Sunday, April 26, 2009

Weak Humanism

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Is Saul among the prophets? this is what cropped up in my mind as I was invited to participate in a discussion group in a venue 20 kms away. The room had some wonderful minds, doctors, professors and some wonderful social thinkers who have devoted their lives for social cause.

The fact that life and living needs to be understood in social terms and by encompassing the society at large seems to resonate in my so very often. Which also means the futility of inward focused existence bordering around selfishness is probably the biggest threat to civilisation.


Prof Ananta Kumar Giri of the Madras Institute of Development Studies spoke about the 'Weak Humanism '. This was an eye opener for me. Weak Humanism? this needs more thought. What I understood was that as a society it is the strong who are celebrated and exalted little do we realize that through history it is the strong who have been behind aggression and violence. Weak Humanism is to celebrate the weak and learn from the weak. No wonder that we hear Jesus Christ saying "Let the weak say Iam strong" This can probably interpreted as not the weak becoming strong but the weak in their weakness stay strong.

It was late into the night as I was dozing off to sleep that I decided to light read and Philip Yancy seemed very inviting. The church and the family is supposed to uphold the weak, he says. That is christian teaching. But then the market mentality has over taken the church as well as homes that performance is exalted the weak are marginalized and shunned. If a nation were to do this, Hitler tried it with promoting Aryan supremacy and tried destroying the weak, it is destined to perish. Its the same that is bound to happen on an individual level too.
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