Permissiveness: Root Cause of Society Today

It is truly said that even a holy man cannot live in peace without satisfying his wicked neighbors. It is therefore not a question whether one wants to live in peace; the more important question is whether the wicked will tolerate it. To bring tolerance among the neighbors so that you can live in peace, they demand that you please them.

It is natural with them to be jealous of things which you enjoy but which they could not hope to have. Although in theory it sounds good to preach 'live and let live' and 'treat thy neighbor as thyself', in actual practice, it is seldom followed. One thing is clear that anyone seeking peace, freedom, and happiness, must select a suitable neighborhood.

For a society or a country to be well governed, a certain discipline and self-control become necessary. Allowing each to live as he likes is sure to lead to chaos, as the interests of individuals are likely to conflict. What will follow is violence and untruth.

Suffering has been the lot of mankind even after centuries of civilization and culture, and it speaks ill of the society and the world that did not benefit from these.

Have we ever thought why our civilization and culture with all their promises and traditions of religion, science, philosophy, sociology, economics, politics, and what else there is, have so far failed to give a positive shape to a normal human society, where everyone can live in peace, can enjoy happiness, and be free?

We hardly realize that this is due to the bane of permissive society which is not the product of today, as some think, but which is an evil that made inroads, though in small measure, right from the beginning of our civilization and culture.

For example, the divine rights of royalty and the might and main of privileged class have scant respect for self-control and discipline. Their behavior pattern was governed by their attitude, which held self-control in contempt and discipline as abasement.

In permissive society, exceptions become the rule and the rules remain as mere exceptions. So whatever principles, commandments, rules, etc., were formulated by religion, ethics, sociology, economics, law, etc., have remained operative only for those who respect and obey them.

Others who defied the structure and authority behaved cynically. After much deliberation on the issues of right and wrong, a framework of rules, customs and commandments happens to be projected - and do we not find them uniformly good everywhere?―but these, however, fail to be imperative.

Exceptions enjoyed by a few become an eyesore to all others and the latter in their turn take every opportunity to perpetrate the same on the sly. When the majority becomes involved in the act which is wrong socially and legally, there is very little left to be done but to look the other way.

This permissiveness is the Magna Carta for the vegetative society which is self-centered and opposed to conventions, discipline, rules and commandments of any kind. Their interest lies in self-satisfaction at every opportunity and by every means possible. There is no directive except sensate pleasure though it may be temporary and harmful even to themselves.

Members of the permissive society believe that the world is made for them and that there is none to question their acts. Neighbors mean nothing to them where their own self-interest is concerned.

If they are afraid to act individually, they take recourse to forming groups and gangs and there are a very few who could challenge them. Goodness being in the minority, the lone good man concerned with his own struggle in life finds it easier to ignore permissive acts even when done in his presence.

It lends encouragement to the anti-social and uncivil elements to become bold. Once such permissive acts become commonplace, the perpetrators project them as valid and these soon become internationalized. Then when the mass―which is usually rabid―follows such things, even the powers-that-be pass through suitable metamorphosis and remain paralyzed.

On the contrary, the permissive society because of its foundational weakness is always ready to join hands with any society or government which will permit it to indulge in permissiveness. Where countries are ruled by majority―wise or otherwise― it is the agents of the permissive society who control the strings of power at all levels.

It is the misfortune of the modern age, that except for a few, almost all are involved in one way or another in supporting permissiveness in society. Living thus in glass houses of their own, none is able to throw a stone at the wicked.

Since everybody wants to live in peace, the wicked are satisfied if they are left alone to do their worst. This is how the present societies and governments are working everywhere. It is a worldwide phenomenon. Those who try to challenge it, to better the world, are swimming against the current, and are lost in futility.

Unless those in authority and power take courage in both hands after purifying themselves of their own permissiveness―in all aspects of life as politics, economics, religion, sociology, etc. where they wield sway over many―it will be impossible to break this circle of permissiveness in society which has emerged as a curse and a terror to any modern good man.

Behind the curtain of the sacred trio of society, law and religion plays the devil in all his sinful regalia, encouraged through permissiveness, which by praising the wicked insults the great. So while we know this wretchedness to be absolutely true, do we not honor it as our savior from barbarism?