Family and Nation

Author(s): Mahapragna Acharya, A P J Abdulkalam
Publisher: Harper Publications India

Page 90

THE FAMILY AND THE NATION
and interpretations of religious texts that have traditionally fastened on to discriminatory attitudes and practices are being shown to be erroneous.
Until quite recently, till information and communication technology opened up boundaries, social groups regarded their own internal ethical standards as absolute, universal and right. Validated by their religious leaders, their moral guidelines formed an integral part of their worldview. Other groups' standards, where they differed, were usually seen as aberrant, abnormal, and wicked, the result of worshipping false gods. Thus ethical standards were part and parcel of a general human condition in which language, religion and culture operated together to divide groups from one another while reinforcing solidarity within the group.
We now know enough about human origins and human social evolution to develop a new perspective on the question of where ethics come from. Once we accept the fact that morality, like language and religion, is culture-specific rather than universal, the scales fall from our eyes and we see the world around us in a different and humbler light. We see that there is no morality in Nature as such; there are only forces and processes that have operated over millions, even billions of years, to bring about our present condition. God, at least the God we used to worship, can now be recognized as a device of the human imagination. Morality, it follows, is equally a human invention. We are our own saviours and redeemers. It is up to us, just us alone, both to develop the ethical principles guiding our conduct, and, through common sense or acceptance by the majority, to validate them.
Equality is a social state of affairs in which different people have the same status in certain respects. There are different forms of equality, depending on the persons and social situations in question. For example, one may consider equality of the sexes in opportunities for employment. In