Era-specific Moral Science

The title itself will distract majority of readers to avoid reading this article but this could possibly be very practical in today’s era of tough competition and rat races in most of the fields, professional or otherwise. Books like “Five Points Someone” became so popular that a Bollywood movie entitled “3 Idiots” was made based on it. The movie got released in 2009 and became a blockbuster with earnings of $69,533,849.

The movie tried to inculcate in the minds of would be engineers to “pursue passion within, and success will follow pants down”.

The earnings and popularity of the movie indicates that people loved the teaching.

But dismay is that no one followed the teaching. So movie remained successful and a box office hit in its world and the real world went completely different.

So, “liking” something is one thing but “practising the liking” is another. Contradictory it appears, but REALITY IS THAT.

One may like “truthful deeds” and “upfront brutal correct statements” but may not practise it. He enjoys these to remain in movie dialogues and management self help books. The concept is also taught as “case study” in many educational institutes and corporate sectors. These are like “Joan of Arc” inside the photo-frame, not alive and walking on the face of the earth.

The fun observed is that – “future engineers” appreciated the concept of the movie. But soon after its viewing on the silver screen, they vroomed back almost humping and jumping to hostels to mug up lessons for the class room examination to be held in morning (ha ha). Just contrary to the concept of the movie.

It is also a fact that the entire fraternity of intellectuals (teachers and professors and parents and students and who not) appreciated the need of the concept of the movie to be implemented but nobody, including myself, bothered to do it. And what is the reason? Our education system and our society are simply not ready to accept it in day in and day out basis. Inherently and deep ingrained in our mind-set and blood-stream is the notion that – formal degree is the only recognition to enter the society of intellectuals. After that one should get placed in some company or other during the final year of his or her degree education. If one is not able to get himself or she qualified for a campus-placement then he or she is looked down as a loser by the entire society. True??

Under such a circumstance which path the students will follow? If they do not get placed during their final year of college then they are considered as losers. So where is the scope for them to pursue their passion?

Now let us think over the total cycle from a different perspective.

On one hand we appreciate concept of – pursuing passion. On the other hand we emphasize – campus placement and we grab anything that comes to hand. Civil engineers choose for IT companies, Medical professionals go crazy for civil service jobs, veterinary surgeons go for finance specialization in MBA, doctorate in chemistry choose Banking jobs, and so on and so forth. So where is the passion?

This mis-match about (a) our talk or sermon or advises and (b) the real world challenges faced by the students, we look like hypocrites. We talk something and we wish our children to become something. If we look at the real world which the present generation is facing, it would be wise to stop advising theoretical concepts just because we are chronologically elder to them.

Consider the following. The child is taught moral science to be disciplined. The first step (s)he takes is to go the bus stop to board his school bus. Moral science says that he should be in a queue and wait to board the bus when his turns come. But what happens is that a more caring and protective parent comes in between the queue and pushes his child first in to the bus. Result? The child experiences his first contradiction between – what is taught in the moral science class and what is followed in the real world.

Now take this example to a little beyond. The same child goes with his parents on a vacation and sees the crowd in the railway station. What he finds is that there is absolute chaos in boarding train compartments and complete misdemeanour between fellow passengers to occupy seats. The teaching of the moral science class totally goes for a toss. Then he observes the cleanliness (dirtiness is the correct word, though) in the toilets, the silence (high pitched communications) inside the compartments, complete disrespect for railway properties, so on and so forth. The child is dumb founded. Entire teaching of the moral science class appears weird and impractical to him. Now let us forget about the child. Let us ponder ourselves. Are we convinced that our child will be successful to board his own school bus in our absence? If the answer is yes, then how many of us leave the child on its own? If the answer is No, then our sermons are surely IMPRACTICAL and UNFIT to be followed in this world. They have to be fit for this world. Unfortunately, of course, we cannot ignore moral science teaching. But it has to be practical. Dos and Don’ts should be as per the present norm of the society. Again it may sound weird but three decades back we never thought about teaching martial-arts to females but today it is an absolute necessity. It is now imperative in this age to teach martial-arts to all of our female population so that they do not fall victim to rogues. The language must change.

Examples are numerous.

We do not have a single curricula to encourage our young generation to get to pursue their passion. Till their intermediate level of education most of them are aware that medicine and engineering are the two secured streams of education that can fetch them an assured living, however small or big that living could be. Students who miss the bus to catch up these two streams think for other streams, like accountancy, administrative jobs and so on. Students who fail to catch up any of these usually pursue some streams not by choice but by compulsion. So many end up doing jobs or occupations half heartedly and thinking themselves to be inferior then others who have got in to medicine, engineering, administration or accountancy.

All these wrong teachings by we elders and guides through inadvertent thought process has led our country in to a population where no one is proud of his own profession. There is no proud teachers (they go for coaching centres), no proud administrator, no proud agriculturist, no proud mechanic, and the story goes on and goes forth. For each one, the other’s pasture is greener, and in the process we are a population of half-hearted and average professionals. We count on professionals who are successful in other countries. We need to seriously think - why so? It is because those countries have made their students to think about their passion and they have encouraged their children to pursue their passion. That is the reason, we see proud photographers, snake catchers in the National Geographic Channel. How any of them break their head to know what is happening in other fields. South Korea is technologically so advanced. Once during my visit to one of the best nitrate manufacturers in Seoul I was replied back to my question about their political system with comments that – we do not care what the politicians are doing. We do our efficient manufacturing and political system take cares of the country. Points to ponder AND sooner is the better.

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