Tweet
This is a question which baffles me. I have observed (I may be entirely mistaken, but this is my impression) that in today's Western tradition, people seem not to trust non-governmental institutions for tackling the problems of society. They seem to always want to change the government to suit their ideal so that their pet set of issues gets resolved.
What I fail to understand is why there is such a distrust of non-governmental institutions which seek to help society. I'll give you an example of what I mean.
In India, there was a long tradition of a dynamic society which did not overly rely on the apparatus of the state. Most Indian systems were ones which did not have a single point of failure - it was only society-wide changes which could disturb them.
Let us take the example of the Indian tradition of the gurukul. A gurukul was a place to where children were sent at the age of eight, and a bunch of children lived there with their teacher until the age of majority. There they learnt everything that they would need in their adult lives, and they became a well-adjusted part of society (there was no sense of not belonging). The guru-shishya (or guru-disciple) bond was a sacred one, and the disciples or students were a part of the guru's family (the students would call his wife "mother", for example). How did they sustain themselves? By bhiksha, or donations by householders. Every day, the students would go out and request grain and food from people in the locality. It was considered a duty of the householder to give some grain or food to the students, so everyone chipped in. The guru supported himself and his family by means of the gurudakshina his students gave him.
The next system which worked without governmental interference was that of the university. Universities worked with state patronage, but that was it - the state did not dictate university policy. They were completely intellectually free to do and teach whatever they wanted. It was considered a duty of the king to support learned men, so he supported universities without expecting anything in return. But these grants were not enough to support each individual scholar who was in the university. So how did they support themselves? Again, by what (usually rich) students gave them. If a student was too poor to pay (as was the case with many Brahmins), he could work for the teacher or the university in return for his education.
This system was good enough that it attracted lots of students from all over India, some students from China and Persia, and a few students from as far as Europe. And education was accessible to all, due to the nature of the system itself.
The idea was the society was self-correcting - it would not depend too much on the state's existence, it could go on existing without state support and patronage. Why do people from Western countries not have the attitude of "To hell with the state, I'll set up an institution which does not need the state but will work on its own"? This is the view taken by nationalists (of the good sort) and cultural revivalists in India - that we should set up systems which are immune from the corruptions of politics. And they're doing that. An example.
Why is it that most people can only think in terms of how to wrest political control (communists, socialists, et al) instead of seeing how to change society into what they want it to be? Instead of waiting for your political time to come, why not start building the society of your dreams right now? If it can be done in India by people who are quite impoverished, and if these people can resurrect institutions long dead, why can't it be done in the prosperous West?
What I fail to understand is why there is such a distrust of non-governmental institutions which seek to help society. I'll give you an example of what I mean.
In India, there was a long tradition of a dynamic society which did not overly rely on the apparatus of the state. Most Indian systems were ones which did not have a single point of failure - it was only society-wide changes which could disturb them.
Let us take the example of the Indian tradition of the gurukul. A gurukul was a place to where children were sent at the age of eight, and a bunch of children lived there with their teacher until the age of majority. There they learnt everything that they would need in their adult lives, and they became a well-adjusted part of society (there was no sense of not belonging). The guru-shishya (or guru-disciple) bond was a sacred one, and the disciples or students were a part of the guru's family (the students would call his wife "mother", for example). How did they sustain themselves? By bhiksha, or donations by householders. Every day, the students would go out and request grain and food from people in the locality. It was considered a duty of the householder to give some grain or food to the students, so everyone chipped in. The guru supported himself and his family by means of the gurudakshina his students gave him.
The next system which worked without governmental interference was that of the university. Universities worked with state patronage, but that was it - the state did not dictate university policy. They were completely intellectually free to do and teach whatever they wanted. It was considered a duty of the king to support learned men, so he supported universities without expecting anything in return. But these grants were not enough to support each individual scholar who was in the university. So how did they support themselves? Again, by what (usually rich) students gave them. If a student was too poor to pay (as was the case with many Brahmins), he could work for the teacher or the university in return for his education.
This system was good enough that it attracted lots of students from all over India, some students from China and Persia, and a few students from as far as Europe. And education was accessible to all, due to the nature of the system itself.
The idea was the society was self-correcting - it would not depend too much on the state's existence, it could go on existing without state support and patronage. Why do people from Western countries not have the attitude of "To hell with the state, I'll set up an institution which does not need the state but will work on its own"? This is the view taken by nationalists (of the good sort) and cultural revivalists in India - that we should set up systems which are immune from the corruptions of politics. And they're doing that. An example.
Why is it that most people can only think in terms of how to wrest political control (communists, socialists, et al) instead of seeing how to change society into what they want it to be? Instead of waiting for your political time to come, why not start building the society of your dreams right now? If it can be done in India by people who are quite impoverished, and if these people can resurrect institutions long dead, why can't it be done in the prosperous West?
Comment