Let all the world pay attention to the ongoing ideological face-off between the extreme Rightist BJP govt. in India,( predominantly, a Hindu way of life seeking political party) and political parties and general public who are opposed to its typically Rightist attitude towards various sections of people, and their intolerant attitude towards dissent and criticism. Ever since they came to power, various Hindu outfits and organizations in the country started feeling a high about their newly acquired Power. Remember, this is the first time in India's history that a full-majority govt.of this party come to power ever since she got independence from the British in 1947.
So, they have adopted various direct and indirect ways to bring-in hegemony of their kind of social ideology in the country, such as controlling the thought of student-community by altering school and college syllabus, controlling eating and dressing habits of the general citizens etc.Among these steps include a ban on cow-slaughter and beef eating in various States. Cow is a sacred-animal as per Hindu scriptures. There is a general antipathy towards Western-culture, expressed by way of a dislike for Valentine-day like festivals,western-outfits, against the display of romantic-feelings in public like holding hands, hugging etc. They also attempt to re-write the history of the country that was earlier alleged to have composed by the British from a Western or Leftist point of view.
Some time back, a serious issue was going on in the country, around the arrest of a few students from one of the country's top universities JNU, a learning centre with a liberal tag. ( Early 2016) The allegation is that these students had shouted anti-state slogans, hence they stand booked for sedition. Arrested students allege that slogans were in-fact raised by the ruling party's students' wing, ABVP, with the purpose of trapping the liberal-minded student leaders.
What is now going on in India is a typical war that many men, classes, and groups waged at many junctures in history,( best example, Hitler in Germany, or now ISIS in Syria and other Muslim pockets under their siege) hence, has a very distinct anthropological character and syndrome. German Nazism was the most notorious event in history, that even led to a World-War! The entire sane side of the mankind had to group together to defeat the originator of the Evil, Mr.Hitler. But unfortunately, this evil has not been properly 'IDENTIFIED' by human society, and taught its dark side in schools, to 'reverse-indoctrinate' our children. Even now, many a child grow up with 'bullying' trait and grow up as a Nazi.
Is it a crisis of self-identity ?
We all, that is, the thinking and open minded men of the world can notice a striking similarity between the 'individualism' (or individual liberty?) that Capitalism had upheld, and the present trait of many nationalities (say Americans, Indians) falling behind a cult leader, perhaps to gain a special self identity associated with the Nation or as in India, with the dominant religion of the nation. If president Trump had called for making America great again, by creating an aversion towards Muslims and all migrants, Prime minister of India Mr.Modi had made a similar appeal to the majority religion, the Hindus,( who form 80% of the population) for making India known to the world by this ancient religion! Here the above said similarity is, in capitalism if the 'individuality' (own individual identity) was insisted around creating wealth and success, for one, today it is also sought around being part of a great causes, or by following a great leader! What each follower of Modi and his new Hindu identity achieving is a special kind of self-identity exactly like it was sought under capitalism! The only difference is, in capitalism if it was individual based, it is group based in the second instance. We can notice, that the purpose achieved is exactly the same, that is, a strong sense of self identity.
Social scientists among us can ponder over it in more detail.
Metaphysically, each human being is compelled by existential forces to be a 'singularity' around his self. This existential drive can be met either by acquiring individual wealth and success as in capitalism, or by belonging to a tightly woven group as it was under Hitler's Germany, Trump's America or Modi's Hindu India. Following blog might explain this theory of self and identity: http://unrecognizedobjectsofthemind.blogspot.com/2018/09/self-and-identity-we-can-not-understand.html
The world cannot ignore her current trait of anti-Globalism, and increasing trend of 'nativism', away and unrelated to this inborn NAZI human trend.
Purpose of this brief post is to bring out the common anthropological character of this conflict so that both parties in the conflict get better insight into what exactly they are engaged in, what all will be at stake, and what would be its final outcome.
