Dharma, Roles and Why It Matters

​

A society without roles is like a forest where the trees forget to root, the bees forget to pollinate, and the fungi refuse to decompose. Life does not vanish all at once, but the harmony dissolves. What remains is noise, confusion, and decay.

 

Human life, too, depends on differentiation. The web of roles is what makes collective life possible. Few people choose their work with the whole in mind, yet like an ant colony, society thrives because of a quiet symbiosis. Farmers grow food, teachers transmit knowledge, artisans shape tools, parents raise children, leaders govern, elders remember. Each role contributes, and the whole benefits.

 

It is easy to mock such roles as outdated or limiting. Yet without them, something essential frays — not only in society at large, but in the mind of the individual.​

 

The Restlessness of Rolelessness

 

Vedanta teaches that a restless mind cannot come to knowledge. Without clarity of duty, the mind spins endlessly: Who am I? What should I do? Am I enough? It compares, imitates, rejects, reinvents. Each morning is another performance, each evening another collapse.

 

Roles, when lived as svadharma (one’s own dharmic role), reduce this agitation. They offer orientation: this is mine to do, here and now. That orientation brings peace, however imperfect the role may be. A steady father, a steady mother, a steady elder — none of these guarantees enlightenment, but they ease the burden of endless self-invention. And a mind less burdened is a mind more fit for knowledge.

 

In this way, roles are not merely social scaffolding. They are part of dharma’s quiet gift: to prepare the soil for moksha.​

 

How Roles Began to Fray

 

The unraveling of roles did not happen all at once. It has been a slow drift across generations.

 

Industrialization: When people left the land for the factory, ancient roles fractured. The farmer, bound to the rhythms of earth, became the worker, bound to the clock. Communities loosened. The father was separated from his children for long hours, the mother’s domestic labor was devalued, and elders lost their authority as knowledge shifted from experience to machines.

 

Consumerism: In the mid-twentieth century, prosperity created new roles: the breadwinner, the homemaker, the model citizen. These were narrow, but they gave structure. Then consumer culture began to mock and erode them, selling instead the dream of perpetual youth, reinvention, and desire. Roles became costumes to be tried on and discarded, rather than dharmic duties to be lived.

 

The Cultural Revolution: The sixties and seventies rightly challenged the rigidity of tradition. Oppressive roles were questioned; injustice was exposed. But what followed was not the building of new structures, but a celebration of fluidity. Roles collapsed, but no enduring replacements were built.

 

Postmodernism: By the late twentieth century, identity itself became unstable. Truth was relative, roles were social constructs, meaning was endlessly deferred. This gave freedom to some, but left many more drifting.

 

Digital Fragmentation: The arrival of the internet and social media completed the collapse. Now people craft endless micro-identities online. A young man can be a warrior in a video game, an expert on Reddit, a troll on Twitter — none of it grounded in dharma, none of it preparing him for adulthood. A young woman is free to express herself in countless ways, but pressured to perform all roles at once: careerist, beauty, nurturer, activist. Elders are pulled into the same whirlpool, consuming news and memes rather than transmitting wisdom. Leaders adapt to the new media environment by becoming entertainers.

 

What began as liberation has ended in confusion.

 

Men Without Frames

 

The collapse is most visible in men. For centuries, they were handed a script: be strong, provide, protect, endure. It was narrow, sometimes harmful, but it gave orientation. Today that frame is gone, replaced by contradictions: be strong, but not too strong. Be sensitive, but not too sensitive. Lead, but apologize for leading.

 

Some adapt. Others freeze. Many drift. They turn inward to screens and simulations, outward to grievance and rage. Some turn to violent thoughts and actions. Beneath it lies the cry: f**k you world. It is less a declaration of strength than of estrangement — the sound of men who no longer know what their strength is for.

 

Women Overburdened

 

Women, too, are caught. Encouraged to reject traditional roles, they still find themselves judged by them. They are expected to succeed in every domain at once: professional, domestic, relational, personal. Liberation often translates into exhaustion. Without cultural supports, choice becomes burden, and freedom becomes relentless work.

 

Elders Without Memory

 

In many cultures, elders are keepers of memory and continuity. They remind the young of who they are and where they come from. In America, elders are often sidelined or absorbed into the same distraction as everyone else. Television and digital media consume the hours that might have been spent guiding younger generations. What could have been wisdom becomes repetition. A culture without elders is a culture without roots.

 

Leaders as Infants

 

Perhaps most striking is the decline of leadership. Leaders, once charged with bearing the weight of the whole, now perform like children seeking attention. Outbursts, posturing, and grievance take the place of vision and restraint. The spectacle is rewarded, and responsibility is mocked. When the highest roles in the land are performed as tantrums, the people mirror the example.

 

The Fabric Unravels

 

This is what rolelessness produces: men adrift, women exhausted, elders silenced, leaders immature. The forest thins, the ant colony falters, the play on stage becomes incoherent. A society without roles cannot cohere.

 

Vedanta acknowledges the provisional nature of roles as temporary identities, not the essence of who we are. But precisely because they are not ultimate, they can be fulfilled without bondage. To live one’s svadharma is not to be trapped by it, but to use it as a stabilizer — for society, and for the mind.

 

Roles matter because they hold the fabric of the collective together. They matter even more because they give the individual mind the stability it needs to glimpse what lies beyond roles.

 

Conclusion

 

We abandoned the old roles and congratulated ourselves on being freer for it. But in their place we built nothing enduring, and so drift sets in. Freedom without dharma is not freedom but confusion.

 

The answer is not to resurrect rigid traditions, nor to pretend we can live without roles altogether. The way forward is subtler: to recover the principle of svadharma. To see roles not as prisons but as temporary masks, necessary for order, preparation, and growth.

 

They do not define our essence. The Self remains ever untouched, beyond all masks. But without roles, the mind is restless, society is unstable, and the path toward moksha is obscured.

 

A mature culture would not laugh at roles, nor cling to them as absolutes. It would recognize them as dharmic scaffolding — imperfect, provisional, but necessary. To fulfill them with dignity is to prepare the ground for both social renewal and spiritual freedom.

​

​

This essay is part of series​ that explores the ancient concept of dharma as both diagnosis and prescription for our modern malaise. Drawing from Vedanta and mythology, each piece offers a lens through which to understand our turbulent world—not as a random mess, but as a lawful unfolding shaped by deep patterns.

​

​

​

​