Skip to main content

Freedom in a Consumer Society

One, who can not disobey, his obedience is slavery. One, who can not say "no", his "yes" is valueless. One, who has lost all the alternatives of life and has stuck around one mechanical duty, has no passion for life. He loses interest in the freshness and newness of existence. The moment work defines and restricts the identity of a person, his "potentiality to be" the supreme eternal life is reduced into insignificance. 


Modernity has produced only two alternatives, if I refer Soren Kierkegaard, either we have too much alternatives so much so that we are confused in which direction we should move on, or we have no other alternative but to restrict ourself into little identity, which is carried on like a "prisoner syndrome", whereas prisoner identifies prison as an emancipatory institution at least better than a fast moving world and its insatiable cruelty. 


Human being is automation unless there is freedom to reflect upon our own opinions, if it is just an internalisation/introjection of external authority or one has actually independent conscious vision to see what is his/her own voice? Freedom has been earned and realised by a long struggle of the humankind and to lose it means to lose humanistic values and ideals. In our time, media is changing our consciousness and making us conform to a set pattern of thought. Unless one is aware about the dangers of conformity, freedom is meaningless. One must be cautious enough to reflect upon the biases, which are cultivated in a "mass culture" (Adorno). Such tendencies are anti-thesis to the humanistic ideals like freedom, equality, love, compassion, peace, and happiness. The real freedom is to know which opinion of mine has root in the conditioning of society. Can we know our own opinions beyond the popular opinions of the masses, propagated through education? Can we say that we are far away from the real education, i.e. self-realisation of our potentiality and actuality? I find answers in affirmation. Unless, I find my own quintessence, what society has to say about me has very little significance. What books are offering are merely narratives coming through history and society, but truth is not far way from my own sense and sensibilities. It is our conditionings, restricting us to see anything new and fresh around and within us. It is education, which is making us data and ensuring that we keep consuming information and becoming information. This vision of education is making all of us alike like a perfect product in uniform shape and colour, likely to be exploited in a highly fictitious market. How can we remain consumable product as well as free conscious human being at the same time? One has to lose one to gain another. It seems, we are opting first choice over other in a perfectly "consumer society".

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Imagination

Student: I want to excel in my life. Over the years, my graph of success is achieving a new height. I am doing hard work to become one of the smartest and richest persons on the Earth. Teacher: Wonderful! Who is  achiever and what is achieved? Student: I am the achiever. My name and fame are shining day by day.  Teacher: Who is this ‘I’? What is the material by which it is produced? Student: I is the ego which is the agent achieving successes and facing failures. Teacher: Whether ego is real or imaginary? Student: It is made of name, form, and function. Teacher: Whether name, form, and function are eternal?  Student: No, they are changing. Teacher: Anything changes does it exist? Whether these are real or merely fictitious images appearing and disappearing before the sightscreen of mind? Student: They are the images constructing my identity as a person. Teacher: Well said! What is the stuff by which these images are made of? Who is maker and what is made? Student: They ar...
Post a Comment
Read more

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।
1 comment
Read more

Time and Love

Time passes by Like moving in a train of thoughts Its sequence is always forward Vibrating like a cosmic dance of Shiva Time is creating and engulfing The little waves of the ocean Going where? Nobody knows Like a dream does not have a destination It is as true as any absurd play With friends of pleasure It moves like speed of light With friends of need It is felt like a moving river Allowing a little moments of thoughts Before everything becomes a history With friends of virtue Time becomes a sublime touch Soothing and healing the pain Becoming a spectator To watch the cries and follies Beauty and ugliness The rainbow of joy And an album of suffering Time touches Yet it remains aloof Like Purush is witnessing The colours of prakriti Yet remains unblemished And untouched The union of two is always mystical Their touch is a source Of creation and transformation Time is witnessing everything In its sequential movements Who is witnessing time? What is independent of the originatio...
Post a Comment
Read more