to all but ourselves. We are responsible for them since they affect our character; but this is not all. We are responsible for then also because they affect others. Every person ought to control his own impulses, and keep his soul as well as body clean. 'Tell me,' says a great man, 'what a man's private habits are and I shall tell you what he is or will be.' We should therefore control all our appetites, so that we do not drink or eat to excess. Else we shall lose our strength and our good name. Worldly success never comes to him who does not abstain from sensual pleasures and does not thus save his body, mind, intellect and soul.
Arguing along these lines and keeping one's instincts pure, one should further consider how to put them to use. One ought to have a fixed aim in life. If we do not discover our life's purposes, and keep steadily to the course, we shall be swept along like a rudderless ship on the high seas; we shall falter on the [moral] path. Man's highest duty in life is to serve mankind and take his share in bettering its condition. This is true worship-true prayer. He is a godly man who does God's work. Hypocrites and cheats going about invoking God's name are legion. Because a parrot utter the name of God, no one would call it godly. Contribution to an ideal order of human life is something everyone can aim at. With this aim in view the mother may legitimately rear her child, the lawyer may pursue his profession, the merchant may carry on his business or trade and the working man may labour. A person with that fixed aim would never deviate from the path of morality, for if he did, he could not fulfill his aim of uplifting mankind.
Let us consider the matter in some detail. We ought constantly to examine whether our way of life tends to improve human life or to worsen it. Thus the merchant should ask himself whether, in transacting a business, he is cheating himself or another. The lawyer and the physician, acting according to this standard, will give more thought to their client or patient than to their fees. The mother in rearing her child would proceed very cautiously lest she should spoil the child out of misguided by these considerations and do his duty. The result of all this would be that, if the worker fulfils his function in conformity with the moral ideal, he would be deemed better and higher than the wealthy merchant, physician or lawyer who lives without any discipline. The worker would be the true coin and those selfish men, even though more intelligent or wealthy, would be counterfeit. This further shows that any man, whatever his place in life, has the power to fulfill this aim. A man's value depends upon his way of life, not his status. One's way of life is not to be judged by one's visible outward actions, but by one's inner leanings. For instance, if of two men, one gives a dollar to a poor person to rid himself of his presence and the other half a dollar but with love and out of compassion for the man, obviously, the one who gave half a dollar is truly moral, while the other who gave a dollar, the sinner.
To sum up, he alone is religious, he alone is happy and he alone is wealthy, who is sincere in himself, bears no malice, exploit no one and always acts with a pure mind. Such men alone can serve mankind. How can a damp matchstick kindle a log of wood? How can a man who does not practice morality teach it to another? How can a sinking man save another from drowning? The man who lives a moral life never raises the question as to how to serve the world, for he is never in doubt. Matthew Arnold says of a friend :
I saw him sensitive in frame,
I knew his spirits low,
And wished him health, success, and fame
I do not wish it now.
For these are all their own reward,
And leave no good behind:
They try us-oftenest make us hard,
Less modest, pure, and kind.
Time was when Arnold wishes his friend health, success and fame. But he did not so wish now, because his friend's happiness or misery did not depend on their presence or absence; he therefore only wished that his morality might ever endure. Emerson says, "Adversity is the prosperity of the great." Both the money and the fame belonging to the base are a misery to them and to the world.
Sins of Intolerance
Recalling Gandhi's memorable summary of seven deadly sins, the following is a summary in similar style of a brief reflection on intolerance given at the Trivandrum conference on a Gandhian Alternative to a World Without Terrorism and War in February 2002.
Intolerance is a personal failure to accept reality
Intolerance is a failure of intelligence
Intolerance is an error of judgment about Ultimate Truth
Intolerance is an error which breeds psychological disorder
Intolerance is an error which breeds social disorder
Intolerance is an error which breeds political disorder
Intolerance is a pragmatic failure: it doesn't work
If these characterizations of intolerance are accurate, it follows that intolerance in the name of religion is a deep betrayal and perversion of authentic religion. In short, intolerance is unacceptable and is a sign of weakness and not of strength.
Intolerance is a personal failure to accept reality
Intolerance is a failure or refusal to accept reality. No matter how hard you may try to live in your own little world there always remain those persons who live outside your world. You may call them outsiders. You may call them infidels for not accepting your view of the world. You may try to persuade them to accept your views and your way of life. Sometimes you may even try to force them to become like you but they resist even to their death. They do so because reality is made up of many different individuals having many different experiences and different viewpoints. Nothing will change this, not even your intolerance.
