On bullshit(with the naive life-sketch of a reformer)

Bullshit and its disgusting effects on the society can be easily understood, if one refers to the story of Rammohan Banerjee(I will drop the “Raja” and “Roy” titles). I want to emphasise on his stance against Sati-Pratha and how he pressurised the colonial government to abolish it.

Imagine that era of Bengal. Orthodox Hindus who venerated Brahmins and whatever they told. Evils of casteism, which penetrated every aspect of society. Yet one act - the burning of widows, shows the nadir of everything that was wrong with society. I will get back to it.

As per Pauranic stories - Shiva’s wife, Sati self-immolated herself. She couldn’t take repeated insults of her husband from her father. Shiva was extremely enraged at the act and killed his father-in-law. That’s the essence of the story. If you’re a normal person, you will think of it as just another story and forget about it.

But religion is altogether a different game. It is so creepy and insidious that if you’re not vigilant, it can do things to you. I don’t know at what point of time, the above story took the form of a tradition. A woman becomes a widow. Most probably a young widow, because of child-marriage. Then, she is tied to the funeral pyre of her husband. The pyre is ignited. And people watch her die in agony and screams.

Now, this tradition might be going for a thousand years when Rammohan came about. And, no one even did a thing about it! They just considered it as a law of society and moved on with their lives.

Rammohan had an eye for bullshit. He recognised that this is evil and shouldn’t continue. So, he used the Britishers to enact a law banning the tradition. Did he face any problem? Of course. Opposition from his parents(who were Brahmins) and even attacks on his life. But, Rammohan was not a coward. He pressed on and finally got the law passed.

Rammohan was against idol-worship(probably due to influences of Abrahamic religions like Islam and Christianity). So, he started Brahmo Samaj. I think, he must have thought about atheism but couldn’t reject all the religious influences on him. Therefore, he opened the society anyway.

                                                                     (Portrait Credit: Wikipedia)

So even Rammohan was not untouched by bullshit. He still chose a God, though he had no evidences for one. I guess, we shouldn’t blame him that much. He is still a hero. He did a lot of good by his acts of defiance. How many of us have done a good thing in our lives?

So, what do we learn from this story? We learn that bullshit should be crushed whenever detected. Bullshit is against progress and has lots of horrifying consequences. Even worse, you may not even realise that you’re in deep shit. To put it politely.

For a more descriptive and well-written take on bullshit, one should check out Carl Sagan’s The Fine Art of Baloney Detection. One can even register for an awesome course here(by University of Washington).

As a final note, try to become another Rammohan. Piss off people who spread and indulge in bullshit. Demand evidence for everything you hear and think. Even if you lead a hard life, know that your contributions will make the world a better place.

All hail Objectivity!