Skip to main content

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.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Meeting Justice Rohinton Nariman in a Sunday Morning

Aristotle once wrote in his Nicomachean Ethics that there are four significant virtues for human beings, namely Prudence, Temperance, Justice, and Courage. There are a few judges who have courage and sense of justice, both. Hon'ble Mr. Justice Rohinton Nariman has been truly an exemplar judge and erudite historian, theologian and philologist, a great scholar of music as well as a courageous and meticulous jurist of our country. He did his Master of Laws from Harvard Law School in 1980-81 and taught by one of the finest jurists of the last century, Roberto Unger. He became Senior Advocate in 1993 in the age of 37 and also served as Solicitor General of India in 2011 before he was elevated as a judge of the Supreme Court of India in 2014. He delivered many landmark judgments, including Shreya Singhal v. Union of India. There are a few people with whom time moves too fast, but to count that experience takes ages. Justice Rohinton Nariman is one of those great jurists with whom a meet...

Feminine Mystery

        Portrait Courtesy: Shraddha One day when 'I' die  All would born as free life The long struggle to be Would turn out to be a mirage  Whose mystery is long known But forgotten Every concern or engagement Is an escape to forget  The first germ of life; its completeness Shackles are nowhere  But imagined as real One day that image would disappear And a blank sheet would represent The Being and Nothingness My mother my light  Has merged into the shadow To witness the geist  Glittering in every particle  All around ether  One day when I laugh On the seriousness of playfulness And let the things flow  Without any expectation or resistance The day would be a new dawn To the spirit of wholeness And unity of phenomenon Fragmented in an age of reason And anarchus egoism of individuals  One day the expression of collective Would loose its relevance  When man would realise The silent spirit  And its feminine mys...

पिरोता जाऊँ एक माला ज़िन्दगी का

पढ़ता हूँ हर एक दिन एक ही पन्ना, हर दिन हज़ार ये मालूम पड़ते हैं। जबसे होश संभाला है एक ही पन्ना सवांरते आया हूँ, लोग इसे ज़िन्दगी कहते हैं। इसपे लिखे हर एक लब्ज़ जो मेरे मालूम पड़ते हैं, ना जाने कितने जुबां पे चढ़े होंगे। आज हम भी कुछ पल के लिए ही सही इसके सारथी हैं, जाने से पहले कुछ रंग मेरा भी इसपे चढ़ जाए, बस इसीलिए एक ही पन्ना बार बार पलटता रहता हूँ। हर कोई अनजाने किताब की तलाश में बाहर निकलता है, जिसका हर एक पन्ना वो ख़ुद है। जब ख़ुद के रंग को समझ ही ना पाया, तो भला इंद्रधनुषी किताब के क्या मायने हैं? अस्तित्व में ना जाने कितने पन्ने बिखरे पड़े हैं, बस एक से ही अवगत हो जाऊँ, उसके हर एक शब्द को चुनता जाऊँ, कुछ पल के लिये सही, पिरोता जाऊँ एक माला ज़िन्दगी का।