Of hypocrites and narcissists...

 I was arguing with a friend the other day about mandatory military service. My stance was that it was OK for a government to impose such a rule, even in a democracy like India. My friend did not stop with must opposing it, but went on to call me a hypocrite for not having served in the army when I had the chance to do so. He then proposed his "theory" of no national boundaries in the world. Needless to say, I was amazed by his naivete.

 Here I try to justify my stance. And I write it as I would explain it to my friend - 

 In no way am I claiming that I am perfect. In fact, the hypothesis of this argument is my imperfectness -- a gap between what should be and what is. Therefore, instead of being accusatory, as in "You are doing this...", the tone here is actually remorseful, as in "We are doing this... Sadly!"

 I will now try to explain my ideology. I should forewarn you that most of this is a process of rudimentary thought in this direction, and you cannot hold me answerable to every minute detail. The crux however, I hope, will remain the same for a long time to come. I will start with a few things my theory is predicated on.

 First that all humans are equal. Irrespective of race, religion, caste, skin colour, hair colour, intelligence, smartness, smugness, snobbishness etc etc etc everyone is ideologically equal. It follows that if I believe me doing something is acceptable, I should be OK with anyone else doing it, for I am in no way special, and by extension I should be OK even if everyone does it. Therefore, whatever I do must be something that would not impede the functioning of the world if everyone else were also to do it. To clarify, in this framework, not following traffic rules is OK because if everyone were to do it, the system would be crippled.

 Secondly, I will work with majorities. That is to say that if I believe something holds for a majority, I will simply say it holds. In other words, I stick to the norm, and do not speak of deviations to either (or any of the) extremes. For example, I say "people are not suicidal" etc.

 It is well accepted that man is a social being. We have understood this from very early times,  dating back to the time when we first appeared on earth. Though there is no written proof, man is believed to have lived in communities right from the beginning. From the way civilizations have flourished and societies have evolved, it is clear that man, irrespective of where he lived, realised the importance of rules to be laid to help with peaceful co-existence within the society. The result was the complex systems in various societies, an example of which is the government. So while man was a social being, he was also not directly compatible for living in a society. "Artificial" rules were necessary to be enforced and followed. This is what is civilization in my opinion -- the acceptance to abide by rules not imposed by nature to allow you to live in communities without affecting the overall functioning of the community. That is to say that a system of government is one of the most important necessities for a civilized society. Wikipedia says that the earliest government was formed around 5000 years ago with the appearance of 'city states', which followed "relatively non-hierarchical" communities. Every civilization had a general hierarchy in the society, especially when it came to the governance of the people.

 From this history and common experience, I conclude that a hierarchical system is inevitable. In other words, a single system with no boundaries that includes everyone in the world will not work. The historical evidence I have cited earlier. Now I will try to illustrate this with some common examples. If the Indian government had no lower hierarchies, it would be responsible to clear the garbage on the road where you live. Can you imagine such a centralized system with no local subsystems actually accomplishing this task effectively and regularly? On a lower scale, can you imagine the CTO of a company handling every project without other people under him with smaller tasks on hand who report to him regularly? On a much smaller scale, can you imagine a single head for a family taking care of every need of every member of the family without anyone else's help? It is clear that a hierarchical system with division of responsibilities is inevitable.

 Given this, the establishment of countries with local responsibilities is a very acceptable system. I would also say that I am unimaginative to an extent that I cannot think of another viable alternative to this system. Note that every level in the hierarchy has local responsibilities. The corporator for your locality is responsible for clearing the garbages on all roads in your locality, the mayor of your city is responsible for various things in the city including ensuring proper working of the corporators of different localities, the chief minister and his cabinet responsible for proper functioning of your state and peaceful coexistence with other neighbouring states, the prime minister and the parliament responsible for the progress and prosperity of the nation along with maintaining amicable relationship with other countries etc, the countries of the world themselves agreeing to respect each other's sovereignty, tackling common problems of climate control, terrorism etc. I think of this as the mother taking care of food requirements of the family and the father ensuring that the mother has whatever she needs to fulfill her obligations and meeting his responsibilities himself. Note that a higher authority imposes constraints on the levels under it. A mayor's work depends (to some extent at least) on the chief minister's budget. A mother's cookery depends on the father's liking and salary. Also note that sometimes a lower system is entirely answerable for a certain responsibility. Once the father provides the money for the food, the mother is entirely responsible for the nutritious content and the taste of the food -- the father takes no blame if these are questionable. Similarly, the world community is not responsible for economic growth in some country -- this is left for the local national government to solve.

 From belonging to a certain subgroup of people comes a sense of 'ownership', so to say. It is "My family", "My locality", "My school", "My city" and "My country". A result of this relationship is the obligation to it. Responsibility for your family, a sense of belonging to your locality / city / country / society -- patriotism, a kind of pride about your alma mater etc. And as a result of this obligation, it is considered ethical to have an allegiance to each of these. To each of these to various extents, I agree, but there is no denial of the allegiance. This does not mean you cannot help other communities, but it definitely means that if you do not help when your "belongings" need help, then you'd be indulging in unethical behaviour. Note that like a mere sending of money to your parents is not all of your obligation to your family, a mere payment of tax is not all of your obligation to your country.

 With all this build up, I arrive at our specific topic of discussion -- as to whether one should be OK with a mandatory service at the army / police etc. In the wake of the Bombay events, everyone is worried about the security system in India. We accuse the government of not providing good enough security, of not having a well informed intelligence, of not doing enough to show that it is actually a government of the people for the people, but, let us take a moment to think about what we owe to the country before talking of what the country owes us. We have all heard news reports about the shortage of personnel in the armed forces and the police force in India, right? A Google search for "shortage police india" or "shortage army india" gives me all these news articles on this -- 1 2 3 4 5 6 . Note that link # 5 is a Pakistani website. Now even the terrorists know where our problem lies. Also note that ALL of these articles appeared before 26/11. Given this problem, if you were the government, what solution would you propose? I personally find the solution of mandatory army service for fixed duration (2 years, say) perfectly acceptable. While this would definitely put our lives on threat for a while, there is no other way out. You want to live peacefully without the fear of dying in a train, a hotel, a temple? Then serve in the army for 2 years, and you are assured of a better security for the rest of your life. Isn't that a good deal? I think it is.

 Now coming to your argument, rather name-calling. That I am a hypocrite because I am OK with mandatory army service whereas when I had a chance to serve in the army I shunned it. From my argument, you can see the rationale behind my opinion. A mandatory service puts my life in threat, sure. But, it is a system that works. I am sure that if I see the end of my service, I can rest assured that the security system is at least in good shape. Whereas on the other hand, when I have the option of choosing to go to the army, I would think twice before going because not only am I putting myself at threat, but also not contributing in any way to a change that will result in a working system. I obviously don't want to risk my life without gaining anything!

 Now you tell me, am I a hypocrite for my opinion? Or are you a narcissist who does not want any obligations himself, but wants someone else to bear the brunt?