Guiding Light

Structuring a New Society

There is no doubt about it that the present-day society we live in, faces many serious problems which go on multiplying day by day. There are deep interparty dissensions, social rifts, ethnic bickering and economic divides. These are, in fact, un-resolvable because these are in-built and hence social scientists call them structural defects in the society which cannot be corrected unless the structure of the society is changed. Take, for example, the kind of democratic system many countries have today that is based on elections where every state or city is divided into various constituencies and every candidate is supposed to contest from and represent that constituency. In various countries, certain constituencies are reserved for certain castes, tribes, etc. as a result of which persons from that very caste or tribe has the legal right to enter into the election fray in that constituency. During the election campaign, every candidate cries hoarse admiring his or her own qualities and tries his best to down-grade other candidates which are called the opponents or electoral enemies. Its but natural that all the candidates try their level best to win the battle of ballot box by appealing to the voters on the basis of political differences and caste, creed, religion or economic divides in a subtle way so as to escape the grip of law and thus they deepen the dissensions and, unwittingly, promote group- consciousness, sectional interests and social and economic differences, all leading to disharmony. This kind of divide and nomenclature creates the spirit of opposition and confrontation and, it gives the air of pride and aplomb to the one who indulges into it . Naturally, these structural defects give further rise to many problems which the society fails to eradicate by any means. At the end of the day, all these leads to selfishness, lack of co-operation and tension with the attendant evils of drug-addiction, crime, psychosomatic diseases, etc. The question, therefore, is: Can't we make a system-change or a structural change? Let us remember that every system is based on certain values which distinguish it from other systems and, so, we will have to first decide our preference for those values that promote harmony and then have a structure that is built on those values. For this, there is the need for social, political and economic theory that can be implemented into structuring a new society, free from the present defects.