Corruption Is Deep-rooted

People often project their values onto others. But cultural frameworks can be profoundly alien. What passes for virtue in one society may be incomprehensible—or nonexistent—in another. Predictably, well-meaning interventions from the outside often fail to achieve their intended goals. Without grasping the moral foundation of a culture, outsider solutions rarely reach the root and usually exacerbate the rot.

What looks like righteous indignation in Indians—especially to Western observers shaped by the Ten Commandments—is often just fury at being out-scammed, deprived, or physically harmed. Virtue-signaling comes easily to those who lack inner values or original thought. Indian moral posturing is mostly for Western eyes, where it can yield material or reputational gain. Within India, moral appeals carry no weight and instead invite ridicule. Conscience is not a private compass but a public costume—worn only when it might be seen.

The Indian mind, in its unaltered state—untouched by Western ideas—shuns moral reflection. For those who believe they’ve “arrived,” nothing is more gratifying than testing power and watching others suffer. Sadism becomes self-affirmation. It is not enough to cause pain; prolonging another’s suffering becomes a performance of superiority. The ultimate thrill is not justice or truth, but the sight of others on their knees, begging.

The powerless imitate this in another register. During highly charged spectacles—such as when a girl publicly claims victimhood—crowds gather not to uphold justice but to revel in the drama. Disinterested in evidence, they perform “chivalry” through mob energy: blind to their cowardice, drunk on shared chaos. It is not solidarity, but the thrill of spectacle—a counterfeit belonging forged in hatred.

In such frenzied states, individuals dissolve into the mob, feeling momentarily invincible, as if even the impossible lies within reach. But sooner or later, they collide with reality and collapse under its weight, as evidenced by India’s wretchedness, dysfunction, and lawlessness. Yet in that moment, the illusion of power is intoxicating and cathartic, numbing them to their own pain and humiliating existence.

This reveals a deeper pathology: the mimicry of Western moral language without the culture of introspection that gave rise to it. Words like “justice,” “equality,” and “human rights” are wielded not as moral commitments but as tools of leverage. Had India never encountered the West, such hypocrisy might not exist. But mimicry without soul corrodes, not uplifts. Stripped of their roots and filtered through corrupt systems and unformed minds, these terms collapse into incoherence.

A real community requires discipline, goodwill, and moral clarity—virtues that cannot take root in minds addicted to noise, chaos, and spectacle. Civilization does not emerge from nature; it is forged over millennia through restraint, trust, and moral effort. It grows not in frenzy, but in the quiet labor of responsibility and mutual regard.

And so India drapes its primal urges in borrowed virtue—never confronting the abyss within, only decorating it. What remains is moral staleness and cultural decay. Tribes—never “noble savages” to begin with—have, in imitating a Western façade, devolved into slums fouled by sewage, plagued by disease, and ruled by opportunism and crime.

Western observers often mistake Indian gestures for evidence of shared values. But what they see is not empathy—it is simulation.

In the West, conscience was shaped through centuries of religious introspection, legal reasoning, and philosophical debate, yielding an inner moral law responsive to something higher than group identity or convenience. In India, by contrast, magical thinking and herd instinct prevail.

Western institutions emerged only after a critical mass of individuals began to think in moral and rational terms. The spark of conscience came first. Institutions were built to preserve and transmit those hard-won insights. At least in principle, they exist to cultivate independent judgment, moral reasoning, and accountability to something beyond blood, tribe, or caste. They orient the mind toward truth.

Legal institutions in India were not the fruit of moral or philosophical insight—colonial powers imposed them. Once handed over to Indian control, the spirit of justice, institutional restraint, and the rule of law were gutted and perverted. Bureaucrats extract bribes—and take sadistic pleasure in doing so.

Severed from any moral foundation, institutions lose meaning. In a culture where virtues are unrewarded and even punished, character is a liability. Survival depends not on principle, but on cunning.

Whether in the family, at school, in the temple, or in the state, Indian institutions exist primarily to control, entrench hierarchy, and enable predation. Teachers demand rote obedience. Religious leaders enforce hollow rituals, not reflection. The individual’s moral development is not merely neglected—it is systematically crushed.

It took me more than a year of living in the UK even to begin grasping what “truth” meant. Until then, truth was simply whatever worked in the moment, whatever was most expedient.

Until this fundamental divergence between the West and India is acknowledged, one side will continue to believe it is engaged in a shared moral conversation. At the same time, the other will merely calculate how best to exploit its terms.

Christian missionaries and British administrators tried to awaken a moral conscience in India. But after three centuries, their influence remained largely superficial. Whatever gains were made have since decayed into mimicry—gestures without conviction, language without inner transformation. Lacking deep roots, these borrowed ideals now obstruct real, bottom-up reform.

What is often mistaken for “honor” in India is, in truth, ego. When a daughter is raped, the family’s first instinct is not to seek justice, but to suppress the event. Were it true honor they wished to preserve, they would hunt down the perpetrator without pause. But it is not virtue they fear losing—it is face. What drives them is not moral outrage but social embarrassment.

What we call “honor

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Lew Rockwell

LewRockwell.com is a libertarian website that publishes articles, essays, and blog posts advocating for minimal government, free markets, and individual liberty. The site was founded by Lew Rockwell, an American libertarian political commentator, activist, and former congressional staffer. The website often features content that is critical of mainstream politics, state intervention, and foreign policy, among other topics. It is a platform frequently used to disseminate Austrian economics, a school of economic thought that is popular among some libertarians.