Sunday, September 25, 2016

Naturalized injustice: intolerance of difference and polarisation

It appears that Kaleidoscope's endeavour to thematically organise the recent resurgence of religious intolerance had an impact (click here). A few people, or may be many, have taken Kaleidoscope's everyday experiences seriously. They have decided to keep an eye on Kaleidoscope's future posts, they may take some adverse step if he continues to post what in their understanding is anti-Hindu. Such an event along with a couple of comments from one of his favourite colleagues from his new workplace has made this post possible. His colleague mentions that the Hindu Muslim polarisation is less prominent in his native place, it is nevertheless increasing with each passing day. However, eventually within a short spell he recalls that this not so, rather the polarisation and mutual hatread is quite prominent now a day in his native place. While those of the intolerant people and my colleague occupy two completely different positions but are victims of the same primordial feature of human mind variously known as 'natural attitude' by Husserl, 'taken for grantedness' by Schutz, 'reification' and 'false consciousness' by Marxists, Gramscian and even the Bourdieuians (if there is any such thing at all)

Kaleidoscope wishes to call this primordial bias as 'naturalisation of injustice.'

NATURALISATION OF INJUSTICE

Following agriculture revolution, our beloved civilisation needed humans to organise themselves in mass cooperation networks - something that ants, bees have in their instinct but we lack. To handle this baggage we have developed imagined orders that is naturalised. People needed to be divided which is neither natural nor fair.

Here are few examples:-

1. Naturalised hierarchy between slave and masters.
2. Hierarchy based on racial theory, where rights  of men had little to do with Negroes.
3. Hierarchy and gendered division of labour, rights and opportunities.
4. Todays' hierarchies between rich and poor is equally and falsely taken as naturally pre-given, at almost an ontological level.

If you discuss with white supremacists you will enjoy a psudoscientific lecture concerning the biological differences between races. You will be informed that there is something superior about Caucasian blood!

Ask a die hard capitalist about the hierarchy of wealth, you are likely to be explained that this is an obvious and objective outcome of differences in ability. The rich have more money because they are more capable and diligent. No one should be bothered if a wealthy gets better health care, better education and better nutrition simply because they are born in a rich family.

Caste hierarchy coming from some mythological origin of Purusa is no exception.

All these hierarchies are essentially an outcome of human imagination. Just as for today a Hindu cannot accept that there once existed ritual widow burning the famous satidaha pratha, similarly today's westerners would be shocked to accept that once there were laws to prohibit blacks to stay in white neighbourhoods.

Similarly, kaleidoscope cannot accept the fact that he is living in this polarised society where there are different layers of hypocrisy in religion based discrimination - to accept this fact he has to perform some sort of coding of his own experience.

Kaleidoscope's favourite colleague takes time to recall the difference between his idea about his society in his native place and contemporary reality.

Kaleidoscope's groups of anonymous friends similarly cannot accept their imagined disgust to be analysed and presented in a manner that they feel threatened.

All these are products of our fertile mind which has once accepted the creation of imagined order (mythological orders in caste system about some 3000 years ago, psudoscientific racism and the like). What happens afterwards is interesting. Eventually, human beings tend to take these orders for granted and never questions.

People imagining their society as a just society, religious intolerance as acceptable, killing in the name of protecting one's country, accepting rich and poor gap as natural are all victims of the process of naturalisation of injustice.
Take it easy my friends; we are all product of a long 'civilisational legacy' like a long long blood vessel.

3 comments:

  1. Yes your arguments against civilisation is always wonderful.

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  2. A corollary of your hypothesis might be that the so-called modernity and development is a product of the process of naturalisation of injustice!More the injustice is processed to be naturalised, more we become a part of a civilisation termed as 'developed'..

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