Tag: morality

  • The Belly of Delhi (Take II)

    I left Delhi feeling uneasy. On the one hand I felt arrogant and judgemental, and on the other, I felt justified in some of my observations. The nagging notion that I could not shake, despite it prompting that feeling of arrogance or superiority, is the fact that individual choice will always trump the political setting within which we live. There was no shortage of complaints from people that I spoke to regarding the corruption, disregard of human life, and pollution to name a few things. I found this curious because it reminded me of my observation about how we always complain about society but completely forget that we make up that very society that we spurn.

    And so it is with Delhi, and every other place around the world that has similar problems. Almost unrelated but similar in principle, it reminds me of my thoughts when I saw the police brutality against the Egyptians when they protested against the government during the early days of the Arab Spring. People polarised so easily without considering that those policemen came from the same communities that they were attacking, and in turn didn’t blame their own communities for raising such brutes that were blind to human suffering in the face of orders from a corrupt command line. South Africans that complain bitterly about the government and burn public infrastructure in protest only to vote the same government back into power are also a prime example of the same mentality. It is this lack of accountability and awareness of our contribution to the degradation that we suffer that often leaves me struggling for words to describe the bewilderment that I feel when I witness its outcome.

    Political corruption does not dictate personal or collective hygiene. It’s not a privileged life that teaches us not to defecate where we grow our vegetables, or to urinate where we walk. Nor is it a privileged upbringing that teaches us to share before we selfishly consume, or to be honest instead of cheating when we do business. Compassion is only eroded when we’re in search of something that in itself conflicts with such values. Our exploitation of those lower in the food chain is what solicits our exploitation by those higher in the same food chain. Similarly, the less we respect ourselves, the less likely we are to positively contribute towards others, let alone show due respect for them as well. All these are symptoms, like the drivers that drive without care or concern for order or rules, with a blank cold stare on their faces, unmoved and oblivious to the frustration they cause, because everyone else is doing the same. This is the mentality that creates the critical mass that allows corruption to thrive. It’s the same mentality that silences the detractors, not because the detractors are silent, but because their protests are easily drowned out by the cries of the self-serving through their sheer volume.

    When we do simply because everyone is doing it as well, we lose the right to complain about the outcome when that outcome denies us our dignity, or our dues. The world is in turmoil not because of corrupt leaders, but because of corrupt societies. Societies are corrupt because the communities that comprise those societies have lost their way. But these wayward communities are merely echoes of the dysfunction that exists within the family units. Raising daughters to be slaves, or men to be brutes, or treating human beings like livestock that can be traded, or abusing children as if they were created for our amusement. These are not a result of corrupt leaders. No. These create corrupt leaders. We have social conditions that are unprecedented because we have become unprecedented in our selfishness. That selfishness that erodes the greater good that would otherwise maintain the harmony that we so desperately seek.

    The laws of cause and effect are all-encompassing and consistent. What we put in is what we get out. Extremism begets extremism. Raise children in an environment that stifles creative expression and watch the rebel form the moment your stranglehold on their being is loosened. Traditionalists have become insecure in a world where nothing is sacred. That insecurity rallies the spirit to defend as if on a noble crusade, when in fact it’s merely a desperate attempt to retain significance that is bound to rituals from a time that holds no relevance. What has this got to do with the Belly of Delhi? Reverse engineer that belly, and at its core you will find the selfish indulgence of a society that is steeped in ritualistic compliance and lacking in principles or values that are congruent with their aspirations.

    Delhi is not unique in this regard, nor is India as a whole. The world is infested with such degradation of spirit, but Delhi just has the scale to make it easier for the us to notice, assuming we have any inclination to notice at all.

