'Prosperity' for each individual will be disastrous || Acharya Prashant (2022)
Full Video: Policymakers, wake up! || Acharya Prashant, with O.P. Jindal University (2022)
Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOg5KLEcGoY&t=0s
Video Information: 24.05.2022, Greater Noida
Context:
~ What do the halves have?
~ What is it that we all do need?
~ Is it good to be prosperous for everyone?
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~
Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOg5KLEcGoY&t=0s
Video Information: 24.05.2022, Greater Noida
Context:
~ What do the halves have?
~ What is it that we all do need?
~ Is it good to be prosperous for everyone?
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~
Transcript
00:00 For someone, let's say, who is poor and who is oppressed, he or she would know that and
00:09 aware of the fact that well, they are poor, and they do not have access to the resources
00:14 that they would need for their upliftment. And at the same time, they might not even
00:19 have the access, like safe education, or like even understanding what they could do in like
00:26 for them to come out of the of the traps that they are in. Under such a situation,
00:32 do you think there is a solution that can actually help in any kind of upliftment at all? Or do you
00:38 say that we are actually like moving the gap is the gap between the haves and the have-nots is
00:43 just widening further and further? The question is what do the haves have?
00:47 Do they really have something worth coveting?
00:55 Indeed, people need something, but what is it that we all do need?
01:01 No point running the same race. The have something, the haves have something.
01:12 And if all the have-nots aspire to have the same thing that the haves have,
01:20 then all we'll have is disaster. Think of what will happen
01:26 if the entire population of India is able to have the same per capita consumption
01:36 as the population of US. Will we survive? Will the earth last even six months?
01:49 Is consumption first of all the goal of human life? And when I say consumption,
01:56 that includes education as well. Because our education is very much consumption-centric.
02:03 So, you talked of the solution. The superficial solution obviously is to bridge the gap.
02:14 And that you could do by various means. You could do that by subsidies, you could do that
02:19 by affirmative action, you could do that by social schemes, by reservations.
02:26 There is so much that you can do and if you do that, there will be some positive impact and you
02:34 are entitled to feel good about it. But so far and no more. That takes you no further than this.
02:46 If you really want wholesome change, then you need a social system, an education system to begin with.
03:02 That will be the first thing. That encourages the right values.
03:10 And the moment I use the word values, it starts sounding cliched, even trite. Because the word
03:20 values has been abused so much and slighted so much. It has lost its meaning. It has become
03:30 insignificant. Maybe we need another word to suit our minds. We need to understand what is it that
03:40 is first of all valuable in life. And that is what each human being must have. Each kid that is born
03:50 is entitled to have something in life. The question is what is that something? Disneyland, a trip to Mars,
04:02 Ivy League MBA,
04:06 wonderful kind of clothing.
04:14 What is it that we ought to have? Obviously, there are the basic physical needs.
04:24 We require good food, we require shelter. But being a human being, there is something more
04:33 that we need. Something that animals do not need but we do. And that's the central thing.
04:41 That I dare say is even more important than food and shelter.
04:45 I'm not discounting the importance of food and shelter.
04:48 So figure that out and ensure that everybody gets to have that.
04:59 [Music]