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Argument topic 1

Issue Topics

Topic[2]
" Tradition and modernization are incompatible. One must choose
between them."

Sample
Tradition and modernization are not mutually exclusive. Together
they help mankind. All that is needed for mankind to benefit from
both is to modernize tradition, adapt it to the strictures of
modernity. Unfortunately, however, some sections of society in
almost every country are trying, instead, to fossilize the present,
another word for modernity. All traditional values are not evil. Only
a few of them are. Similarly, modernity is not an unmixed blessing.
Much in it is bad too. Therefore, an amalgam of the virtues of both
would help mankind remain on track.
For instance, a nation is not a juxtaposition of individuals but a
society based on a communion of minds, a union of hearts. A deep
religious sense, which informs every tradition, would not allow its
claimant to speak a rash or a profane word of anything that the
soul of man holds sacred. This attitude of respect for all creeds,
such elementary good manners in matters of the spirit, is bred into
the marrow of one's bones by human tradition, by the world's
experience of centuries.
Could it be that there is confusion in the mind of man today about
tradition and truth? Mankind seems to have failed to preserve the
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spirit of truth that alone can guide it to all truths. God does not
say: " I am tradition." He says: "I am Truth." Truth is greater than
its greatest teachers. We need to realize that the history of the
human race as a whole is strewn with customs, rituals and
institutions which were invaluable at first and deadly afterwards.
Gross abuses that still survive require to be cut off. Tradition,
Indian tradition in particular, insists on the upward striving not only
in the sphere of morals but also in that of the intellect. It should
not be regarded either as pessimistic or as fatalistic. The Indian
law of 'karma' affirms the implicit presence of the past in the
present, or of tradition in modernity. However, when we
unconsciously or mechanically follow the impulses of the past, we
are not exercising our freedom. But we are free when our personal
subject becomes a ruling center.
In the past few decades or so, the world has been transformed
rapidly and almost completely, at least in its superficial aspects.
Science has helped at least a chunk of humanity, though not the
whole of it, to build its life. But another discipline is necessary to
strengthen and refine the living spirit. Our natures have become
mechanized, void within. We have been reduced to mere atoms in
a community, members of a mob. Behaviorist psychology teaches
us that man has no inwardness and so he can be understood
completely from the standpoint of the observer. Some past
attempts at the replanning of society were attended with this
danger.
Though people have successfully compelled governments to
minister to their needs, though application of modern science to
production and distribution enables us to expect material well being
for all, large numbers of people the world over are suffering from
poverty and starvation. The chaotic condition is due to lack of
fellowship and co-operation. The Russian experiment was at least
an honest attempt to secure for all an equal share in things that
constitute the physical basis of life. Communist countries did not
accept glaring contrasts of poverty and wealth as inevitable. Even
Fascism labored to build a true communitarian life and effect a
more equitable distribution of power, wealth and opportunity. Only,
the unfortunate results of all these attempts were mutual conflict
and suppression of individual liberty. There was standardization of
souls, loss of self-confidence and a tendency to seek salvation in
herds.
But what is the state of affairs today? Not only has the individual
been robbed of his freedom to order his life as he will but he has
also been deprived of the liberty to think and express his thoughts
and opinions as he wishes. Society has become a prison. That
there is a real feeling for humanity in these desperate attempts to
check economic exploitation of the masses, one can readily
concede. But if that goal is to be achieved by the other
exploitation of the baser passions of human nature, its selfishness
and hatred, its insolence and fanaticism, the ideal order will be an
inhuman one. Let us by all means establish a just economic order,
but let us also realize that the economic man is not the whole man.
Therefore, it is the job of those who mold public opinion to make
people understand that civilization is an act of the spirit, not of the

10/9/12

Argument topic 1

body or the mind. Achievement of knowledge and power is not

enough. Acts of morality and spirit are essential. The average man
must become an active and purposeful moral force. He must stop
believing in an automatic law of progress immanent in human
history, and turn an active agent remolding society nearer to the
human ideal. Growth of civilization is marked by an increase of
genuineness, sincerity and selflessness. The only effective way of
altering society is the hard and slow one of changing individuals.
Through patient effort, we can win power over circumstances and
mold them. But only a people striving after ethical and spiritual
ideals, ordained by human tradition, can use the great modern
triumphs of scientific knowledge for the true ends of civilization.
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