The significance of free thinking
Sunday, 11 November 2007
M A Samad
THE ultra conservatives in almost all settings have their very narrow view of the world. Besides, they also suffer perhaps from an excess of self-esteem and righteousness. The world view of such orthodox elements are too inflexible, too cocksure and too stubborn to admit any dissenting voice or thought. They have a single track mind and they claim omniscience. They are certain that their thought process is absolutely objective and invincible and anything to the contrary is wrong. Such a frame of mind is not the outcome of scientific reasoning but that of blind belief. However, that has not led the rest of the world to embrace wholeheartedly their myopic view or to line up behind their tyranny of single truth.
Mankind has progressed in all spheres in the last century like never before in human history. Progress in some areas has been questionable or remain controversial. But there is no disagreement in sensible quarters that the driving force of this progress was freedom of thought and activities. The greatest accomplishment of the last century was containing bigotry or ultra conservative notions to enable democratic and plural societies to flourish. In fact, the cumulative experiences of mankind throughout the ages prove that such societies, notwithstanding their lapses and imperfections, are best for people. In the name of welfare of people, totalitarian systems attempted to snatch away people's liberties, their right of choice or their supreme sovereignty over their own affairs. But the same did not work and the results were the complete collapse of communism, the command economy, fascism and other systems of despotism.
Therefore, we have been witnessing the gradual triumph of democracy or yearning for democracy all over the world and a prominent feature of democracy is that in such a system hardly the values or beliefs of a section of people are sought to be superimposed on the people in general. At the heart of a democracy is debate, free discussion to shed light on a matter of purport to help the government to guide or form policy in relation to it. The merit of a real democracy is that it recognises that none has a monopoly of wisdom or knowledge and that the views of all sides must be heard and duly and dispassionately considered to take final decision on an issue of significance from the standpoint of the public good.
THE ultra conservatives in almost all settings have their very narrow view of the world. Besides, they also suffer perhaps from an excess of self-esteem and righteousness. The world view of such orthodox elements are too inflexible, too cocksure and too stubborn to admit any dissenting voice or thought. They have a single track mind and they claim omniscience. They are certain that their thought process is absolutely objective and invincible and anything to the contrary is wrong. Such a frame of mind is not the outcome of scientific reasoning but that of blind belief. However, that has not led the rest of the world to embrace wholeheartedly their myopic view or to line up behind their tyranny of single truth.
Mankind has progressed in all spheres in the last century like never before in human history. Progress in some areas has been questionable or remain controversial. But there is no disagreement in sensible quarters that the driving force of this progress was freedom of thought and activities. The greatest accomplishment of the last century was containing bigotry or ultra conservative notions to enable democratic and plural societies to flourish. In fact, the cumulative experiences of mankind throughout the ages prove that such societies, notwithstanding their lapses and imperfections, are best for people. In the name of welfare of people, totalitarian systems attempted to snatch away people's liberties, their right of choice or their supreme sovereignty over their own affairs. But the same did not work and the results were the complete collapse of communism, the command economy, fascism and other systems of despotism.
Therefore, we have been witnessing the gradual triumph of democracy or yearning for democracy all over the world and a prominent feature of democracy is that in such a system hardly the values or beliefs of a section of people are sought to be superimposed on the people in general. At the heart of a democracy is debate, free discussion to shed light on a matter of purport to help the government to guide or form policy in relation to it. The merit of a real democracy is that it recognises that none has a monopoly of wisdom or knowledge and that the views of all sides must be heard and duly and dispassionately considered to take final decision on an issue of significance from the standpoint of the public good.