Freedom and Enslavement
The genesis of this article rests on a mail I received two weeks back, requesting me to put down my thoughts on
the existing world order torn between fundamentalism and globalism (evidenced
in international commercialization known as the McWorld) - both
striving to impose their hegemony on the rest of the world. As a liberal
humanist, nurtured by Gandhian values, it was a tempting effort to find a third
alternative to the contracting idea of Jihad and McWorld. When the article was
ready, I tried to test the worth of the article on a few close relatives and
friends. While it was flattering to receive their appreciation, it was disconcerting
to note the common advice they gave- to exercise caution in placing it on a
public domain, that too in an international journal. Their logic and reasoning
seemed sound as they feared a possible backlash in the event of someone misreading
and misunderstanding the tenor of my argument. At 76+, with no celebrity status
and no patronage of the high and the powerful, I realized how vulnerable I was
to face an angry mob that believed in the hegemony of either of the two
concepts. I decided to shelve the article till such time when it would be prudent
to allow it to see the light of the day.
The temptation to write to express one’s genuine feelings of apprehension
and anxiety over a changed world order, that is full of sound and fury(though
signifying nothing) is weakening day by
day for fear of violent reprisal from those who have both the muscle and arms
power to endorse it. Contrary to the Tamil proverb that says young calves have
no awareness of fear, today it is for the older cows and bulls to demonstrate
their fearlessness and express what is not allowed to express. With age and
experience, it is imperative that we, who belong to the older generation and brought
up on classical liberal values that prioritize the freedom of an individual over
all other things, must fearlessly confront forces that deny this fundamental
right to live as we desire.
It is indeed an inalienable right of every individual to follow his
religious faith and belief or alternately prefer not to worship. So also everyone has an inordinate desire to
express even if there is nothing to express. Everyone wants to speak about his
beliefs, his ideology, his outlook and viewpoint-maybe to demonstrate that he
is not straightjacketted into a uniform mode of thinking dictated by the ruling
class or a powerful group. In short, we all long for a life that guarantees
civil liberties, though in our own interest, we are willing to submit to an overarching
law that moderates and restrains those liberties. It is this caveat against
violating the rule of law in the frenzied
assertion to claim our right to freedom that Rousseau hints at in his famous paradoxical
phrase: “man is born free; everywhere he is in chains”. This dichotomy is
fundamental to peaceful and orderly existence as it is founded upon individuality
and solidarism - the sociological concept of interdependence
of members of a society. Man can be free
only if he accepts enslavement to the rules of law that legislate equal freedom
to all individuals in a society. Live and let live is possible if our love of
freedom is tempered by laws that do not allow anyone to privilege his own
interests against and above those of his fellow beings nor desire for things he needs only for
increasing his power over others. This is no doubt an
impractical and utopian ideal to achieve and the only way to prevent
enslavement taking over completely is to construct political
institutions that allow the rule of compassion to provide the basis for
legislation. But today’s conflict is no
longer my freedom versus your freedom, but has narrowed to an assertion that my
freedom is the only freedom to prevail. How has this change come about?
The present day generation is stripping away history, truth and
reality because
of its exposure to a plethora of images through
films, TV, advertisements that purport to be real, but are not, making it
difficult to distinguish between real and imagined, reality and illusion,
surface and depth. The happy man or woman or a happy family, travelling in a
plush car( the product advertised), enjoying an exhilarating evening as shown in the advertisements is not real but
shown as real. What had been seen as a
solid, happy, real world is nothing but a tissue of
dreamlike images. The superficial reality hides the hidden reality and has
brought in a new culture of hyper-reality. We have the example given by Jean
Baudrillard, the French sociologist who referred to the 1991 Gulf war as
something that never happened except it was a Television virtual reality. The
coverage of surgical strikes during the Gulf War through computerized images of
high tech weapons was
nothing but an art of simulation. The present generation has been a victim of simulations whereby the simulated image tends to become the reality. Further with the new technological tools
like the Social media and the Twitter, the younger
generation has acquired anonymity that encourages it to use its
inherent human right to freedom of expression and abuse all those who do not subscribe to its
views and beliefs. Its restlessness, anger, violence
and destruction arise out of a false belief in its right to exercise freedom
without any curb on
its paradoxically claimed privilege to total freedom.
We
who belong to the older generation, having passed through our youthful age of
fitful protestation nevertheless had appreciated the need for the chain which reflects
the other side of the coin on which is stamped our basic freedom. But today
that chain is no longer the arm of the government or the Law enforcement authority, but the chain is in the hands of the mob, who have
become the enforcing authority with
regard to what we eat and what we express, what we read and what we see, what
we wear and how we appear, what we acclaim and what we declaim against.
Lynching by a mob has become the norm of the day. If you don’t like someone,
abuse him/her using twitter anonymity. Social media has fanned out to many
millions of people to influence them to think on the dotted lines. Today most
of us are scared to express our fears and anxieties lest we should get lynched
or attacked even while we stay within the four walls of our homes. The new generation
with its impatience to read anything that demands cool analysis, logical
thinking and reasoned judgement, skims through the surface, resorts to aleatory
reading- selecting sentences at random -and displays hysterical frenzy if the
writer’s views are not in sync with its views. Book burning, preventing
screening of films it is opposed to, pelting stones and setting fire to
property and vehicles and killing on false charges of smuggling beef are being carried out as the new generation
goes in search of a non- existent hyper reality. It grants itself the license
to freedom of action to destroy the freedom of expression in others.
Democracy
has yielded to the brute power of mobocracy. Freedom is unidirectional as
directed by the mob. It is no longer the hallowed preserve of the liberal
humanists and rationalists. It is only for those who refuse to be chained and
not for those who are willing to be chained. The social contract is today one
sided as it is weighed in favour of those who take law into their hands. The loss of old world values that puts a
premium on empathy, compassion, reaching out to fellow beings, cultivating
humanity, endorsed by Rousseau’s social
contract has bred a new world that loves the spectacle of violence for the sake
of violence.
Do
I have the courage to write my apprehensions, fear and anxiety? Do I dare
refuse to be chained by the mob? Do I have the strength and fortitude to speak
about my willingness to surrender a small degree of freedom as demanded by the
rule of Law? Do I dare use the Social media to plead for logic, reason and
order to bring stability, peace and harmony among my people without being
abused and trolled by the same media? Can we, the people of India show
resilience to counter maniacal violence and restore our lost humanity? I have shown no courage as I shelved my
article far from the madding crowd. I seek comfort against the loss of my
intrepidity in the great aphorism: “We are optimists by instinct and pessimists
by experience.”
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