TOWARDS UTOPIA

Irtikaz, Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad, 1978-79, pp 55 – 58.

                                   

Human beings have the highest intelligence because they have the greatest desires and the widest mobility. Beings without desires have low degree of intelligence. This desire and mobility brought beings in contact, and consequently resulting into states.

From antiquity till modern time, philosophers have been trying to sort out the best and most suitable system for a state.  With few exceptions most of them differ bitterly on this very crucial problem.  “What is better”? Voltaire asks, “Is a question tossed about for four thousand years. Ask the rich for an answer – they all want aristocracy. Ask the people – they want democracy. Only the monarchs want monarchy.” It therefore would not be possible for the state to have a system, not acceptable to the majority of its citizens. 

If we examine the systems we would observe that in practice monarchy and anarchy are the worst forms of governments. They are not applicable as mind of one man can not rule minds having diversities, for all minds can not be brought into a single entity by force. History has proved that after the industrial revolution, when emotions were replaced by reasons, monarchy and anarchy lost their hold.  

Communism is understood by some people to be the most suitable system these days. How unfortunate a man he is, who has suffered the brunt of a bloody Communist revolution. Larger the difference between poverty and wealth, greater the wrath of the revolution. Revolution which ultimately leads to communism is no remedy for either misery or injustice. We are seeking an all embracing, balanced society and not one in which merely the material condition of the rich and the poor are changed. We are not looking for a society in which just equality of stomachs prevails, neglecting other vital aspects of human life. “He who seeks equality between unequals”, says Spinoza, “Seeks an absurdity”. This system is works well only when family is the only state and simple tillage the only form of life. “When everybody owns everything” said Aristotle, “nobody will take care of anything”. That, which is common to the large number of people has the least attention bestowed upon it. Such a politico-social system is based on unrealistic assumptions of equality. It arises out of the notion that people who are equal in one respect are equal in all respects. Because people are equally free, they claim to be absolutely equal. This is highly an unrealistic assumption. A system based on unrealism cannot therefore be a perfect one.

Let us now look at democracy. A good number of countries, these days, are practicing it and claim it to be the fittest and most successful system. Once, Voltaire was asked to differentiate between monarchy and democracy. In his typical style he replied, “What difference does it make to a poor man who is devoured by a lion or hundred rats”. Aristotle said, “since the people are so easily misled, and so fickle in their views, the ballet should be limited to the intelligent”. Undoubtedly truth of the argument can not be denied. Stupidity plus stupidity results in a greater stupidity. Therefore, decision of fools may not turn out to be a wise decision. It is therefore reasonable to believe that the success of democracy depends greatly upon the common sense and foresightedness of the citizens, for then the ballet will be restricted to the wise ones in order to have a wise and honest ruler, although wisdom not necessarily implies honesty.

After going through all that we have been trying to say one may ask what system is suitable for our state. Before providing adequate and suitable answer to this question of paramount importance, we shall first observe that no system is bad or good by itself; but people make it bad or good. Governments vary as the characters of populace vary. States are made out of the human natures and wise citizens living within its boundaries.

Rousseau conceived wrongly by assuming that human beings are not good by nature. Beings, themselves are to be blamed for the disasters. It is the rationality and socialness which distinguish human beings from the rest of the creatures. A person is known to be good or bad by his/her action, and an action is good not because it yields good results but because it is done by following the will of an inner sense of duty. It therefore becomes pertinent to know how then this inner sense of duty can be achieved. We cannot possess the sense of duty unless we have the desire to follow the moral laws, regardless of profit or loss for ourselves. This desire or will, to follow the moral laws, though difficult but not impossible, can only be inspired through profound and adequate education. Our society should be formed of educated and enlightened beings. Without such beings, to think for an ideal system and state will be something absurd. Unless we have such beings, we cannot achieve for what we have been trying so far because, as Spinoza says “beings are not born for citizenship but must be made fit for it; minds can be conquered not by arms but by greatness of soul”. After all, as it is believed generally, greatness of soul is a result of enlightened education.

“The instinctive part of men’s character is very malleable”, said Russell. The character can be changed by beliefs, by circumstances and by academic institutions. It is easily understandable, for example that education, whether government controlled or not, could possible mould opinion to social values more than wealth, as in the days of Renaissance. Education can, by the resolution, promote creative minds to overpower the impulses and desires that centre around possessions. There is nothing that human beings might not be able to do, if institutions of learning from schools to universities are adequately developed and properly managed by enlightened ones. Reconstruction of human character is possible only through such a system. Humans have come to control all other forms of life because they have the ability to learn from the environment quickly in which they grow up. They spend time more wisely and learn even to control and moralize their emotions. In the society we shall have educational institutions which miniature community. Education must be reconceived, not as merely a preparation for maturity but as a source of enlightenment which continually nurtures minds and illuminates life.

       Plato’s idea that education must be controlled by a state “so as to make its citizens fit for the government” is refutable, for then with the change of government it would be impossible to change the minds of the citizens. Smooth change in government guarantees and determines the life in citizens and when change in government will otherwise, chaos and frustration will burst out and disaster might be the fate of the state. It is better for both citizens and the state if the state has less control over the mind of its citizens. Therefore “liberal education” is essential for freedom of thought, because freedom is supreme good. Without it personality is impossible. Freedom introduces to human beings the sweetness of truth – tasted by Socrates by drinking hemlock and enhanced by Emile Zola, Copernicus, Galileo and many other wise and enlightened ones. Evidently, truth and a personality are reflections of each other. So, promotion of truth should be one of the primary and important incentives of proper education, because without it the very purpose of education will die. Equipped with freedom, truth and personality, educated ones will be able to refute every idea not appealing to their minds. It is likely such education may cause a negative and selfish attitude of contradicting everything that may come near, but it will not be everlasting, because freedom and truth will also make enlightened ones respect freedom of others, like Voltaire respected Rousseau by saying “he disagreed with every word of Rousseau but would defend, till death, his (Rousseau’s) right of saying it”.

The most authentic argument that “education does not make a man good, it only makes him clever, usually for mischief” is given by Kant. Here of course by cleverness he means “intelligence utilized in achieving something evil that is achieving something for one’s own self by unfair means”. Such a situation may occur only in a highly heterogeneous society – where ration of educated and non-educated is high. Here we are looking for a homogeneous society where the ratio between educated and uneducated is less. Kant’s idea is influenced by an idea that “heart has its own reasons which mind can never understand” — a supremacy of emotions over reasons. The education we uphold should be such, that is neither makes reason superior to emotions, nor emotions superior to reasons, but a single entity a balance of them – enlightenment.

As Russell says, “by watering human mind and character with such an education we will be able to taste its sweet fruit in the shape of a homogenous society’. Therefore, it is pleased that liberal education must be given to each and every individual in order to have an ideal society, for “our schools are open sesame to Utopia”.