History- its inevitable and instigated
events.
Events may evolve due to evolutionary imperatives or instigated by some
ideological inputs. The
former is not in our control but the later must be properly dealt with like contextual perspectives.
History
-its preferred role.
Learning lessons from
history more important, than learning history lessons, that have
bequeathed to us some time-tested values as reference manual to promote
humanitarian compassionate cohabitation.
History -it must not let life to
rewind to the past.
We must avoid sliding into
debates of justifications on any basis either religious, historical,
ideological, political, territorial disputes and slipping away from any logic,
moderation because humanity cannot afford to rewind itself into 12th century or 10th century barbarism.
Trying to deny, to defy, to
disown, to disorient are manifestations of non-committal cautiousness of
escapists and those who prefer indifference over involvement.
History-its journey.
History cannot be divorced from individuals, institutions, issues,
ideologies that have formed and framed a major part of life and hence it
includes the experiments of multiple social and political systems which have
travelled through many socio-religious cultural systems and the multitude of
economic and trade activities all of which that have shaped the survival of
human beings and in many cases improved life in many aspects.
“There
is no history of mankind, there are only many histories of all kinds of aspects
of human life. And one of these is the history of political power. This is
elevated into the history of the world.” — Karl Popper
History -its vulnerabilities.
Vulnerability of history lies inevitable variables
of the ideological prejudices of the
source of records, distortions of some historians and the date from which we
choose to refer to the records because the inputs of these vulnerabilities
along with some others that are mentioned below go on to become our frames of
references to perceive/ to understand/to interpret issues/events.
History- the duty of intellectual
bodyguards/narrative setters
Therefore, we [ at least the ‘intellectual
bodyguards’ as Ayn Rand calls or present-day narrative setters and political
decision makers] need to clear as many grey areas as possible to have clarity
about the frames of references.
They must act with collective responsibility for
the long-term common good rather than giving statements containing selective,
SENSATIONALISTIC, calibrated, homogenized NARRATIVES injected with an
artificial aura of dignity but carrying hidden
agendas, ulterior motives, surreptitious ideological undercurrents, and
political overtones.
History- means to
overcome its vulnerabilities.
However,
there are ways and means to overcome certain vulnerabilities of authenticity
through collating multiple methods of advanced scientific tools like DNA
proofs, Archaeological evidence, and literary references to arrive at some
facts. As John Adams says, “Facts
are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the
dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence”,
and Ayn Rand, “We can evade reality, but we cannot evade the consequences of
evading reality."
History
– prevailing facts that need correction and moderation.
More experts than victims or issues, more critics than
doers, more media trials, more NGOs working for poor than the number
of actual poor people, more news Channels [nuisance channels] than news items.
The bandwidth for dissent, discussion and different opinions must
become much wider and better than merely allowing it to get limited by
brain washing propaganda instilled narrow alleys of many branded and brandied
about systems and fixed ideologies.
History- the contradictions.
Often, we may encounter contradictions due to human psyche’s penchant for generalizing
variety; oversimplifying the complex; sometimes confusing the motives to be
either the means or meaning of the quest; justifying all means; fear of various
kinds; predominance of certain types of thinking; passing everything through a
prism of some popular or prevailing liking or ideology; seeing things with
jaundiced vision and prejudiced views; presuming that we need to judge everything
and everyone, applying irrelevant metrics to evaluate everything rather than
evaluating anything through its inherent merits and so on. Contradictions
are very often camouflaged as dichotomies and dichotomies are the indoctrinated
and engraved part of many domains of life as Dudley Lynch puts forth very
nicely, “The brain forever has dichotomies on its mind-The ancient Taoists
did it with yin/yang. Religious types with good/evil. Philosophers with
mind/matter. Particle scientists with wave/particle. Psychologists with
nature/nurture. Law officers with good cop/bad cop. On and on and on. You just
had to know that it was only a matter of time before “dualism”—or
… harrumph! … co-eternal binary opposition—infested neuro discussions
like kudzu” and continues “Maybe, as one thoughtful observer has
suggested, even as old dualisms get knocked down, “it seems that there is
something about the wiring of the brain that leads to new dualisms springing
up.” Talk about Whack-a-Mole! Or as George
Kelly says, “Our psychological geometry is a geometry of
dichotomies[italics mine] rather than the geometry of areas envisioned by the
classical logic of concepts, or the geometry of lines envisioned by classical
mathematical geometries.” (Double harrumph!) in his blog { “Across
planes of consciousness, we have to live with the paradox that opposite things
can be simultaneously true.”― Ram Dass.
