“The highest result of education is tolerance.” ~ Helen Keller
We have all observed, and to some extent participated in, the incivilities that keep happening around us on a day-to-day basis. One such incivility is the breach of civic sense. Every human, whether literate or illiterate, man or woman, child or adult, Indian or non-Indian, of any caste or creed, has at least once, or perhaps on a daily basis (knowingly or unknowingly), participated in an act that is considered uncivil in the eyes of someone else, and perhaps even in the eyes of the doer themselves. Yet, everyone participates to some extent.
These acts can be as simple as throwing a plastic wrapper on the street, breaking a queue while waiting for the metro, playing loud music in a public space, or urinating in public; or as complex as stabbing someone in an overcrowded situation, as seen in the case of the New Delhi railway station stampede deaths last year during the Kumbh Mela period, or speeding cars crushing people on the street. The degradation of civic sense in a more or less educated population has been a cause of concern for many of us. Through this piece, I have tried to analyze why this happens and what the potential solutions to this problem might be.
Childhood: Shame and Disgust
“A child’s first sentiment is to love himself; and the second, which derives from the first, is to love those who come near him, for in the state of weakness that he is in, he does not recognize anyone except by the assistance and care he receives.”
~ Jean-Jacques Rousseau
In Emile, Rousseau observes that a child’s desire to enslave his parents marks the beginning of a world of hierarchy. Although he does not consider the child evil by nature, he argues that the very weakness and neediness of human infants create ethical deformation and cruel behavior.
Freud writes that “His Majesty the Baby is joined to the anxiety and shame of knowing that one is not, in fact, omnipotent but completely powerless. This anxiety creates a desire for completeness that never entirely departs.” The shame of being incomplete in oneself and needing others marks the first development of chaos inside a child. This “primitive shame” later combines with disgust toward one’s own bodily waste products. All of us have seen a child throw tantrums when his hands are dirty or his diaper is full. This marks the second stage of helplessness. To cope with it, the child projects his own disgust onto others. And this projection marks the beginning of every kind of superiority or inferiority complex.
The Pure–Impure Dichotomy
Believe it or not, attitudes toward feces play a major role in the development of a society and its people. Consider the evolution of toilets in Japan and India. In both countries, toilets were once separated from the main living space by a buffer zone that kept the “pure” living areas distinct from the “impure” toilet. Over time, however, the Japanese removed this buffer zone; the toilet became part of their usual self rather than something separate. We see the result in their beautifully designed, impeccably clean public toilets. In India, the presupposition that toilets (and the cleaners associated with them) are impure while we ourselves are pure still lingers.
Dichotomies, be it pure–impure, good–bad, beautiful–ugly, life–death, happy–sad, or left–right, create tension and divide people. The truth is, society and the attitudes of its people are built upon these divisions. This dichotomy is learned and passed from one generation to the next.
For example, when a parent tells a child not to be untidy “or you’ll look like a dom-chamar,” or when children see their parents treating garbage collectors, sweepers, people from different castes, or women differently, they internalize the idea that these people are dirty or inferior. And this marks the beginning of all our troubles.
Adults: Authority, Anonymity
Every society contains people willing to live with others on terms of mutual respect and those who seek comfort in domination. What distinguishes them is how they perceive other human beings. Those who seek domination view people through the lenses of caste, race, gender, or religion; these divisions breed aggression and anxiety.
Aristotle, in Book II of the Nicomachean Ethics, notes that we approve or disapprove of extreme actions but remain ignorant of the middle actions. One is either brave or cowardly; one controls everything or nothing. Depending on the situation, you are either praised or scolded by others, but the action always remains extreme, either in the black space or white. He advocates for a golden mean where there is a balance between extremes.
This leads me to the effect of peer pressure and the role of authority in shaping one’s attitude. First, peer pressure within groups leads members to behave in a certain manner. A group that has been raised to consider itself superior feels shame when its members realize they cannot control their surroundings, and they try to fight against it. One example is the Nazis who murdered Jews; even Germans who were against it had to comply for fear of being ostracized.
