GANDHI claimed that the modern emphasis upon the individual has had consequences that drain life of meaning. Here are some notes I took from a most provocative lecture series: GANDHI inherited the idea that legitimacy of government depends upon the consent of the governed; that society is a kind of contract for mutual benefit; and that society is legitimate insofar as it endorses the rule of law (John Locke). He had also read John Stuart Mill and endorsed the view that speech and thought had to be free. Hence, Gandhi endorses liberal democratic ideals. But there is something ironic in these notions, insofar as he believed that they became the foundation for industrial capitalism. Gandhi claimed that Industrial capitalism (and here, British-occupied India was his model) was intrinsically harmful to almost everyone that came in contact with it. Thus, the democratic ideals which functioned as their foundation had to be reinterpreted if they were to be consistent with his commitment to the practice of non-violence or non-harming (ahimsa). Tolstoy and Thoreau pushed Gandhi in this direction. It was their idea that everyone should benefit from social arrangements; and that when we talk about government being legitimized by the consent of the governed, and by the benefits it presents, then that means it cant be an institution that allows some to benefit and others to suffer; or which permits an arrangement that allows the many to be harmed by the few. (from Jay Garfields most excellent, What is the Meaning of Life? lectures, available through The Teaching Company.)
Posted on: Thu, 24 Oct 2013 15:19:17 +0000
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