Class Character

Despite more than sixty years of Independence, we continue to be divided on the lines of caste, religion and language. But, on a subtle basis, we are also divided on the basis of class.

This is what is called as the “middle-class mentality” because it is most prevalent in the middle classes and the nouveau-riche. We seek to compartmentalise people on the basis of their incomes, the kind of lifestyle they lead, and the kind of society they move in. The fact that every being has personal preferences and tastes – and every person is different from every other – is conveniently glossed over.

Even a person who is very rich and is earning a lot of incomes may prefer to lead an austere life subsisting on the bare necessities only. But this is not sufficient for those afflicted by “class character”. They are impelled to show off their affluence and wealth at every turn. For them, their wealth is a part of their persona. When, by circumstances, they are divested of their affluence, they feel that they are “nothing” and they “don’t count”.

We forget that we are all independent of this wealth, society, pleasures and what not. We seldom realise that most of our problems are because of the way we perceive the world. Even though all our scriptures talk of a gradual degeneration, still there are people who believe in an order wherein all will be equal and will treat others as equal. They lead ideal lives and strictly follow some basic rules ordained for mankind.

Thus, if we see people different from us, instead of commenting and gossiping about that person, we must understand that all of us are different from each other.

Climate Change and India

With the Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change, also known as the Conference of Parties, numbered fifteenth, at Copenhagen, Denmark, nearing its end, we can take stock of what has happened and what has been achieved out of this meet.

A few words on climate change. Emissions of greenhouse gases since the industrial era have increased the concentration of [primarily] carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. This threatens to increase the average temperature of the Earth, resulting in drastic changes such as altered rainfall patterns, or, in an extreme situation, an increase of sea levels.

Much of the greenhouse gas emissions are from two primary sources: Consumption of fossil fuels in industrial economies and rampant destruction of equatorial rainforests in Africa and South America. The various climate change summits in the past decade or so seek to address the former. [The later may have been neglected only to be regretted later].

The Kyoto Protocol signed and ratified by almost all the countries [except the United States of America] in the year 1997, enshrines the “polluter pays” principle. This means that those countries, which account for the major share of the emissions [the First-World countries], must take responsibility for cutting their emissions. If third-world countries like ours were to cut emissions, our economic growth would be hampered and it would be difficult for us to extricate our people from poverty.

However, at Copenhagen, the developed countries are singing a different tune. They have rallied some small island states [Maldives, Micronesia, Tuvalu and a few others] and are effectively telling them “Your territories are going to be submerged because of the economic growth of China and India.”

This is ridiculous. India and China together [have] account[ed] for no more than 5 to 6 percent of the world’s total greenhouse gas emissions. Even if both countries were to make drastic cuts in emissions [with detriment to our economic growth], still the impact on the overall scenario would be small.

India did not help its cause initially by being ambivalent on fixing responsibility on the developed countries. India has agreed for voluntary emission cuts, but this will be out of the scope of monitoring by the First-World countries. But they are insisting on monitoring [which is unwarranted]. This is like saying, “We won’t do anything meaningful, but we’ll see that you are doing something, even though we will say that it’s all because of you”.

In the end, there can be no meaningful mitigation of the impacts of climate change until and unless the people of the First World give up their extravagant lifestyles.

Is life governed by chance?

If we look into ourselves and want to know our innermost thoughts, one of the possible questions may: Is life governed by chance? Its a difficult question to answer out rightly.

Psychologists define serendipity as "The gift of obtaining agreeable but unsought things". It implies that people do get desired things and fortunate events without their putting in efforts. Or is it that they have indeed put efforts in the past, and are reaping the results now?

Sometimes, the unexpected, the life-changing (for good or bad) event does occur. Is it to say that a man remains impoverished and unfortunate due to chance or is it due to his own errors of omission and commission? Do sad events occur in a family due to chance or due to some overlooked factor?

Lets face it, the rationalist finds it difficult to accept a theory of life governed by chance. For him, an explanation is needed for each and every event that occurs in the realm of physics, chemistry, life science, political science, sociology and spirituality. But may we not be at fault that we seek an explanation within the scope of a narrow domain instead of looking at the entire picture?

Probably, the best answer would be, things do happen by chance, but without our efforts we should expect nothing favourable to happen to us.

Man and the Mind

Note: Wherever ‘he’, ‘I’, ‘we’ or similar pronouns are used, I am referring to the equivalent conscious mind.

“Some consider the body to be miraculous, some consider the soul to be miraculous, some consider the conscious mind to be miraculous, and some consider the unconscious mind to be miraculous, while others, even after considering all four, fail to understand the miracle.”

Again and again, I am dragged into the subject of the conscious and the unconscious. Yesterday, it was the book ‘Blink’. We go deep inside our minds, and find a vast array of knowledge that can be put to use, but we are unable to, because we don’t know how to tap it.

Most of us are inclined highly towards logical and analytical methodologies. [I would prefer a term “rationalist”.] This is the conscious, the perceptible part of our mind. There is another, less perceptible side, which stores infinitely more than the conscious, but is not always at our bidding. This is the unconscious mind. It sends out signals long before we realize what is happening.

Psychologists have always preferred to examine the unconscious mind of a patient to reveal the reasons behind the subject’s conditions. There may be several things affecting the patient but he himself may not be aware of it. Letting it out is crucial for a normal condition.

People have taken far-reaching decisions that have proved to be correct or appropriate in the matter of a few seconds or with seemingly insufficient data in hand. This is possible because we tap into our unconscious and extract whatever we need. In fact, most of us must have done this at some point of the time or other. Scientists have credited their theories to dreams (Kekule’s benzene ring) and chance incidents (Newton’s apple).

Yet, it is dangerous to depend solely on the unconscious. For, this part of our mind cannot differentiate between a real and an imagined experience. Our unconscious simply stores whatever has been fed to it, either in the immediate or in the distant past. The best of results are obtained, when we put together our conscious and our unconscious together and make sense of the world.

It is not that analytical solutions are wrong. Our knowledge of physics and metaphysics is imperfect. There are theories of which we may not be in the know, even though they are staring into our faces (the ‘why didn’t I think of this before’ syndrome). So we must not neglect the signals coming from deep within (the gut feeling, a hunch, or whatever we name it).