Dichotomy of Manes - Social contract for modern civilization

It’s my favorite part of the year – “ No matter how long the winter, spring is sure to follow ”. A season I wait for after long cold winter. Morning-sunlight kisses my cheeks. I was soaked by tender warmth of morning sun. Current geopolitical situation, humanitarian crisis due to war is steering my mind enough. My imagination and experience are trying to burst out like a seed. Are we civilized yet? What for human signed social contract? The wild, animal-like us might be the truth, suppressed and hided by that stone and covered carefully by the glittering curtain – named modern civilization. The key for mankind’s progression is cohabitation of opposite factors – may be like Luperci and flamen or Gandhrva and brahmin. We, human being accepted rule of low and signed social contract with cost of absolute freedom. Was it a fair deal? Can we and our children leave safely with rule of low in democratic society in current world? Civilization itself is a soul of a demon or Manes. But it is a collective soul, which is always attracted towards eternal truth or lights and takes it’s turn like seed buried below the ground.

The perception of wilderness and civilization was portrayed during my childhood while reading “The Jungle Book” by Rudyard Kipling. There was immense pleasure of placing myself as “Mowgli” and undoubtedly love for Bageera, Baloo. My same child mind rejected the acceptance of Shere Khan be suitable even in wilderness. As I was growing old, I was trying to picturize the connection between fauna and civic society. Growing up in India, gave me the opportunity to witness four seasons and be closed to nature. Winter was most waited season. Throughout the winter we used to go for different tours and picnics. We used to go for river side at sunrise, feeding fish in the afternoons and watching a flock of birds when they come back in their evening flight. A beautiful sunset and to watch fireflies flitting among the trees in a romantic spring season, never failed to mesmerize me. There is nothing incredibly special in a scorchy summer day, but things change once the monsoon breaks. In one of this rainy day, I was watching cute little puppies outside of my home and same time enjoying monsoon day without much notice of my parents. It was not too long that I was called inside home. I was crying for those little puppies in order to save them from rain. My father explained as we, human, are civilized, have benefits to avoid some wilderness chaos but it has price. The price is to sacrifice certain freedom and to obey some rules. I felt sick and suffered from cold for few days. It helped my father to establish his opinion he stated, as all his intention was to make me listen to him. I was also convinced organically with his narrative because the whole depiction was strong enough for a child mind. It would have been nice if my parents took rational method to convince my mind, saying “everything has a cost “, instead of trading off with freedom. I believe truth, rationality has greater impact in long run than doctrine.

Life was moving in normal course. I was playing a role of a great citizen in a civic society, very similar to Camel in Nietzsche’s allegorical metamorphoses. There were some moments of suffocation, pain when few individual passions are being killed. I could not conceal my mind from extreme shocks while observing some horrific incidents in our society beyond which is even missing in real wilder life. Rationality comes from our very own biology and that always compelled my mind with some fundamental questions. My mind was occupied with questions like “Why we are being called civilized”, “purpose of civilization”, “lesson to learn from wilderness” and lured me to go back to wilderness with absolute freedom. Though that state of mind is like visualizing a rainbow for a min out of nowhere as the power of pride and glorification of “camel-state” is strong enough to overrule. Am I in a transition from “Camel” to “Lion” ?

I have undertaken a new journey as I moved to Unites States to study further. I was not quite sure if it was journey towards wilderness or civilization, but for sure mix of various feelings. I was enjoying an exotic feeling of freedom. Western world relies on patronage of four pillars – fair-lay, reticent, strong-will and self-restrain whereas eastern people try to be driven by conscious idealistic satisfaction in every action. Watching the great Wildebeest migration at Serengeti on National-Geography, made me realize that there is not much difference between the migration of these Wildebeest and migration of Indo-European (Aryans) or my own. We all look for greenery and try to secure the life of next generation. Watching “Blue Planet” with magical narration of David Attenborough is not only a mystical experience, but also taught us how purposeful is animal’s life, how beautifully balanced is our world. Looking at two lion’s fears fighting on the video above and at the same time thinking of current geopolitical situation of the world, remind me below lines.

