समूह साधन केंद्र मार्डी तालुका माण जिल्हा सातारा

      HARD QUESTIONS ABOUT SOFT OBEDIENCE 

          Some questions have risen up. The questions are with regard to the aspects of virtue and obedience. The propriety of the adage that obedience is the best virtue is the bone of contention.
Obedience demands following the instructions of someone or of the various customs and practices and systems that are thrust upon us. It promotes discipline and order. Things will have a calm and smooth flow. Life becomes simple devoid of complexities and worries. All the existing institutions, traditions, instrumentality and methodologies attains the level of a sanctum sanctorum and seems to be unalterable or impotent to change. So often from the vantage point of many a mortal men, a society which  bases itself in blind obedience and which juxtaposes obedience with the pinnacle of virtuousness, may seem to be an ideal society since chaos, confusion and anarchy are almost absent or reduced to the minimum in such a society. So far so good and many a people often boast of being highly obedient.

              But aren’t there some corollaries for that. Can a blindly obedient person do anything new? Isn’t he or she living someone else’s life? Won’t such people feel after some time that they were not living till date but were just existing? Won’t such people regret that they have forgotten to live at all? Isn’t there a chance that such obedience can be exploited by vested interest groups for personal motives? Won’t such obedience nip in the bud curiosity and the pursuit for creativity in human minds? In that way aren’t such people shutting the doors for renewal and regeneration. Aren’t they unknowingly inhibiting the progressive evolution of humanity? In the shadows of such obedient regimes will it be possible to effectively nurture scientific skepticism & inquisitiveness   which are essential preconditions for engendering  new ideas and thoughts ?Can such  blindly obedient people ever  aspire to satisfy the need of self actualization or  self‐realization as defined bye Maslow.  Can any one claim that Kannada, Jesus Christ, Prophet Mohammed, Buddha, Vivekananda, Che Guevara and the likes were perfectly obedient to existing systems and norms? These may be thought of as heresay or may be dismissed as mere mutinous hallucinations. But all these are worth a thought as they are explicitly hard questions about soft obedience.

                                                                     Anoop Nobert

                                                                     Kerala

                                                                     anoop.nobert@eil.co.in