Free Will And Responsibility

 

Prafulla Kumar Mohanty

Between the surd and the absurd man wavers perplexed to discover some logical certainty. Between dawn and twilight too he staggers as he has to finally move into the Methuselah night. So, one may ask: Is life an event, a happening, a revelation of nuances of reality or a commission to perform following a pre-written script? If man is a free agent to move and create a structure of values without sacrificing the central thrust of his  freedom, why does so often he recant like Galileo, Martin Luther and Savarkar what he stood for all his life? If a man holds his logic dear to his heart why does he fear counterbalancing negativity of other free agents of lesser sense of moral logic? Daylight is swallowed by the dark evening notwithstanding the twinkling stars braving the darkness – man too does it. But man dies while the stars continue their fight to burn darkness; whether they would win one day is immaterial. These questions have been asked by many in the past and many such questions would be asked in the future; I am just a gap filling speck of ignorance.

No one in our long past centuries and the progressing time has given us an answer to anything: be it life, be it man’s destiny or goal. Many have devised many ways of countering death, fighting sickness, old age and the other things built into them. What the Buddha said was a withdrawal from life. Buddha escaped his responsibilities and tried to overcome the pain by his eightfold (ten fold) path. But all paths lead to Death which perhaps can never be transcended or conquered. Is it nature’s determinism which our lives are patterned into? A compatibilist, Danial Dennet says, nature has no control over us, it is the other persons who try to control us. The Truth of this is felt by all human beings almost everywhere in the human sphere. The philosopher – religionist, the politician, the law giver impose their “moral” authority on us. Writers like Vyasa – Valmiki also to a great extent impact our moral sense, thereby, diminishing our freedom. But those who say that freedom and responsibility (as man, citizen, husband, father etc) are compatible with this external determinism often tread on our corns. Because they drive us towards a fatalism which militates with our freedom. The freedom to choose political ideology or faith leads all of us to struggle. The Balochs, Hongkongers want democracy but they face the challenge of power groups which never yield. Constitutional democracy also becomes a jail term for a freethinking man. In Bellow’s Dangling Man Regimentation at times is preferable to freedom. The tentative slogan is Freedom cancelled – Long Live Regimentation. But who or what really wins? Both die in the hospital or by the roadside.

 

In the new world, we experience a strange reality which man’s free will has created. China thinks communism is the best ideology, at least superior to democracy. Xi Jinping is now playing God; maybe he has the right to. China claims victory over Covid 19. The One China Policy now apparently means China is the world. Almost all smaller countries are indebted to china. Pakistan is a vassal; Nepal is valet, Africa is a colony… All land and water in God’s creation or the Big Bang blunder are China’s. Jinping exudes divinely ordained confidence in the Red Flag, for communist China is now the safest almost the richest and (untested) the most powerful. Jinping could say without a wink Arunachal is a part of Tibet; Ladakh is her territory. The Himalayas are no more the Indian Nagadhraj; in fact the South China, East China seas are fully chinese. Xi can create artificial islands and use them as nature subservient and manipulable. IS THIS HUMAN FREE WILL?

 

If money, military power are symbolic of human free will supported or unsupported by determinism, is it also an enabling factor in ignoring and suppressing all other Free Will(s) of the world? Or, is it possible that nature supports lies, deceitful diplomacy, Salami technique and machiavellism in China’s (Xi’s) free will? If this be so all free will could be subordinated by ruthless self glorificatory power push to make the world One China or one anything. An argument may be, so what? Why can’t China be accepted as the ideal, the model of governance and life management? A vast population of 1.4 billion is happy. The average Chinese is well fed, well clad, well employed. The system of education is ‘good’, its science is efficient, health care is great ( as has been demonstrated by covid- control), and China has put her money in almost all countries America, India, including. Moreover, on September 4,2020, China has successfully sent to the outer space a Space Plane which has unthinkable military perversities. Although undeclared, this classified military secret or astounding aerospace achievement has been caught by satellite imaging. Why not yield the pride of place to China, its political system and its free will to control all human affairs.

 

All these questions are merely rhetorical. Nature allows the Peepal tree and the willow equal opportunity. The bulkiest vegetarian, the Elephant, and the squirrel move with equal freedom. The virus too is free to kill following its own nature. But what is important and vital is responsibility; freedom without responsibility is anti-nature. We should now delete Cain’s words “Am I My Brother’s Keeper?” from all books including the Bible. Otherwise, this Jinping may be a true anti-god, anti-nature and anti mankind. Man is free to help another’s freedom to flourish. This is Man’s sense of responsibility and for that, he is called human. Free will without responsibility is meaningless and this now must be understood by the democratic and the civilized world.