Editor in Chief: Moh. Reza Huwaida Friday, March 29th, 2024

Standards in our Society

A society is known by the standards it maintains in different walks of life. Better societies tend to have higher standards for almost every aspect of life; however, it is debatable what high standards mean. The standards that are as per the socio-political circumstances are mostly considered acceptable and are, therefore, thought to be perfect. Nonetheless, relevance to the context does not always mean that the standards are perfect and positive. For example, in today’s modern society, being modern is one of the required standards but it is not always thought to be positive.

It is really difficult to set universal standards for the societies of the worlds as cultures and social settings differ. Nevertheless, it is important to understand that the standards that show the true position of human beings; their true role and behavior – the one that keep in consideration the well-being of others, the love and affection for the fellow beings, true inspiration for science, arts and creativity are basically the ones that must be encouraged and safeguarded.

Today’s human beings seem to have lost their way. They have turned too much materialistic and saunter astray in their spiritual life. They fail to discover the true purpose of their existence and are conditioned into something that they are not by the systems and setups. They are in a position where they are becoming the cause of their own notoriety and destruction. They love wealth, pleasure and affluence and they are ready to pay any price for it.    

Herman Hesse rightly observes, “Whoever wants music instead of noise, joy instead of pleasure, soul instead of gold, creative work instead of business, passion instead of foolery, finds no home in this trivial world of ours.” This has, thus, given rise to a man who perfectly fits in today’s materialistic societies but may fail to fulfill the requirements of being a true human.

It is important to note what the standards are in our society. Our society is vehemently noticeable because of its self-centeredness and vanity. Unfairness and discrimination are the usual behavioral trends. If a person, for his own happiness, offers another person anguish; if a person cuckolds another person or if a group of people violates the right of other groups, it is not odd as it is normal exercise within our society. Since the socio-political settings and the objective conditions have cemented the way for such types of deeds and approaches, imagining something different would be irrational and even silly. As the rule of the race is to thrust others back and attempt to win the race in any thinkable way, not pursuing it would mean trailing in the race, which nobody is prepared to admit as everyone wants to triumph.

Keeping today’s society in mind, it can be claimed that a person who is not crafty and self-seeking is principally unwise. Alternatively, the crafty evils cannot be censured, too. As a matter of fact, in our society, when a person does an evil act, he is not all the time guilty for it.

Suppose a person, on a cold and snowy night, trembling with cold crosses your house and you sense pity and do him a service by giving him warm housing and a blanket to keep himself warm, then you ought be totally prepared for this that while departing your house he would take your blanket and some other things along with it. It is because of the reason that the blanket has sheltered him from the cold weather and now he worries about the cold weather that he would face while going out. He can also request for it and you, with an open-handedness, can give that blanket along with some other things to him, but that would be a courtesy and our people even don’t have the ability to take the courtesy.

In this society, if a killer is not a relative to the prey, it is really odd. Attachment, adoration, belief, uprightness and devoutness are the values that are only important to few of the people; else, these are only words which the people of our society use so as to conceal the crimes of their conscience and the evils of their intents. We are mainly bounded by lies and false exhibition and if we are able to defend our truth, it would be a great accomplishment. Nevertheless, the company and ownership of truth is truly wearisome. It involves bearing seclusion and accepting the responsibility of being dissimilar. Yet, it is not something to be discouraged about. A human can be disenchanted from another human but should not be disenchanted from humanity, because human beings live for a definite period of time but humanity has always lived and will live persistently.

The significant point is to deliberate why the kind of society, wherein a person has to lead another person by going over his cadaver, should not change. Why shouldn’t we modify the system wherein human beings do not need the sustenance and collaboration of others for the improvement of society in its entirety, but need for their selfish benefits? There is something utterly wrong with the society that does not have love and brotherhood as its standards but inspires the people to have negative rivalry so as to own as much material coziness as possible. The society we reside in is in desperate need of true humanity, true affection and true warmth.