Chandra Ganju comments : Well written,hope we will pause and think what life is afterall. chandra
Dr. P. Andrade comments : I enjoyed your article. It prompted me to make a brief commentary. You actually are picturing an accelerating process – the transition from tribal mind or collective- type societies to individualistic, capitalistic societies. Material progress is evident. But the suffering has become immense. Rich societies are plagued by depression, violence, addictions of every type – including obesity. I myself have been able to live with tribal people and have found that their ways of life were more conducive to feelings of well-being. Is it possible that future societies will renew the value of emotional tribal links in order to save people from feeling blue? I think it is, and there are many examples of communal thinking in the Jewish Kibbutzim or in the cooperatives of the Sem Terra in Brazil. But social scientists are not yet working actively on these subjects. The “Cold War” ideological confrontation has sullied research on these subjects. There are solid anthropological and neuroscientific reasons to think that society must educate people to live in groups and not as intolerant, egotistical individuals who will end up distressed, unhappy and addicted. Your points are correct.
Sunanda Vashisht comments : Dear all Thanks for the comments and thanks for appreciating the article. I would specially like to thank Dr. P Andrade for his brief but extremely interesting commentary. Material Progress as you agree with me has brought with it lots of suffering and intolerance. I do not know if we will ever go back to the collective type societies but i certainly hope and pray that our society realises that how interdependent we are on each other. We cannot exist in seclusion. This is so self-evident yet we do not even think about this is everyday life. I hope we can generate a discussion on this amongst SAWF readers and in turn do our bit. Thanks once again for your commentary. We hope to see you on the forum often. Sunanda
Aravind Vellodi comments : I can agree that in very general terms ours is an age of intolerance.I am not young and I ask myself "Was it different in my young days". Truly I cannot find a true answer.But it is true, and sadly so, that the degree of intolerance has reached higher and at times destructive proportions. Certainly the pace of life we are used to is a major contributing factor. one doe not find this degree or this brand of intolerance in the villages. Unfortunately, todays young people are taught by words, by action and certainly by the media that to do well one has to be aggressively ambitious and often this involves a geat degree of intolerance. In India, the caste system encouraged by likes as the Mandal report helps very little. I am a Hindu and proud to be a Hindu. Hinduism has always been considered as a very tolerant way of life buthere too the seeds of intolerance have sproted in the past two or three decade. I tink what each one of us should ask oneself is "Am ai intolerant in any direction" and I am sure the abswer will invariably be in the positive. I do not thoink that compassion is the answer. It has to be tolerance and I believe that paents and taechers and the whole society have to contribute in this most difficult but necessary exercise. Some ten years ago, when I was that much younger I wanted to tour some parts of the country and see what I could do to infuse the idea of tolerance but as with all my projcts this also did not get off the ground. "TOLERANCE" - what a beautiful thought! Thank you
Christopher Brian Eargle comments : I'm sorry, but I must be critical of your article. Apparently, you have confused impatience in the fast moving world with intolerance. Intolerance is not accepting others for who they are, because they are different from yourself. Even in the "Bible Belt" of the United States' Deep South (where I live), we are becoming increasingly more tolerant. My parents generation were mostly filled with people that were extremely prejudiced toward other races. Today, you see black, whites, and other ethnic varieties interacting constantly. Of course, you still have zealots of all nature in my country, but they are not nearly as numerous as in the past.
I do admit, we live in a fast paced world... particularly in the Industrialized Nations. But it still beats living in an intolerant nation where people of different religions murder one another. Or a country where a woman has no rights except through her husband. Or even a country where landless masses murder their white countrymen because they own land.