Second, as Martha Nussbaum writes, “the subservience to authority is a common feature of group life; trust in a leader whom we see as invulnerable is a well-known way in which the fragile ego protects itself against insecurity.” Allowing people to think they are not responsible for their own actions because an authority figure takes all the responsibility is one reason people behave erratically. Even decent, well-behaved people act differently in different situations. For example, a child who is good at sports might feel superior in a state like Haryana but inferior in Bihar, where kids get fewer sporting opportunities. The crux of the matter is that people behave badly when they are not held accountable for their actions, acting under the shelter of anonymity as part of a faceless mass.
Education as Soul-Nourishment
All these factors, and many others, explain why we behave as we do in daily life. But what can be done?
Mahatma Gandhi reminded us that the struggle for freedom and equality in society must first be a struggle within each person. Compassion and respect must contend against fear, greed, and narcissistic aggression if we are to achieve true freedom.
This internal struggle can never be addressed by schools or universities alone; it must involve the family and the larger society. Yet schools exert a massive influence on a child’s life and are a factor that can be monitored and improved more easily than most others.
The idea of education as the primary nourishment of the soul has been emphasized by many educational thinkers: Gandhi’s Nai Talim, Rabindranath Tagore’s experiment at Shantiniketan, Rousseau’s vision in Emile, Pestalozzi’s methods, and John Dewey’s approach. What they share is the central role of Socratic dialogue in developing a strong sense of self.
“The unexamined life is not worth living for a human being.” ~ Socrates
Bureaucratized education that treats teachers as subjects and students as objects, where students are reduced to the role of receivers and teachers to the source of absolute information, widens the gap and alienates students from the whole learning process (assuming both parties actually attend school and college, which is a topic for another discussion). Tagore fiercely opposed rote learning and the treatment of pupils as vessels for receiving cultural values. He advocated giving students full freedom for inquiry and experience so they could form their own standards of judgement and produce their own thoughts. He championed role-playing exercises in which students step outside their own viewpoint, inhabit another person’s perspective, and debate from that side. This builds empathy and the ability to detect fallacies that ultimately makes life more bearable.
Pestalozzi similarly called for an inquisitive child trained in critical thinking rather than herd-like obedience. He argued that young men and women must become more maternal and loving; he believed that over-masculinity had made people aggressive in pursuit of selfish needs. At its essence, he held, human nature is maternal, and this maternal care is the sacred source of civic virtue.
However, it is also true that, in a country like ours, where teacher and student absenteeism remains a serious issue, the content of education often takes second place. Schemes such as the mid-day meal and teacher-training programs have helped, yet the full implementation of Socratic ideals still feels distant.
Ultimately, it can be said that the arts ignite empathy in people, and empathy is the enemy of moral obtuseness, the very obtuseness that creates the dichotomies in our heads and blinds us to the problems of others. Solving this crisis is daunting, yet efforts are being made every day by countless people working on education and, ultimately, on society itself. Who knows, perhaps one part of the solution is as simple as reading a good book. It might just shatter the wall that separates us from true freedom.
In the end, the crisis of civic sense is not merely a failure of rules but a failure of perception. We do not act irresponsibly because we do not know better, but because we do not see others as fully human in those moments. The roots of this blindness lie deep in our upbringing, in the prejudices taught to us by others, and those we have internalized ourselves. No law, no surveillance, and no punishment can fully resolve this. Education must go beyond information; it must cultivate self-awareness, empathy, and the courage to question divisions.
A society changes when its people become more conscious. Civic sense, in this light, is not a social obligation alone; it is an inner discipline. And perhaps the smallest acts—waiting in a queue, keeping the street clean, treating a stranger with dignity—are where this change begins.
Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;
Where knowledge is free;
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls;
Where words come out from the depth of truth;
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;
Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought and action—
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.
~ Rabindranath Tagore