sekar,
i think at this point materialism is on the ascendancy.
actually materialism was also on the ascendancy, ever since the dawn of man (& woman).
we say ramayana or mahabharata, is the fight and victory of good over evil. but implicit in their message, is that - be good, win, and be rewarded.
the concept of reward for good, i think, translates into material possessions. after all rama at the end of the episode, became the ruler and wielded power. if power is not the ultimate ethos of materialism, i do not know what?
i do not mean to decry the epics or demean them. just a tangential observation. that's all.
the whole caste system again, is the consolidation and preservation of power, based on bloodlines, and inadvertently blocking the upward mobility of the smart born versus 'high born' stupids.
perhaps, the two exceptions, that i know of is only gautama buddha and ashoka, who willed away their materialism, for what they believed to be something more. maybe today bill gates is doing that.
not all of us are bill gates. we don't know where to draw the line between materialism and beyond. where does 'beyond' starts?
to tell an aspiring dalit, not to be materialistic is to condemn him to the same curse as his forebears. to tell an aspiring student not to study medicine, is to deny him a vocation.
i think materialism is good. how we garner it, and control it, is the essence of life. 'go for the kill', i tell my children, and then once you have been satiated, i tell them to start to give. and keep giving till it hurts.
thank you.
