Without our readers, of course, it would not make any sense to continue publishing such information as we have…. Set it up as a rotating dinner party and have the couple hosting for that…. We have just started to publish our college publications online and have discovered many great tools to assist in the process. Our latest ebook is on the Kindle platform and we are really impressed with the ease of publishing your ebook. You can put it up directly as word document. Your life choices are based on your psychological conditioning or what is commonly called your emotional programming.
Do you want to know how it adds up? Whatever parts of ourselves we try to get rid of in our personality, life will bring to us—in the form of people who are exactly like those parts we deny—our shadow side. We will meet people who carry our shadow side and each time we do, these people will be…. The Different Archetypes or Inner Selves. You are not a single entity and neither am I. Each of us is made up of a set of reincarnating facets that contain the different archetypes, or inner selves. These selves are the building blocks of the psyche. They are independent facets and each has a distinct personality.
Transformation and transmutation are necessary if we are to move forward and function as a different species. If you grew up in a dysfunctional family, you may have shut yourself off many times and you may not even notice the emotional pain you are now putting yourself through.
How to Make a Relationship Work. Most of us were never taught how to communicate effectively with others, or how to ask for what we want. We usually ask for something else for fear of being thought selfish or greedy. How to make a relationship work? We were never taught that either. The most sacred energies that we know are contained within the Holy Silence that we are calling Atava. When you enter the silence, you will have an inner knowing that it is composed of the vibrations of Universal Light.
As you become sensitive to the Light vibrations, you may become…. Popularity Popularity Featured Price: Low to High Price: High to Low Avg. The Secrets of Magic and Metaphysics: Available for download now. Available to ship in days. Provide feedback about this page. There's a problem loading this menu right now. Withholding of some kind of solidarity is symptomatic of madness. What kind of solidarity develops in a group depends on their psychological conditioning.
In societies where people have control over how they bond and who they bond with, psychological distress is lesser as compared to societies where people have only partial control over their interpersonal bonding and relations. In African-American slave societies, for example, the basic solidarity between family members was disrupted.
The institution of family became subservient to the economics and politics of slavery. In the face of such disruptions, love and emotional bonding became a liability; solidarity nevertheless stayed alive and became a trope for agency. Thus solidarity is not simply an emotional need; it is a practical requirement. However, to be authentic, it must encourage emotional bonds. In the above sense, solidarity becomes a need in the formation of subjectivity. This is, in one sense, a fall-out the lack we are born into that shows starkly in the gaps in memory. An individual does not know for certain and in total, at any single time, what makes her.
Also, subjectivity is continuity because it is always in the process of shaping up, during life as well as after death. There are always gaps in memory because something is always driven to the unconscious or lingers in the subconscious. Memory, in Freudian terms, is a system. It is not only the conscious but is a complete whole encompassing the conscious, subconscious and unconscious: There are other mental processes or mental material which have no such easy access to consciousness, but which must be inferred, discovered, and translated into conscious form in the manner that has been described.
It is for such material that we reserve the name of the unconscious proper. Thus we have attributed three qualities to mental processes: The division between the three classes of material which have these qualities is neither absolute nor permanent. What is preconscious becomes conscious, as we have seen, without any activity on our part; what is unconscious can, as a result of our efforts, be made conscious, though in the process we may have an impression that we are overcoming what are often very strong resistances.
Thus memory is also the domain of lack. Memory being in the domain of lack necessitates the acceptance of other individuals and hence is the harbinger of solidarity. Some theorists would suggest that oblivion too is necessary for solidarity, in that we have to forget our differences to unite; though the words acceptance and recognition are more apt in this context. It is not as if we become oblivious of our memories; rather, we accept our memories and overlook them into the domain of the other by shifting the focus from personal memory to shared memory like national memory or class memory.
Solidarity always emerges out of a shared culture whose carrier is language. We are born into language like we are born into a culture. When we say that solidarity is cultural, we are also implying that it is discursive. Solidarity always presupposes a truth and an opposing falsity. The truth being a will to truth is ambivalent and has gaps that can completely change its face.
Thus, the will to truth has no fixed referent to which it can be 2 Freud The Emergence and Deformation of Solidarity 7 compared. Solidarity too is not as solid as its signifier makes it appear. Groups are always in a state of flux, just as subjectivity is always in a state of flux. Solidarity is not frozen, but keeps changing, just as truths keep changing. No matter how often we try to put our pain and suffering into language, to symbolize it, there is always something left over. In other words, there is always a residue that cannot be transformed through language.
