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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