Hurt Sentiments

               It has now become fashionable to speak about ‘hurting others’ sentiments’.    Not hurting others sentiments and beliefs is touted as civility.  This is true to some extent in private or family life as our spouses, and our immediate families’ sentiments have to be respected even if we consider these sentiments to be irrational.  For example, an atheist husband may accompany his wife to a temple just for giving her company or an atheist woman may go to a temple along with a group of woman just for the sake of friendship.  But this civility cannot be extended to social problems, political or philosophical discussions where the individuals sentiments take a back seat and rationality, logic, facts, need for the society to change for the better, greater common good, come to the forefront as more relevant.  Yes, sentiments can be one of the inputs but when these sentiments affect the flow of logical reasoning or known facts, they have to be sidelined for the sake of greater common good i.e. either understanding of the scientific facts or social realities or progress etc.  Thus while sentiments and beliefs have a certain value, they cannot by themselves be treated as sacred and self-evident.

               In a hierarchical society, in which caste, religion, region, language and such other social phenomena determine a man’s or a woman’s position, hurting others’ sentiments becomes unavoidable or even necessary.  If some change is sought to be made in the customs which denigrate someone and therefore hurt’s the sentiments of a certain group of people, those enforcing these customs may also use this excuse of ‘hurt sentiments’.  They may want to continue the tradition which adversely affects the self-respect of others.  Progress is at one stage, a negation of the past (and the sentiments attached to it) and the next logical step which is yet to be tested in practice. Hurt sentiments are sometimes better than the hurt ‘bodies’.  For example, in the name of hurt sentiments, no one can be permitted to inflict violence on others.  Hurt sentiments are a problem of minds, only treatment of minds can cure it.  It cannot be cured by violating the rights of others to have different opinions.   

                  We may think of the shock and surprise when the first scientist announced to the world that earth is a globe, when everyone was thinking it to be a flat surface.  There is a scene in Berthold Brecht’s famous play ‘Galileo’, in which Galileo is called upon to explain his view that Earth is revolving around the Sun.  Catholic religion had till then held the view that Sun and Moon are going around earth.  In their version, till then considered absolute and unassailable truth, God created earth as the centre of universe and that Pope was the only representative of God on earth. By extension, Pope also was the head of Universe and everything under God. Church stubbornly refused to accept the fact that earth goes around the Sun. When Galileo tries to reason with the Pope, he gets annoyed and trembles in anger.  This is because Galileo is seen challenging the leader of the Christian World on the gospel truths that were next only to God. The whole edifice of God, the Pope as the only representative of a Christian God and the kings and emperors of Christian nations, subject to the authority of Pope for this reason alone and the holy right of Pope’s interventions in Religious and political matters, all would crash by one simple scientific fact.   Surely, this fact must have hurt the sentiments of millions of people who were following Christianity, leave alone the Pope and his army of fathers, brothers and sisters.  In real life, Galileo was imprisoned and tortured for finding the truth and telling it to the world.  Only recently, Catholic Church apologized, rather regretted the treatment meted out to Galileo, after more than 400 years of hurt sentiments. It could not set the record straight for such a long time. Such are the wise men who head religious denominations.  This is one of the example of how public sentiments and believe creates impediments in human progress.

               Similarly, when Darwin’s study led to the truth of Evolution, he was hesitant to openly state that God did not create the world and things and lives evolved themselves.  Scientific evidence suggested that animals existed for millions and millions of years.  Church, on the basis of biblical statements could not think beyond thousands of years, because they could not go beyond the holy book.  Again sentiments were hurt and despite overwhelming evidence, still some god-fearing people refer to Darwin’s theory as unproven and stick to the sentimental nonsense of reducing the age of universe to thousands of years, instead of billions of years. With the proof of evolution goes the story of God creating Man as the supreme being in the universe.  The evidence on earth suggests that ‘man is an insignificant animal’ that had become dominant by the process of evolution and not by anything else, particularly without the agency of any supernatural ‘being’.   Millions of people may still feel ‘hurt’ when these facts are brought before them. But, human progress cannot stop.  Only those with hurt sentiments have to change or die with their illusion and the world moves on.  

