Good Emerging out of Evil
By Karmayogi
The post war period was
known as the period of the Cold War. All over the world, it was a period when
pollution slowly gathered into a veritable evil, resulting in smog in the air,
acid rain, DDT in vegetables and in water. Life was threatened at its very
roots. Then emerged the movement of the environmentalists. Many things of
revolutionary character emerged. The most important thing was that the world
discovered that science is for the people and not science for science's
sake. When a part usurps the status of the whole, the part has the tendency to
become evil. Science is a part, the society is a whole. Some fifty years ago, a
Maharashtrian journalist, commenting on political coalition, described a
militant party as one capable of dominating the whole coalition, though they
were in a minority. He called it tail wagging the body. It is the nature of
assertion.
Out of the evil of pollution emerged the good sense that science is there to
serve the people, not for its own assertion. Sri Aurobindo says that Life uses
good as well as evil as an instrument of progress. Pollution is an example of
it. We are all proud of science, especially its technology. Its success, says Russell,
is amazing. Because of the striking success, we begin to worship science, adore
it as the be all and end all. Science is neutral; man, his attitude, is moral
in the sense he gives a character to the thing he uses. Man's excessive
devotion to science leads to science harming him. That the scientist has a
social responsibility is now well established. The scientist concentrating on
science is part. His taking society into account is whole. The former can hurt,
not the latter.
Science rules the world. It is knowledge. It seeks pure, total, ultimate
knowledge. How can evil come out of it? Still, we see it emerges out of
science. The part can become selfish, evil, wrong. It can be an error. The
whole can never hurt, go wrong or give birth to evil. The part and the whole
have their own attitudes. The attitude appropriate to the whole is
Selflessness. It can mature into self-giving. The part's attitude is
selfish. Selfishness can hurt others or all. Selflessness in one can hurt no
one. The selflessness of the part cannot hurt others or the whole. The
scientist has a responsibility to the society which is the whole. Though the
scientist discovers, it is the politician who has the ultimate word as to its
use. Should the scientist develop social responsibilities, he will move to the
present position of the politician.