Misplaced Virtues-I

The modern age, let us say last 200 years has bought us lot of new virtues which we value much more than the more basic ones which have existed for centuries (maybe). I am talking about societal values and not really the personal ones here. Interestingly, the personal ones which shape the societal ones seem so different. Maybe these collective ones reflect how much the personal values are in practice. Or these societal ones often deflect the personal ones and create more damage than creating common greater good.

The interesting aspect is these values or virtues seem so noble at first glance. In fact, they seem so noble that it would make one look like a Nazi if one had a problem with it. But the collective conscience needs to be woken up, albeit an unpleasant jolt!

Let me list down a few of them:

• Equality for women
• Financial independence
• Education for all
• Material Wellness
• Democracy and its values
• Freedom & rights

I am going to pick up these controversial topics one after another to analyse and hopefully arrive at some common perpetuators or some common thread. Most of these modern ideas at face value seem fair, they actually are not, in fact they are the opposite of fair.

Equality of women

While taking women as a concrete set, if you abstract it and ask yourself are we equal? Obviously it is a deep question, at a philosophical level, but at a secular and at an everyday operational level, we are not equal. What is funny and interesting is that there is a parallel campaign to feel good- You are unique. And people subscribe to these seemingly opposite messages, as it makes one feel in that they are in control. But the opposite happens. But dig a little deeper and you will see that all of them have the same intended impact. "They" want to manipulate you to think and behave in ways which "they" want.

Who are they? I do not know.

Why do "they" want to subscribe to this idea?

Control. Some subtle and some not so much. Who designed it. None, in my opinion. Each used the basic human weakness to gain little things. These little things had a common design arrived at post-facto. This common design now had a have a positive spin to it and what better way than making them into values.

Some food for thought: Are we then equal or unique? In some proportions we are similar but we are not unique. We might have similar ideas, similar lifestyle, similar problems but we also have varying ideas, varying lifestyle and so on so forth.

Politically speaking, capitalistic structures take the unique route while the communistic structures take the equality route. But we have taken both of these, made it into a nice concoction and use either of the cards as per convenience without being married to either.

So the question of equality seems to be such a naive and frivolous question but we have made it into the value on which every nation, every society is measured and benchmarked on.

Now coming back…

Are women equal to men? Is that question right? Are we comparing 2 fruits and asking which is better? And can we say are these equal? Apples are oranges? The answer is an overwhelming no. When 2 women or 2 men are not similar, how can we take the gender difference and completely ignore it.

"They" want you to be equal so that you work harder for them, misplace your priorities, get into deeper ignorance and enjoy the momentary pleasures of life as we talked about before.

One of thing is work. A career is not everything for a man or a woman. Are we just here just to work, creating wealth and then die one day?

And why the same success parameters? Is pigeon-holing the our life into a bunch of numbers and days spent in near captivity the way to measure how well we have spent our lives. Men fell into this trap a long time back and now we have women wanting to do more of the same. Not that men have led lives which is a model on which they have build their lives.

Women in workplace, workplace/ pay equality and women leadership are the new campaigns that are running right now. Why do "they" want you there in the first place?

A precursor to work is education. That is the biggest lie of modern day institutions, that they are educating you. Aren't they? No. They are teaching you a few skills but overall the system is designed to manipulate you and join the workforce. "They" are training your mind and not you to be ok with a mediocre life, a life full of material wealth but lacking the human essence. An education for the sake of it is worthless as much as not being educated is.

A position is to just satisfy somebody's unmet psychological need and that has been drilled into your heads. Selling financial independence in the name of success and false intellectualism is the means to deflect your attention from you.

It just doesn't stop at work. Look at reservations for women on buses, trains etc. If we are equal, then why special treatment. Is to make up for historical wrongdoings of men over women? Why retrospective actions for sharing the same gender of past perpetuators?

Beauty is another aspect. Make women more complete by creams, perfumes, jewellery, clothes etc. so that the women objectification is complete and "they" can use this campaign to sell more. Every marketing campaign for women assumes a woman is not enough but she would need props to feel good, to feel more woman. Not stopping there, they have used the relationship with men as well which has made the entire relationship shallow and transactional. Get the men of dreams, fall in love, princess lifestyle and many more manipulations for a woman to toe the line and live in the dreamland, inaccessible. The equality fighters turn a blind eye to this as equality here does not help meet any goal of binding you to the lies, "they" want you to believe.

The media is the biggest enabler covering the tinsel town, selling dreams in their page 3. Sold out to the "them" or even controlled by "them" they are the last mile.

Women are not equal to men. And men are not equal to women. Some are better than them and some are not so, like how it should be. Modern day societies need to wake up from their slumber and actually question the need for equality and live by personal values creating society which civic and fair. Most religions have not treated women fairly and some in the Hindu society have made grotesque interpretations as well. But I would request you to go back to the Hindu scriptures and read and re-read to understand and develop an understanding of how women were/ should be treated. You will see that it is only an arrangement and you will notice that each person has to focus on one singular goal and you should not lose focus on that.

So are there general responsibilities then for men and women? I would not answer that. That is a very hard question to answer, I would just say that is for you to discover but let that discovery not get effected what others are saying, showing or doing.

Financial independence next…