WEAKNESS AFFECTING SOCIETY
Speech delivered by K. Sila Dass on 11th November, 2005 to a group of Undergraduates.
The topic I was asked to address is weakness. The word “weakness” standing alone would seem to have the effect of penetrating into every pore of human life and, therefore, I was told to address the weakness affecting the society. So we have a topic : Weakness affecting society.
The root word for weakness is “weak”. That word “weak” has been defined, amongst other things, as “wanting in moral strength for endurance or resistance; lacking fortitude or courage, strength of purpose or will; unsteadfast and wavering.”
It also means actions or attributes of features, expression of countenance, indications, weaknesses of character or intention. Deficient to control emotions, unduly swayed by grief, compassion or affection. When talking of a person it is common to refer to weak bodies, limbs deficient in muscular strength, inferior in respect of physical strengths.
Therefore, the word “weakness” represents the quality or condition of being weak, deficient in strength or force. The term can be seen applicable to describe a certain state of mind; certain factors that prompt a person to arrive at a decision. Thus the words, “weak” and “weakness” in their diverse applications are susceptible of covering physical as well as psychological attributes.
With these myriad meanings staring at us, I had to look in what way I have to deal with this topic – weakness affecting society.
I have looked at the words “weak” and “weakness” as the inherent force within us. I have, for a considerable period of time thought about it and my understanding of these terms through experience clearly shows the element of weakness in us has been the cause for our own difficulties, our own down falls, our own unpleasant state of affairs.
In this context it would be a useful exercise to find out how weakness works in us and ultimately destroys us systematically. The discussion we are to embark upon will also raise a very pertinent question and that is: whether weakness is relative to a particular ethnic group or is its effect universal.
It has been said very generally that fear is the source of weakness. Fear is the worst thing you can have in your life.
- Fear destroys everything good in you.
- Fear destroys reason in you
- Fear destroys courage
- Fear destroys the innocence in you
- Fear, the root of evils is the dominant factor which destroys your thinking ability
- Fear prevents you from thinking rationally
- Fear destroys your capability to act freely
Fear is identifiable in people we hear of, or see everyday.
Leaders fear they will lose their leadership and with that the power to command the lead.
World countries are divided into developed, developing and under developed countries because of their fear that they will lose out to powerful countries whose technical advancement is far superior than theirs.
So fear is not unique to individuals alone.
Individuals lose out because they fear to think. Our student population is told to read a particular topic and is warned that it is the examination topic so learn it and get it into your system - you will pass. You are not asked or required to think. You may pass the examination but you would have lost; for, the fear that had developed in you is the examination fear. So long you pass it you are happy. Your parents are happy and those who taught you are happy; but, has the passing of the examination made you a perfect person- a person who could think?
Our forefathers lost because they were illiterates and that was the deficient factor that contributed to their weakness of not being able to think. You have managed to acquire education the objective of which has not been to get rid of the weakness inherent in you but to mature in a modern way and enslave you with promises of materialism but not the ability to think. You will lose and continue to lose because you dare not think.
The modern education has all the trappings to entrap you with false objectives whereby you are guided to think the best way of living and what could that be? Good position. Good income. Car, and all the luxuries that could make you comfortable and at the same time subject you to bothersome liability.
Your weakness for luxury leads you to indebtedness and that keeps you busy and in fear how to repay. As a result of this additional burden one has no time to think about improving the knowledge by reading literature which would help. Modern way of life cannot by any stretch of imagination be considered as a qualitative life, instead it is full of problems.
In a homogenous country, generally weakness of any type would be viewed as if it is quite natural unless such has the effect of destroying the very substratum of the society and the country. There could be an element of tolerance in these types of visible weaknesses and attributing them to be natural. Thus the admitted or apparent weakness would be treated with sympathy by rational minded persons or those who have the ability to correct it.
Such may not be the case where multi-racial, multi-lingual and multi-cultural and multi-religious ingredients are present. Here, in most cases, the weakness in the minority groups will be exploited by those who are strong enough to formulate laws and implement them.
