By Fabian Lyngdoh
We are living today in a chartered and branded human society where, knowledge and ability can be recognised and given importance to, only if there is a certification by some sort of authority. A person is highly appreciated if he/she uses branded products and appreciates branded things. Formerly, the beauty and value of things were defined by nature; today, beauty and value are artificially manufactured and defined by the brands. Anybody can dress like bats or be naked like frogs, then whine like dogs, scream like ghosts or curse like demons and call that beautiful music, provided it is branded. Today, we even have branded celebrities who do not possess any praise-worthy speciality in themselves, but rose to the pedestal merely because they conform to the dictate of bosses in the entertainment industry, and submit like pawns in their hands. There is now a tendency towards multi-national companies(MNC’s)branded tourism throughout the world. Indigenous peoples everywhere should beware that even the natural beauty of their beloved lands could be branded by mighty corporations without notice. Yes, simple, innocent and spontaneous living in the lap of nature is no longer appreciated because it is replaced by a branded lifestyle. And, it is in this brand-polluted social atmosphere that our sons and daughters are thrown into.
Why should our thoughts and behaviour be dictated by the brands of the corporate world? I’d rather buy the cheapest shoes and cheapest goggles to help the business of the poor road-side vendors than augmenting the controlling powers of the mighty corporations by contributing to their coffers. I wear low-priced goods with confidence to free myself from the pollution of the branded atmosphere. It is said that Socrates, the great philosopher, used to go to the market place from time to time not to find out what he needs to buy, but to discover what things were there which his fellow mortals were madly after, but without which he could still be living a perfectly normal life. Most of the times he discovered that he could be living comfortably and happily without any of the commodities sold in the markets, so he usually returned home with his purse and happiness intact, and his bag empty.
There are two types of pollution in the world today: material pollution and mental pollution. At the physical level, we eat material food and the body digests and absorbs the nutrients while unwanted matters are excreted. We inhale oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide. The excretory system is within the individual organism. And, in the natural setting, before the commercialisation of every aspect of human life, pollution was dealt with by Mother Nature itself with the active participation of all creatures in a balanced ecological system. But today, human activities have overtaken the activities of all other creatures combined, so that the ecological system has become irrevocably imbalanced. Human organised efforts are required to redress the imbalance to some extent. For example, material consumers products are wrapped in beautiful packaging so that people might be lured to buy the things inside. After the purchase, the goods are put into use while the packages are discarded into the public dustbins because they are useless. The garbage of discarded packages and worn-out goods are collected by the municipal authorities and disposed somewhere to keep the people and the locality safe and sound. So with regard to material pollution there can still be ways and means to tackle it with the help of the political authority and if the people cooperate in an organised manner.
But there are also mental goods for feeding the mind through the eyes and the ears marketed by the entertainment industry and the global communication systems. We consume, or rather are fed with mental food continuously to keep our minds alive and abreast with the universal mind of the global society. These mental food items are also wrapped in beautiful and attractive mental packages which are useless, but which are entrenched in a manner that there is no way to discard them. So, the consumers can do nothing but consume the goods and the packages as well. However, the excretory system of the mind does not lie with the individuals, but with the normative values of the society, including religious morality. But in the modern society today, normative values are considered out-dated and have become informal and evoked only in lip-service rhetoric; and religious moral values become non-statutory exhortations that are being weakened by the day. All through the ages, social norms and religious moral values have tempered human behaviour for the good of the society, but today they are seen as unnecessary hindrance to freedom. Instead of guiding human behaviour, religions are expected to modify their doctrine in accordance with the desire of the freedom-seekers however base their thoughts and behaviour might be.
When I was a boy of seventeen, I could not sleep for more than a week after watching the movie, ‘Dracula’. Today, I observe that children from age four upwards sleep normally even after watching movies more horrifying than ‘Dracula.’ Some might not even be able to sleep unless they first watch a horror movie. When we were children, we cringed when we saw pictures of skeletons, skulls or a dagger piercing through a heart that is dripping with blood. But today, even little children would like to have these pictures on their T-shirts or as tattoos on their arms. It does not mean that children of today have become braver, but it is because their hearts have been hardened and stunted to feel and understand that these pictures refer to the deeds of men that are evil. We see everywhere weird pictures and designs that depict lust, horror, violence and death, characteristics of the occult and the demonic underworld, which today are considered as exquisite pieces of art. It seems that in the ultra-modern society today, science and demons are in collaboration. Movies which combine scientific technological gadgets with demonic characters are the most successful and sell like hot cakes and consumed with the packaging as well by individual minds as well as by the collective mind of this generation.
Science is the gift of God to humanity. But it seems that all scientific and technological discoveries and inventions are attributed to Satan and tribute is paid to him. We say that we have greatly progressed in all branches of knowledge, but it seems that the world is still under the spell of lingering inertia of the Reformation initiated by Martin Luther in Germany. Martin Luther rebelled against the malpractices and worldliness of the Roman Catholic Church of his time, but he did not rebel against God. Through his movement even the Catholic Church was awakened to the need for internal reformation, and it had undergone great changes and reformation within itself since then. But the scientific, industrial and commercial communities seem to have identified the mighty Roman Catholic Church with God; hence, the rebellion is now turned against God. When the rebellion is against God, then a pact with His arch enemy, the Devil or Satan, is felt necessary. It is a simple psychology of projection but with deadly consequence. The Catholic Church was historically seen as a hindrance to human right and freedom, but today, the disgust against the Church is projected against God as the dictator of ignorance, while Satan is seen as the deliverer of enlightenment. That is why we see works of arts in tattoos, clothes, cars, murals, etc., depicting the signs and symbols of this deadly deliverer. Indeed, every description of Satan and his cohorts found in the Bible and the desecrated images and symbols of the Church become transformed into popular modern works of art which mostly reflect moral rebellion. This is how the mental atmosphere of the community becomes polluted with mental garbage, and induces mental health problems and social disorder.
No politico-legal or scientific authority has the means to collect and dispose these mental wastes because the people’s minds have themselves become the dustbins. There is a rising contempt for morality and disregard for law and order in every society. Respect for the rule of law cannot exist in the society of the mass represented by the mob. Perhaps many would disagree, but I strongly believe that normative values of the society and religious morality have to be strengthened through the educational system to deal with the toxins of mental pollution prevailing in the human society today. The human race cannot survive without the assurance of absolute values. By rejecting morality as the ultimate source of law, we reject the very basis of law and order. Science and technology cannot provide these necessary values. So, if people are made to believe that there is no absolute value in God, then they would try to find them in Satan.