Mill:And what about responsibility? When a man suddenly finds
himself ruling others, does he not ask himself what his responsi-
bility is towards them? Does he not have to wonder what the
right thing is for him to do? If he knows more than they, should
he leave these people to their old and obsolete ways, or should
he teach them what he knows?
Gandhi:Such hard choices. I say: Leave us alone!
Mill:But if we believe that improvements in human affairs are
possible, and that through no special virtue of ours, but through a
series of historical accidents, we have found ways to do some
things better, isn’t it our moral duty to share them with others?
Did you not teach your children so they would not repeat your
mistakes? Did you not pass onto them your knowledge?
Gandhi: Keep your white man’s burden to yourself. We are not
your children. India’s civilization is older than yours and has
nothing to learn from yours. Your faith in progress, sir – in some
continuous improvement of human affairs, in some evolutionary
development – is nothing but that old Judeo-Christian idea of
history having a direction. It’s your expectation of a Messiah and
his return, only wrapped in modern, non-religious language.
Darwin! Continuous improvement of the species, of technology,
of human nature, of society! Eugenics, social engineering! Your
faith in progress is just another faith in a better future. In India
we do not have those illusions. We do not believe in mankind
improving itself generation after generation. We think of history
as cyclical. If anything, we look to our past for guidance.
Mill:So our faith is naïve because it’s about a Golden Age that
will never be, but yours is wise because it’s about a Golden Age
that has never been? At least we have something tangible to
show for it. For can you deny, sir, that Western technology has
made gigantic steps towards curbing human disease, reducing
human poverty? –
Gandhi: Towards obliterating the planet with the atomic bomb?
Your idea of progress is superficial. You see one man riding a
horse and another a train, and you say the latter is more
advanced. But what difference does it make if the most funda-
mental things about human affairs remain unchanged? The real
evils of the world cannot be removed unless man changes some-
thing within himself. And this is what we are aiming at – not at
hopping on a bicycle to move through the world a little faster
than before. We see man as being at one with the world around
him, and only when he changes within himself will he change the
world around him, because he is inseparable from the rest of the
world. But you in the West do not understand this. You think
man is separate. You pride yourself in your individualism – this is
me, and this is the rest of the world – as if a glance into your
microscopes did not prove the exact opposite. Take a look: where
is the border between man and his world? Where is that hard line
which the flying particles of your skin dare not cross? Where is
that line where man ends and the rest of the world begins? It’s a
myth that man is separate from the world – a naïve Western fairy
tale! Except in this one nobody lives happily ever after.
Mill:What makes man special is not the particles of which he
consists, but his awareness of being somehow separate from the
rest of reality.
Gandhi:But this awareness is mistaken. We come from the
dust, and to the dust we return! What gives you reason to believe
you are separate?Mill: I don’t know. Maybe because no one outside me can know
my thoughts? Or maybe because I can command my feet, arms,
hands, face – my own body – but not anything outside of me. But
it’s this awareness that makes a human different from other col-
lections of atoms. Maybe he doeswant to control more than his
own body, to control what’s outside of him, to bend it a bit to his
needs, to make it more useful for himself. I would not deny it.
But this is only because he is so vulnerable in his sensitive skin,
so afraid –
Gandhi: Yes he is afraid! Oh yes, he wants control! Yes, he wants
to dominate nature because he is fearful of her! He wants to bend
her to his will, to put her on the rack and get answers out of her.
Thank you Mr Bacon, merciMonsieur Descartes, for the exciting
but false inspiration you gave humanity! How naïve it is for a
mortal creature to want to do something like this. What a useless
task it is to try to control nature without knowing how to control
yourself, your own fear. For if you knew how to control you, you
would no longer need to bend nature to your needs – you would
blend with her. You would remain part of her, as you have always
been meant to be, as on the day you were born, so on the day you
died. Do you think Indians could not control nature if we wanted
to? Do you think we could not have made engines or microscopes?
We made a decision not to. Our ancestors knew that human happi-
ness is a mental state, so they set limits to what we should do with
our bodies. They discouraged us from luxuries, and we have man-
aged with the same kind of plow that existed thousands of years
ago. We live in the same shacks we lived in before; and our educa-
tion remains the same as in former times –
Mill: But what if you saw someone tinkering with his plow and
he told you he had an idea how to improve it? What would you
say to him?
Gandhi: I’d tell him there was no need for improvement. Our
ancestors managed quite well, and a new plow will not make
anyone happy. It will make him happier for a short while. And
then he will get used to it and be miserable again.
Mill: But that’s not the point. He had a spark of creativity in
him, perhaps the most human of all things, and you’ve just killed
it. You blew out the most precious and vulnerable light flickering
in his soul – insight.
Gandhi: Your civilization has had many insights. So what? It has
created great technological wonders. Yet the more impressive
they are, the more arrogant you become, the more sure of your-
self. But are you any happier? Does your machine gun make you
happier?
Mill: No one is happier because of the machine gun; but no one
is surprised by it either. To invent better weapons is business as
usual for humanity; but to invent penicillin is not. Would you
not recognize penicillin as progress in human affairs?
Gandhi: But this ‘progress’ of yours, indeed your whole so-
called civilization, are by-products of war, of fear. All your
improvements come from it. Your innovation is driven by fear of
being hurt or enslaved by an enemy, or a presumed enemy, or an
enemy you create in your own mind. A man wants to protect
himself, and out of fear he builds a fence. If he did not fear,
would he build the fence?
Mill: Perhaps not.
Gandhi: But once he knows how to build a fence, he uses this
knowledge for other purposes, doesn’t he? Now he builds aAugust/September 2019 ●Philosophy Now 57BA
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