  • The Belly of Delhi

    I simply couldn’t resist that play on words for the title. Delhi is famous for giving its visitors the Delhi Belly, which for those who received this gift would tell you that it’s no laughing matter. Like this, so many other aspects about Delhi and India in general leaves me with a sense of conflict. Recognising the effects of the caste system while noting the awkward balance it provides as well. Or seeing the beautiful structures left to ruin from the neglect of complacent or downright lazy hired help, while fending off beggars that rely on irritation and annoyance as a reason for you to part with your rupees just to get rid of them. The overwhelming sense I got though, when visiting Delhi and later Agra, is that it’s a distracted place.

    I thought the irritable hooting from the Arab driver behind me at an intersection in Arabia was annoying, but that fast became a cherished memory in the face of the incessant hooting that has become the staple language with which drivers communicate in India. Unfortunately the hooting is needed because road signs, traffic signals, and general rules of the road are merely suggestions for normalcy, but are rarely observed or enforced. At a single intersection I witnessed a driver take a u-turn in front of us while another cut in from the oncoming side, while we cut in front of a third driver that actually had the right of way, all in the space of about 1.5 seconds. In South Africa, someone would have likely been severely injured or killed at that intersection from road rage. But that’s the difference, in a way, between South Africa and India.

    When I look on the faces of drivers in South Africa, I see signs of life, mostly in the form of aggression, expectation, entitlement, or sometimes composure. But there is always an expression of emotion, which I interpret as life. In Delhi, the drivers probably make the best poker players ever. Regardless of how reckless the manoeuvre was of the person in front, the most it would solicit is a lotus flower-like twist of the fingers in that universal gesture of WTF. You know, palms facing up while fingers gesture as if unscrewing a lightbulb? So when you see that, you know it was really bad. The rest of the time it’s emotionless as if resigned to the fact that nothing more should be expected. Closer to the important truth in this I believe is the fact that it’s not rules or constraints that determine harmony in society. Those merely dictate an unnatural order. Collective subscription to a set of norms is what fosters the harmony that we all seek. In other words, if everyone collectively subscribes to the same version of chaos, is it really chaos? It stands to reason then that disruption or upheaval in society is caused when norms or standards are imposed on an unwilling audience. Hence your leaders are as you are.

    That there is a potential for greatness in Delhi is no less true than the potential for greatness in the most rural villages in South Africa. Unfortunately, too often I find that we’re trying to subscribe to a set of laws that are unnatural, or to be part of a system that is exclusionary by design, but we do so anyway because that is the prevailing perception of success. Such thinking is not what leads to ingenious outcomes. When we subscribe without true conviction or understanding in the underlying purpose, we lose ourselves in favour of the version of us dictated by that system. Stated simply, we forget who we truly are when we focus on meeting expectations rather than living with conviction. Defining our worth based on these external and unnatural systems, usually capitalistic in nature, distracts us from defining who we are as human beings. This is what I see on the faces of so many around me, whether in Delhi or Johannesburg. There is a vacancy of the self, but an abundance of need for acceptance or celebration. In Delhi it’s expressed as complacency in the face of the overwhelming odds that stifle any desire to change it. In Johannesburg, it’s the excessive aggression towards each other which in essence hints at a belief that we are robbing each other of success, rather than a realisation that our collective subscription to a set of governance that erodes our self-worth is why we are so quick to launch the first offensive.

    I would never have guessed that the Delhi Belly will come to symbolise the core of what is wrong with the human condition as we experience it today. We all partake in the consumption of things that we believe are needed for our sustenance, but are internally rejecting its origins or composition. Those that know better will subscribe under duress and will be more prone to the effects of such imbalance, while those that expect nothing more assimilate and become more efficient at processing the unpalatable. Such adaption might prove useful in the short term, but it lowers the bar in the long term.

