One day on my way, I saw an old man stooping over his fallen bicycle and picking up his spilt lunch-box from the road. It was a pitiable sight to watch. I could read the agony in his face over his lost lunch. He was quite old to drive a bicycle on such a road but his worn out dress and thin constitution showed that he had no other go. This sight provoked a chain of thoughts in my mind in an effort to understand the existence of social inequalities.
My thoughts lead me to the same dictum again "survival of the fittest !" At all times during this earth's history, those who are either physically or mentally strong dominate and exploit the weak . All the wars and invasions give testimony to this. They were quests of the stronger people to acquire more power and wealth. This kind of behaviour at many levels of the society will invariably lead to accumulation of wealth and resources with some people while some suffer a deficit of the same. In the long run, a society with a very inequal distribution of wealth and resources has emerged.
So, the culprit is the survival instincts in each and every being that lead him to dominate the weaker one. One might ask, why should the instinct be towards dominating the other? Why not there be live and let live? If there is no domination, and resources are equally distributed, then there will be competition which is unfavourable. So to avoid competitions, to make the weak more weaker and unable to compete with the stronger, the stronger have to dominate. Well, as a biologist, I cannot blame those instincts which are the very ones that make this life existant and as per Darwin's theory, has made evolution possible.
So, it appears to me that social inequalities are inevitable if survival has to be possible.
Now, an interesting question is, is it good to attempt to equalize the disparities? I leave it to the reader's discretion for now. I 'll post my own thoughts on it later.
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8 comments:
Good thinking. May b the inequality is the driving force that encourage weaker section to become strong.
This view is quite thought provoking Bala. Thx for the comment
nice thought...
i have to ask u..
did u try to help that old man?
share him few bucks to buy his lunch?!
not everyone is blessed to have money, but the few who is blessed are supposed to give the needy.
thats how life is.
"It is in giving, that we receive"
- GMCKS.
thats a good post, keep posting.
Thanks Balaji. I shall write my views on this as a separate post.
That's what Karl Marx thought as the solution. Didn't he? And we know what happened.
Each of our endeavors are measured by "is this going to cement our position in this world further". Given this, distributing equally to all is a bad idea. Unless there is a complete change in the definition of success, I expect all communist/socialist attempts to fail.
and if that definition changes, life might cease to exist :-)
Depends on what it changes to.
Btw, Anand here (Murali's friend).
U r right. But I think the most optimal definition alone exists because it is most advantageous.
Thanks for the comments Anand.
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