Thus it would seem weakness is not confined to an individual but has the capability of becoming a national, international, societal, or religious issue.
We could begin with an individual. I remember an incident some fifteen years ago. I was appointed as a legal adviser to a multi-national Japanese firm, and during one of my visits to the factory I met a young man whom I knew as my law firm was handling some legal matters of his family.
I was obviously delighted to learn from the young man that he had been working for the Japanese firm for almost a year as supevisor. I congratulated him and told him : “Good! This is a good start for you. Learn the Japanese language and it will be an asset. And you can progress steadily in the firm.”
My initial delight turned into absolute horror on hearing this young man’s reply. “Why should we learn Japanese?’ he asked and he himself provided the answer : “If we learn their language we will be influenced by their culture and we will lose our own identity.”
For a moment I could not believe that our country being a multi-racial, multi-cultural and multi-religious could have people with such warped ideas. The first question we have to ask is : whether learning another language could destroy your identity?
The answer, to my mind, seems to depend of the mind set of an individual. The general view is that learning more than one language would help to broaden one’s knowledge and provide an opportunity to understand others and of other people’s different cultural and religious beliefs. However, if we take the young man’s attitude toward a foreign language it can be seen that there are certain factors which could have impeded him to venture learning any language than his.
There are few factors we should consider.
Firstly, the fear in one’s mind, it is fear that breeds weakness. What sort of fear did this young man have? His fear was: Should he learn the Japanese language, he would be influenced by Japanese culture and thus lose his own cultural identity. Was he correct in thinking the way he did?
His fear of losing his cultural identity led him to believe that the knowledge of other ethnic group was no good – short of saying, my cultural heritage entwined with religious teaching are far superior than other cultures and other religions.
By accepting such a course he was in fact barricading himself from the flow of knowledge available in other languages. By doing so he was unwittingly demonstrating the weakness in him, namely his inability to distinguish the differences between the various thoughts that develop through knowledge.
He was not prepared to let his mind wander and seek the knowledge available in other languages. How do we explain this enigma? Should we consider this as a sign of fear crystallizing in weakness whereby he has not the ability to hold fast to his own views however strongly instilled in him? Or, could we consider his position as that being full of uncertainty and doubts of the thoughts in him? Would we be correct in assuming that the fear he has prevents him from getting out of the frog pond he is accustomed to and prefers to remain in the same frog pond because the moment he is out of that frog pond he will be confused and lost because intellectually he is not strong.
Assuming he is thoroughly grounded in his culture, religion, he need not fear at all because no influence could sway him away from the knowledge he already has. The acquisition of additional knowledge would have helped him to broaden his vision; it would have helped him to see the differences in opinions. He would have realised that he is not a frog in a frog’s pond.
Secondly, our friend was restricting his thinking process within the ambit of the knowledge he already has. He is scared that learning a foreign language and the knowledge acquired through it would destroy the knowledge he has however limited it may be.
This shows narrow-mindedness or bias to knowledge generally. He closes his mind from receiving any information that could upset his beliefs. His thought process is like a tunnel-vision. Only one vision. It has no ambulatory strength to see what is floating around him. He remains what he is with very little knowledge of the outside world. Here again we see that it is own weakness which hindered him from attempting to acquire knowledge in a general way.
Thirdly, he believes that whatever knowledge he has is sufficient and there is no reason to expand it. Why? Again a fear that acquisition of new knowledge could destroy the beliefs in him. We could look at this as a fear that had generated over the years and strengthened the weakness. To him that weakness is his strength because he could proudly claim that he has not deviated from the teachings he had received however deficient it may be.
Looking at it very broadly we could discern a pronounced pattern which could be classified as culture cum religious prone behavioural syndrome which rejects the reception of any knowledge that is capable of leading to enlightment and better understanding of our fellow beings. This culture cum religious behavioural syndrome creates a wall of suspicion against all other knowledge however good, or thought provoking it may be.
