Key Learning points from
‘The difficulty of being good: On the subtle art of Dharma’
by Gurcharan Das
Dharma is a complex word and is untranslatable. It means variously virtue, duty and law, but is chiefly concerned with doing the right thing. Duty, goodness, justice, law and custom all have something to do with it, but they all fall short.
Dharma refers to ‘balance’ – both moral balance and cosmic balance. It is the order and balance within each human being which is also reflected in the order of the cosmsos. It is the moral law that sustains the society, the individual and the world. It is the discipline of ordered existence.
Dharma also means moral rectitude – a struggle in your soul to do the right thing.
By creating more equality, socialism was supposed to eliminate human envy. But the opposite happened. Oddly enough, as leveling increases in society, it actually increases envy. The law here is that envy is felt more strongly between near equals than those widely separated in fortune. Envy will rise as the number of differences among people diminish; the fewer differences will result in fewer standards to measure one against, and since most will not measure up, there will be greater envy.
The Soviet Union was pervaded with envy because tiny differences such as a new tablecloth, got exaggerated in a neighbour’s eyes. If greed is the ice of capitalism, envy is the flaw of socialism.
The Right wings are suspicious of egalitarianism because the impulse for equality usually curbs liberty.
A life lied by dharma can diminish the vulnerability of the human beings to the ‘unevenness’ of the world.
Mahabharat keeps repeating that dharma is subtle (sukshma). This is because it does not deal with ‘matter of fact’ but deals with opinions about how we ought to behave.
Differing interpretations of Dharma :
Yuddhisthir expresses that Dharma is his instinctive sense of duty : ‘I act because I must’ He does not follow Dharma in hope of reward that might come. He acts from a sense of what he has to do.
Dharma or ‘what he has to do’ is a standard of conduct, and a society needs standards. ‘He who doubts Dharma finds in nothing else a standard and ends in setting himself as a standard’. He is saying, in effect, that following Dharma is its own reward. When one acts thus, it is motives and not consequences that are important.
Yudhishthir’s answer to Draupadi implies that consequences or ends do not justify the means. Although the Pandavas have a perfectly legitimate end in regaining the lost kingdom, they must recover it only by honest means, without compromising Dharma. Yudhishthira might not have abandoned an individual for the sake of the family. His sense of Ahimsa, non-violence, might not have allowed him to sacrifice even a single human life.
He looks upon all sentient beings (not just human beings) as ends in themselves. When one sacrifices an individual for a village, then one treats that individual as a means rather than an end.
Draupadi, however feels that this principle cannot apply in ‘politics’ where the opponents are always on the erge of applying ‘dirty tricks’ to gain power.
Vidura was another consequentialist that an act is good only if it promotes good consequences.
Yuddhishtira gives following arguments to Draupadi :
He who resolutely follows Dharma, finds infinitude hereafter.
He appeals to her through the law of Karma : that good deeds yield good results eventually.Based on their faith in the law of Karma, Pandavas knew that virtue will be rewarded finally(Satyamev Jayate) and it is this faith that kept them going.
He turns to the social benefits of moral action. He compares dharma to a ship that allows human beings to journey through life. His assumption is that human beings can lie together only if they co-operate. If people do not trust each other, the social order will collapse. Our moral rules such as Ahimsa or Satya are, in fact, the rules for co-operation.
Would it be right to torture one child so as to save a dozen children from suffering ? The great divide in ethical thinking is between those who judge an act based on its consequences ersus those who judge it based on their conscience or duty or some rule.
Dharma disciplines the pursuit of pleasure (Kam) and wealth (Arth), and thus provides balance to a good human life. A good and flourishing life demands that a human being observe Dharma. This is the fourth reason of following dharma. But by insisting to remain in the forest, Yudhisthira neglects the pursuit of Kama and Artha and thereby fails to fulfill life’s purpose.
Later in the epic, Yudhisthira transforms from a guileless idealist to a pragmatist who understands the limitations of those who hae to rule a state. Machiaelli says that a good man who wishes to profess goodness at all times will come to ruin among so many who are not good.
The principle of evolutionary scientists called the principle of reciprocal altruism says that : Adopt a friendly face to the world but do not allow yourself to be exploited. Mahatma Gandhi’s and Jesus’s teaching about turning the other cheek sends them a wrong signal that cheating pays. Nehru who espoused the cause of communist China in post-war diplomacy learnt this lesson the hard way when the very same Chinese invaded us.
Both Aristotle and Plato firmly believed that virtue could be taught. A person’s character is not something that one is born with. It evolves with repetition. To become virtuous requires virtuous actions.
Dharma requires a pluralistic approach. One needs to order different virtues in a hierarchy in order to help one to choose in the case of a conflict. Dharma is expected to help us balance the plural ends of life i.e. desire, material well-being and righteousness – when they come in conflict. Dharma sets limits on the pursuits of pleasure and wealth. In practice, this implies, that one maximizes one’s pleasure as long as it does not diminish another’s.
