Challenges

Happiness and Unhappiness through Naysign and Nescience: comprehending the essence of sustainability? (Part #2)

---

[Parts: First | Prev | Next | Last | All] [Links: To-K | From-K | From-Kx | Refs ]

---

Rajan, as an Indian, is especially sensitive to the contradictions and dilemmas of life in a much-challenged Indian society exposed to the forces of globalization -- especially as perceived by the privileged and as experienced by the underprivileged:

So India is faced with poverty, poor nutrition, poor sanitation and health services, a number of human-made and natural calamities in addition to divisive conflicts due to caste, language, religion or political affiliations. There is a huge network of organized crime. Over and above these, terror and violence unleashed from actors outside India, add many gruesome happenings within the country.

His study is a development of his earlier work on Empowering Indians, with Economic, Business and Technological Strengths (Har-Anand, 2002). It is designed as an effort to find solutions to human happiness. within the framework of a knowledge society. extending the earlier approach "to all forms of human knowledge, as science and technology is only a part of human knowledge".

In reviewing forms of human knowledge, Rajan notably makes reference to the seminal study of Susantha Goonatilake (Toward a Global Science: mining civilizational knowledge, 1999) who was also present at the Hyderabad gathering. Goonatilake specifically focuses on possibilities of how science can be with modern scientific methods and yet without Euro-centric blinkers. Rajan recognizes the importance of including traditional knowledge forms, knowledge derived from the arts, as well as the possibility of mystical insight that is so valued within the Indian culture.

A clear distinction is made between the possible forms of happiness to be derived from spiritual life and subjective reality whilst acknowledging that happiness cannot be achieved on an empty stomach by negating material reality. The author had himself been involved in envisaging the viability of responding to conventional needs and aspirations at the lower levels of Maslow's need hierarchy (A. P. J. Abdul Kalam and Y. S. Rajan, India 2020: a new vision for a new millennium, 1998). However he notes that many difficulties emerge in moving up Maslow's hierarchy of needs where mental processes play an important role in perceptions of happiness. As such he is specifically concerned with the "knowledge-happiness interface" recognizing that:

It appears that happiness at these levels (as perhaps in other levels as well) is never unmixed nectar. A process of pain accompanies pleasure; agony accompanies ecstasy ! Is it possible to transcend this dialectical process?

Rajan looks forward to a society where:

• the applications of science, technology, economics, business and organizational systems can lead to reasonable satisfaction of the lower level Maslow needs of all citizens
• the applications of legal, judicial, ethical, social, intellectual, arts and religious/spiritual systems for better handling of love and esteem for those who rise above the "minimum basic need level".

Such a society can then also produce a large number of persons who can self-actualise in various fields of human endeavour. However the author recognizes that

The world and human knowledge pool are approaching a phase where super-specialized approach to individual knowledge bases alone would not satisfy the collective and individual needs of humanity. Therefore, we need to address the basic issues of human existence; the "truth" of human consciousness; and the actions which humanity has been taking so far with a naive realist approach to life and human existence.

He recognizes that it is not practical to wait for the scientific and analytical methodologies to provide the "right" answers, even though it is necessary to pursue such investigations.

If humankind has to be happy in the emerging knowledge society, it is essential that every human being -- every individual -- would have to grapple with the problem of values: being in harmony with nature, with society, with oneself, with ideas, with bio-diversity, with cultural diversity, and with continual changes. Nobody can afford to delegate these responsibilities to more learned persons and expect that solutions will come.

---

[Parts: First | Prev | Next | Last | All] [Links: To-K | From-K | From-Kx | Refs ]