The mind set of the person under scrutiny is that it is so weak saturated with the fear that any outside knowledge is bad, questionable, and is capable of destroying the so-called equilibrium he has falsely grown accustomed to. A well read person whose knowledge is immense and is open minded will rarely fear the pervailing dissemination of knowledge that could be new or thought-provoking because he is inwardly strong and is receptive to all knowledge the source of which does not bother him for he has the courage and ability to sieve through them, analyse, accept which he feels is worth further consideration or reject those he thinks are inconsistent with established principles or with his own views. Here again, a person whose intellectual capacity is strong would be prepared to deal with new ideas albeit unsettling, yet with an open mind to investigate further because it is knowledge.
For thousands of years the popular belief was that the sun was rotating the earth. This thought prevailed since the time of Aristotle, a philosopher of excellent genius who built a monumental literature of the whole physical universe and it was the basis of Greek logic. His ideas had travelled and found lasting impression in the Western civilisation through the Arabs. Although two thousand years later it was discovered some of his views were antiquated and seemingly erroneous, in particular, the religious denominations which had found harmony in Aristotle’s views and had adopted them into their doctrine, refused to accept any challenge to the views that had become deeply embedded in human mind.1
1. The First Freedom. A History of Free Speech, Robert Hargreaves
The Greeks had found that the world was round, both from the spherical shadow it threw on the moon during an eclipse and by the fact that different stars are visible in different latitudes. But Aristotle supposed that the earth was at rest and the heavens revolved around it. Because the constellations did not alter shape, they must rotate around the earth, just like the sun and the moon.2
The Egyptian astronomer, Ptolmey, a disciple of Aristotle, constructed an elaborate universe around a stationery earth surrounded by a series of fifty-five invisible rotating spheres, which carried with them the sun, moon, the various planets and the stars.3
Strangely it is the false version of the universe survived but not the other versions also formulated by the Greek astronomers. 4 The theories of Democritus and Aristarclus of Samos were lost although theirs were closer to truth.
In May 1514, Nicolaus Copernicus, a Polish wrote Commentariolus
2. Op. Cit at pp 67, 68
3. ibid
4. ibid
and circulated it discreetly. This was to be the foundation of his work : On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres published in 1543. In this work Copernicus distributed the geocentric cosmology that had been accepted since Aristotle’s time. Copernicus, contrary to popular belief has postulated a simpler explanation for the movement of the heavenly bodies. He placed the sun at the centre of the universe and had the earth rotate around it. 5 This was not acceptable to the church and for fifty years his enunciation was scoffed.
According to Robert Hargreaves, “ …the church fathers refused to take seriously this adventurous speculations into the ‘divine Secrets.’ It was enough to follow the teaching of St. Ambrose that “to discuss the nature and position of the earth does not help us in our hope of the life to come?”
Copernicus died on May 24 1543. Twenty years later Galilee Galilei was born. By 1597, Galileo had studied Copernicus’ discovery and came to the conclusion that it must be true.
Galileo devised a mechanical calculating devise now called the sector,
5. ibid
worked out a mechanical explanation of the tides based on the Copernicus motions of the earth. He produced a treatise on mechanics illustrating that machines do not create power but merely transforms it.
By the end of 1609, Galileo had 20-power telescope which he used to see the lunar mountains the starry nature of the Milky Way, and previously unnoted ‘planets’ revolving around Jupiter.
Galileo’s continual exposition of Copernican theory was not one the Holy official Rome
The Church would not allow Galileo to pursue an investigation which was opposed to the divine revellations. In 1632 he wrote Dialogue which became famous. In 1633 he was condemned to life imprisonment for “vehement suspicion of heresy.” He died in 1642.
Galilieo showed to the world, like Socrates before him “Mere authority cannot suppress the search for truth.”
The journey into the lives and enunciations and brave search for truth by Copernicus and Galileo is deliberate to show that views are likely to change but the quest for truth will never end. It is the weak mind that abandons the truth and find solace in antiquated theories however doubtful they may be. As indicated, earlier it is the fear that breeds this weakness eventually trapping the individual into beliefs that may not be correct but call for or demand infinite enquiry.