Krishna felt that restoring the cosmic balance was an end which justified the means of going to war. Arjuna felt that no matter what the end is, there is moral culpability involved in killing your own kin. Arjuna’s tragic dilemma teaches us that moral choices are not merely private.
A just war (dharma-yuddha) is a just war when it is just on three counts : just cause, just conduct and just consequences. The just war theory also is based on the recognition that war is inevitable in human affairs; rather than hope for its abolition the best one can do is to mitigate its effects.
There are three simple criteria to make a war just :
When it is a defence against aggression or an attempt to stop atrocities.
The values at stake over-ride the presumption against killing – the expected good must outweigh the cost of killing and destruction.
It must be a last resort when all the other alternatives are exhausted.
The realpolitik school believes that you better conquer your neighbour before he invades your territory. It has a Duryodhana-like flavour, that all that matters is to win and for that anything goes. This is based on a life-is-a-tooth-and-claw-struggle paradigm of the world.
One wishes there were more statesmen like Arjuna and Yuddhisthira in this world who place the demands of Dharma in the same equation as the material pros and cons of going to war.
Arjuna’s total focus and Krishna’s Niskham Karma actually both tend to highlight the importance of self-forgetting in our lies. Een Zen says that ‘When a person reflects, deliberates and conceptualizes; the original unconsciousness is lost and thought interferes.’
Nishkam Karma also goes to mean ‘to do your duty to the ‘T’ without letting your intellect weave any escapes’ . However Nishkam Karma alone can have its own problems. Acting only for the sake of duty without further Viveka can have its own problems. Eichmann, a senior Nazi officer and also called by some as the ‘Architect of the Holocaust’ told during his trials that he could do his task of sending the Jews to gas chamber with such unsympathetic precision simply because he felt that his commitment to his duty was higher than anything else.
Nations have gradually conquered poverty and turned middle class, not through selflessness but through the ‘self-interest’ of individuals in the marketplace. Nations have grown prosperous because they depended on institutions that allowed them to unleash the power of modern technology. Among these institutions were law and order, stable governance and property rights – all of which encouraged the growth of trade,markets and entrepreneurs. These liberal institutions presume that the citizen will act on the basis of self-interest rather than through selfish acts of heroism.
Aristotle had objected to Plato’s ideal of common ownership of property because some people would resent those who labour little but receive much. He had though that private property was natural and legitimate, for the love of the self is a feeling implanted by nature and not given in vain, although selfishness is rightly censured; this however is not the mere of the self but the love of self in excess; like the miser’s love of money. Aristotle had the same sensible distinction between rational self-interest and selfishness. One should not make the common mistake in believing that the opposite of selflessness is selfishness. There is a liberal middle ground of ‘self-interest’ which dries ordinary human beings. This is what successful liberal institutions depend upon.
We must also admire the benevolent acts of many philanthropists, social activists and environmentalists to even out the excesses of capitalism. These are, however, moral ideals rather than moral rules for society. Enlightened philanthropy can make a difference, but in the end, liberal institutions will do far more in lifting people out of poverty and oppression. Liberal, lightly regulated institutions depend on the natural ‘self-interest’ of ordinary persons rather than on selfless acts of heroic leaders.
Rational self-interest is the correct basis on which to design public institutions, especially when they involve large numbers of people who do not have day-to-day contact with each other. These are the institutions of democratic capitalism.
Affirmative action has three problems :
1)It makes the overall system in-efficient
2)It is unfair. It treats equals unequally
3)It damages self-esteem.
However, the need for removal of biased treatment is surely valid. Hence
There should be affirmative action but without numerical quotas
These should be there for some time and not for perpetuity
In education, a scholarship program can be based on economic criteria and not caste since this will at least free us from creating a casteist society.
Krishna’s misdeeds in the Mahabharat must be seen in the context of one who tried very hard to prevent the Kurukshetra war. Also, in order to preserve ‘Dharma’ in this imperfect world of Kali Yuga, he had to commit ‘smaller wrongs’ for the sake of a ‘bigger right’.
Yuddhishthira always explained to Draupadi : ‘Forgiveness is the strength of the virtuous. To fight is easy, to forgive difficult. To be patient is not to be weak, to seek peace is always the wiser course. Forbearance is superior to anger. In taking revenge, a man is but even with the enemy; in passing it over, he is superior. That which is past is gone, irrevocable, and the wise have enough to do with the present matters.’
Following Dharma is good because while taking decisions based on dharma, one experiences the presence of ‘free choice’ or perceived autonomy which is a good feeling to have. One feels that one is not always at the mercy of fate.
When Mahatma Gandhi turned the other cheek to the British colonial rulers, he was holding up an ideal of moral perfection. The ideals of Dharma, by inspiring us, can give significance to a life that might otherwise be adrift. This significance or meaningfulness gives a shield against human vulnerability or the hand of fate.
To a person who may or may not believe in God, Mahabharat offers an alternative life dedicated to Dharma. A person who follows Dharma realizes the ideal of his own character and manifests the eternal lawfulness in himself. Thus, the basic purpose of Dharma is the realization of the dignity of human spirit.
