Reviving Ethics within Pakistan

As I said in an earlier post, a human being is a "consciousness " being, which means that the state of consciousness is sufficient enough to define an individual in any part of the world, including Pakistan. Among other entities residing in the consciousness including intellect and aesthetics, the ethical sense; the sense of being 'right' and 'wrong' plays the most important role in building a personality.

Society and State: Ontology

Collectivism exists in two forms (1) Society and (2) State. A 'society' is formed when individuals having diverse personalities interact with each other.  A 'state' is a group of individuals within a society who hold some sort of authority over other individuals. The state, therefore, can be thought of a subset of a society enjoying some sense of 'authority'. Normally, the state constitutes a very minute portion of a society e.g. the individuals working for government, army etc may amount to less than 2% of total Pakistani population. Although state is the part of a society technically, in the rest of this blog, the word 'society' will be used to refer that 98% portion of the population that does not have any authority and hence not included in the state

The Birth of a Revolution:

Whether it's a society or a state, the basic entity is an individual itself. What happens is that each individual positively evolves according to his own moral and ethical sense. This means that I have a set of moral code of conduct for myself and I will try to rectify my behavior according to that code of conduct. This process is obviously subjective to each individual, meaning something that seems 'right' to me might not look so to you. Nevertheless, this process of positive evolution should be appreciated in a society.  Imagine yourself going  through this process of transformation in your personality; when you go to public places, your interaction with other members of the society will propagate this affect within a society. The same effect will also propagate simultaneously within a state if you're a government servant for instance, as you'll try to change things under your authority as well. In short, the point of origin of a moral and ethical revolution is an individual itself, while this revolution makes its way into the society and the state simultaneously.

The critical point is reached when the consciousness of a person fails to develop his/her moral and ethical sense. If not cured, this can lead to the point where, rather than transforming my personality, I will try to change my moral code of conduct.  I have decided not to change myself, therefore whatever I am doing is 'right'. This means that rather than rectifying my personality I am changing the definition of 'righteousness'. The Pakistani society is also following the same trend. For instance, if you're standing in a queue waiting for your turn, this act of 'nobility' is interpreted as  'stupidity'. If you're bribing someone, this act is considered as a positive way of 'assimilating' within a society. The society, rather than rectifying itself, is changing the basic human ethical and moral values. The same effect can also be felt within a state. The government lies to a mob, by temporarily accepting its demands, and when the mob disperses and the tension is diffused, the government reverts to its original stance while this whole act is considered as 'good statesmanship'.

Constitution and Ethics:

It is usually considered that the role of constitution is to protect an individual within the society. The reality is anything but apposite. The role of constitution is to protect the basic human ethical and moral values from the negative effect of society/state itself. The constitution keeps the ethical values as a reference while enforcing the society and the state to adapt accordingly. For instance, if I kill you, the constitution won't punish me because it has some special sympathy for the victim (you) or some special grudge against me. The subjects are not important here. I am being punished simply because I have violated the sacred ethical value of protecting the humanity. This means that nothing is supreme than human ethics; not me, not you, not the system, not the state, not the government, not even the constitution itself if it fails to protect those ethics.

Conclusion:

As an individual if I want to bring some positive change in the society and a state, the starting point is to look deep into my consciousness and revive its ethical and moral senses. Rather than clouding the judgment of our next generation by giving them excuse to 'fit' in a corrupt society, we should teach our children not to earn a single penny from illegal sources even if they're starving to death.  This will merely be a starting point of a lengthy process of which there is but NO alternative!

The killing of 132 pupils: A psychological perspective

I can't sleep thinking of what can drive a person to a point where he wears a suicide jacket and blows himself in a classroom killing some 60 odd children! The conclusion that I came up with is not only valid for this person but unfortunately it also holds true for scores of Muslims at the global scale.

Let's leave religion out for one moment and focus on how humans tend to believe in anything. When I say that 'I believe in something' it means that my intellectual, ethical and aesthetic sense have validated an idea entering my consciousness. What happens is that an idea enters my mind, I start thinking about it and in the end I find it reasonably correct in rational perspective. Afterwards, I start to wonder that whether pursuing that idea is the 'right' thing to do in terms of moral perspective. Once I find that idea rationally correct and ethically right, I then start to fall in love with that idea. At this point that idea will start to appear in my personality and I can safely say that a specific idea has now transformed into a belief.  

If the source of an idea is divine, the consciousness will give birth to so called religious beliefs. That is the only difference between beliefs of a religious person and an atheist.

