Language of Negative: Value, Choice, and Progress

 

In the evolutionary movement of the human's history, negation is as real as affirmation. In every affirmation, the vast domain of negation is taken into the consideration, even if, a word about it is not uttered or described. In every act of negation or criticism, affirmation remains connected in the very action of criticising someone of something. There cannot be simply a valueless statement. Value neutrality is a fiction of the highest kind. What is value? Value is a choice or set of choices. One chooses to respect value means one exercises a choice to accept some and reject the rest of it. In the process of exercising practical agency, one remains in the trap of division and conflict. As long as choices are projected, there will be only a superficial freedom, the one, which is projected as the idea of laissez faire or social contract. As long as choices, the act of choosing, and the act of dissecting remain untempered, conflicts cannot be done away with. In that sense, criticism, which is revered as sacrosanct for the progress, results into conflict, division, and choices to become something and someone and unbecoming of something or someone. This process is just like an image making,  a "phenomenology of individuation", limitation, and identity. Identity-making is a very serious business. Identity is just like a prison, whose shackles are not easily felt and perceived. In the history of dialectical reasoning, from Nagarjuna, Heraclitus to Hegel, Engels, Marx, negation is revered as a science of progress, movement, and emancipation. But is there any progress of humankind as far as their moral and psychological development are concerned? In fact, miseries and conflicts have been aggravating since long time. As long as choice to affirm or choice to negate is exercised, there cannot be any harmony and peace in our world. As long as "me" is preserved as the basis of perceiving "you", there cannot be any social-solidarity. Our progress is possible only through a perception of futility of categorization between good and evil. In every form of duality, life cannot be perceived in its totality. In the language of identity and division, progress is just a word without any substance or meaning. Our progress is all about ending the conflict of being and becoming; it is about "choiceless awareness" of the world, its limitations and its direction. Since long-long time, concept making exercises have been dividing the spheres of human lives into fragments. There are innumerable ideological-dialectical conflicts. I mean, how could there be any religion possible, if there is division and demarcation as per the practices and rituals of the religion, and a false sense of superiority is believed upon, like we v. others? Unless and until the language of choice or the dialectics of negation or affirmation is left behind, no real progress in the future history of humankind could be achieved.