What is Right and what is Left fundamentally?
This author wishes to show that, Rightist attitude is the primeval, jungle time worldview of the strongest. They always believed that world around them and its other occupants must conduct their lives as per their whims and wish, as it was the law of nature, the plain hegemony of the strongest. Their superior physical strength provided by nature herself was the proof they had always presented to justify their claim!
Remember, when powerful say something, scope, and the slot for debates does not exist, as an opposition is a myth under every form of Power! There will be only conformity, the song of praise and sycophancy under Power.Nothing else would be allowed to exist under Power. The properties of Power is eternal..It won't change or dilute.
They believe that those who do not conform to the ways and world-view of the masters of society ( whether it is a Power-State, a religious or cultural authority, a hegemony of upper-caste, or a modern corporate-work-place wherein following certain values is involved ) must be PUNISHED, and strict measures to be adopted to bring the deviants into submission to the former's ways.Punishments will be always extreme-cruel so that others get fearful lessons from the act. Dissent and insubordination should be severely dealt-with, or else, it would pose a future threat to the authority, and the very existence of the system/organization/establishment!
With these basic traits in place, they fear giving FREEDOM to people.Freedom will invite tendency to question, a real threat to authority. Blind obedience to traditions, whims, and orders of authority is the norm Rightists wish to keep. For them, social-order is nothing but keeping the 'subjects' ( those who are under a central-authority) always under strict obedience to authority.
Change of any kind is anathema to the Rightists. They fear or are very uncomfortable with any kind of change. Rightists always will have a coterie around them, consisting of people ready to carry the power of the Masters to general public. These men, or class of men, are enemy No. one to humanity! These men enjoy to share the Power and authority of their masters and surrender their selves to be POSSESSED with the POWER of the masters. Modern day police, political foot soldiers of parties, or the fanatic followers of orthodox religious ideology etc. are best examples of the above phenomenon.
When possessed with the POWER of the State, an authoritarian master, or a fanatic-ideology, these men transform themselves into non-humans, willing to do any cruel act! The power they think they REPRESENT intoxicate them, making them demons of a kind, one of modern world's worst calamities! They tarnish whatever images of freedom, liberty, and openness attached to modern-world!
Would like to share a blog that deals with the fundamental story on the origin of this great divide between Right and Left: http://originofestablishment.blogspot.in/
It seems nature herself had genetically divided human society into these two groups of men and women, rightists those who always wanted to keep-status-quo of traditions, and those who always seek change and improvement. The second group always are pitted against the first, by a mystery natural law, probably an essential existential battle in human-society, meant for evolving more egalitarian future societies, and the emergence of highly evolved individuals...
Those who are habitual of obeying orders and conform to authority will be severely tested by nature for their passiveness, as these kind of people are the chief cause of emboldening the Right-minded men in ascertaining their authority. Passivity and blind obedience to authority without resistance, it seems to be some kind of a sin against nature,( as nature always want the man to be self-guarding, independent, creative and rational) wherein it will only increase the severity of suppression from the hands of the masters.Masters will develop despise and contempt towards these excessively submissive men and groups in due course, and ultimately they will trample them down to the ground, and violate them more and more!
The more violent the act of trampling-down, the more ferocious and cruel will be the retaliation on the part of the victims. Remember how the French crowd of common-people had sat-down day& night, counting the heads of class-enemies rolled-down under Guillotine? It could be observed from history that, the more the order and restrictions enforced upon victims, the more would be the tendency, rate, and degree of criminality developed among the victims.The outward sense or 'order' if any, observed in such societies would be only momentary, as a man cannot ever bear injustice for longer periods. It affects his very self-hood negatively, and his propensity to reason, a quality that nature cannot do away-with in man, at any cost!
