When Fundamentals have gone wrong...
Basic Principles, Human Decency, Moral and Ethical code are branded as "ancient" thinking and the societies fell flat on the face.....
What happens when Fundamentals go wrong in a Society?
If you look at historical timeframes in the units of decades, you will be able to map some of the fundamentals and how they have declined steadily and then rapidly during certain timeframes.
It is important to define and identify what we mean by “fundamentals” and under what set of dimensions I’m making a case for us to ponder over.
Fundamentals:
- Basic Morality - Knowing what’s right and wrong; Consciously steering away from doing anything objectively immoral.
- Basic Principles - Not harming an innocent individual; Not attacking an individual or a group personally to trigger reptilian brain with a fight or flight mode; Not stealing others’ stuff; Not telling lies / being simply honest; Being truthful in sharing what you know the most; Not breaking others immorally: psychologically or mentally; Not manipulative for personal or selfish gains; Not deriding, defaming, slandering fellow others without any provocation and such.
- Ethical code of conduct - Doing ethical business with delivering to promised terms; following the terms mutually agreed upon; timely payments to the vendors or others who have provided their crafts / services; Good customer service support.
- Human Decency - Speaking civil; using a language that makes you read or learn more about a person or perspective or an incident or an event or an idea; a modicum of respect for a fellow human; a professional demeanor; a sense of self and keeping respectful boundaries.
Premise:
(1) From the above dimensions of what’s deemed “Fundamentals”, the societies have retarded and declined in a collective setting of it. Basic Principles, Human Decency, Moral and Ethical code are somehow branded as “ancient” thinking and the societies fell flat on the face thereby.
(2) “Modernity” is not in abandoning the fundamentals, but in adhering them while adapting the ideas to meet the evolutionary state.
(3) Fundamentals are evergreen, they are not subject to fading fashion, as they are not an element of fashion or style. It’s an evergreen ingredient for a good human existence across the generations and eras.
Let’s explore some thoughts and see how we can meet the above Premise / claims made.
An axiom / a reasonable fact: Individuals who are principled, ethical, moral and decent have always existed in every era, and found their set of challenges to swim through the murky waters and heavy tides to surf, when they are imposed and superimposed due to abuse of authority or other manifestations of fundamentals broken.
But, if we dumb it down and take it at a collective level, it maybe easier and more evident by segmentation of decades and by the above dimensions, to observe where the fundamentals have gone wrong and the adverse impact of it felt on ordinary people.
A Case to make: Politics is the primary area that’s deeply corrupt in any country or society. It’s almost an expected reality and any otherwise is an exception but not a norm. Unfortunate, but it’s a reality to acknowledge.
What has changed and slipped and declined so greatly that we are in a much dire state of fundamentals-gone-too-wrong-to-correct state?
Sphere and Nature of Impact:
- Where does this impact of contaminated state painfully felt in the ordinary people?
- Where does it get to our nerves on a regular basis, in our day-day lives?
- And, how a phenomenon like political corruption and contamination made it’s way into other Systemic areas, accelerating the negative impact on the Societies?
Abuse of authority is one of the main reasons why the fundamentals have gone wrong and went South, in the recent decade or more…
What was once limited in Political arena by and for the politicians’ greed has far surpassed the allowable, tolerable limits.
The viral disease has struck the Judicial System, the Legislation System, the other adjacent private Orgs in collaboration with the Governments, private individuals with power to push an agenda, political lobbyists, health insurance, banking and finance, Corporate worlds and more…..
It has almost become ubiquitous theme to ‘abuse the authority’ anywhere.
Why? Simple. It goes unchecked. It’s hard to spot it and find it and report it and make the culprits accountable, in any meaningful, reasonable and timely fashion. And, there’s no practical, viable means for the ordinary, innocent ones impacted by such an abuse of authority strikes. So, it goes and spins around and the disease spread virally.
This trickle down effect has been so deep that there are hardly any honest, principled individuals in the right authority to make a difference or move the needle or help remedy the situation in any pockets of the issue prevalence.
Anyone who stands up to correct it in the right way, using principled approach gets threatened, emotionally blackmailed, exploited or attacked personally, immorally or by other dreadful, evil means to shut them down.
This has led to more and more sycophancy for the autocratic, corrupt leaders.
So, fewer and fewer individuals have the strength to remain in their individual power to retain who they are.
From a spectrum of shaming the corrupt leaders and making them accountable in a Democratic Nation, it has gone to the abysmal levels of shaming the honest individuals / professional in any given field who call the corrupt ones out.
This is a dire state of political and social affairs, at large, in many major developed countries.
There are multiple resulting effects, in the intertwined nature of cause and effect playing and feeding one to the other, in a massive, accelerated shutdown of fundamentals.
Resulting effects:
If an immoral act like Children and human trafficking scandals break out, the entire Systems that are otherwise autonomous, responsible for legal resolution are now in the colluding role with the perpetrators, criminals in question.
The victims of any crime can’t seek justice and bring their truth out to the world.
All other undesirable social evils are a subset of the big fallouts in the fundamentals at the top and they are viewed in a hierarchical setting. Meaning, they are constantly compared with the bigger corrupted area and slide by, in a relative comparable justice given/not given status.
For example, a nefarious, immoral act of releasing mass clips of fake or defamatory news / clips etc., is not getting due attention by the right legal departments. And, you ask me why? It goes back to the circular loop of where it all began. They are all tied but they are viciously tied more than ever before.
Nothing moves in the right direction because every single person in the frame of social evil are caught up with showing a finger to the next person or entity or model that’s equally or more corrupt and hence…
In all of this, the perpetrators are becoming victims of their own making. And, the true innocent children victims or other random innocent, decent victims don’t get due justice.
