The cat concludes world is dark by just closing its eyes

UPSC CSE IAS ESSAY: The cat concludes world is dark by just closing its eyes

Introduction:

Every person takes the limits of their own field of vision for the limits of the world.

Arthur Schopenhauer.

Background:

• We interpret the world, not research and discover it. We understand it based on our judgment not based on what is actually true.
• We close our eyes and think the world is darkened because our judgment is the way we see and feel the world. This is called ignorance.

Cases of such ignorance:

• Ignorant people do not know the existence of many great things, a leopard that loves solitude doesn’t know the social nature of elephant life, and a modern Gen Z kid doesn’t know the value of a joint family, What we don’t know we comment that as untrue.
• Superstitious do not know the lake turns red due to eutrophication but believe god killed the devil which led a bloodshed.
• A man does not know the suffering being undergone by a menstruating woman etc.
• Atheists do not know how the universe came into existence and disapprove of god, religious people never saw a god with 12 hands but they believe it as true.

Why we do so?

• We believe in our logics and imaginations that whatever majority tells is true not what is true matters e.g. GDP growth is primary since the majority tells the pain suffered by displaced tries is immaterial.
• We can’t learn everything, our capacity is not unlimited, so we learn is alone fullest truth.
• We are not tolerant, we are not receptive to alternative thoughts.

What is wrong with that?

• Being judgemental leads to wrong decisions – Buddhist Jataka story in which a mother judgementally kills a mongoose on the presumption that it killed her baby, while the truth is the mongoose saved her baby from a snake.
• This leads to prejudices and stereotypes like black is not beautiful or men can’t cry.
• Also, this causes disagreements and dogmatism. Fundamentalism is a case in point e.g. ISIS says Islam is only true religion by closing its eyes.
• We see only a part of the truth thus we never grow e.g. for a blind man understanding an elephant story. This leads to misdirected life e.g. our ignorance of interlinking between us and nature caused climate change.

Who do that mostly?

• People who lack one mind and full of ego are intolerant to both criticism and disagreement e.g. Stalin murdered every activist who disagreed his collectivist project.
• People who like ignorant e.g. ignorance is bliss.
• Person who lack emotional intelligence to understand a situation completely and then come to a decision e.g. In Ramayana Lakshman was restless and Rad had temperance, in many ways Lakshmans decisions caused trouble mainly cutting nose of Ravans sister.
• Flip side – being ignorants is also good sometimes, ignorance is bliss.

Is it a systematic failure? Yes, to not strive for truth or to lack intellectual integrity are problems caused by,

• wrong parenting – imbibing superstitions;
• Lack of critical thinking in education;
• Society that lives in ignorance e.g. Ambedkar observation of villages as den of ignorance.
• Plato give his allegory of cave idea to prove how we live a fake life. He said reality is a shadow of truth, so we misjudge shadow and real.

Todays times

• Today ignorance of human nature is not the only problem but we wilfully deny our true nature to respect environment, follow one health approach, think beyond self. Guru Nanak said “like misjudging rope as snake, we are thinking our actual limited selfish nature as truth”.

How to overcome this

• Promote love for truth, before that build tolerance;
• Nurture mindfulness through yoga and psychotherapy;
• Promote integrity to avoid hypocrisy;
• Spreading literacy mainly financial and digital literacy which may create new oceans of illiteracy if not addressed.