History- Idealistic expectations of how it could be.
A great work of history, though too idealistic, almost
very difficult, would be to perceive or to create a synthesis or find a synergy
[ as Sherlock Holmes declares, “From a drop of water a logician could
infer the possibility of an Atlantic or a Niagra without having seen or heard
of one or the other.
So, all life is a great chain, the nature of which is known
whenever we are shown a link of it.”] of various factors and contextually find
a relevance from a huge cauldron consisting of a mixture many of the
following:-
various events, impacts of some great individual
souls, evolutionary biology, evolutionary sociology, evolutionary changes in
the march of civilization, evolutionary political trends, ideas, philosophical
inquiries, psychological perception, emotional reactions, discoveries and
inventions that have contributed to life enormously and the selective static or
stiffness or suppleness of various religious edicts - and weave a very
meaningful relationship among these or decipher a pattern of occurrence or
recurrence of certain events or evolution of certain factors or emanation of
certain ideas or the emergence of certain individuals as powerful personalities
etc. so,
History – the unique features of human
beings a combination of assets, liabilities
and a work in progress.
As Jacob Bronowski says, “Every animal leaves
traces of what it was; man alone leaves traces of what he created”
and not only this human beings are much more wise as William Gladstone
observes, “To comprehend a man's life, it is necessary to know not merely
what he does but also what he purposely leaves undone. There is a limit to
the work that can be got out of a human body or a human brain, and he is a wise
man who wastes no energy on pursuits for which he is not fitted; and he is
still wiser who, among the things that he can do well, chooses and resolutely follows
the best.”
History – changing narratives, telesis of
terminological terrorism
What do dissent and liberal really mean at present. " Words can change
their meaning right in front of you"-John Steinbeck. Politics, political power, and political
leadership are such words and so have become words like dissent, liberal and
freedom. DISSENT need not
necessarily mean gross disrespect to institutions of importance and
personalities holding top positions with the responsibility of
maintaining the dignity of such institutions. So, referring to such
persons is a synecdoche of the institution itself. Spewing venom on anything that does
not succumb to specific and selective ideology peddling backed by
groups which struts around with pomposity and presumptive inflated image
appropriating terms which have a good aura like intellectual, liberal and
putrefying them to suit their petrified ideology cannot be a construed as
dissent or freedom of speech.
DISSENT need not be
merely :-
LIBERAL need not mean:-
History – a new version that
humanity has created and continues to do so.
Human development as sophisticated , matured,
sensible, intelligent beings who could co- habit with certain well defined and
mutually agreed and accepted trade-offs for a peaceful, comfortable, happy,
healthy ,and prosperous living moving with the fast developments in the world.
Progressive political management, economic welfare, scientific developments,
and technological progress to bring humanity together.
History- Life of all species,
and humans as one among them may have to be internalized.
Life, much less history, is after all not mere
chronology of existence and events; nor merely confined to topology of
geographical boundaries but a meaningful topology of relationships.
Our collective maturity and mindsets need not be
curtailed by calendar or politically drawn geographical boundaries but are at
liberty to laterally move and make meaningful relationships at present and
choose to live sanely with sense of balance and savour synergies as a
species irrespective of religious,
political, historical, cultural, linguistic, regional differences.
As Anais Nin says, " We do not grow absolutely,
chronologically. We grow sometimes in one dimension, and not in another;
unevenly. We grow partially. We are relatives. We are mature in one realm,
childish in another. The past, present, and future mingle and pull us backward,
forward, or fix us in the present. We are made up of layers, cells,
constellations”.
The world with all its species was and are always
interconnected, interrelated and interdependent and that is the inevitable law
of nature. It did not start when the few fancy terminologies like global
village, globalization popped up. We are in a more or excessively connected
world, and it is a real global village [ we may notice the telesis of
terminology to manipulate -why not call it as global metro or global heaven or
global city or global town- because it has to appeal to the most gullible human
beings who choose to live in villages, work their hard and gawk at every new
technology as if it has descended from some heaven – as portrayed in the movie
‘Gods Must be Crazy’.]
History- Life and real
wisdom
Life is an unmapped atlas where we are
not even sure whether all pieces of the jigsaw puzzles are there to create
a shape and it may get its maps based on our choices, beliefs, actions,
reactions, thoughts, attitudes etc., and it is our hands to make each one
of these continents as great and as good as possible.
So, real wisdom may require living in the
present context, practicing time-tested values with humanitarian perspectives
and bequeath a livable planet, a lovable society with lovely infrastructures
and improved living conditions.
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