DEVIL IN WAITING.
"Beautiful feelings" wrote Andre Gide in an essay on Dostoevsky,"make bad art and without the devil's help there would be no art ". We are a violent race devouring our own kind ... riots, wars, murders, rapes, and the daily bloodbath that continues as routine. Even horrendous crimes get flagged as newslines only to be trashed in some dumpyard of our mind [where the most heinous remain speechless ... with the memory struggling to forget ... that violence in the name of ... love and ironically, it is home.] For Shakespeare, "Appetite" is an "universal wolf, so doubly seconded with will and power, must make...an universal prey".
Power and will get reduced to appetites which operate everywhere. It is a great fault of the younger generation who remain passive and oblivious to them. Most of the recent protests [against Fanaa, DVC ... anti-reservation ... except 'NBA'] in the counry are against things driven by a negative vision of future. Based on fear of insecurity and change, they are defensive and conveniently forget that what follows such revolts is the increasing represention instrumental in unleashing forces that would perpetrate fear in the generations to come. The home is increasingly burdened with fear, violence, and cannibalism- subtly indoctrined as 'security' and 'peaceful confinement'. This stifling conformity suffocates the local culture. "The survival of humanity" wrote Stephen Hawking will depend on its ability to find a home in new universes as the home is increasingly threatened to destruction. [Well ...we may plan a home ... say on ... MOON ... or MARS...!] Perhaps, sanity would begin with enlightened speculation and undoing thought control that defines the whole matrix of this 'fear' culture.
Power and will get reduced to appetites which operate everywhere. It is a great fault of the younger generation who remain passive and oblivious to them. Most of the recent protests [against Fanaa, DVC ... anti-reservation ... except 'NBA'] in the counry are against things driven by a negative vision of future. Based on fear of insecurity and change, they are defensive and conveniently forget that what follows such revolts is the increasing represention instrumental in unleashing forces that would perpetrate fear in the generations to come. The home is increasingly burdened with fear, violence, and cannibalism- subtly indoctrined as 'security' and 'peaceful confinement'. This stifling conformity suffocates the local culture. "The survival of humanity" wrote Stephen Hawking will depend on its ability to find a home in new universes as the home is increasingly threatened to destruction. [Well ...we may plan a home ... say on ... MOON ... or MARS...!] Perhaps, sanity would begin with enlightened speculation and undoing thought control that defines the whole matrix of this 'fear' culture.
posted by pritika @ 6/14/2006 05:13:00 PM
2 Comments:
At 15/6/06 4:27 PM,
Ashish said…
Hey Pritika,
Andre Gide's statement belonged to the realm of art whereas your posting endorses engaging with not-so-arty world. In "art" we do explore and exhibit and exhilarate many faces of evil (or Devil, going by the title of your posting). However, in "life" the skill is to contain it (or him).
Enlightened speculation? Well, too much premium on that can blind us to the darkness we carry inside us. I am reminded of Donne's Satire:Of Religion where commenting on one of the fanatics named Graccus he says that his "blindness too much light breeds."
An English ethicist Jonathan Glover has come up with this book Humanity: A Moral History of Twentieth Century At the end of his first chapter he writes:
One of this book's aims is to replace the thin, mechanical psychology of the Enlightenment with something more complex, something closer to reality. A consequence of this is to produce a darker account ... There are more things, darker things, to understand about ourselves than those who share this hope have generally allowed. Yet, although this book contains much that is exceptionally dark, the message is not one of simple pessimism. We need to look hard and clearly at some monsters inside us. But this is part of the project of caging and taming them.
I know that when you mention "enlightened speculation" you are not thinking of that eighteenth century European phenomenon. However any notion of enlightenment must recognise the evil that shadows it. I don't agree with every word Glover says but at least he points at the need to acknowledge the presence of some darkness within us. Much of our radical thinking is built on the assumption that once the oppressive social, political, economic, religious, even educational, legal institutions are done away with we will witness the dawning of an era of human emancipation; a new universe. The only true bane of humanity is man oppressing his fellow-man. To this kind of thinking evil is always external.
My question: Can we get rid of this hankering after utopias once and for all? After all I am not immune to degeneration. When I enter a utopia I might turn it into hell.
Well this is not a complete response to your well-put piece. It just touches upon one of the issues. If people are not tired with this huge blabbering, I would come back and have something more to say.
At 16/6/06 2:37 PM,
Anonymous said…
What I mean by enlightened speculation is a critical understanding of the motives behind power and the rational choices available .Freedom is both a descriptive and normative term,recognized out of exposure to other equally irreducible selves so that one has commitment to others.
Human relationships as social and linguistic encounters between people ,each of whom is irreducibly independent are an inescapable part of a community .I do not believe in any utopian ideal of home ...any MOON or MARS...I intended the opposite.But what about the inevitability of the intractable crimes which become central [along with the myriad experiences] to the life of those who are constantly preoccupied with the conflict in their thoughts and feelings.They become almost irreconcilable and are protracted as hate ,animosity ,and 'fear' which impels further conflicts .How to tame this "evil".....this skill of "life".....serves to express an unease -a feeling that something is wrong with life .[why then one 'would choose to be born rather than not']All beasts look happy when caged.We are miserably happy in our traps and confines.There is a gradual displacement from a "belonging",a "locality"......."home".....because of no rejuvination and no healing.Virginia woolf wrote"it is unpleasant to be locked out ....it is worse perhaps,to be locked in...."...
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