Suarez and Godse–good or evil
6July 20, 2010 by styagi68
On January 30, 1948, Nathuram Godse pulled out a gun and shot Mahatama Gandhi several times from a short distance, killing him in full public view. In the subsequent trial he gave a well structured argument saying that he was not crazy but had systematically analyzed that Gandhi was causing so much damage to the country (India) he loved that he had decided to kill him. He fully knew that the consequences of this will be death for himself as well as being viewed as a villain, however he was willing to take that cost. To himself and to a very limited part of the country who agreed with his views, he is considered a rational hero who made the ultimate personal sacrifice for his beliefs. To the rest of the country he was a killer and a villain.
On July 2, 2010, Suarez, an Uruguayan player, was standing front of the goal when a header came straight to him in the last two minutes of the game. He knew he could not stop it within the rules of the game. But he also knew that letting it go would mean the end of Uruguay’s stay at the World Cup. He fully knew that using the hands will get him a red card and a penalty which will yield more or less the same result. But he still took the chance.
Both these people made an explicit trade-off within the rules the society had setup. Suarez is a hero in Uruguay for the personal sacrifice he did. On the other hand, for Ghana, he is a villain, a cheat. So which one are they? Heros or villains.
In my view both did something unethical. Whenever we limit the scope of concern, we come up with biased views. Ethics, right or wrong, can’t really be determined by limiting the scope of concerned people. If we are only concerned about ourselves then a lot of things we do which cause harm to others can be justified. This is precisely the issue with rampant individualism. Ethical conduct bids us to place the desire of all at the same level. We have no right to take away the life, freedom or happiness of another to increase our own.
Ethical conduct is the best way to proceed because all of us have the same right and desire to be happy–Dalai Lama.
When we intentionally value our own happiness over the pain caused to others, we create a distorted world view.
Suarez is only a hero in the eyes of Uruguayans. However, he intentionally broke the rules. When people forget to bring intentionality into it, then you get the outcome that we all saw in Spain vs. Netherlands finals. There were record breaking yellow cards in the game. Players were intentionally making the trade-off between yellow card (low cost since it was the finals) and preventing progress of the other team by breaking the rules.
Life is less clear than football. There are no set rules that everyone agrees to, and there is no neutral referee. So we need the ethics/religion/GOD to direct people. We can’t let our personal, our families, our communities or our countries interest come so ahead of others desire to be happy that we cause pain to them. This is the message of “universal love” or brotherhood that most religions teach.
Analytical Faith 
Unethical sure but also first and foremost, illegal. Which is more clearly spelled out, at least in these cases.
However, the sanction was not sufficient to dissuade the criminal. In the case of football, the rule can be made harsher and they can move on. The case of yellow cards in the finals also stresses the importance of effective and fair enforcement.
In the case of Godse, law or religion cannot hold someone back if they feel they are determined and wronged enough. Both law and religion define codes of acceptable conduct based on no harm unto others.
You can have atheists who are ethical and compassionate to others and have a greater sense for social responsibility and obey the law. Religion is one way – it is not the only way, it is also not foolproof to the flaws in the examples above, as indicated by narrow interpretations and violence in the name of religion.
Another point I want to make: religion is often rigid, inflexible, dictatorial (by priests, pope, imams, etc) and doesn’t always keep up with the times.
Lawmaking is on the other hand democratic, flexible, evolving and requires functioning of social institutions to decide what is or what is not acceptable or detestable. Laws, constitution are not dispassionate things but an articulation of what society deems to be important and acceptable.
Dear Mg,
You raise an interesting question between ethics, religion and law. They all define ways to interact and behave such that we can sustain and increase the welfare of maximum number of people. There approach is different:
Law lays out the boundaries and gives power to some person or body to interpret, judge and finally punish anyone who crosses those boundaries
Ethics is more personal. The interpreter, judge and executioner are not well defined. Society at large will serve that role and their judgement is not binding on you. If you do not spend time with your family, it is not illegal, but the societal norms maybe against it. And your own “conscience” will be against it if your value system/ethics/religious beliefs make such a behavior unacceptable.
