Friday, January 01, 2010

Ideological Vanity

An ideal that does not serve another higher purpose is a cosmetic moral accessory. Its donning reeks of vanity and speaks of a paucity of purpose.

The highest possible tangible purpose is human happiness - an end in itself.

8 comments:

Darshan Chande said...

The highest possible tangible purpose is human happiness - an end in itself.

What do you mean by "happiness", first of all. To me, happiness is just not real, in that it's just a temporary state of mind; never a lasting thing. The closet thing to lasting or "perfect happiness" is contentment. Another thing: The highest aim is "HUMAN happiness"? There you separate your spices from the rest of the Nature. As if humans are some special. This also pricks me. If you are fully, let me say it again, FULLY aware of the destruction humans are inflicting on this planet and its entire life system, with their "human intelligence" you must know this that this sort of life is not at all conducive to human happiness also (though in the long run mostly) which you are talking about. Yeah, ignorant may feel this insane happiness. But in that happiness and the one felt by a drunkard after the drink, there's no difference.

TO me, the purpose of life is not even happiness. Happiness is absolutely insignificant to me. I choose contentment. Complete satisfaction. Maybe that's what you mean by your "happiness"? Don't know. And this contentment ideally can come when life is lead absolutely without any desire and/or expectations. Meaning, free of purposes. That, in itself, is a purpose, though. But then it's like I am making it a purpose to live life without purposes. All fair, isn't it? And most of all, for me, the existence of the whole is my existence. I can not tolerate myself living at the cost of thousands of species on this planet, just by the vice of being born as human. I want live in the whole. That's the reason I call Nature God. And I do worship it. Worship there means respecting it and try your best to live to its welfare. When you are completely in tune with Nature you are perfect. Since that's not possible (the way humans live today), I say perfection is not possible. But I DO try to keep close to perfect. In that sense.

Animals are unconsciously in tune with Nature. Humans have got consciousness. It, then, makes us more responsible, you know. We have got to be CONSCIOUSLY in tune with Nature. But we are failing to. We have failed, in fact. Sorry, HUMANITY has failed. I have already disowned the title of "human". I am a universal being. And though being in the human form I am not perfect, I am in bliss within my God. I am just a lone observer in this world. Enjoying it's colors as if playing a video-game. On the inside, however, nothing of this world, and no one, can though me. Can't describe this state. It's absolute non-attachment. Some people like this here and here (follow comments) think I am no different from "vegetables"... Haha... I am happy being a vegetable. I don't want to be "special" like humans. Hahahahaha!!! Special!!!! NO WAY!!

Darshan Chande said...

A correction:

Enjoying ITS colors as if playing a video-game. On the inside, however, nothing of this world, and no one, can TOUCH me.

Ketan said...

Hi Darshan!

I had directed you to this post, for the second part of my assertion in the post about purpose of life in response to your question - why have morality?

And the first part of the post was in response to some of the comments I had received on this post (click) (totally unrelated to anything we have discussed before).

The issue there was an established ideal (speaking the truth) v/s a purpose (human happiness).

Hope, there is no misunderstanding, now. :)

I know there are many loopholes in my moral system - some of which I am ashamed of, and there are "solutions" (click) to it too, which I am afraid of! :) Thanks to you, I will be definitely discussing these extremely personal issues on my blog in unprecedented amount of details, without worrying if my readers will get bored! :)

Thanks for commenting!

TC.

Sowmya Chakravarthy said...

can you give me an example of a cosmetic moral accessory?

Ketan said...

Sowmya,

Welcome to the blog!

A simplistic, but extreme example would be speaking the truth on whereabouts of a friend to someone wanting to kill him/her, as I might think "telling truth is a virtue", when in fact my lying could save the friend's life and perhaps even lead to the apprehension of the friend's enemy.

Let me come to a less extreme, but more likely example.

Imagine, I were married and I discover that my wife had stopped loving me, and that she was also indulging in extramarital affair. Moreover, she does not mind my entering an extramarital affair. Add to it the fact that there is someone who also loves me. Now, the only constraint to my entering the affair would be my 'ideal' of keeping my promise of (sexual) loyalty to my wife that I would have (verbally or otherwise) made at the time of marriage. But one closer inspection I feel that keeping my word is serving no higher purpose than simply that, that is, keeping my word simply for the heck of it. Whereas, not keeping my word would look less than idealistic, but would still lead to greater happiness of two people - the one who loves me and who I love back....

Darshan Chande said...

Now I understand this post fully. Even the second part. (I believe so!)

Ketan said...

...My this post stems from the belief that morality (which flows from the self) and ethics (which needs to flow from the self, but is determined by dynamics of inter-human interaction) had evolved to maximize chances of human survival, comfort and happiness. But obviously, what acts lead to greater chances of survival and happiness need to be encouraged, and what decrease the chance need to be discouraged. This encouragement and discouragement apart from the course that law would take, also started coming respectively from 'praise' and 'rebuke'. So, certain acts became 'good' and certain, 'bad'.

But we get so conditioned in childhood and even later in life, that we start equating 'goodness' and 'badness' with the nature of acts, rather than the intent behind them or their consequences. So, the feeling that an ideal is to be upheld simply because I had always been considering it 'good', and by upholding it I am being 'good' (irrespective of the intent or consequences) is something I have termed as "cosmetic moral accessory". From my small argument with you on payment of taxes, I feel you might disagree with me on certain aspects of my analysis, but then this is what I feel.

Hope, I could explain properly and to an extent justify my position.

Thanks for reading and commenting!

Ketan said...

Darshan,

Our exchange is so old, that I hardly remember where there was disagreement or confusion, but glad that you could understand what I meant better (presumably from my elaboration given to Sowmya).

Thanks for the feedbank! :)