The Happy Medium

From the earliest known presence of mankind in the plains of Ethiopia through the emergent civilisations of Africa, Eurasia and the Western Hemisphere, to this day, in fact, mankind has struggled to strike a balance between what is needed for survival and what would contribute to legacy. One has only to consider the diverse articulations of the Upanishads or Buddha with that of Machiavelli or Protagoras to appreciate the breadth of the spectrum of perception.

This quest for balance led to the emergence of value systems – ethical codes or guidelines for daily life – some of which we recognise as religions.

Whether we believe they were revealed through divine intervention, as is upheld in Islam and Catholicism, or rather championed by visionaries or opportunists, as is maintained in more secular schools of thought, the fact remains these systems emerged at different times and in different civilisations around the globe.

All the while, indeed, sometimes seemingly in parallel, mankind has marched on, dreaming of perfection and the evolution of superman, as was considered by Dewey, Shaw and Nietzsche. Some see the development process as linear progression, while others advocate cyclic tendencies and act accordingly.

And yet here we are today – a diverse and yet dominant species who (as identified by Sayed Ashraf) have been able to mirror the characteristics of our Creator in our understanding of ourselves, our interaction with our fellow man and even the physical environment.

Yet still, the deeper we delve the more we recognise the mastery and stunning precision of the workings of a Higher Being, as was acknowledged by Bertrand Russell and even more recent counterparts.

We run the risk, however, of undermining those very principles and beliefs we have fought so hard to define and preserve. As we move in this age from the rational to the empirical, we must strive to ensure that these values and beliefs are not only transmitted but internalised so as to foster discovery of intrinsic worth, individual speciality and thereby the unending possibility of intellectual, mental, emotional and spiritual development.

There is need for the recognition and celebration of demonstrated competence and awareness of values within a system based – not on freedom as initially conceptualised by Plato, or equality as articulated by Marx and Ingles, but of a system based on justice – the most delicate of balances between the individual and society. The happy medium as described in the Qur’an.

And was it not Rumi who said “the middle path is the way to wisdom”?