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In The Mind Of A Pessimist

By Suraj Kumar Thube

03 April, 2016
Countercurrents.org

Can truth have multiple interpretations? Can all the interpretations be called as truth? Can multiple interpretations retain their autonomous right amidst an ocean of a homogenous truth? How are multiple incidents different than multiple interpretations and with whom does truth feel as a stronger virtue? Trying to reminisce on the callous and cavalier approach of the Indian middle class toward the downtrodden of the society in general, these questions tend to get consigned to a spatial and temporal stage of oblivion.

The Nietzsche idea of there being not one truth but many truths rings hollow in the Indian case as seldom an attempt is made to boldly assert one's interpretation in the public domain. A case for a single truth stifles intellectual growth whereas a concerted push for motley interpretations strengthens democracy. India, with all its bombastic vision of becoming a superpower is at a crucial juncture which demands a critical tenet of democracy to function in a polished and refined manner. The ideal that needs a resounding fillip is that of dissent. Unfortunately, it has failed time and again to muster the courage and confidence among denizens to speak up for what they really believe in. Surely it is not about being oblivious to the everyday routine violence that has become an indelible marker of our society. If so is the case, what makes people retrieve in their protective cocoons at a time when massive atrocities, barbarism and violence take place right smack in front of their eyes?

Indifference and inequality have become a sombre norm, casting a vice like grip on the very society that has tacitly approved and legitimised these inhuman traits. Is Rousseau's idea of the society corrupting and making the individual selfish gaining credence over Hobbes's acerbic remark of individuals being inherently self-centred, miles away from being altruistic?

To juxtapose this overt indifference with the conspicuous absence of multiple voices may help somewhat to unravel this conundrum. With the advent of liberalisation and privatisation, a race toward fulfilling one's material satisfaction is bound to happen. This may partly help to understand the first part of the story but fails to provide any decisive rationale for not speaking up for the betterment of others even while holding your uncompromised aspirations dear to yourself. A feeling of compassion, sympathy and selflessness seem to be relics of a forgotten past that really cuts no ice with our hyper individualised society. This individualised society almost remains alive, as Arundhati Roy would say, in an imagined stratosphere that connects all the affluent sections of the world, in a bid that generates solidarity among themselves by remaining purposefully aloof from your immediate deprived environment. This further accentuates the yawning gap between indifference and fellow feeling or simply, love. As the holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel says, " The opposite of love is not hate. The opposite of love is indifference." Clearly, love is not free and unlimited. The pecuniary zeal overpowers everything else and indifference is what inevitably gets the short end of the stick.

The probability of a cross relationship between the two doesn't quite exist as the fear of developing a social parity gets conflated with economic parity, a fear emanating from "material consciousness" that muzzles even the thought of speaking about a particular social grievance. Thereby, the optimism of multiple interpretations and narratives of a single issue confronting a monolithic, society certified "truth" remains hopelessly elusive and terribly out of reach. One begins to wonder as to what happens to the utopian concept of "communicative rationality" propounded by Jurgen Habermas. Earlier, the emphasis was on rational argumentation which took for granted the other equally significant aspect of communication. Rationality is subjective. Communication helps to bring alive that subjectivity in the public discourse. A grand neglect and an utter loss of this innate human action to communicate and string a web of meaningful thoughts is what is the most disturbing part of the entire scenario. Ironically, this happens in a world of the "Internet age" where people are supposed to be connected all time.

However, this turns out to be what Ram Puniyani calls a "social common sense" where the dominant "logical" idea is marred by deep prejudices and biases that is unwilling to be receptive toward counter narratives and alternate interpretations. The obduracy in believing only in our long entrenched principles by having a deaf ear and a blind eye for others compounds the imaginary fault lines between a "morally superior" group of people and a "deservedly" stigmatised chunk of the society that is incapable of meriting the attention of the "worthy". Should we then just agree to disagree and let the status quo prevail or is there a ray of hope that a pessimist mind is just not able to discern amidst a blanket of thick, dark and gloomy clouds?

Till the time more mouths open to fight for a more humane, civilised and an egalitarian society, this pessimist will find himself dejected and wronged by all those people who had pledged to the social contract by keeping its "General Will" at the highest moral pedestal.

Suraj Kumar Thube is currently pursuing his MA in Political Science from Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi. He is interested in Indian politics and Indian political thought. He spends most of his time reading books, playing football and listening to Hindustani classical music.




 



 

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