Tolerance accepts reality. Intolerance rejects reality. Tolerance is strong. Intolerance in weak. Tolerance is strong because it has total confidence in its conviction that there is nothing so safe as truth nor so persuasive as honesty. A person of a strong conviction is not afraid of differences. The truth is secure amidst all the differences in thinking and behaving. Gandhi said there are as many different religions as there are individuals. If you are convinced of the truth of your religion and your way of life there is nothing to fear. Live and let live can be your motto. And your best witness to your faith will be your accepting reality and your respecting its many differences.
Intolerance is failure of intelligence
Intolerance is a failure of intelligence. It acts upon conclusions without acknowledging the process which produced the conclusions. The Truth taught by the various religions of the world are conclusions. They have been arrived at and transmitted through human experience. The intolerant person neglects the process and proclaims his or her view as the only Truth. But in reality all Truths are products of inductive reasoning. You may start at the beginning of the process or at the end but the process is universal. If you start with the conclusion you use a deductive approach and may claim your Truth as beyond reasoning and thus a revelation. The claim of the intolerant person may, of course, be true but intelligence sees a problem. The Truth proclaimed by the intolerant person is only one of many such claims which differ among themselves. What does one do in this case? To say there is only one Truth-claim is to deny reality. It is unintelligent to do so.
Intolerance is an error of judgment about Ultimate Truth
Intolerance is a deadly sin because it is an error of judgment about Ultimate Truth. The Ultimate Truth is beyond the ability of any individual or institutional religion to comprehend. The wise person accepts this. The intolerant person does not. The intolerant person declares his particular way of thinking and acting as superior to all others. In effect, the intolerant person is insulting the God he says he is defending. This is a truly deadly sin because it poisons every aspect of life.
The wise person is tolerant of different understandings of God. Accepting the reality of an Ultimate Truth beyond our comprehension, the tolerant person lives in the world of relative truths. Mahatma Gandhi's words on this matter are helpful. He wrote:
As a matter of fact, we are all thinking of the unthinkable,
describing the indescribable, seeking to know the Unknown,
and that is why our speech falters, is inadequate and even
often contradictory. That is why the Vedas describe Brahman
as 'not this, not this'. But if He or It is not this, He or It is.
The tolerant person not only accepts the diversities of understanding but welcomes them as a prisoner in the dark welcomes a window to the light. M. P. Mathai notes that for Gandhi what Radhakrishnan called "The bewildering polytheism of the masses and the uncompromising monotheism of the classes" were expressions of the same urge to realize the same power, God, at different levels.
Intolerance is an error which breeds psychological disorder
Intolerance breeds psychological disorder. An intolerant person intentionally closes his mind. Thus he loses the stimulation, challenges, and benefits gained from interacting with persons holding differing views. Intolerance leads to a hardening of the psychological arteries which need the lifeblood of diversity.
The intolerant person ignores what has been called the law of the forgotten breakthrough. This refers to the fact that religious movements begin with a founder who breaks through the accepted ways of thinking and behaving. But eventually the movement which the founder inspired becomes rigid and institutionalized itself. The intolerant person is often focused on matters which are far from the spiritual centre of the original founder's example and teachings. He desires that every person conform to his way of thinking and acting. Intolerance is not a sign of the strength of one's conviction but rather it is a sign of weakness of personal character.
Intolerance is an error which breeds social disorder
Intolerance is a deadly sin because it breeds social disorder. Every day in every community around the world there are countless reports of tragedies caused by acts of intolerance. Violence is seen as a major problem but what is it that provokes the violence? Intolerance. An intolerant husband unable to tolerate the slightest deviation from his authority over his wife or his children. Intolerance between individuals from different castes. Intolerance culminating in communal violence. If you examine closely the social problems throughout the world, you will find at their roots the presence of intolerance.
Intolerance is an error which breeds political disorder
Intolerance is an error of thought and action which breeds political disorder. The inability of political parties and of heads of government to tolerate alternative views lies at the root of tyrannical regimes. It is at the heart of corruption, abuse of power, and untold human suffering. A dramatic occurrence like the destruction of the World Trade Center is only one of an endless number of tragedies caused by the truly deadly sin of intolerance.
Intolerance is a pragmatic error; it does not work
Intolerance is a failure because it does not work. Intolerance breeds resentment. It breeds opposition. If there is anything certain in life, it is that intolerance ultimately fails. Human history is a record of failed attempts of political and religious tyrants to establish their own systems as absolute authority for everyone. The most effective way to achieve respect and authority is the way of tolerance.
If these characterizations of intolerance are accurate, it follows that intolerance in the name of religion is a deep betrayal and perversion of the noblest teachings of religion. In short, intolerance is unacceptable in any form and is a sign of weakness and not of strength.
