Isn’t it Amazing We Survived? Or It’s Not Over Yet

The Europeans had the dream, and they had the determination to achieve it.  We had the courage to survive it.  Till now that is.  The European dream is not over yet.  Nor is our resilience nearing exhaustion.  Both have a way to go.  The dream (or nightmare) plays on.

One could write endless pages on this dream-nightmare/ thrust-parry/ genocide-population overload.  Where does one begin?  Did the whole thing start with the rise of Judaism?  Was Moses the original sin?  Or should one blame Jesus and the Christians?  We could also blame the Romans, for their hedonistic excesses, which resulted in their downfall at the hands of the barbarians from the north.  Maybe the Christians would not have got so firm a hold on Europe had it not been for the backlash against Roman excesses. 

Perhaps both the Romans and the Germanic tribes who overthrew the Western Roman Empire are to blame.  After all, a direct cause of the cancer of modernity was the feudal-medieval past of Europe.  A past born of a curious (to say the least) mix of Roman and Northern barbarities.  A past steeped in rigidities, absurdities, heresies, slaveries, persecutions, inquisitions, and witch hunts.  A dark and dank past, which was the best, most powerful incentive imaginable for the bloody, though brilliant, slash that followed.

Allowing one’s imagination to fly a little more, maybe we can just about include Islam, the last of the three Abrahamic faiths to emerge from the dry wastes of Palestine-Arabia, in the blame game.  It seems reasonable to assume that rising Islam had a most powerful impact on Catholic-Christian Europe.  Any takers?  Would the European-Christian civilisation like to shove the responsibility of its worst excesses on the pernicious influence of fundamentalist Islam?  Aren’t they doing it already with respect to much that they perpetrate today?

But what was the most immediate cause of the madness?  I pose this question specifically for the sake of our Cartesian minds, trained to linear fine-ness in casuistry.  What if we can’t identify one?  Does that mean no one is to blame?  Or, that everyone is to blame?  Like the Europeans would like to think with respect to global warming?  Should the rise of Europe be viewed as part of the larger scheme of things?  Not in a religious, theistic sense but in the way Buddha described it: a phenomenon in the realm of dependent co-arising.  This is because that is.  That is because this is.  Europe was because Africa, America, Australia and Asia were?  If Buddha was around today he would have probably said, yes to this question.  But I am not Buddha.  Not yet.  So I will continue with my thought stream.   

Moving on, I am wonderstruck at several phenomena.  I am amazed at the power of the European thrust.  It has spread its tentacles into the remotest nook and cranny of the world.  No conqueror, no conquest was so comprehensive, so complete, so continuing.  What it could not conquer by brute force and unprecedented barbarity it conquered by deceit, duplicity and diplomacy.  By fine words and finer sentiments.  And it continues to conquer in these manners: simultaneously using murder and conciliation to subdue and subjugate.  To serve the purposes of its compulsions, which purposes it itself does not know.  Truly, a magnificent achievement by any standards.  A benchmark for all future conquests.  God (if there is one) forbid that there is another conqueror, or another conquest.

I am also struck by the ongoing nature of this conquest.  Starting with physical occupation, displacing and exterminating tens of millions and, subjugating hundreds of millions more, the conquest evolved to what is called indirect rule: perfected by the British in India and applied by Europe worldwide.  Thereafter, in a brilliant application of the philosophical implications of indirect rule, the conquest set its colonies free.  Of course, before granting freedom, the structure of subjugation – external and internal – was firmly in place.  The European world view was the only alternative.  Not only were the Europeanised elites of the former colonies thoroughly convinced (with few exceptions) of this fact, the system for perpetuating this world view was also irrevocably entrenched. 

That non-Europeanism has survived despite such a systematic onslaught is also a marvel.  As is it marvelous that people subjected to intensive genocide, the original inhabitants of the Americas and Australia, have survived.  This tells us something about the resilience of life; of human nature.  It also tells us that there is a miscalculation in the European game.  Busy discovering manifest destiny, and the individual self, the European conquerors forgot that all processes, including the process of conquest, proceed dialectically.  As an aside it is important to mention here that dialectics was neither discovered nor invented by the Europeans.  Non-European thought has recognised dialectics as an operating principle of the universe for millennia.  Buddha’s thesis of dependant co-arising is one expression of it: this is because that is; that is because this is.  And the dialectics of conquest dictates that the tables be turned: the conquerors be conquered, the fires be quenched, and the leaves grow again in all their plethoric diversity.    