Emotions giving birth to Beliefs:

The critical point comes when I cannot reason about an idea, yet somehow I feel that it's the 'right' and 'lovely' thing to do. At this point, a person will mistake his emotions as beliefs.

This means that my emotions are the resultant of an idea penetrating my ethical and aesthetic sense without going through my intellect. If that idea is divine, rather than producing emotions, the consciousness will produce blind faith. This is the state of consciousness that the suicide bomber is in! His ethical sense has convinced himself that killing those children is ethically 'right' thing to do; a sort of sacrifice necessary for a better future of an Islamic society. In aesthetic perspective, he's also in love with the concept of 'martyrdom', the act of blowing himself up for an ethically justified cause.

To summarize, human emotions are governing the faith of the suicide bomber here. More specifically, the definition of faith for this person starts with the hatred of infidel forces and it also ends with it. A closer look at the tweets and posts on Pakistani social media after the incident reveals something even more disturbing. It seems that our faith is also based solely upon the hatred of Taliban and their loyal forces. This means that basic psychological problem of the suicide bomber is the same as an ordinary citizen of the society. Both are projecting their emotions on their faith without a sense of reasoning.

Solution:

Rather than thinking like an emotional being, we should let our thoughts give rise to emotions. For a religious person, this means that my fundamental metaphysical concepts about nature should arouse my religious emotions, not the other way around. If I fail to convince my intellectual sense about something, my judgment will always be emotional, not reasonable. 

Human Consciousness: Ontology and Psychology

A human being is a "consciousness " being, which means that the state of consciousness is sufficient enough to define an individual in any part of the world. Human consciousness comprises of three major entities,

• Intellect
• Aesthetics
• Ethics

The intellectual sense enables us to reason about an idea. The aesthetic sense allows a person to 'like' or 'dislike' that idea, while the ethical sense tells me whether that idea is morally 'right' or 'wrong'.

Intellect:

The goal of intellect is to 'know' something. Reasoning provides the ONLY way to achieve this goal. Human intellect can also be divided into two aspects

• Empirical Reasoning / Empiricism
• Metaphysical Reasoning / Rationalism

Empiricism is a state of mind which states that I can obtain knowledge only from 5 senses (sight, hearing, taste, smell and touch). In this aspect, the faculty of the mind which is most influential is called intelligence. Human intelligence makes observations from these primary senses, performs some experiments and then makes some conclusions.  The observations actually define the extent of the so called "known" world (i.e. everything functional within earth, sun, stars, planets etc). This is what we call as the scientific domain.

Metaphysical reasoning is more about sensing the "unknown" (i.e. the things which can't be grasped by my primary senses e.g. God, angels, heaven, hell etc). Here the faculty of mind which is most active is called wisdom.  In contrast of empiricism, rationalism is the view that "regards reason as the chief source of knowledge" or "any view appealing to reason as a source of knowledge or justification". This means that reasoning is not dependent solely upon the input of my empirical senses. I call this the religious domain.

Aesthetics and Ethics:

You might have come across situations where your consciousness says that doing this isn't 'right' yet you're somehow inclined to do it, like the feeling of enjoyment while breaking the law! This represents a classic example of a paradox between ethical and aesthetic sense. The solution is simple, try to develop your aesthetic sense under the supervision of your ethical sense, not the other way around. This means that I should develop my consciousness in such a way that I 'enjoy' what I think is 'right' and vice versa. Easier said than done, huh?

Knowledge and Beliefs:

As mentioned earlier, 'knowing' something is the objective of intellect, while 'believing' something is the purpose of consciousness. The empirical aspect of intellect may play a significant role in acquiring knowledge but empiricism has nothing to do with beliefs. The innate nature of human intelligence is such that it wants to rule the universe; it is not interested in my well being! Stated another way, intelligence wants to grasp hold of consciousness, it is not interested in the present state of consciousness. This represents a critical situation due to which I suggest that one should prefer wisdom over intelligence when it comes to reviving one's consciousness.

Let's go deep into the process of belief making. What happens is that my intellect (metaphysical portion) gets inspired by an idea. Afterwards, that idea penetrates into my ethical and moral sense, in the resultant of which I fall into love with that idea.  This means that ideally, I should acquire my beliefs in the following sequence;

If the source of the idea is divine, then the consciousness gives birth to so called religious beliefs, but bear in mind that the initial seed of any belief whether divine or not, is sown in the human intellect. Summarizing, when my consciousness is inspired by an idea, it transforms that idea into a belief which is then reflected in my personality.  When 'I' interact within a society, what others perceive is actually my personality, which is nothing but a mere reflection of the current state of my consciousness.