the perfect world theory |
the child | the system | the climate | the chaos | the law | the order | the perfect world | the final message
Setting new standards
There have been horrible events in history. Unspeakable acts of terror and
degradation not by nature on man, but by man on man. Evil is produced by an
imperfect society. The more imperfect a society is, the more evil it has.
Whenever a man has to degrade or humiliate himself, the flaws in the whole
society is magnified for all to see. That society, which allowed a disgraceful
act to be committed on any human, has before it a testament to its shortcomings
and an alert-alarm for the whole society to wake up to a serious flaw in itself.
Rather, it dismisses such events as unavoidable. To preserve the dignity of man
is the ultimate aim of any institution. Through fulfilling basic needs, through
securing basic rights, through providing growth opportunities and through every
other service rendered by all of society’s institutions, we are preserving the
dignity of man. We ought to be, but are we? The man is subjected to the
institution and the institution has grown in dignity while man himself, for whom
the institution was created, has diminished in dignity and has become a helpless
pawn in the hands of institutions.
We have lost our focus. We have lost sight of the reason for the existence of
all of society’s institutions. We have lost sight of the reason why we created
these institutions. The reason is to preserve the dignity of man. Not to secure
basic rights. Not to fulfill basic needs. Those are just tools that help us
preserve the dignity of man. We ought to look around once in a while and see if
the dignity of man has been properly preserved. Our aim is to ensure that no one
is treated without human dignity by man or by nature, not for a single moment.
That is the aim we had when we created the first society. The comparatively
infinitely small populations of those societies did not require much thinking
about the laws of society which are much more important today. Today we have a
population explosion facing us and with it comes a need to alter the laws of
society to suit the changes. But as we make drastic changes, if we do, we need
to keep in mind the aim that we ought to have, the aim of preserving human
dignity, of not letting any factor, man-made or natural to devaluate it.
So, that is our fault. The reason for the imperfection in our societies. Our aim
ought to be: The preservation of human dignity. Injustice injures human dignity.
Inequality flabbergasts human dignity. We ought to secure human dignity. And for
that we have no choice but to ensure human birth into dignified conditions. Only
later can we ensure human life in dignified conditions. When the majority of
births in the world are in undignified conditions, as is the case today, we can
never hope to truly ensure a life of human dignity for them. We cannot ensure a
fair, secure and therefore dignified life for the people already born and
brought up in conditions otherwise, especially when they are not only the
majority, but also the most rapidly multiplying section of humanity. The
solution is not a cure but a prevention.
To take care of every nook and cranny on earth and to see to it that unfairness,
injustice, abuse or exploitation does not creep into the minutest spaces of our
planet would be heavenly. It is not an ideal. It is more than that which has to
be aspired for, it is what ought to be. And if it is not, it is our failure,
gross-neglect and incapacity as human beings that we have allowed the worst to
be the standard.
We did not set a standard and therefore the standard has dropped so low. We did
not set the standard in the right place or for the right thing and we did not
set it forcefully. The right standard for the right thing set mightily will
clear out the ills we face today as part of a human race on the road to doom.
However right the standards are, or how forcefully it is effected would be
futile if it is not for the right thing. Today, we have centuries of expertise
and technology to have the right standard and to enforce it effectively, but we
are effecting it in regards to the wrong thing. The thing that is in danger
today, that which we are trying to protect, is ourselves. Our survival shouldn’t
be at threat and we know that we are failing to protect the survival of all
today. Therefore, the only option is to allow only as many of us for whom the
right standards can be effectively enforced. The thing we need to set standards
for, is ourselves. The standard we need to set is the standard of good living.
No one of our race should be allowed to be born into a place where the standard
of good living is absent.
Elections could be used to decide the level of basic financial capability
required to become a parent. Options could be: None, $500, $10,000, $15,000.
Such elections could be held every 2 years or so, so that people have a chance
to determine or reassess what standard of living their children should be born
into and brought up in, according to varying economic and social conditions. Now
the people can not only decide who rules them but also their own future living
standards. Ultimately, that is what democracy and elections are for. So that
people would decide who can give them a safe and acceptable standard of living.
The people’s judgment of the election candidate’s ability may prove to be right
or wrong, but through the entire bureaucracy and government machinery under the
election winner, the final effects of their choice is hardly ever what they had
thought would be. If people decide the minimum standard of living they wish to
be born into, they are deciding their minimum standard of living, if not for
themselves, then for their children. They are deciding both the living standard
of their children and the general living standards surrounding their children.
So there ought to be two elections. One to decide the standard of living during
childhood and hence the future national standard of living, while the other one
to decide the government and hence the people who ought to be in authority. It
does seem to me that the second election has been made redundant by the first,
but if it really is made redundant by the first, I believe it will be
automatically scrapped in time.
The level of basic financial capability we require would reflect our
determination of the value of a human being. The higher the level of basic
financial capability that a person votes for, the higher respect he or she has
for the life and well-being of a human being. The level of financial capability
that the people decide would be the standard of living of not just their
children, but of all the other citizens’ children too. If he thinks it would
suit him to require a low financial capability to become a parent, it would be
the same for the others, too and so nobody will have to adhere to a minimum
standard of living for their children. Hence, his children would find themselves
in a world where poverty is rampant and living standards aren’t secured. On the
other hand, if a person votes for a high standard of living to become a parent,
it would be the same for the others, too, and so everyone will have to adhere to
high standard of living for their children. Hence, his children will find
themselves in a world where poverty is non-existent and living standards are
high, secured and adhered to.
We have laws that do not allow crime. Wouldn’t a single law that prevents the
seeds of crime from being sown be enough to replace all the other laws? Seeds of
crime, namely hunger, ignorance, hatred and greed are factors that come mainly
from and exist as consequences of poverty. The law that prevents children from
being born into poverty, then, is the law that will end crime. The reason for
such a law that does not allow people to have kids as and when they like is that
ultimately the kid’s right to a good life is much more important than the
people’s right to ceaselessly and senselessly conceive and deliver. If
everybody’s parents hadn’t exercised such restraint thousands of times during
their lifetimes, each of us would have had so many more brothers and sisters and
each of us would be getting one-thousandth of what we are getting now. Instead
of going in that direction, law-enforced restraint could make the next
generation get a hundredfold of what each of us gets today.
We must set a standard of living for the whole of humanity and we can only set
it if we begin with children. Set a standard for the next generation. That’s all
I’m saying. A standard of food, shelter, proper sanitation, air to breathe,
water to drink, so that the standard of these life necessities do not drop. If
we try to set a standard for all of these necessities, we would find it
extremely difficult to implement, as we find it now. But if we set a standard on
the single commodity that’s required to achieve and maintain the standard of all
these commodities, that would be a far more consolidated, effortless and
efficient approach. And what is that commodity, but money! Birth into basic
financial capability means birth into food capability, birth into shelter
capability, birth into proper sanitation capability, birth into a secure quality
of air to breathe and water to drink. The creation and existence of these
conditions would automatically be taken care of, if birth into basic financial
capability was ensured. On the other hand, without ensuring birth into these
conditions, we cannot maintain these conditions either, because then there would
be nothing to maintain. Not only would here be nothing to maintain, we would
have to eliminate the existing substandard living conditions, create better
living standards in its place and then maintain those living standards, which is
a far more inefficient and ineffective approach. If we ensure birth into basic
financial capability instead, our energies would only have to be directed
towards the maintaining of acceptable living standards, we would not also have
to direct our energies towards the elimination of substandard living conditions
or to the creation of better living standards.
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