The Rightist social-order would very seriously hamper mental freedom and creativity of citizens. Their critical-thinking propensities will die-down as they turn habitual of obeying orders.Intellectual growth of mankind will thus be retarded, as it solely depended on constantly altering existing belief-systems, and improve upon them.Please note, our faculty of Reason has a specific ( not yet recognized) PRISMATIC function that go on splitting every new ray of thought and idea into its sub-ideas and possibilities, and then tease mind to go for all future inferences based on the new premises ( Glad to share our blog that explains this phenomenon at: http://thesparkleofhumanreason.blogspot.in/)
The objective of Nature behind this phenomenon, it should be believed, is to compel these victims to RISE-UP when the suppression goes beyond tolerance, finally ending up in the total destruction of the oppressor. Take any event of bloody-revolution in history, and we see the same pattern, whether it is the French or American revolution, Colonialism, or the two World-wars. It was always the aggressor who got defeated at the end.
The trend or the direction of nature vis-a-vis the liberation of man is concerned, was always an upward journey from less freedom and liberty to more freedom and liberty, and towards a more tolerant and inclusive society. Observe where were we (mankind) during middle-ages and pre-middle ages, and where do we stand today with regard to our general degree of interpersonal and inter-community tolerance towards other men and communities is concerned. See how differently our sense and concept of human liberty and individual dignity stands defined today, compared to the old Feudalistic times?
So, we have seen many facets of Rightists world-view of people in the world.Also, we have seen, this genus of people, it seems to be tools in the hands of nature, to give lessons to those who are too complacent about own self-hood, and the utter-responsibility to uphold its uniqueness, but at their peril at the end. Knowledge of this natural-law should help to WARN the Rightists, to abandon their rigidity, and be open to recognizing the general preference of Nature to have freedom for all!
The leftist buds spurted in history many times, but failed to take-off as a permanent,sensible reality
By LEFT, modern-world, especially Europe and US, denote and identify only Communism, as the enemy of Capitalism, their base economic system. By capitalism, they mean and denote 'human freedom' and least State-control upon citizens' affairs, especially business.They fiercely despise Communism, so everything about Leftist ideology. The cold-war years, US's long ideological war with Communist Russia, made important milestone in modern history.
Hence, there is no specific and distinct identity for Leftist ideology in modern world,liberated and independent of Communism.It is a totally wrong and misleading conception; there should arise a specific-ideology of uninhibited human-liberty and individual dignity, totally detached and independent of that incident in history, the communistic ideology.
The Left must denote man's aspiration for liberation from primeval Rightist-ideology and mindset. Such an awareness and distinct ideology is yet to take birth in the modern world, though we have a few vague stands such as Humanism etc.
The new trend of claiming 'liberal' tag!
Open minds might have noticed, that today there are number of institutions and political parties who claim the 'liberal' tag. We have specific political parties such as in Australia and UK who opted to be 'liberal party' or liberal democratic party. But look at their ideologies listed in their respective manifestos and we will observe, that they are all fundamentally 'free-market' supporting parties! Free Market as we know, is the key ideology of capitalists. There are many think tanks and institutions also today who operate under the name of 'libertarianism' etc. Free Market is one of their's too, key ideology! Otherwise all their manifesto ideologies are akin to a true individual liberty seeking group or institution. Capitalism, as we know, stood strongly for liberty of individuals.But she degenerated into the big business controlled modern world, as explained in the following blog: http://understandinginflationinanewlight.blogspot.com/2015/03/where-has-liberalism-landed-us.html
The original group who sought 'liberty' was communists, and they degenerated into fascist states!
Whatever is left-out today in the world in the name of Communism has no head or heart to revive the great ideology into a great, sensible and rational alternative to Capitalism. They stick on to word-by-word commands of what Marx said and try to follow it as it in an orthodox religious fashion. This failure of modern Communists to stand-up against capitalistic and Rightists ideology of modern-world is one of the greatest tragedies of modern-world; they failed to offer a decent, powerful and sensible ideological opposition to the Rightist ideology, to stand TALL in history. Instead, they created a country governance system, equally or more repressive of the peoples class in the world, ruining a great opportunity that history had offered!
