Neo-Ethics

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By Michael Towsey:

"The Cardinal Human Principles define virtuous conduct for individuals. By contrast, Neo-ethics[xxviii] is more concerned with the ethics of groups, that is, social groupings whose identity is defined by race, language, gender, economic class and so on. Neo-ethics is not an alternative to the Cardinal Human Principles - the two are complementary. As the name implies, Neo-ethics is the ethics associated with Neohumanism.


The purpose of Neohumanism is to expand the circle of those who are included in the cooperative embrace. The existence of a circle, however, implies two groups, those on the inside and those on the outside. Within the circle there is cooperation and outside the circle is the other, those with whom there is not necessarily felt a willingness to cooperate. Groups are inevitable in society and they cannot simply be wished away. The problem to be addressed by Neo-ethics is the pathological tendency for some groups to coalesce around the desire to exercise power over the ‘other'.


Sarkar labels this problem imperialism, a term he uses quite generally to refer to the endeavour of any group to wield power over another. The imperialist urge is a psychic ailment "rooted deep in the human psyche".


Goaded by this psychic ailment, a superpower forces its own selfish national interests on other weaker states to establish its suzerainty politically, militarily, etc. An imperialist power wants to dominate and exploit other socio-politico-economic units as an expansion, perpetration and consolidation of its vested interests; a powerful linguistic group suppresses other minority linguistic groups; the so-called upper castes subjugate the so-called lower castes in society; and opportunistic males curtail the rights of women in various ways. In all these cases, the same inherent psychological malady of imperialism prevails.[xxix]


Whether expressed as capitalism, nationalism, caste-imperialism, male chauvinism or lingualism, imperialism is anti-human. "It runs counter to the spirit of Neohumanism and the ethics of human life... it thwarts human progress and creates global wars and all sorts of divisive and destructive forces in society". Imperialists "cultivate a psychology based on slavery, inferiority complex, pseudo-culture and psycho-economic exploitation".


Concerning the problem of imperialism, socialists in the 19th century, both utopian and scientific, were quite naive. They appeared to believe that the imposition of material and social equality would somehow obliterate groups and therefore obliterate the group psychology giving rise to imperialism. But the imperialist impulse runs deep. George Orwell, in Animal Farm, identified it as the source of what went wrong with the socialist revolution but still apparently believed in the healing power of egalitarianism.


Psychologists recognize a natural sequence of human development which gives rise to increasing intellectual subtlety, empathy and moral perceptivity. This constitutes the starting point for Prout's concept of progress. Unfortunately, for many different reasons, the developmental sequence is sometimes frustrated, in which case the psychologist's job is to remove the impediment and to encourage healthy growth to resume. Sarkar views the imperialist tendency as a psychic ailment, that is, as a failure to develop to full maturity. It arises when a person or group comes under the grip of materialism.


Healthy development requires of individuals and groups a continual effort to push the envelope of progress defined as increasing the significance of the subtle in individual and collective life and reducing the significance of the crude.[xxx] Imperialism can be understood as a problem of frustrated or arrested development. Therefore Sarkar defines two principles of Neo-ethics. The first states that spirituality, being that which ultimately drives all progress and all development, "must be accepted as the supreme desideratum in human life". The second principle concerns maintaining balance in life.


Dynamism is the first and last word of human existence. Human life cannot stand still, so it will move either in the direction of subtlety (progress) or in the direction of materialism (regress). All scientific and intellectual discoveries represent progress only to the extent that they encourage the flow of life from crude to subtle. The first principle of Neo-ethics commits human life to progress so defined. The second principle requires that in order to accommodate progress, the structure of human society (including its economic structure) must be continually adjusted.


We are passing through an era when human aspirations are becoming more and more subtle, but the most powerful of our political and economic institutions are still mired in the dysfunctional materialism of previous centuries. The choice is rather stark - imperialism or cooperation - but there is a choice." (http://ruby.zcommunications.org/the-science-and-ethics-of-cooperation-by-michael-towsey)


References

[xxviii] Sarkar introduced Neo-ethics late in his life (1987).


[xxix] Sarkar, P.R. The Neo-Ethics of Multi-Lateral Salvation, 1st edition 1987, Electronic Edition, v7.


[xxx] We may conclude that any attempt to establish a socialist society with a materialistic philosophy such as Marxism is bound to fail. The union of mind and matter that is supposed to usher in a classless society, can on the contrary only lead to imperialism. The history of the USSR confirms such an outcome.