Are We Better Than Our Forefathers?
It is a very ticklish issue to decide whether we are better than our forefathers or not. If we look at various facilities, we can say that we are better than our forefathers. But there are many other aspects, which warn us not to make such a hasty decision. First, these aspects be given due consideration after that if the proposition carries more weight, it can be accepted.
Our forefathers did not have telephones, airplanes, railways and motors. It took them many months to traverse a distance that can be covered in hours now-a-days. They had not seen electricity and its advantages. The life was without present facilities like VCR, CDs, DVDs, Now internet and Cinema houses and air conditioners. Life, today, has become speeding and full of facilities. But the question is whether man is happy or not.
Our forefathers led a simple life. Although it was not this much facilitated, it was full of happiness and peace. They were unaware of many things and this unawareness was a blessing in disguise. They had not revealed various mysteries of nature and were more close to it. They did not have more demands on life and nature so they led a a more happy and satisfied life than ours.
Modern man is passing through an age of material prosperity. The distances have shrunk and the distant places of the world seem to be approachable. But this is an age of confusion. Man, the real tragic soul of the whole panorama of this world, is suffering unbearable pangs of mental agony. He has lost his destination. Moreover his faith is gone. Apparently, he has made a lot of progress. He has conquered nature, many secrets have been made public, but, spiritually, he has gone downward. His graph of progress, in this context, remains at the lowest level. Some one has very beautifully said that abundance of wealth is in reality the death of spirituality.
Man has met his spiritual death, only machines, heartless and unfeeling move around in society. He has become selfish upto maximum extent. If some persons are killed in Kashmir or Bosnia or Palestine, nobody bothers, because they do not have any material relation or link with them. When the Palestinian women cry on the dead bodies of their sons and husbands, we do not feel any agony or trouble, because we ourselves are not faced with such a situation.
Materialism has snatched all the colors from the rainbow of our lives. The only color that remains is of sectarianism, nationalism, prejudiced versions and malicious hateful approach to our fellow-beings. Now we daily read in papers that a son has killed his father, a mother has deserted her children and a brother has very heartlessly killed his brother. This happens only for wealth.
Wealth has made us blind and everybody is running after it, with lustful eyes and without considering even for a while, that whom we push and whom we crush under our feet in this mad race of wealth. No moral or religious bandage is proving successful, in holding us back from indulging in such activities.
Intellectuals like Walt Whitman protest against this inhumanity and aspire to live with animals, which have no jealousy, selfishness and hypocrisy. There is no conspiracy or plot against anyone and nobody has to say “You Brutus, too”. If scientists are proud of their research and progress, they must feel ashamed of atomic warfare. Man has piled up weapons just to kill one another.
No doubt, from the beginning man has subversive nature and can very freely indulge in killing and looting, but now we have sufficient atomic material that can efface all signs of progress, along with the human race, from the face of this earth, within minutes. What a wonderful progress. Still we claim we are happier than our forefathers. No, they were happier and they led a peaceful life in the company of nature without any stress on mind and without any external social pressure. They certainly were not only happier but luckier also because they were unaware of so many things.
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