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Tradition
and modernization are not mutually exclusive. Together they help
mankind. All that is needed for mankind to benefit from both is
to modernize tradition, adapt it to the strictures of modernity.
Unfortunately, however, some sections of society in almost every
country are trying, instead, to fossilize the present, another word
for modernity. All traditional values are not evil. Only a few of
them are. Similarly, modernity is not an unmixed blessing. Much
in it is bad too. Therefore, an amalgam of the virtues of both would
help mankind remain on track.
For instance, a nation is not a juxtaposition of individuals but
a society based on a communion of minds, a union of hearts. A deep
religious sense, which informs every tradition, would not allow
its claimant to speak a rash or a profane word of anything that
the soul of man holds sacred. This attitude of respect for all creeds,
such elementary good manners in matters of the spirit, is bred into
the marrow of one's bones by human tradition, by the world's experience
of centuries.
Could it be that there is confusion in the mind of man today about
tradition and truth? Mankind seems to have failed to preserve the
spirit of truth that alone can guide it to all truths. God does
not say: " I am tradition." He says: "I am Truth." Truth is greater
than its greatest teachers. We need to realize that the history
of the human race as a whole is strewn with customs, rituals and
institutions which were invaluable at first and deadly afterwards.
Gross abuses that still survive require to be cut off. Tradition,
Indian tradition in particular, insists on the upward striving not
only in the sphere of morals but also in that of the intellect.
It should not be regarded either as pessimistic or as fatalistic.
The Indian law of 'karma' affirms the implicit presence of the past
in the present, or of tradition in modernity. However, when we unconsciously
or mechanically follow the impulses of the past, we are not exercising
our freedom. But we are free when our personal subject becomes a
ruling center.
In the past few decades or so, the world has been transformed rapidly
and almost completely, at least in its superficial aspects. Science
has helped at least a chunk of humanity, though not the whole of
it, to build its life. But another discipline is necessary to strengthen
and refine the living spirit. Our natures have become mechanized,
void within. We have been reduced to mere atoms in a community,
members of a mob. Behaviorist psychology teaches us that man has
no inwardness and so he can be understood completely from the standpoint
of the observer. Some past attempts at the replanning of society
were attended with this danger.
Though people have successfully compelled governments to minister
to their needs, though application of modern science to production
and distribution enables us to expect material well being for all,
large numbers of people the world over are suffering from poverty
and starvation. The chaotic condition is due to lack of fellowship
and co-operation. The Russian experiment was at least an honest
attempt to secure for all an equal share in things that constitute
the physical basis of life. Communist countries did not accept glaring
contrasts of poverty and wealth as inevitable. Even Fascism labored
to build a true communitarian life and effect a more equitable distribution
of power, wealth and opportunity. Only, the unfortunate results
of all these attempts were mutual conflict and suppression of individual
liberty. There was standardization of souls, loss of self-confidence
and a tendency to seek salvation in herds.
But
what is the state of affairs today? Not only has the individual
been robbed of his freedom to order his life as he will but he has
also been deprived of the liberty to think and express his thoughts
and opinions as he wishes. Society has become a prison. That there
is a real feeling for humanity in these desperate attempts to check
economic exploitation of the masses, one can readily concede. But
if that goal is to be achieved by the other exploitation of the
baser passions of human nature, its selfishness and hatred, its
insolence and fanaticism, the ideal order will be an inhuman one.
Let us by all means establish a just economic order, but let us
also realize that the economic man is not the whole man.
Therefore, it is the job of those who mold public opinion to make
people understand that civilization is an act of the spirit, not
of the body or the mind. Achievement of knowledge and power is not
enough. Acts of morality and spirit are essential. The average man
must become an active and purposeful moral force. He must stop believing
in an automatic law of progress immanent in human history, and turn
an active agent remolding society nearer to the human ideal. Growth
of civilization is marked by an increase of genuineness, sincerity
and selflessness. The only effective way of altering society is
the hard and slow one of changing individuals. Through patient effort,
we can win power over circumstances and mold them. But only a people
striving after ethical and spiritual ideals, ordained by human tradition,
can use the great modern triumphs of scientific knowledge for the
true ends of civilization.
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