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Value Education for Secular Society
sake of truth and knowledge for the sake of knowledge. This is the highest right of the intellectual faculty of humanity, and in this dispassionate functioning, there is perfect purity and satisfaction.
On the other hand, when science tries to apply its discoveries and functions to life, it becomes the play thing of forces over which it has little control. This is the reason why the balance sheet of science is a mixed one. While, on the one hand, science has made discoveries which have promoted practical humanitarianism, it has, on the other hand, supplied monstrous weapons to egoism and mutual destruction; while, on the one hand, it has made a gigantic efficiency of organisation utilisable for economic and social amelioration of nations. It has, on the other hand, placed the same efficiency of organisation in the hands of national rivalries for mutual aggression, ruin and slaughter; while, on the one hand, it has given rise to a large rationalistic altruism, it has, on the other hand, justified monstrous egoism, vitalism, vulgar will to power and success, while on the one hand, it has drawn mankind together and given it a new hope, it has, on the other hand, crushed it with the burden of commercialism.
Science does not have within itself any inherent leverage by which it can prevent its exploitation by human impulses and passions, and since it can produce great results, its explication for evil can also be great. The modern civilisation, which is science-based, has to deal with an extremely difficult issue that it has created, namely, that of the emergence of dominant economic barbarism. This barbarism impels humanity to sink in mud of desire and hunger on a massive scale. It makes satisfaction of wants and desires and accumulation of possessions its standard and aim. It has conceived of the ideal individual in the image not of the cultured or noble or thoughtful or moral, or spiritual person, but of the successful person. It puts forward the opulent plutocrat and successful mammoth capitalist as images of achievement and fulfilment. It is this barbarism which assigns to them the actual power to rule the society. It prescribed pursuit of vital success, comfort, enjoyment for their own sake. It subordinates all other pursuits; it looks upon beauty as nuisance, art and poetry a frivolity or means of advertisement. Social respectability is its idea of morality; it uses politics as a door for markets and exploitation
It is now increasingly recognised that the development of science should be supplemented by enormous development of human goodness. Bertrand Russell has pointed out that there are two ancient evils that science, unwisely used, may intensify: they are tyranny and war. In an important study of the theme of science and values, Bertrand Russell declared:
"There are certain things that our age needs, and certain things that it should avoid. It needs compassion and a wish that mankind should be happy; it needs the desire for knowledge and the determination to eschew pleasant myths; it needs
January March 1993
Jain Education International
For Private & Personal Use Only
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| SR No. | 524573 |
| Book Title | Tulsi Prajna 1993 01 |
| Original Sutra Author | N/A |
| Author | Parmeshwar Solanki |
| Publisher | Jain Vishva Bharati |
| Publication Year | 1993 |
| Total Pages | 156 |
| Language | Hindi |
| Classification | Magazine, India_Tulsi Prajna, & India |
| File Size | 9 MB |