2.

Social Norms. These little set of rules make up what happens to be the most influential factor in human behaviour after free will, even overtaking it in few instances. Many of these are supposedly the advice given by wise men of the past, who mysteriously have disappeared of the face of earth in modern times. We hear the many pioneers of this new age advising us to break free of these binding contracts of the society in order to advance in an era of freedom of speech and thought (though no one could stop you from doing so earlier). But the intelligent question that we must first face is "Why must we abandon the social norms that hold the fabric of society together completely? Have we fully understood why something that the society dictates is full of crap, before we thrash it out of our lives?". This is what I mean to take up here.

As I like to say "Rebel for the rebellion's sake, not for the sake of rebellion." Misinterpretation and misinformation, according to me are the biggest mistakes that we as a cultured civilized society undergoes. Though we haven't reached even the base of the pinnacle of what we can achieve as a species, it is time we seriously stop and work out how we are going to climb this summit. The world has a habit of listening to others opinion without processing the meaning and implications of the opinion itself. I have seen the qualitative spectrum of people, if not quantitative. There exists a class of people who will follow anything as long it doesn't hurt them, in the near future at least. These are the normal people, or sheep as the religion likes to believe. Then there is a class of people who follow their minds instinctively, irrespective of the advice they get or obstacles they face. They are what the world likes to call rebels. Some of them succeed brilliantly in their endeavours and go on to become legends beyond their graves. Others, well are not so lucky. Then there are those who feel lost throughout their lives, being trapped inside the cocoon of these norms, not abandoning them for the fear of being different, but yet hating and loathing them at every step. Though the people we know are unique individually, having many traits in their behaviour but yet I think they can be approximated to one of these three, or somewhere in between any two. Ayn Rand, whose works have caught my attention recently and have provided me with lot of pre-analysed data, has actually strengthened my opinion to some extent. She however, in my humble opinion misses out an important point in all the worship of the so called "producers"; How to mend the attitude of the commoners? Going on a strike (Atlas Shrugged) is a rather crude way, and not everyone can bear out for so long. In the Fountainhead, the character of Henry Cameron is the one that we should worry about, for many like him cannot take what the world throws at them, and in the end they disappear into oblivion. The world has to change, by changing the way people perceive deeds of others. 

But before we take a look at these norms, we must understand how a society behaves. A society has the sole purpose of sharing resources amongst each others for the overall development of everyone in this group. In order to be fair with everyone, it elects/selects a leader/council of leaders to decide how all the resources are to be distributed. Laws and conventions spring forth from such a fair distribution based on the need and capability of individuals within this group. Sub-groups are formed with the purpose of completing various tasks and so on. The members receive remuneration for the services provided, which in primitive societies consisted mainly of physical hard labour, in fields or quarries or elsewhere. The leaders received a larger share of the profits for the purpose, for the part they played in planning how the tasks are done. This is exactly what people have forgotten over time, the importance and task of a leadership. For them the leadership always existed, and they being good (or bad) citizens simply follow orders (or don't).

In ancient Greece and India and everywhere else, the philosophers and wise (generally old bearded men) were the leadership of primitive, small groups, which had just begun accumulating into larger societies. This has now led to the illogical norm of elders being wiser. I have myself seen many contradictions, though this is slowly being dissipating (I hope). The recent times have seen many feminist groups springing up to defend women's rights. The question we should ask and answer is that why was it necessary for them to feel the need to speak up? Isn't it obvious that men and women are equal? The answer is : It is not. We have a ten thousand year of a period of agrarian and hunter life since society came into existence, as opposed to a maximum of 200 years of modern lifestyle of mentally challenging work. We see women blaming men for not being forward thinking enough, and men blaming women for being too "feminist". Stop and think people. One cannot forget biological factors; and I am not talking about the 'genders being different', but the factor of evolution of the society as a whole. A society is, in my opinion as complex as any species, and it has no idea right now exactly how much the world has changed in the past 150 years. With the advent of electricity, computing, and advanced machinery, we are developing at a rate that is exponential in terms of the previous 5000 years. But evolution doesn't care how fast you go; it will pull you back to its method of trial and error variations, at its own pace. Why do we see many women slowly taking in oppression when they can reject and stand against it? It is generally not a question of courage, instead they are more comfortable being oppressed by the men in their lives than living a free life with no one to dictate to them. It is that somewhere in their minds, they believe that the man will feed them. They are hardwired that way since childhood, and they hardwire their children likewise. They feel uncomfortable otherwise. Unless we tackle the situation at the root level, no laws, no groups, nothing can change what is happening around the world as soon as we would like it to change. It will change, eventually, naturally, in another hundred years or so. What we are facing now is a period of 'mental gap', where our mind is lagging behind its own creations and inventions, something which I believe hasn’t occurred until now. We are facing more and more ethical dilemmas in our day to day life, because we aren't equipped to face and judge them in a smart way. My previous post gave what I believe is a logical method of decision making. We must question everything that comes our way, trying to know why something exists, trying to dig up its roots, understanding the pulse of the situation and acting surgically by informing the people around us. The point that the capitalism supporters have sacrificed in order to overthrow communism is the basic necessity of thinking for the good of others. However we try, mankind as a species can never move forward until we work for the greater good. The point to be noted is that we need to find out what is this greater good. Sacrificing excellence so commoners may feel happy is certainly not it. Instead it is to make the people yearn to achieve excellence.

This post will come to many as something they have heard before, but it is not for those people. This is a call for such people to educate those around them and spread this to those who ''don’t get it'''. So long, and I'll be back.