the perfect world theory
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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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