Be that as it may, battered, bruised, truncated, dystopic-ised, the world has survived this conquest till now.  The Europeans, however, have one more ace up their sleeve.  This is the ace of irreversible destruction of the global habitat, with (European) technology being the only genie capable of saving us, and the world.  Given that the realm of world views is firmly under European control, it is likely that this ace will carry the conquest through: till the tables turn, or the world is destroyed, whatever you may wish to call it.         

Clairvoyance Machines

What do you mean when you say (to yourself or to another) that you “know”? For example, I know ………..

Think of a thousand examples. Think of a million. In each you will find that the expression “I know” is premised upon an ability to predict the future. This is extraordinary!!!!

It means that we are clairvoyance machines. All life is clairvoyant. Knowledge is clairvoyance. Of course, on average, we are only approximately clairvoyant. Despite knowledge we can not predict with certainty. But we can predict. That is the point. Life is all about predicting the future.

It means that clairvoyants are people whose ability is more developed that the average persons. It validates astrology, palmistry, tarot, tea leaves, crystal balls, magic sticks, face readers and everyone else who claims to predict. It is superfluous to add “the future” because predictions can only be about the future. So, as “knowledge” gets refined it becomes more and more about predicting the future. As “civilizations” decay, this predict-ability becomes more and more about the self. Since, “civilization” is about the self, collective and individual. In other words, the inevitable “end” of all “civilization” is to perfect the art of prediction.

Why is it then that astrology and all the other methods and means used by people to aid their powers of prediction do not give good results? Or, in other words, give such unsatisfactory results. Because, like any other “system” of “thought”, these methods are based upon a simplification of reality; which is both chaotic and complex. The simplification, which modernity generally calls a “theory”, is necessary because the reality is too complex (and chaotic) to be comprehended. In other words, this reality is too complexly chaotic (or chaotically complex) to be comprehended directly. It must be put through a “mill” that grinds (into comprehensible bits), grades (into collections of uniform size) and arranges (into groups of “similar” types) the reality inputs that we receive.

What is the mill? We are the mill? Our whole body is the mill. Every pore of our body, every organ, every sense, is geared to filtering the onslaught of inputs that reality is. Filtering it, grinding, it grading it, arranging it, making “sense” of it. With the object to refining one’s “knowledge” about reality. Why should we want to “know” (or have knowledge about) reality? Because, we need to “predict” reality. Why do we need to predict reality? Because, the ability to predict reality is crucial to our survival. Without such ability our chances of survival are greatly diminished.

Assuming Darwinian natural selection, it is obvious that once it is accepted that the ability to “predict” reality is crucial to survival this ability must increase over time. Those with a greater ability to predict are more likely to survive (and propagate) as compared with those with a lesser ability.

But what is the object of this whole game? I don’t know. Who are the “greatest” humans in any situation? They are the witch doctors, the shamans, the crystal ball readers, the palmists, the astrologers, the clairvoyants. In fact, the clairvoyants are the greatest among these greats because they don’t need any system, any theory, to be able to predict. They have the ability to pluck out the face of the future from the masses of complexly chaotic information that is available to all of us. Why do I say “face”? Because, I don’t think they “see” the future in multiple dimensions. They probably see an image of the future. One can use one of the thousands of descriptions, real and imaginary, that are available, to describe what happens. Both, the real and the imaginary are, probably, equally “true”.

What is true, what is not; what is real and what is not? I think that if we see ourselves as clairvoyance organisms (life forms, creatures, whatever) then these distinctions cease to have the kind of meaning that we are used to giving them. Imagination is as “real” as anything else. Of course, reality exists. But ‘reality’ does not exist as knife sharp distinct from ‘imaginary’. There is a huge area of overlap. Theoretically, one could learn to live in this area, able to partake of both the “worlds”.

PARANOIA

Sometimes I am in a state of flux, with insights happening all the time. Almost anything- a glass of water, the sight of a tree, a few words on a page – are enough to trigger off an insight. It is as if light bulbs are going on all the time, illuminating something afresh or casting something familiar in a new light. To some extent the insights do help in improving perspective also but the larger picture is still not seen.

The question arises, how large is the picture. What if the picture keeps getting larger and larger without end?

Why do I ask this question? Is it a problem if this happens?

The answer is yes. The reason is that I want to acquire the larger picture for a collateral purpose and, not for its own sake. And, I can’t go on waiting for the picture expansion to end because I want to be able to announce that I have seen the whole picture. In this sense, no one has seen the picture, perhaps, because it is a picture without end.