               This kind of hurt sentiments further damages the physical phenomena on earth.  Believing that God had created Man and he created everything else for enjoyment of Man, humankind utilizes and exploits all the resources available on earth more than the speed of their regeneration.  Man has by overexploiting the natural resources, has deprived all other animals and plants what is their share. Slowly and without realizing his faults that aggravated environmental problems and would cause immense damage to his own survival, he may still believe that everything is created for human consumption. 

               When increasing consumption is designated as progress, truth of which many people believe, and goods are produced without caring for environment for the goal of more production, more goods, more facilities and more profits, and many more becoming rich and becoming rich becomes a religion, all kinds of environmental, social, economic and political destruction ensues. These are also sentiments, that are created by human beings, with their research, logic and facts.  But however pure may be the methods of social sciences, the conclusions they arrive at, cannot be equated with the facts of pure sciences. We may also remember that even in pure sciences, some theories discovered earlier, turn out to be wrong later.  Thus social sciences and economics however pure their data and methods are, may go wrong.  Therefore, the theories of money, economics et el are valid only till they succeed and have to be discarded once they fail. Those who have proposed those concepts and those who believed in those concepts will be hurt once their findings go wrong.  But their hurt is actually good for the society.

                 In our families we do hurt our fathers, mothers, brothers, spouses, Sons and Daughters too many times to take these instances very seriously.  For example, some fathers want their songs to study a particular subject or to take up a particular profession and want their daughters to be a devout house wife of an unworthy spouse. A son wants to settle in a foreign country, saying that he has no future in a dirty, unprofessional caste ridden society.  He might be looked upon as ultra-modern and not a worthy son of an orthodox father. Additional danger is of contracting a marriage with a woman of his choice and not of his father.  Definitely it would hurt a father, who has, for his whole life struggled to come up in life spite of heavy odds and feels why his son prefers to run away from the battle field of life in his motherland. But however hard and dry their relationships may be they do not indulge in violence to vent their hurt sentiments.  This is a family. What is a nation but a family of communities? Are the often quoted pious words ‘Vasudeva Kudumbakam’ only for speeches and television shows? If we believe in that we prove it by following it, not by violating its spirit.

               In the course of politics, in recent times, we are too often ready to be offended or pretend to be offended to gain political following.  If one holy scripture is attacked, on the grounds that it contains many passages that go against the modern understanding of human rights, many people’s feelings get hurt. They say it is their holy book and no one can speak ill of it. It would not come to the discussion table that even if the holy book contains many prescriptions that go against the human values practiced in the current age.

On the other hand, many others’ feelings may be hurt if they read those so called holy books.  IF it prescribed unequal treatment of people according the customs that were prevalent in the period in which it was written, it could be definitely criticized by people who are denigrated by it, as not only their feelings but also their social status in the present is affected by those prescriptions.   In today’s India, it is a fact that no one is treated as unequal only because of one holy scripture.  One text cannot be blamed for all the ills in this world.  There are hundred reasons for it.  The text in question reinforces the prejudices that exist now. That is the reason any scripture becomes controversial.

               A man who quoted the offending text may be ostracized for insulting a particular group or particular gender.  Instead, controversial passages of the text should have been critically assessed and disowned and treated as irrelevant in today’s society by all those who stand for women’s equal rights. This is applicable to all the books that have ever been written.   

               Hurt feelings and justifying violence in the name of hurt feelings is a things of past in a world that examines everything with knowledge and reasoning.  Those who are upholding any scripture simply because it was believed to have been written thousands of years ago, would be laughed at, like the Pope who punished Galileo and the Church which regretted it after 400 years.  What do we do, if you are hurt by anything done by anyone in the family?  Get on with it.  Criticize it when necessary, but live with it.  This is applicable in respect of a book or a view that is expressed in public space.  Pretend as if you are offended.  But keep you mind away and clear from it, like politicians do.  Their goal is power, and definitely not saving any religion.  God can save himself for he has been existing for thousands of years.  Our duty is to save human beings.