Democracy Everywhere
Democracy has spread into most aspects in our lives. What I mean by democracy is not just the form of government, but equal rights for all, no special treatment for anybody and equal access to opportunities. While this is not seen throughout the world and in all aspects of life, it is definitely a state towards which people everywhere are aspiring.
The first change we have seen is of course in the forms of government. Over the last few centuries, monarchies have toppled everywhere. The American and French Revolutions, the industrial revolution, access to education and news of what was happening in other parts of the world sparked the movement from monarchies to democracies. As Egypt's King Farouk said: “Soon there will be only five Kings left-the King of England, the King of Spades, The King of Clubs, the King of Hearts, and the King of Diamonds.”
The United States Declaration of Independence stated: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
Of course the founding fathers of the United States did not deem it fit to provide the African-Americans equal rights and it would take almost two centuries before the Civil Right movement in the United States empowered the African-Americans with equal rights and opportunities.
Other aspects of democracy did not advance though - it would take a long time for progress in the fields of finance, education, employment.
In the world of finance, the advent of discount brokers opened the stock markets so that it was not just the wealthy having a private trading club. Before discount brokers changed the business model, the small investors paid a significant portion of potential profits in commissions, which made dealing in stocks not profitable at low volumes. By having access to the stock markets, the middle class was able to gain benefits from the boom in the economy driven by advances in technology. More recently, apps like Robinhood have gamified the stock market, causing frothy valuations and enticing more people to participate in the stock market, for better or for worse.
While the stock market revolution was in progress, on Halloween 2008, Satoshi Nakamoto published a paper introducing the concept cryptocurrency and Bitcoin - eliminating the need of a central banking authority and making all of us equal stakeholders in currency management. These cryptocurrencies made it easy for us to transfer money easily, securely, cheaply, seamlessly across international boundaries. No more diktats from central authorities, greater transparency and reduced costs. With one published paper and some code, currency was redefined, transferring the ownership the the masses.
In 1990, the TED Conference in Monterey, California became an annual event, attracting participants from many different disciplines united by their curiosity and open-mindedness -- and also by their shared discovery of an exciting secret. It was an invitation-only event. In the early years of this century, when TED started posting their talks online, it opened up the global audience to radical views, expert talks and fresh ways of thinking. Access to what had been an elite conference was now just a browser tab away.
Journalism also evolved - from a few famous names such as Walter Cronkite and Margaret Bourke-White, to the situation where anyone with a Twitter account can communicate with the whole world and possibly even start a revolution. Substack has made newspapers irrelevant with its promise of delivering niche targeted content while videos on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube have made TV coverage an artefact of the last century. Podcasts ha e provided a voice to everyone, not just the few outsized personalities on radio and television. Everyone now has a platform on which to publish news and views (including this blog!)
In the past, publishing a book was an obstacle race - you had to get through the gatekeepers at publishing houses who had views on what might sell and what might not, before having a chance to getting your book published. Now, with Kindle publishing, everyone can be their own publisher, posting e-books on the Kindle platform and having access to a potential audience of millions. Kindle removed the stranglehold that traditional publishers had on the book industry.
One of the greatest disruptions was in the music industry. The advent of Napster, Spotify shifted control from a few entities that controlled the music business to a model where all musicians had an opportunity to share their music and all listeners got the chance to listen to a variety of genres and artists.
Parenting also moves from an authority-based relationship to one based on a relationship between equals until roles reverse and the children become the caretakers of the parents.
An ancient Sanskrit verse states:
प्राप्ते तु षोडशे वर्षे पुत्रं मित्रवदाचरेत्॥
The child has to be treated like a king for (the first) five years. He should be educated like a student for (the next) ten years. He should be treated as a friend when he attains sixteen years of age.
So the concept of a central authority goes away in the family too as the family grows and evolves.
We now come to discuss how religion has changed and evolved. The section that follows is from a series of talks given by Swami Vivekananda in London and New York, now compiled into a book called Jnana Yoga - the Yoga of Knowledge.
Swami Vivekananda, in his talk Freedom of the Soul, says: In the older Upanishads like the Chandogya we find traces of the gradual evolution of Vedic religion from ritualism to meditation and from that to spirituality.
Just as in the West, we find this prominent fact in the political development of Western races that they cannot bear absolute rule, that they are always trying to prevent any one man from ruling over them, and are gradually advancing to higher and higher democratic ideas, higher and higher ideas of physical liberty, so, in Indian metaphysics, exactly the same phenomenon appears in the development of spiritual life.
The multiplicity of gods gave place to one God of the universe, and in the Upanishads there is a rebellion even against that one God. Not only was the idea of many governors of the universe ruling their destinies unbearable, but it was also intolerable that there should be one person ruling this universe. This is the first thing that strikes us. The idea grows and grows, until it attains its climax. In almost all of the Upanishads, we find the climax coming at the last, and that is the dethroning of this God of the universe.
At the climax of thought the personality of God vanishes and the impersonality comes in. God is no more a person, no more a human being, however magnified and exaggerated, who rules the universe, but He becomes an embodied principle in every being, immanent in the whole universe.
It would be illogical to go from the personal God to the impersonal, leaving man as a person. So the personal man is also broken down and man as a principle is built up. The personal man becomes a mere phenomenon, while the principle, the impersonal Man, becomes the 'reality'.
In the next stage of development there is the gradual convergence of the advancing lines of impersonal God and impersonal Man. The Upanishads embody the stages through which these two lines at last become one, and the last word of each Upanishad is 'Thou Art That'. There is but one eternally blissful principle, and that One is manifesting as all the variety.
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