Life is meant to be lived. The basic principle of life is that systems (human bodies) which have the survival characteristics survive. The fitness function, as mentioned in the phrase “survival of the fittest” depends only on how you interact with your immediate environment. It doesn’t depend on what you want the world to be like but only on what is.
Ethically, there are 2 aspects that must be followed:
Where is the boundary that defines the ethical vs unethical actions? In my view, influencing others for taking actions in your favor (and maybe against themselves) is not unethical. After all, such fools will be taken advantage of by you or by someone else. It is their own decision to go against themselves. They refuse to analyse things completely and believe the partial truth which doesn’t contain the decisive element. But pressuring someone to take actions in your favor against themselves despite them knowing the consequences of both options is unethical. eg. Making people addicted to drugs. One curtails their freedom knowingly in this scenario.
People make mistakes once they take their own decisions and have highly unrealistic ambitions which probably would persist throughout lives. But that occurs because believing in false hopes and relying on others’ decisions is easier than taking our own decisions and working towards achieving our own ambitions.
Whatever sells will have survival characteristics and such things will exist. Maybe we won’t like these things but we have to accept them. This is why unrealistic ambition selling people survive. People want to believe in their own greatness although it would never exist. People who make excuses don’t want to take responsibilities for their actions. In high stakes games, people know that they’re responsible but deliberately pose as if they acted under influence since they’ll escape from the punishment given by law.
Allowing people to make mistakes which arise from decisions taken by them is crucial. Mistakes might be small or big and there are ample adversarial forces out there. We can make people aware of some irreversible mistakes and from which mistakes coming back is very difficult or impossible. Everyone has gurus and before commiting the mistake, most will know that it is a mistake. After that, if they make that mistake, and fail to survive, that’s on them. After all, survival is brutal and unforgiving! It is gonna remain so.
Swarajya, as Shivaji coined the phrase, which I interpret as making our own decisions is the ultimate measure of ethics in my view.
A person will take decisions for themselves.
A household will take decisions for itself.
A city will take decisions for itself.
A district will take decisions for itself.
A state will take decisions for itself.
A country will take decisions for itself.
Well, for earth, we don’t have to worry about that, do we?
To strictly follow it is impossible since there are always interactions and influences. But let’s be open to life, recognize those who act in our best interests, those who don’t, take appropriate actions and strive towards swarajya.
Sagar Acharya
25th October 2021