How do we get rid of this fear that generates weakness? This is not an easy task, yet it is something which we have to look into. When a person has sound education, that could help him or her to amass knowledge. So, the question arises what sort of education helps to acquire or enhance knowledge.
This question about education has its own trappings. When the world was imbued with spiritual motives the system of education was aimed at improving the spiritual aspect of the pupil. When ideological politics became the core of a government, they formulated policies consistent with their objectives. The ideology may have flourished but the education and the minds of the pupils suffered.
In a world where materialism has been given a prominent part to play, the education system seems to work in a vicious way. The colonialists when they introduced their language they were motivated by a desire to have the locals to learn and write their languages so that the administration could be oiled to function smoothly. The best educated who came from the colonialists homelands sat at the apex of the administration to control. They did not think it prudent that the colonial subjects should have the best education, instead only some education the purpose of which was to serve the colonial masters. Only the opulent class from the locals have had the best education but then they were inclined towards aping the colonial masters.
Generation after generation the under privileged have been given false hopes in the name of education, the purpose of which has been to inculcate in them a keen sense of reliance and that is to serve the objective of those in power: or those who could wield power, and these unfortunate people remained where they were, languishing in false hopes.
The biggest problem that irked society is the fears of survival; and this in turn becomes the weakness whereby the person’s mind abandons thinking.
There are those who attribute to a community’s failure because of the violence it had grown accustomed to and to an extent this may be true. However, if an attempt is made to enquire into the underlying reasons for such a state it could be discovered that violence becomes true once a person is deficient and is unable to control his emotions. If he is educated in a proper way he would have acquired the ability to control his emotions and refrain from violent conduct. This will, therefore, show that violence is not the main reason for a community’s failure but the failure of those who ignored to provide effective education.
The problems we face today are problems that had arisen as a consequence of defective education system. The system does not inculcate the culture of thinking. It does not dare you to think. The system has not shown the best part of acquisition of knowledge instead it had encouraged false concepts with false remedies and they are producing devastating results.
Another area where weakness is so glaring is the calculated move to encourage the younger generation to spend more time on cinema. This I can tell you is a blatant design engineered to effectively kill any inclination towards better knowledge.
Take the youngsters and give them ten questions on general knowledge, and you will find to your horror that hardly one would be able to answer.
The next thing you should do is to ask ten questions based on cinematic culture and you will find to your shock that all ten may give correct answers.
Now, ask yourselves how did this come about? One would wonder whether this is a deliberate attempt to divert the attention of the young to illusion, whereby they will not think about substantial issues affecting them, their community and their role in the country’s affairs.
Think of another concept at work, perhaps a ploy. The power-to-be is prepared to dish out some benefits and privileges to keep you contented but does not want you to get advanced knowledge because they fear the moment you become knowledgeable you will begin to think and that is not good for them for you will begin to ask all the questions for which they have no answer and even if they answer your questions they will be couched in vague and ambiguous language.
A sense of greediness, selfishness is encouraged whereby the people or a section of the people and mostly the illiterates and the poor are made to believe that if they follow the advice of the powerful ones they are safe and their enjoyment however idiotic it might be will not be interfered with. This is the weakness the power-to-be with their secret and obnoxious agenda want and cherish. Once we fall for it we are doomed and that is precisely what is happening.
Everywhere in the world you turn you can see this exploitation, but those in power know how to devise the means to perpetuate this exploitation.
Therefore, weakness is everywhere and it is only a question of degree. The weakness that attacks the people could vary from people to people from class to class.
Weakness that numbs the rich people is their insatiability for more wealth, the greed never ends. A leader’s weakness is seen when he fears that his own position is challenged and is always looking at the rung of the ladder below him. He wants to hold on to power infinitely and that is his weakness. Rich countries fear that their wealth will dissipate and they would like to lead to poor countries so that there will be attractive returns. So weakness is everywhere; in you and in others. How to get rid of it? Amass vast knowledge and never close your mind to enquire. Knowledge is your strength, and that will help rid of weakness and prepare you as a perfect person to analyse any event, any view or opinion and then be able to control your emotions. Once you are able to control your emotions, weakness would disappear.
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