A phrase coined by Bernard Shaw and voiced by his character Alfred Doolittle in Pygmalion. Alfred Doolittle is arguably the most loved character from Pygmalion, and every sentence he utters in the play could lead to lengthy blogs in their own right, but this one phrase has had the most impact on me personally.
I’ve already explored questions such as what it is to be a good person, and once defined, why anyone would want to become one. Entire religions, cults, and societies have been formed upon these questions and Alfred Doolittle’s five-minute stage time answers them all so elegantly.
Countless Matrix fans are already familiar with the concept of control in society. Whether real or not, we live in a world with psychological barriers meant to control us. Religions, customs, traditions, social acceptance are all imposed by a few upon the masses in an effort to contain them and control them. Generally speaking a selfish person is good for society. I know this sounds a bit counter intuitive, but really think about it. So long as a person is trapped in the selfish loops of their lives, they are harmless. They may be irritable and frustrated, but they are generally so involved in their own little world that they can be manipulated quite easily. Just imagine what would happen if majority of the population had their lives as relatively easy as people in my situation do – bills get autodebited, household stuff happens on autopilot, and get lots of free time on their hands – it’s a nightmare for the ruling classes – all of a sudden people would have loads of time and energy to demand better roads, better governance, and so on – in short people would become selfless.
And yet, due to industrialization and globalization, that’s exactly what did happen – in Europe and America a century ago, and in India over the last decade. The majority of the world’s population now lives in cities. Most services are provided by private companies – meaning better customer care and relatively easier lives for the masses (anyone remember the days when the government had a monopoly on telecommunications?) That can’t be good – people suddenly start caring about shit like “Human Rights”, “Budget Allocations”, “Corruption”, and all that kinda stuff. These aren’t people you can push over, because they’re the so-called ‘working class’ who use the word ‘deserve’ a lot more than is comfortable. These people work hard, and hence they deserve certain things and won’t back down until they get them. These people are in a majority too. These people also believe in notions like “self-respect” and “honour” and “dignity” – so long as these adjectives are applied to them by others.
Enter “Middle Class Morality”. In almost every speech by politians, business tycoons and generally anyone else, we hear the middle classes praised in one form or another – usually with the same adjectives above – self-respect, honour, dignitiy, hard-workers, etc. By creating a society where such adjectives need to be applied by “others”, you create a perfect selfishness loop for people to be involved in and keep busy. Now everyone is trying to gratify themselves by trying to get as many of their peers to apply those adjectives to them, while the peers are also engaged in the converse process. By tying these virtues with morality, you have a perfect weapon for manipulation.
As time progresses, whatever problems, issues or squabbles the middle class may have, can be squished with morality – whatever you don’t want them to do, just define it as being things that “bad people do” and you’re all done. Once the middle classes start judging each other’s nobility and self-respect and all that crap based on your definition of what bad people are, you’ll find not one of them will dare have any of their own kind call them “less dignified”. A system of perfect control. Of course, not all morality can be attributed to control – most of it is just plain stupidity. Once you have notions of “more dignified” or “less dignified” (don’t we just love comparisons?), the middle class starts inventing their own definitions and standards to be somehow “more moral” than their peers, who are trying to do the same.
Over time, we find ourselves in a society with a majority so selfish and self-absorbed in non-issues that the minority are left to do what they want and rule the world. I know it’s ironic, but morality is the biggest evil our society could face today. We all live under illusions of being “good people” and “moral people”.
Before ending I will say that to want to be moral and good isn’t wrong, which is why such manipulation is dangerous and requires almost Jedi-like calmness to prevent. It’s very difficult, but equally important, to be able to judge what really is righteous and moral behaviour, as opposed to what is simply being imposed as a system of control.
