DESTRUCTION….What does this one word remind you of? What
images are conjured in your mind when you hear this word? Ones of immense
jubilation, celebration and happiness….or ones of grief and sadness. I assume
the choice is not very difficult. Now suppose this destruction is wrought on
someone you deem to be your enemy. Suppose, that someone, is a proven criminal
and has perpetrated innumerable crimes. Then, how would you respond to that
enemy’s destruction? By joyous celebrations? By happiness unbound? Many of you
will now not have to think much to answer in the affirmative. At the cost of
sounding blasphemous, this thought process is something that I would like to
question today. There might surely come such times when one feels that there is
no option left than destruction. Such destruction, when it needs to be resorted
to, is out of compulsion, it is out of a profoundly sad realization that this
inconceivable option now needs to become a reality. Once resorted to, over and
done with, what is it that is left behind? At least in me, what is left behind
is an emptiness that refuses to fill up, a heart broken into pieces, those
pieces refusing to believe that this brutal end was their destiny. The feelings
of jubilation, rejoice and celebration don’t even think of coming near to this
dejected heart. In the moment of your seeming ‘triumph’, you may be forgiven
for that fleeting moment of joy that you might experience, for that pump
fisting and that purposeful nod of the head, for a mission that you feel is
accomplished, but that moment, if it lingers on and on, if you never feel
satiated by your appetite for destruction, if you want more and more of it, if
your celebrations refuse to die down, what then is to be inferred from it? That
the last bout, that last laugh goes to death and destruction, that humans did
start to believe that they had become the most ‘civilized and cultured’ beings,
but the bluff has been called off uncovering the truth that had been hidden and
banished into exile. But this, after all, may just be inevitable. That may be, creation
and destruction indeed are two faces of the same coin, the existence of one
face is neither possible in presence of, nor without the other.
Speaking of civilization and culture, the relationship
between nature and culture seems to be forever antagonistic. Culture has built
itself and flourished on the foundations provided by nature, and is now in a
furious rush to cut those very foundations. That, however, may be a completely
different discussion altogether. I want to dwell a bit more here on another
aspect of the relationship between nature and culture. There has been a recent
trend in our now ‘fully civilized’ civilizations to outlaw certain things,
calling them unnatural. This reasoning has started to confuse me a lot lately.
Homosexuality is something that has very recently been again declared as
unlawful in our society, citing that it is against the laws of nature, and thereby
against man-made laws as well. Just going back a few centuries to the great
‘Greek civilization’, the one to which Alexander the Great belonged, and the
one where the ‘Olympics’ originated. I would like to share two anecdotes
related to these two aspects of the Greek civilization. The Greeks, then, were
very fond of wrestling, and the wrestling then, used to be practiced something
like this: there were separate practice grounds for men and women where men and
women of various age groups would practice wrestling, completely naked. This
resulted in numerous homosexual relations, which anyway, were not regarded as
‘unnatural’ in any sense of the term. Secondly, Alexander the Great himself had
a male lover, Hephaestion, who was with him till his death. Both of them also
married separately, Alexander marrying a woman named Roxana. (Both these
anecdotes are courtesy Andrew Marr’s ‘A Brief History of the World’). This is
enough proof of Alexander’s bisexuality, and the ‘naturalness’ of such
relationships at that time. Now, it can be argued that it is not mandatory that
what might be considered lawful in one society should be considered so in
another society as well. Quite rightly so. The only thing that confuses me here
is the contradictory reasoning that is resorted to, in order to outlaw certain
things. Homosexuality is outlawed because it is reasoned to be ‘unnatural’. Now
as per my understanding, man has progressed from nature to culture linearly, so
a society that existed centuries before can be said to be ‘less civilized’ and
hence ‘more close to nature’. As societies developed, the cultural quotient
increased and the natural quotient concomitantly decreased. The people that
were closer to nature would be thought to be having a better understanding of
what was ‘natural’ or ‘unnatural’. Then how can something that was considered
natural then become so completely unnatural now? The fact that many of us
do-not want to own up is that homosexuality can by no stretch of mind be
accused of being ‘unnatural’. Yes, the ‘cultural’ societies of today have a big
problem with it because it doesn’t fit in with their elite ‘culture’ of
dominance. The least that could be expected of such highly ‘civilized’
societies would be to own up to the truth and not garb their ‘civilizing
instincts’ behind untenable positions.
The above examples take us to the importance of studying and
understanding History and various different smaller histories that combine
together to form the ‘History’. I had an idea of why and understanding of
History was important, but the profoundness of its importance has dawned on me
today, as if in a moment of insight, it is now as clear as it could ever be.
Understanding History and various different histories, in their correct
manifestations, is so very essential to the formation of any viewpoints that we
may form. It is supremely essential to understand the nuances and the various
different perspectives and narratives that situations can have. It is essential
so that we just don’t take irresponsible and uninformed positions without a
complete knowledge (if at all it is possible for any knowledge to be complete)
of all the perspectives around a situation, and learn to be more responsible
with our worldviews. Whether or not many of us want to be responsible and go to
such an extent for acquiring that responsibility, is a different question
altogether!
Moving on to the ‘Great Derangement” that the world is
suffering from (Courtesy: Amitav Ghosh, “The Great Derangement”). What do you
think is the utmost challenge threatening the very existence of mankind today?
Climate Change, would not have been on top of many of your lists. This is
precisely the ‘Great Derangement’ that Amitav Ghosh talks about. The part that
struck me like a flash of lightning was the culpability of the power politics
in wanting to maintain the status quo, rather than trying to mitigate
any of the threats that have emerged from climate change and global warming.
Climate change is being seen not as a threat, but as a golden opportunity to
fulfil the insatiable thirst of the ‘Power Demon’, for more and more power and
authority over the world. And what better disguise than democracy to hide these
base instincts? So, in effect, the power differential that climate change is
bound to create is being fed into, using the weapons of denial and obfuscation
of facts. So, on the one hand, the stark realities of climate change are being
vociferously denied by the powers that be, on the other hand, covert
preparations are on in full swing to prepare for the worst and inevitable
eventualities (incidentally, climate change is on top of the list as a security
threat for the US security agencies, whereas the political establishment leaves
no stone unturned to mellow down and repudiate any voices that speak up against
this inevitable phenomenon). It is being ensured that the power differentials
are so completely widened by the time the worst descends, that the ‘Power
Demon’ no longer has to hide behind the ‘democratic veil’ and can bare itself
and reign supreme, leading back to the ‘age of empires’.
No comments:
Post a Comment