We could throw some good light upon Left, or the ideology just opposite to Right, only if we free it as a reaction to Right.
Leftist ideology must be a stand-alone world-view, declaring the natural necessity of man to independent-minded, creative,under-the-sun and finally spiritual. Spiritual in the sense that, such a world-view must see man as an entity directly answerable and responsible to his inner-most rational-directives and calls. When every man gets a chance to stand-up in this way, his inner, inherent spiritual and rational urges and energies will restrain and control him from doing anything cruel or detrimental to the interest and development of his/her fellow-beings.
His vision will that, when absolute freedom is ensured to all other men around, they will all be, in-turn, offer everyone else similar opportunity for self-growth! When others are intellectually matured and free, it naturally compels each-one to be at par, thus ensuring overall, unprecedented social-growth! The best example is the growth-story of inception stage USA; she comprised a group of totally free-men, determined to build-up a society based-upon self-declared direction and vow to make each other free, untamed and creative. They declared, such 'liberal and free' is the way nature has endowed each human-person, so such entitlements are 'inalienable'!
Mankind must consider that such a condition of man is his natural state. His political institutions are just rational and sensible means to ENSURE non-violation of this state by any other, or most centrally, the State itself!
So, what modern-world must pay extreme attention is in developing this SPACE as the most natural way and direction of all human-societies! It should not be a perpetual 'rights-seeking'struggle by human-societies from some or other seat of Power or institutionalized authority. Why a free lot of men should seek such inalienable, the natural state of man from any other third-party as it is the norm today? Enemies of mankind are the ones/groups who stick-on to past way and norms, seeking to restrain Freedom and Liberty of man!
As now we have seen, such a space of free-man is totally different from classic communist movement. It was a movement specifically initiated against another specific development in human-history- Capitalism.It is time for mankind to let this great SPACE fully developed, freeing it as a meek reaction to any specific Rightist force. Media, if fully realize this historic need of human-society, could do wonders in projecting it in the right way, and lead mankind into this rightful slot very fast.
Now, let us take-up many human-liberation movements, ideologies or initiatives emerged in human-history one by one, and see how none of them could withstand the still prevailing hegemony of basic Rightism in the world.
Derailment of Christianity, the first well-defined stand against the ways of the Rightist society
During the time of Christ, it was Hammurabi's cruel laws that ruled the world; ie. take an eye for an eye, and ear for an ear for justice.His laws were distinctly opposite to these laws of the time; he asked every man to treat every other man as his equal, and even value (love) them! Rightists of his days had got flared-up at this blasphemy. They schemed against him and complained to the Roman-rulers of the time that he was inciting people against the authority of Emperor. Roman-authorities had to succumb to the pressure of people and got him killed on the cross. Though Christianity spread all over the world, its values such as equality, and the right of the last man to be the leader of the rest etc. taught by Christ had long-died down.It didn't take root at all in the world, despite few Kings in Rome declaring Christianity as State-religion.
Before Christ, Greek-philosopher Socrates also had to face a similar fate from the Rightists.His teaching to common-people of Greece to turn rational, and intellectually open, infuriated the then Rightists society. They shouted to the then Establishment, seeking his death.He was asked to drink-Hemlock ( a kind of slow-poison) and end his life!
Though world had struggled through-out history thereafter, to have an independent and free-society, attempts after attempts to bring in a sustainable one failed, as described one by one here-below.
Derailment of democracy:
These mindsets of Rightists will derail even the best-intended socio-political innovations of mankind, like say, Democracy. It was plainly initiated by class of common-people to end the tradition of out-side-Ruling class
( Kings, Feudal Lords,war-lords etc) in the act of country governance, by self-rule.