“...But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth,

When two strong men stand face to face, tho’ they come from the ends of the earth ! “

The Ballad of East and West, Rudyard Kipling

Sometimes we are told that a civilized human is master of trickery unlike wildlife. Though that illusion was broken once I came to know how monkey plays a very political role in lion’s kingdom. The myth that wild animal does not much emotional-quotient was strike out as we observe the example of a lion, risking his own life to protect his pack ; a standstill-tigress, hoping for her daughter’s survival from wound; a group of elephants to rescue a baby. Unfortunately, we are still comfortable to address ourselves civilized even after event like Atomic-bombings of Hiroshima - Nagasaki, Nazi’s concentration camps and several persecutions in name of religion. I can clearly feel the change of myself, slowly evaluating towards “Lion’s metamorphosis”. Gurdjieff taught that most humans do not possess a unified consciousness and thus live their lives in a state of hypnotic "waking sleep". The probable reason of my awakening from “waking sleep” is quick shift-left from east to west. I was able to inhale the spirit of liberty. At same time it is quite astonishing for me to know that a Hippy tried to find happiness in eastern philosophy and spirituality. Hippy movement was triggered due to American hegemony over most of the world, they tried to inhale the freedom in a free world.

We, human being is polarized in nature as having limitation of seeing the world with two eyes. Evidence of polarization is present also in our nature. This pattern can be noticed at large by words like, black-white, US vs USSR, eastern-block vs western-block, zero vs one, pagan vs heathen, south-pole vs north-pole, electron vs proton and finally matter vs anti-matter. The term wilderness and civilization may have been crafted from that concept or limitation of polarization. It might be two sides of a coin.

Man will always have the argument of state-of-nature vs sovereign – via social contract. As per Thomas Hobbes philosophy in the state of nature, the condition of a man is a condition of war of everyone against everyone. To avert a descent into the state of nature, men must enter into a social contract, submitting to the authority and protection of a sovereign. I was reading the counter logic by Jean-Jacques Rousseau that “nothing is so gentle as man in his primitive state, when placed by nature at an equal distance from the stupidity of brutes and the fatal enlightenment of civil man.” My rational mind was inclined more towards Hobbes theory, that the reason rational agents would surrender their freedom to a social-contract because life in the state of nature was so “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short”, that freedom will always be a secondary concern, an il-afforded luxury. Hobbes stated that while people would have natural rights in such a state of nature, the overriding concern would be always to survive. Like Jean-Jacques , many enlightenment thinkers referred this civic rules as play between the rules and ruler which establish political legitimacy of various modes of governance. As per them this is against absolute individual freedom.

At present day I am having a comparative stable life being a mother of two and loving wife. The few fascinating concept I am cultivating in my middle-age are freedom-of-thought, freedom-of-speech, rationality, individualism and most importantly truth. My inclination towards civilization might have conflict with my own pillars of thought as being civilized has own cost. Removing that dilemma from my brain is essential not for anything but to rest my mind. Suddenly I felt a burden to convince myself. I stepped back and started enjoying the visual ecstasy of watching my kids playing. Suddenly it surprised me when I observe my younger one is watching a beautiful blue Jazz very patiently in our garden. It is very rare and unusual visual pleasure for me as he is extreme agile in nature. While asking the reason he mentioned there is absolutely no reason, only pure joy. My mind had immense shift from that point, I transformed into that “Child”, as per third and last stage of Nietzsche’s “three metamorphoses”. I felt life is no longer a reactive struggle, rather life is a celebration of one’s powers and act of pure affirmation. The child-like spirit knows the joy of life and the innocence of everlasting creation.

My journey towards civilization is a journey towards lights, truths and to some extend self-discovery. Civilization is a virtue to us, and it grows towards a positive direction. May be in times it took some awkward direction, behaved strangely, shanked into darkness but again found the route. Civilization cannot proceed further if we don’t believe in collective welfare. Wilderness is not equivalent to uncivilization, rather vigor, energy while civilization is like moral, guiderail. Life is incomplete without these two, so as our world. My journey will always accompany below philosophy from Gitanjali – Rabindranath Tagore.

“Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;

Where knowledge is free;

Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls;

Where words come out from the depth of truth;

Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;”

Reference:

I am inspired by the philosophies, writing by following persons:

Rudyard Kipling

Khushwant Singh

Nirad C Chaudhuri

Friedrich Nietzsche

Rabindranath Tagore

Thomas Hobbes

Jean-Jacques

Picture with this writing: Somak Bhattacharya