Science says that you cannot go back in time, but human brain has such a magic power of memory storage that one can re-live the old life in mind. Atleast for me, pondering in good old days, has become a regular habit and solace to troubled mind while living in present modern educated society, which has become over smart and selfish in preserving its own pride and prejudice.
My days in service career in Walchand College and Dnyandeep activitites for first few years were full of ambition and aspirations. We used to follow the great leaders in education, social and political fields, work together, understand and respond to colleagues and other society with full sensitivity. We were not rich but were full of emotions of our own, giving us energy to move forward with sharing of joy and sorrow with others. We enjoyed living together, working for each other or collectively towards variety of goals, driven either by individual, social or political forces.
For last four years, while staying in America I found sophisticated, well mannered and object oriented and confined talk by people at all places, which was typically robotic with suppressed emotions to adhere with strict norms of good behavior. Whether you go in hospital, mall, hotel or even in a garden or any informal social gathering, the experience is monotonic, disciplined and respectful.
Somehow, I felt that the people living here are becoming aloof from society and are just trying to become or show ideal gentlemanship. This might be the effect of over training of good manners, strict administration and fear of legal actions. Big corporates and administration demands that the workers and citizen behave in carefully crafted rules and regulations and achieve desired goals anonymously. They are treated as replaceable items to give desired outcome.
I had read a Russian novel ‘Everything but love’ long back, where the man gets a robot as wife, well and carefully designed to suit his requirements in minutest details like shape, look, beauty, responses and even pre-build emotions. He feels happy and boasts his possession with his friends who had wives with lot of imperfections and unmanageable quarrels. However, soon he realizes that robotic wife cannot give him the true love with human soul.
I am afraid, that in our pursuit of perfection, efficiency and unbiased just responses, big clever social machines are forcing the people to abandon their inherent distinctiveness and turning them into well managed perfect society.
Even if we succeed in it, robots are going to outperform humans and would enslave human beings as they are heterogeneous in composition and fail with repetitive work and stressful conditions.
We have to think seriously where we want to go. Whether to achieve great success and prosperity with robotic culture or preserve our relations, traditions, old beliefs and rituals and remain where we are, imperfect, diversified but full with sensations, emotions and memories of past which preserve and nurture our minds rather than glorify bodies with material wealth and behavior to suit the ideal norms of social interaction.
I have become more desperate in my outspokenness as I am experiencing similar transformation of our educated middle class in India. When I expressed my anguish about cool response to Dnyandeep initiative of collective investment and promotion of small businesses in India, I got variety of responses, which need to be studied. Many thought it is my marketing tactic for personal benefit. When I explained them of collective venture they did not trust others.
Some thought, it is political move and branded it is communist divisive propaganda. When I gave examples of Savarkar, Vivekanand, Vinoba Bhave and Sant Gadgebaba, they blamed corruption, politics and government failure. Nobody considered that they have any obligation to improve the situation being most gifted in economic terms. Some said, they pay heavy double taxes and it is the government which has to do the needful. Leftists were happy with my frustration and said total revolution is the only answer for this. Democrats here had some what acceptable approach to help small individual businesses, which guarantees individual freedom and helps innovation and healthy competition.
Everybody respected great leaders, saints who considered society and nation above their family and sacrifice of our soldiers in protecting our nation, but tried to hide behind their own shields of reasoning.
I am feeling happy to discover this crucial issue which has to be tackled scientifically if we have to bring back our lost strength and trust from the best brains in India and abroad. I wish all of you to express your opinions and views in this regard. If we succeed in finding an amicable solution, it will be a great breakthrough in present deadlock. - Dr. S. V. Ranade, Dnyandeep, Sangli
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