But, despite its being peoples own political system, reigning in many nations in the world, they are all today turned Power-State model, Rightist in every respect. This is one of the saddest tragedy of mankind with regard to his aspiration for liberty and freedom.We have a series of dedicated blogs that describe this tragedy, at link:http://direneedofreinventingdemocracy.blogspot.in/
The reason behind this tragedy is that mankind could not develop any other kind of theory and method in dealing with fellow-beings than the conventional Rightist one. Look at any sphere of community vs.individual interaction; mankind has no other model other than the above seen Rightist one. For keeping ORDER and compliance in a group atmosphere, the heavy hand of authority is the only known form and model of governance in the world.
Derailment of CIVIL-SOCIETY initiatives of mankind
Rousseau describes the emergence of the first rudimentary Civil-Society development in human-saga and its sad derailment. He talks about the very ancient origin of the 'civil-society' initiatives by man, obviously schemed by the strongest men, or group of men:
" Let us join, ( they said to all ) to guard the weak against oppression, to restrain the ambitious,and secure to every man the possession of what belong to him;let us institute rules of justice and peace, to which all without exception may be obliged to conform.... and maintain harmony among us".
" Such was, or may well have been, the origin of (civil) society and law, which bound new fetters on the poor, and gave new powers to the rich; which irretrievably destroyed natural liberty, eternally fixed the law of property and inequality, converted clever usurpation into unalterable right,and for advantage of a few ambitious individuals,subjected all mankind to perpetual labor, slavery and wretchedness... till hardly a corner of the world was left in which a man could escape the yoke" ( from his long essay, ' on the origin of inequality')
Rousseau had powerfully and effectively expressed what exactly happened to our modern civil-society concept. The great bud could not turn into a healthy greenery. It helped the Rightists to turn it into their own den and comfort zone.
Derailment of Communism, the pure Left movement
One of the worst examples of this derailment of Liberty-attempt of human-kind is evident from the story of the very Leftist movement in the world, Communism. Karl Marx, a great lover of mankind, and a champion of each person's right to have his dignified sense of self-had introduced the formal socio-political and economic movement of the oppressed class. But unfortunately, his great movement also had adopted the same attitude and value-system of their one-time masters towards those who lived and worked under the system, the so-called govt of the working class. Today, communist govts in the world are the most oppressive of basic human-rights! They believe that man exists for the state, and not vise-versa, a complete turn-around of the great man Marx's humanitarian vision! Fortunately, communism is alive only in namesake today in very few pockets of modern-world. The fall of Russia was a sign of the great collapse of this ideology of suppression in the modern world. The predominantly Rightist Europe and the USA celebrated Russia 's fall as the victory of their own wrongful ideology.
Communism and Left movement could have offered a permanent solution to the Rightist mentality in human-society, provided it had developed an altogether different VALUE-SYSTEM to deal with other men, especially in the dynamics of man's collective-living. Communists had no other value and norm to treat the other men and large groups, except the old methods of the Rightists groups. How could society change her ways when a worker occupies the POWER-SEAT instead of a RICH-MAN, while both keep the same world-view about treating the fellow-beings?
The derailment of European-Libertarian tradition
Now let us take-up the great and unprecedented sense of LIBERALISM spurted in Europe, highlighting the LIBERTY of individual against all forms of traditional and political authority. It gave great hope to mankind that, a new world order had ultimately arrived, and no man or group or establishment would dare to harm individual freedom and his dignity in future.
But, what this great libertarian tradition ended-up was in massive industrialization. Here the entrepreneur class only had got priority and opportunity to have complete liberty, and enjoy it fully. This class replaced the old hegemony of the Feudal-Lords in modern human society, and left it exactly where she was in the pre-civilization era, but with the overall air of freedom of man prominent only in paper. Yes, anyone is free today to become successful, rise to become rich, or rise to become as powerful as President or prime-minister of the country!
In a way, the failure of the above great Libertarian movement of Europe could be attributed as the cause of the current rising of the head by various religious outfits in the world. (For Eg: Hinduism, Islam) The hope of a universal egalitarian social-model through the universal economic-development did not take place in any degree.
