Many world disasters we'd rather forget start with a conspiracy theory told to the least secure but most empowered sections of society. "Original" inhabitants vs. the "non-original" natives. Locals vs. immigrants. Pure blood vs. Mixed blood. 'Right' born vs. 'Wrong' born. One skin color vs. the other. One religion or culture vs. the other. What starts as cognitive dissonance of the majority with reality becomes fear play and then power grab so that their worst fears can be kept from coming true. You have to reasonably discount their cognitive dissonance and, in effect, their very response as a result.
This sequence of events is not surprising. The secret lies in majorities and minorities. The division between them is the fact that history runs deeper than we know. When we try to balance its innocent-then evil bits, those who benefited from them over generations and centuries have a blood reflex. Though those positions of power cease to officially exist and exert authority like then, the pride never left and, like a rabid wolf, it needs to be fed. I'm talking of most sections of people who always had the upper hand - Brahmins, upper castes, zamindars, patriarchal men and any other human who assumes and holds themselves powerful over or controls another human. A nation may make us equal people but society needs to catch up and completely open their gates to let it in. It is most stubborn.
To understand it better, we need to first acquaint ourselves with Instinctive Ideology. Here's a primer first: The Individual is central to Home and, by extension, to Society, Government and Nation. If done right, all of these must serve them i.e. you, me and every other Indian towards achieving Individual Happiness each. That's the chain of command.
What we grow up with at Home becomes our due Instinct and Identity. It can, cannot, may or may not always be most rational or wise, but becomes who and what we are. It becomes us. And if this Home plays out all the way upto Nation, we have a clash. There's only so much space and bandwidth for it to even remotely be a big loving somewhat homogeneous spread, especially with all the variety this great land offers. As it is, India already shares its space without too many rifts.
Instinctive Ideology kicks in when people who have the upper hand who haven't shrug off their erstwhile pride seek more than just a fair due of space to assert their Identity. Like it did then, it seeks a monopoly designed to ensure that upper hand. It's like paying rent on a house that you will never use just so that people that other people, unlike you, don't stay in it. All the while, it doesn't have an identity of its own that's based on something outside of denying the 'undeserving' groups of people that same privilege.
This pride accumulates and settles like dust over the centuries to form a firm hard layer that drives all this Instinct, deep in and way out into the world. The longer it sits there with no context, the more they will need to build and keep a whole empire that feeds this rabid wolf. What this also means is that this digression of sensible society is here to stay for a long, long time. The only way out is to bypass it, intentionally, which starts by fully admitting it exists.
This will hit where the Good Instinctive Ideology (the one we need) starts. The privileged happen to be so, as do the unprivileged—so far. It's just that we woke up to these things over an unnecessary long period of time. It took centuries! The identities that resulted in it are their legitimate identities i.e. who they are—the Individual in that all important hierarchy. Correcting it snatches away their full due identity from them, as oppressive as it is.
When the Bad Instinctive Ideology (the one we don't need) kicks in to protect it, things get dirty. The tables are turned with the victims made to be oppressors, and the oppressors victims. If we wind it back all the way up to the beginning of the cycle and see what started it, we will easily be to define the two as they should be. It's a natural protective response, but no society can afford to be protective of a live tumour, unless they want to live in denial.
As Humanity that accepts the existence and threat of cancer, and that we need to kill the cancerous cells out, this power disease that imbalances society, too, needs to go. While that dust has settled into solid over centuries and will be a big wall, while historically and culturally 'due' pride will be the biggest hindrance, while tradition will always maintain status quo, we must still remove the cancerous cells. The more they remain, the more society will be sick, even if only in its deep, dark corners—like cancer that has every symptom of being benign but is in effect malignant. As for identity stripping, once the disease source is out, the disease doesn't exist anymore. Then, those corners will no more feed rabid wolves that have lost their place and refuse to give up power just because of pride. They will be dead and history.
Not all the privileged throw their weight around. Not all the seemingly oppressed are suffering. Calling it out doesn't falsely accuse any one in particular. What we can't ignore is that centuries-long oppression has had a mass effect and defines victim and perpetrator collectively (and individually) well, even if it was all done innocently in the name of culture. As for those willing to recognise this and move to better times, we need to accept, correct and affect change without personal, or collective guilt (unless we admit and recognise that we have personally added to it in individual capacity). If the ones who indeed do won't, society at large must unleash gets its best instincts to make it happen, or at least call it out loud so that the crime is clear to start with.