Today, I felt a bulb lighting up while reading The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: the world is a construct. We talk about various aspects of this construct quite frequently but without understanding its implications fully. For example, the ‘construct’ of manhood or, of feminity. What do we mean when we call them ‘constructs’? Does it mean there is no such thing as manhood or feminity, except in our minds; except in the minds of the human race.

Does it mean that manhood is a notion in our heads? It was not born there and, nor did it enter full grown. Its entry was an osmotic process that happened over time and, which is still happening. Its entry is proof of the existence of a dimension in space-time where we are all linked. Like the world wide web, which comes into existence by the linking of thousands of computers all over the world. One could perhaps call the space where these ‘constructs’ live and travel the life space. Is it the same as what people call the spirit world? Or, some variation of it: like the magic-realities that are so popular today. If yes, then the implications for “modern” realists are quite drastic. Mythology may turn out to be more real than history!

Theoretically, we can kill this dimension in the same way as computer cyber space; by destroying the linkage between people. But how does go about destroying something that has no wires, no power source, no ‘waves’ by which it communicates? Something that can be transmitted by a sidelong glance, a look in the eye, a grunt or, even, silence. Something that need not be transmitted in toto or full grown but is yet shared in complex detail. Which is not static but lives and grows, and evolves. Is there a switch inside us that we can turn? A plug that we can pull, isolating us from the rest?

If ‘manhood’ is a construct then so is everything else that together makes up what we call the “world”. If this is so, then who are we? Human beings? What is a human being? She/ he are just a construct. Layer upon layer of it. For, the process commences virtually the moment we are conceived and continues till we die. The construct appropriate for an embryo is different from that for an infant, for a child, for an adolescent, for and adult. At each stage of the life of a human being, layers of “reality” gets applied in the shape of sets of constructs; over which fresh layers gets applied in the next stage.

What happens when we strip off a layer or two of the construct? Do we remain human? Is there a way to deconstruct human beings? Are psychiatrists, psychologists and psychoanalysts on the right track? We all know that people deconstruct. Personalities break down. The layers, which are connected with each other in a complex hierarchy of connections, get short circuited. New dimensions to self emerge as a result. Many, if not most, of them are called “mad”.
What if madness is just a different layering (manner of layering) of constructs? What if schizophrenia is just one such manner? Or, paranoia?

Post Bourgeois Dreams

Axiomatically, illusions are elusive. Then why should it come as a surprise that peace between India and Pakistan is elusive. Underlying this elusive quest for peace are other illusions. For example, that we are a democracy.

Peace is a human desire. Its wish cannot, ipso facto, be attributed to a State. Therefore, a State's desire (or lack of it) for peace is a function of the desires of its people, or, at least, the people who run it. It is axiomatic that a country where the people desire peace while the State wages war, is not a democracy. In such a State peace is bound to elude since, while the desire for peace is rooted in the people, the processes of peace are in the hands of the State, which is not in the hands of the people. In a State where democracy is an illusion, peace is frequently an instrument of State policy. To paraphrase Clauswitz, in such States— peace is the continuation of war by other means.

Thus, assuming that Indians desire peace, its elusiveness can be said to be a function of the illusion of democracy that belabours us. But what if the assumption is not true. And, if it is not true, why is it not true, given that the only reasonable desire is (or can be) for peace. War is insanity except in the rarest of rare circumstances where its sole alternative is not peace but a pervasive injustice, more corroding and destructive than war. Yet, we have all heard many Indians rooting for an all out war with Pakistan. We are also witness to significant expressions of “public” support for a hard line on contentious issues between the two countries. It is easy to dismiss these as being manipulated. True as this fact may be, that is not all there is to the support for the State’s militant designs.

It is a fact that there is very little support in India for most ‘progressive, liberal, humanist, etc’ issues. While you can get millions out on the streets on the Ram Mandir you will not get even a thousand out against the devastation of the environment or against an endemic culture of custodial torture and killing. Thousands of brides (daughters) are killed every year by their husbands and in laws. Yet the issue does not grip the nation’s fathers, many of whom have daughters of their own. A ‘why’ to these and other phenomena has almost as many answers as ‘answerers’. Here is one.

Peace is a post-bourgeois dream. Trapped within our bourgeois angsts, we dream of peace even as our hands are busy grabbing as much as possible of the pie, nervous in our crumbling edifices of security, like the tin sheds that slum dwellers call home. Every “other” is a rival to our quest, our five century old history proof of its destructive power.