The net effect, in some form or shape, everyone is becoming a victim of some kind of objectively immoral act by some other entity. Ironically, some special set of victims maybe perpetrators of some other crimes, or some corrupt ones who have played a significant role in creating this vicious loop of political and social affairs.
When BBC doctored a video of the POTUS, it’s easy to see how he’s a victim of an immoral act.
But, it’s not to say that the POTUS isn’t a cause of any other corruption or crime or other perpetration of all other social evils.
This is to show a quick, related example that’s in the public knowledge. And, there are numerous cases like that and numerous individuals like that.
People without principled life or good character find it easier to get into blame game, finger-pointing, quick to judge other political opposition party, take refuge in finding fault with a policy or ideology beneath it but it’s all stemming from their own disposition of ‘every accusation is a confession’ of their own faults.
The above resulting effect isn’t reserved for any one or two individuals but a widespread observation that can be witnessed in big groups of lobbyists, agencies, foreign interferences with many different motives, agendas.
Traitors, terroristic ideas make their way easy into any infected country and state of affairs. A body that’s weak attracts any new disease easily due to weak immune body. Likewise, a country weak in leadership, great in corruption and grand in indecency attracts even more traitors, fraudsters, money laundering, child and human trafficking and all other deadly sins can do a disco dance in broad daylight and no one is equipped to stop them in their tracks.
And, there are more effects, and, we may not be exhaustive to list them all, but we covered a good ground to get a sense of where we are and a map and ‘you are here’ model setup for us.
It’s evident that the fundamentals are gone way too wrong, lately.
There’s no one or two people to blame as it’s a cyclical process that has swept into various Systems steadily all with our eyes wide open and watching it happen in real-time.
What we may not want to do, in the short term:
Know that ‘NO TWO WRONGS MAKE ONE RIGHT’.
Every individual’s resume is their own history of rights and wrongs. It’s not built in relative or comparative fashion.
Meaning, it simply doesn’t matter if someone is a criminal and got away somehow in getting legal or other accountability, if you do any immoral act, it will be on your account and on your lifestory and resume. They are not netted out.
If two people are known CROOKS, both are CROOKS. They don’t net out and/or get adjusted for any other reconciled status. Good Principles work that way (w/o mutual adjustments to take out the Crookery)
If a bunch of people have done bunch of corruption and immoral acts, all that bunch will be independently viewed for their corruption acts, need to made accountable for their individual wrongs and there’s no netting out, in matters of objective morality.
Acknowledge the fact that we are in a dire state of politics and social status with a departure from decency and fundamentals (as stated above).
Know where you are, what your role is, bring some high sense of awareness in your own actions in any authority you maybe playing in your personal and professional roles. And, see, if you can remedy, rectify, course correct and/or do anything towards making it right, keeping in view of any innocent victims due to your direct, conscious, immoral acts.
Making slogans like ‘save the children’ are highly virtuous, high energy moral element.
Make sure you are a good part of it and are not in any negating / self-contradictory or evil associations with perpetrators who violated and harmed children.
Your noble Cause needs credibility.
And, it starts with YOU. With YOU cleansing and making sure you have the clear conscience, moral courage, right association with the right, principled people who can champion your cause and mission. Extremely important.
Don’t fly blind and expect things to magically fall into place. You can’t be more fool if you skip this truth and how Universe works.
Do some cleansing work to stand tall and independent in your stride in spirit, in thought, in actions, in behavioral disposition, in public discourses, in public demeanor, in using the right, decent, sensitive language.
Continue to find ways to get out of the vicious cycle of things that keep you in the wrong.
Find ways to sever ties with toxic individuals who exploit the situation, take you hostage, make you do wrong things or keep you into doing wrong things for them if you disagree with them, gently leave their association, come out clean safely.
Make sure your personal safety standards are met.
Take care of the elements that may impact your family’s safety.
Don’t get into moral cowardice but take diligent actions with a courage to live well, live better and build character.
Do ONE thing right everyday. And, keep up with it consistently.
One good self-discipline:
Example: No matter how much I get triggered by external content, I will NOT say/do xyz.
No matter how much I feel drawn, I’ll not use social media more than x hours/day or after certain time in the day.
No matter what and how the day looks, I will keep this daily goal.. 10K steps/day, a good writeup or read a good content or share/say something decent, kind, truthful, honest and be a part of solution…
Make sure you don’t get into the vicious political battles if you are a decent human being trying to become a positive contributor to the society we want to build for a better future and better humanity.
Please don’t do or encourage others do immoral, nefarious acts and derive demonic pleasure from such social evils. It has a direct impact on the psyche of people and it’s a trauma infliction and people get suicidal and may lose their lives. This area needs elaboration as there’s a legal reprimanding to occur.
Modernity is not in abandoning the *Fundamentals* but in embodying them as a necessary means for essential existence of a good human life.
It’s not "ancient” thinking or old age model to adhere to strong character building, instilling in oneself and others the moral and ethical code of conduct, a high degree of integrity to the role and responsibility in action. It’s imperative to build a life like such.
Fundamentals have gone too wrong for too long and hence, we are in a state of shutdown and a classic deadlock state.
Let’s hope we each can make atomic changes by bringing atomic elemental lifestyle and self-discipline shifts in our everyday lives, to rebuild the FUNDAMENTALS strong while pacing up to the evolutionary states with our perfect ally, the invincible AI for GOOD and bettering humanity, to the best we can.
Hope this gives you a perspective for you to see some things better or clearer.
Thanks for reading. Be well. Take care.
Stay tuned for more…