    Intolerance to a pervasive vice or imbalance may seem idealistic and naive, but having the courage to recognise a vice as a vice is all that stands between us and the rest of that slippery slope of decay. We’ve become so good at adapting that we’ve given up on idealism or conviction. Those that speak of old school values are shunned as out of touch while those that lack it complain bitterly about the state of the world. Such are the distractions of arrogance. When we assume that the technological advancements of the current generation implies moral superiority over the previous ones, we deny the next generation the benefit of finding a wholesome balance between the two. But just as decay is generational in nature, so too is rebirth. I believe that the human spirit will only tolerate the stench of immorality and imbalance for so long before the innate intolerance for such states drive us towards a resurgence of balance and harmony. The absolutists assume that such a return to old school values implies an abandonment of progress. They’re the ones that are most deluded. They’re the ones that contribute to the excess that we experience as the Delhi Belly.

    I see it as being no different to cow hands working the farm and growing immune to the stench of the manure. They only realise what they’ve grown accustomed to if they remove themselves from it for long enough to grow accustomed to more pleasing aromas. And so it is with human beings. We’re collectively obsessed with competing for self enrichment while ignoring the greater purpose for which we exist. That is, the upliftment of those around us which automatically elevates our own condition. But in the absence of trust, we share a mutual contempt instead.

  • Contaminated

    It’s sad that the moral decay of society has resulted in so many wholesome phrases becoming an embarrassing utterance no matter how innocently they may be stated. A few that came to mind this morning include:

    • “Bend over and take it like a man” – this was a common statement by friends and teachers alike when corporal punishment was still allowed in schools in South Africa, and I was due for a ‘6 of the best’ with the teacher’s cane. (Damn, even ‘teacher’s cane’ has taken on a different meaning these days!)
    • “We were so happy and gay” – another phrase that cannot be uttered by anyone that has no desire to want to be assumed a homosexual. We can effectively change the definition of the word ‘gay’ in the English dictionary to one that has explicit sexual connotations since no one in their right mind would use it to describe their happiness any longer.
    • “I’m going to walk the dog” – for those that may not be familiar with this awkward statement, specifically if uttered by a man, consider yourself blessed. 
    • “I gave my wife a pearl necklace as a wedding gift” – such a beautiful sentiment and profession of generosity defiled by the twisted mentality of society. Again, if you’re unfamiliar with this, consider yourself blessed, and I therefore apologise in advance if this post leads you to research the meaning of this. (btw, Urban Dictionary would be a good place to start!)
    • “I’m coming” – by far the most innocently used phrase that has led to far too many embarrassing moments for grown men with modesty, especially if yelled out from another room while a group of people were waiting for him to leave for some place.

    Sad, isn’t it? :-/

  • Wishful thinking…I wonder what’s so intelligent about observing symptoms of creation and then declaring that to be the source of intelligence and the purpose of life? It’s one thing to maintain a belief system, but entirely different to use it as a soap box from which to dismiss other belief systems. 

    I always wonder how prudent a use of time it is to spend your life seeking purpose and forgetting to live in the process? Perhaps some would argue that the search is in fact living in itself, and perhaps there is truth in that. But given that atheists firmly establish their belief system in science, and given that the foundations of science have recently been shaken to their core with the discovery that the speed of light is in fact not the limit that we thought it was, I wonder what implications that may have on the belief systems that are based on science?

    Seems rather convenient to suggest that theism is flawed because it can’t be proven when in fact atheism is just as theory-based. Big difference is that theism is capable of defining theories of existence that atheism was denying until they could prove scientifically that the theistic theories were actually true to begin with. The fact that those theistic theories were based on broadly accepted divine inspiration will always be conveniently overlooked. But the fact that the speed of light was based on one of the greatest scientists this side of the Ice Age and has now been proven to be incorrect as the basis for the theory of relativity will also be conveniently overlooked.

    But science is progressive, and must therefore be allowed the convenience of breaking its own rules in its search for the truth. It’s all just too convenient for me. Far too convenient to take the moral high ground as an atheist, dismiss the definitive influence that religion has had and continues to have on that same moral code, and then conjure up even more elaborate theories about how morality is independent of religion when a simple study of various cultures will confirm that morality is very definitely based on the religious customs of any community. 

    Reminds me of another post I wrote not too long ago on the subject of Atheism and Theism.