Societies form, they thrive and they flourish for a while and then the degeneration takes place. Past is a period of degeneration from which the seeds of future sprout to grow into a new tree of society. During this process of regeneration, there is something interesting happens which we do not care to give importance to. There is always a change in the way we look at terms called Good and Bad. The Good of Today is Bad of tomorrow and the Bad of Today is Good of tomorrow.
We can analyze certain traits of day to day lives and compare it way back to half a century from now and then correlate to see that certain things that were considered Evil at that time are taken for granted and certain things that were pretty common at that time are considered inhuman and come under the Criminal Jurisdiction today. For these variations between certain periods of time we frame a word called "Generation Gap" and Kids keep blaming parents for valuably invaluable customs and traditions and Elders keep saying that Kids are totally spoilt based on the trend and changes in the Society. But there are very few sensible and critical thinkers who feel that changes in Society are pretty common and that we need to go with the change. Change is the Law of Nature.
Yes, it is and we have a tough time facing and accepting that change. With this change, the definitions of Good and Bad keep changing too. The way we dress changed, the way we work changed, the way we travel changed. We become so attached to the deeply rooted traditions and customs that we do not want to be moved from the so-called normal trend. We tend to forget that even the Mother Nature follows the same pattern. The branches and stems of culture outside are happily branching out with new leaves and blooms every year with a greater and greater energy. Probably some one would say that well the roots are the same, so why change? But the roots that we do not see with our eyes also keep forming new and tertiary roots for the existence, They do not depend on the one and only same root, they take the best from the original root and keep going forward to explore and discover new arenas of earth and give more strength to the existing tree to bloom better and better than ever. If a tree can do that, how different are we from being part of nature. People build a wall of Ignorance around themselves and blind folded run in the darkness of their mental weakness and use the culture to defend and cover themselves against the mistakes they do in their day-to-day lives. In this process we keep coining phrases called Good and Bad.
A few more thoughts to prove this, Women was never considered to work outside the house in 18th century. If someone did that, they were called revolutionaries at that time. But today it is the way of life. In the past Man was the only one to earn bread and butter for the family. But today, every Guy wants to marry women who would get a paycheck home to add to the luxury of life and it is perfectly normal. But the same thing a century back was considered Bad. We people wait for some one to change first and then follow. And the people who begin the process become revolutionary leaders, social reformers or anti social elements some times.
Let's take a view about Love marriages vs. Arranged marriages. Love!! What is that? Did it exist in the past or is it new HiTech term we coined in the process of Industrial and IT revolution recently. Go talk to your grandparents and you are sure to listen a comment "In our days, we used to listen to what parents said, their word was the law for us, that is why we did not have any marriage break ups at our time." There was no term like "Love marriage" in the past, but today, yes it is a way of life. So in this race of Globalized Economy and world, which culture is the best, who is right, Is an arranged marriage performed in an Asian Culture good or a Love marriage performed in a Western culture.
Well, today we are so busy that we do not even have time to pause for a second and think to see if there is truth and reality in what others say. We frame our thoughts, ideologies and anything against those is considered Bad and anyone who is with it is Good. We tend to forget that what is good for me in a certain circumstance might be bad for the other person and vice versa. We never take a deeper look and say what was the circumstance, the dynamics of changes in the society and the causes of those events. As long as we keep doing that we will keep listening to the word "Generation Gap", more and more.
We keep living in the state of ignorance and keep framing rules for useless things and keep wasting time, instead of thinking for a second, what difference am I making in my day to day life for the benefit of the people living around me. We keep wasting time and arguing about what is Good and Bad. If we all could one day stop this Relative comparisons and tagging every act of ours "Good" and calling the acts of others "Bad" for a selfish/ego reasons, we will have a better world to live. Don't we feel at the end that these two are the terms that we coined for our selfish expression and exploitation of invincible aspect of nature, the TIME.
Yes, Einstein came up with the greatest theory one could have ever come up in the Scientific, Philosophical and Social arena. Everything in this world is quite relative. As Einstein himself quoted once about the Theory of Relativity "Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute. That's relativity."
