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SIN AND
SCIENCE: INTRODUCTION
A person who has reached social maturity in a modern city can say
that the meaning of crime, sin, and science is self-evident. of us, in
India at least, know that sin depends upon the particular religion
professed; drinking wine is a sin for a Muslim, beef eating for a Hindu,
while the Christian does both without a qualm. This variable concept of sin
being no longer sufficient to regulate society, legal sanctions are applied
to forbid certain actions which are labelled as crimes, to be punished by
police. and court action. A crime must be detected and the offender through
some legal formalities before punishment becomes effective; retribution for
sin can hardly be pruved in most cases, is usually relegated to the next
world or the next rebirth. For science, the consequences rest upon logical
materialist interpretation of careful experiments or observations,
independently of theological or juridical regulations. He who allows a
certain dose of poison must die whether the action is legal or not;
allowing the proper number of bacteria to lodge in your system develops
correspondmg disease- whether God is it or not- with a definite statistical
frequency.
If now all three of these approaches tell us the same thing, the
commission of sin should lead to a strong possibility of disease while
being also a crime, society then seems to be doing best to stamp out a
dangerous evil. This is certainly the case in the regulation of sex-
relations, with its concomitants: vorce, venereal disease,
prostitution; similarly for drunkenness and its effects upon the
individual, upon his family, and upon society as a whole through increase
of accidents in a machine age.
Dyson Carter reports fairly and dispassionately upon the lethods
used quite recently to stamp out these evils in two entirely different
contemporary civilizations, each a leading model of its own type. In the USA no one can deny the powerful
development of science, with an even more powerful development of the
police force; all American religious groups combine their efforts upon such
questions. Nevertheless, the divorce rate is increasing, and is about the
highest in the world; venereal disease, prostitution, alcoholism remain
uneradicable in spite of 'reform' political campaigns, special police
drives, and constant exhortations from the pulpit. In the USSR, the first and greatest
representative of a new form of society, there was every reason for these
deadly byproducts of modern society to have flared up. Organized religion
was smashed by the revolution, most former restraints removed, the
prostitute no longer punished as a criminal, divorce made almost
effortless, and cheap liquor provided by the government. Add to this the
misery of wars of intervention following the revolution and the constantly
increasing rate of production; then, bourgeois logic would lead you to
expect a continuous debauch. Yet, we find that prostitution has disappeared
altogether, the divorce rate forced down to a negligible level, drunkenness
now almost unknown in a country once notorious for its besgtted muzhiks and
workers.
These results, which might seem paradoxical and even fantastic,
were obtained simply by turning scientific inquiry upon the roots of the
problem, following its conclusions to their logical end. What the policeman
dare not, priest cannot, scientist does not ask in capitalistic countries
is why the social evils exist at all. The Soviet answer is that they
exist because certain classes of people make heavy profits thereby. The
exploitation of vice is a simple consequence of the general exploitation of
the vast mass of people which necessarily drives a considerable number to
vice. Removal of the general exploitation took away the prime cause, and
ruthless punishment was served out to those who tried to make profit, not
to their victims; to the brothel keeper, not the prostitute; to the
bootlegger, not the drunkard. At the same time, the right to employment
became part of the way of life, a decent livelihood being made possible for
all. Then it was easy to observe the effects of the new freedom, to turn on
legislation, party propaganda, scientific education of the people.
Alternative forms of amusement and relaxation had been provided for all
with full literacy and cheap as well as good reading matter, fine music,
excellent cinema, parks of culture, sport. The former evils disappeared
simply because they no longer had any reason to exist. Life became so well
worth living for the first time that escape from it was no longer
necessary.
We face the same problems in India and are now trying the
American system, including prohibition. However, any profiteer is free to
shorten the lives of his countrymen by denying them the essentials of life
and he does this as member of a highly respected class. The police protect
him and his gains against the victims. The scientist ignores the effects of
starvation, filthy lodging, lack of education upon those who made the
profit possible, and rushes to help the capitalist with technical advice,
medical aid, or even gratuitous praise; for who but the rich can pay well.
who but those who have made heavy profits endow research? As for religion.
it merely proclaims that the oppressd will get their due in some other life
or still more comfortingly that they must have misbehaved in a previous
birth to suffer so now; that is, they may be ignored altogether or squeezed
even more painfully. The reformer, with the best of intentions, attempts to
gain the benefits of a revolution without the revolution itself.
Current Book House
Publication, Bombay, 1950
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