So, whether you are perpetrator or victim of any kind, here's to a cancer-free society that has a place for everyone to whom it is home, celebrating life as they are happy to do it.
This sequence of events is not surprising. The secret lies in majorities and minorities. The division between them is the fact that history runs deeper than we know. When we try to balance its innocent-then evil bits, those who benefited from them over generations and centuries have a blood reflex. Though those positions of power cease to officially exist and exert authority like then, the pride never left and, like a rabid wolf, it needs to be fed. I'm talking of most sections of people who always had the upper hand - Brahmins, upper castes, zamindars, patriarchal men and any other human who assumes and holds themselves powerful over or controls another human. A nation may make us equal people but society needs to catch up and completely open their gates to let it in. It is most stubborn.
To understand it better, we need to first acquaint ourselves with Instinctive Ideology. Here's a primer first: The Individual is central to Home and, by extension, to Society, Government and Nation. If done right, all of these must serve them i.e. you, me and every other Indian towards achieving Individual Happiness each. That's the chain of command.
What we grow up with at Home becomes our due Instinct and Identity. It can, cannot, may or may not always be most rational or wise, but becomes who and what we are. It becomes us. And if this Home plays out all the way upto Nation, we have a clash. There's only so much space and bandwidth for it to even remotely be a big loving somewhat homogeneous spread, especially with all the variety this great land offers. As it is, India already shares its space without too many rifts.
Instinctive Ideology kicks in when people who have the upper hand who haven't shrug off their erstwhile pride seek more than just a fair due of space to assert their Identity. Like it did then, it seeks a monopoly designed to ensure that upper hand. It's like paying rent on a house that you will never use just so that people that other people, unlike you, don't stay in it. All the while, it doesn't have an identity of its own that's based on something outside of denying the 'undeserving' groups of people that same privilege.
This pride accumulates and settles like dust over the centuries to form a firm hard layer that drives all this Instinct, deep in and way out into the world. The longer it sits there with no context, the more they will need to build and keep a whole empire that feeds this rabid wolf. What this also means is that this digression of sensible society is here to stay for a long, long time. The only way out is to bypass it, intentionally, which starts by fully admitting it exists.
This will hit where the Good Instinctive Ideology (the one we need) starts. The privileged happen to be so, as do the unprivileged—so far. It's just that we woke up to these things over an unnecessary long period of time. It took centuries! The identities that resulted in it are their legitimate identities i.e. who they are—the Individual in that all important hierarchy. Correcting it snatches away their full due identity from them, as oppressive as it is.
When the Bad Instinctive Ideology (the one we don't need) kicks in to protect it, things get dirty. The tables are turned with the victims made to be oppressors, and the oppressors victims. If we wind it back all the way up to the beginning of the cycle and see what started it, we will easily be to define the two as they should be. It's a natural protective response, but no society can afford to be protective of a live tumour, unless they want to live in denial.
As Humanity that accepts the existence and threat of cancer, and that we need to kill the cancerous cells out, this power disease that imbalances society, too, needs to go. While that dust has settled into solid over centuries and will be a big wall, while historically and culturally 'due' pride will be the biggest hindrance, while tradition will always maintain status quo, we must still remove the cancerous cells. The more they remain, the more society will be sick, even if only in its deep, dark corners—like cancer that has every symptom of being benign but is in effect malignant. As for identity stripping, once the disease source is out, the disease doesn't exist anymore. Then, those corners will no more feed rabid wolves that have lost their place and refuse to give up power just because of pride. They will be dead and history.
Not all the privileged throw their weight around. Not all the seemingly oppressed are suffering. Calling it out doesn't falsely accuse any one in particular. What we can't ignore is that centuries-long oppression has had a mass effect and defines victim and perpetrator collectively (and individually) well, even if it was all done innocently in the name of culture. As for those willing to recognise this and move to better times, we need to accept, correct and affect change without personal, or collective guilt (unless we admit and recognise that we have personally added to it in individual capacity). If the ones who indeed do won't, society at large must unleash gets its best instincts to make it happen, or at least call it out loud so that the crime is clear to start with.
So, whether you are perpetrator or victim of any kind, here's to a cancer-free society that has a place for everyone to whom it is home, celebrating life as they are happy to do it.
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