That is precisely what limits the efficacy of law versus ethics and religion. As soon as make someone else responsible for implementing the law, we make it much much weaker. Consider widespread corruption, violation of traffic rules and other daily infringements of law. These can continue unabated since there isn’t sufficient machinery to implement the law universally. If I cross the double yellow line and there was no traffic cop there, did I do something wrong? Or worse, when a cop stops us, we argue that “everyone was doing it.” However, in ethics and religion the interpreting and implementing authority is within you. So no matter where you are, you would not do something wrong as you are always watching yourself.
Remember the story of the teacher who asked his pupils to eat an apple where no one was watching. Everyone failed except the pupil who realized that everywhere he goes God is watching him. (In a separate discussion we can discuss that God is not separate from your own consciousness, so I am watching what I am doing all the time). Such a system is foolproof as it does not need evidence, courts, police etc to implement. For vast majority of the population, such a system works. For a small subsection, who do not subscribe to such boundaries as imposed by ethics/religion, we need the judicial and police infrastructure.
I don’t disagree with the vast majority of your original post and your reply but I’ll focus on the small part where I disagree.
For every one who interprets religious code of conduct correctly, there is one who does not, undermining its total efficacy across the population. Godse was deeply religious and in his statement mentioned that it was his religious duty to kill Gandhi and it was like Ram killing Ravan and like Krishna killing Kans. Religion was not able to stop him, but quite the contrary, he was able to rationalize his desire.
I tend to believe that religion is quite ineffective and the primary solution (to your daily infringement, widespread corruption point) is economic development and minimum educational achievement to the extent that everybody has a stake in the economic pie. I am reminded of the economist Hans Rosling – he asked the question why do we want money and economic development – those are not the ultimate goals but the means to a better social value system, a better culture and realization of aggregate human potential. I consider good democratic lawmaking, policy making and fair enforcement an outcome of economic achievement and hence quite important and perhaps equally important, if not more.
It is difficult to make the point in a corrupt India where people don’t feel like they are a part of the democratic process. But, religion is perhaps equally prone to corruption. There is also the perception of country administration being something that is removed from the people, not the people’s responsibility because earlier it was the British who were responsible for it. Religion is perhaps an easier device in getting large swathes of India to be ethical, but I think it is sub-optimal, can be misused and it no substitute for rational thought. Economic development in India goes hand in hand with establishing a better social value system, and a better law making and enforcement system.
On the last para, I find it absolutely unsatisfactory to use God as a fear device to make people conform. That is a way of enforcement that I’m not comfortable with. It may work better with children, I do not know – I’ll find out when I have children. One could also substitute Police/monsters in the place of God with perhaps equal efficacy? I also find it hard to believe that it is foolproof because any good or bad thing can be enforced via the fear tactic. In other words, religion is no substitute for correct thinking and the latter is the thing we need and aspire towards, whether we get it via religion, education, philosophy or any other social institution.
There are also vast groups of people (in the world) who are atheists but wouldn’t need judicial and police infrastructure to conform to a code of conduct, so its not just religion or law – Chinese follow Confucian philosophy for example, New Zealand is half athesit. Also, Western civilization seems to have a stronger social value system perhaps because of the economic and educational development of the past and feeling of an equal stake in society.
No doubt, that correctly interpreted and even otherwise, religion has a significant role to play in society but my point is that it is not the only route or as important and dominant as you argue, and it is not without its warts. It doesn’t quite work in aggregate if there are other issues like illiteracy and lack of economic development. There are other aspects to developing social cohesion, harmony and an acceptable code of conduct or ethics.
Thank you for your careful reading and comments. The premise of this blog is that faith and analysis converge at some point–analytical faith. So rationality and being God fearing may not end being that different in the final analysis.
A friend tells me that my recollection of Godse’s statement is wrong, so I need to take that back!