Capitalism simply paved way for the hegemony of a very few rich-corporate houses in the world, with control over more than 55% of earth's total wealth. The number of these super-elites is said to be less than 100 in the world, as per latest research-studies of Oxfam and Zurich university etc. The much acclaimed capitalistic model that thought would provide every one liberty and individual dignity, or more importantly, a sense of dignified self-hood for everyone, has failed thoroughly, as the majority of the world population today leads a life of anonymity, without any socio-political means for claiming their self-identity. This has directly led to various groups' seeking own-self-identity in alternative planes, such as religions or Culture. So, we have now good sections of world population seeking to establish their much-needed self-identity through their long-lost religious, or cultural plane. Please share our blog that is dedicated to explaining this new development in world, at http://communicationonnewworldorder.blogspot.in/
American and French Revolutions
These two revolutions indeed paved way for the first major origin of the modern-idea of the 'inalienable rights of man'( source, American declaration of independence) These revolutionists declared these rights, bestowed by God or Nature.
The American revolution was immediately followed by the French Revolution. It was bloodier; common citizens of the country caught hold of everyone who used to oppress them, including their King and Queen, and cut-off their throats under the Guillotine. But, the world could not sustain the core spirit of these revolutions longer; while America succumbed under the hegemony of large industrialists after her initial 150 years exceptional reign of human-liberty, French turned a monarchy under the rule of Napoleon soon-after.
But the ultimate direction of Nature is clear; It is a slow and steady journey from Non-freedom towards more freedom, more tolerance, and more inclusiveness
When one looks at history with an open-mind, he will observe that, the journey of mankind so far was certainly a journey towards more and more freedom of individual, general acceptance of his individual dignity, socio-political tolerance, and inclusiveness. ( please share our blog that presents this idea:http://thethreadofcivilizationgrowth.blogspot.in/)
The effect of libertarian ideology in Europe had really left its lasting effects in modern-world, despite her own gift of Capitalism was the greatest enemy of equality and universal liberty of man. Carl Marx's contribution towards this indestructible spirit of human freedom also can not be ignored.
But as we have closely observed above, the yet-alive Rightist mindset of man always rise its ugly-head and do her best to derail every effort of man to usher in a truly egalitarian society.
The invaluable lesson from the latest Science of Ecology
The recently observed new law and pattern of Nature, such as that in the newly emerged science of ECOLOGY, is in essence sharply opposed to the Rightist ways of man. But it is yet to gain its social and anthropological interpretation and centrality in human-societies. It has failed to show any light to modern-world, except her Climate-change lessons! We have a dedicated blog that explains the central need of abandoning the Rightists ways of man, for giving birth to new value-system and new philosophy of life, at link: http://newphilosophyoflife.blogspot.in/
The above-referred blog try to establish, that what world badly needs today is not a Right or Left world-view, but a plain STRAIGHT one!
We have seen many a freedom movements, revolutions and wars fought and won by the oppressed class or countries violated by other aggressive countries. But the heads of those who are habitual of seeking mastery over other men and other groups ( the Rightists) will always rise-up, ignoring the above seen clear direction of nature in history. A sustainable peace in the world would emerge only when men and groups fully realize that no man, nation or group could be ever kept oppressed for longer periods. Man's sense of self is such a unique phenomenon, that it simply refuses to be under any hegemony for longer periods. Lasting Order in society will emerge only when our collective institutions reach the insight that, only by keeping his fellow-man free and liberated as he is, forever, without any exception.
Authored by: Abraham J. Palakudy
He is an independent seeker and researcher into areas of knowledge such as Mind, Reason, Metaphysics, spirituality, and polity.
Contact: ajoseph1@rediffmail.com
His profile and other blogs:https://www.blogger.com/profile/14249415589712707293
Twitter : Voice of Philosophy@jopan1
