FIGHTING MORAL INERTIA, Author - Dr. Jernail S. Anand

FIGHTING MORAL INERTIA
Dr. Jernail S. Anand

How do we describe the young men and women of today? In the studies they pursue and the careers they chase, there is a near absence of moral orientation. Can we call them amoral? They have little idea that there has been a long tradition of moral thought which has meandered alongside the political transformations of society.

Today a young person is obsessed with career, with success, with a great package. If he gets all this, he considers himself fulfilled. Neither family nor teachers have time to tell him that a moral code is also necessary. We have confused morality and ethics with religiosity, and religiosity itself has been lost in ritualization. Visiting shrines and being seen in religious gatherings is enough to make one look religious. But ethicality is entirely different from being religious.

What is morality and what is ethics? These questions have never been part of the mainstream of our life. The mainstream believes in a thriving business sense, amassing money, having huge deposits in banks, buying gold, and spending lavishly on marriages, even if one has to borrow. This is the social ethicality which the middle and lower-middle classes have imbibed, and they try their best to live in line with it.

For what are all these activities undertaken? The answer generally offered is: to live a happy life. So the question arises — are all those who have achieved success, happy? Do we know what happiness means? Does it simply imply a good job, a good salary, a good dowry in marriage? Is getting into the IAS the face of success in this society? It may be considered so, but it is not the face of happiness. Happiness is a different story altogether, and success, wealth and prosperity are not privy to it.

As social beings, we need a certain level of awareness, which also means a sense of being purposefully connected with the cosmic expanse, and then acting responsibly. If our vision is limited, and we do not look beyond our individuality and keep feeding our own greed and passions, it is a violation of the cosmic order. That order demands that we live in mutual co-existence, in harmony, and love each other. The final state of man is neither wealth, nor fame, nor success, but kindness, which alone makes our life worthy of the elements.

Perhaps these parameters are unknown to the general rung of youth who have no other passion except their studies and their jobs. They cannot be faulted for this. Society accords no respect to a man who is not employed. Salary has become essential to a system conceived in EMIs. The new generation, also called Gen Z and Gen Alpha, is worried about its future, because it finds the present marred by controversies. Education is in a mess, and it may take years before things are set right to meet the future needs of society.

The question before the thinking public is how to fight this expanding expanse of moral inertia, which the present generations have inherited from their elders. During the last fifty years, we have witnessed a fall in the quality of man under the pressure of materialistic proclivities. Teachers who once commanded great respect were relegated to the rear. The really respectable people in the social system today are those who hold the reins of wealth and power. We have witnessed this moral inertia among people, where they do not tremble while doing wrong.

Yet, there is hope. The upcoming generations, preoccupied though they are with career, have a sharp sense of honesty and believe in truth. Honesty is the first step towards an awareness of morality. They need to build anew a system which believes in honest labour, sincerity, goodness and fairness, and which responds to their needs.

These values were in vogue sixty years ago when we had great scholars and great statesmen. The system of shortcuts has actually cut us short, so that in recent years we do not have men whose busts could be installed in foreign cities. This is because we have passed through a tough terrain of moral inertia.

With the younger generations taking over, we believe the ideas of goodness, fairness and kindness will flow back into the thought patterns of society. We shall again have a system which believes in justice and fairness and works for the happiness of the common man. That will be the real fight against moral inertia.



Dr. Jernail S. Anand, with 200 plus books to his credib[20 epics] is a polymath, and a vital architect of the 21st century ethical literature whose seminal work ‘Lustus: The Prince of Darkness’ challenges the moral complacency of our era.  Founding President of the International Academy of Ethics, and Laureate of Charter of Morava [Serbia], Seneca [Italy], Franz Kafka [Germany, Ukraine, Czeck Rep] and Maxim Gorky [Russia] Soka Ikeda and Mahakavi Bharati (India) Awards, his name is inscribed on the Poets’ Rock in Serbia. He is an Honorary Member of the Serbian Writers Association, Belgrade, a Member of the Honorary International Boule and Honorary Academic Senator of International Academy of Rome, and a Academic Member of the Academy of Arts and Philosophical Sciences, Bari [Italy], Lifetime Vice President of Korean  Association of World Literature.  He is International Honorary President of COLOSSEUM, International Literary Prize 2026 by International Academy of Rome. Email: anandjs55@yahoo.com
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