A cohesive group that shows solidarity always tends to have a structure that can be changed by rearranging its parts. Since structures are not permanent, solidarity is not permanent. As can already be comprehended from the above discussion, memory and language play an important role in the formation of subjectivity.
Language is how we come to terms with our memories and together they carve out a mould into which we fit. This shape gives our shapeless being concreteness, the comprehension of existence that survival requires. By differentiating ourselves from the landscape we at once recognize its perils. We remember these perils and construct a memory register of survival. Survival, then, is the opposite of merging with the landscape. We are not born separate from the landscape, but become separate. Lacan contends that the child considers himself a part of the landscape.
The separation from our surroundings, then, is an instinct that surfaces at the Lacanian symbolic stage: Separation involves the coincidence, or overlapping, of two lacks: The interaction between these two lacks will determine the constitution of the subject. Identity, then, arises out of this limitation. Our disjunctions with the exteriority arise out of our limited perceptions. These perceptions are harbingers of borders. It is transcendence over the mirror image of the self. It is as if the non-self comes to stand in the mirror with the self.
Even in solidarity, there are always gaps that dismantle it. Since two selves are not fluid but are solid, separate entities, solidarity becomes a brittle proposition. Language is the link between people and language exists in the realm of the symbolic. True solidarity is possible only in the real that lies beyond language.
But because we can never grasp the real, solidarity also becomes transitory and a feeling of continuity with the other is never achieved in permanence. Nevertheless, in cohesive groups, the other moves closer to the self, however temporarily, in that any infliction of injustice on any member of the group becomes an infliction on the self. Many Marxists believe that the working class members must set aside their individuality and participate in a group as a totality.
The individual ambitions must become subservient to the needs of the group. Thus, group needs must be accepted as primary, while individuality becomes secondary. Marx himself in one of his letters to his comrade Sigfrid Meyer emphasized that if the English workers wanted to be free, they must ensure the same for their Irish counterparts. The battle for rights is a collective battle: I think this actually is saying quite a bit about what solidarity meant to Marx.
Such thinking is a fall-out of late, consolidated capitalism. The very mechanisms of late capitalism tend to make individuals self-sufficient. As it advances, capitalism becomes increasingly shock absorbing. The stronger capitalism becomes, the greater the number and variety of substances it produces and at the same time the necessity to use and purchase them.
Substances replace interpersonal relationships and solidarity takes a step back. The subject becomes autonomous and self- 5 Petkov The Emergence and Deformation of Solidarity 9 sufficient in a world where all needs are fulfilled by an invisible capitalist force.
In most societies, the other is accepted but always remains the other, nevertheless. The differentiation between the self and the other is constructed and not always already there. These very differences are temporarily negated within the in-group and at the same time the out- group becomes a totality, its members becoming all the same. Solidarity paradoxically emerges out of idiosyncratic needs.
This is the very reason why solidarity is never permanent. However, even in individualized capitalist societies the need for cohesion is always there. Solidarity in capitalism becomes a safety valve to let out the pressure that being alone creates. Solidarity comes to exist superficially in clubs and unions. On the other hand, solidarity being a raw need is a gap in the capitalist agenda. Capitalist society is highly artificial and its culture is literally and metaphorically a plastic culture.
It subverts authentic and raw needs with inflated needs. Capitalism and solidarity are two paths to the same goal of concreteness and meaningfulness. Solidarity has changed the face of the world and then subsided only to emerge again like a phoenix. It dies only to emerge again and hence never dies. Some form of solidarity always exists everywhere and at every time. We do not create solidarity, but are born into it. Hence the lack we encounter comes with both the struggle to try countering it and the gear we need in this struggle.
The struggle with lack is however endless but we do not succumb to it and solidarity keeps running on the treadmill of lack. Johns Hopkins University Press. Moreover, within the discipline of political science there has been no interest in the concept of solidarity. As Lawrence Wilde persuasively puts it, in politics the notion of solidarity has been overlooked for decades while different terms like democracy, nationalism, community, multiculturalism, human rights, social participation are used.
In that context we examine whether the concept of solidarity is useful in the field of social sciences. Apparently two somewhat different modes of meaning can be grasped. On the one side, solidarity refers to collectiveness, unification and integrity of both formal and informal groups. Solidarity demands social stability, cohesion, participation and cooperation. However, these connotations show that the analysed term can be replaced by other concepts like social ties, binds or cohesion. Solidarity itself remains then a soft term with limited descriptive function or is an elusive expression.
Such an understanding is linked to the concept of the common good. In deviant social groups e. Communism, Nazism, Maoism it is either ethically wrong or dysfunctional and socially destructive. Such a risk becomes more relevant in the global age. The Context of Globalization Globalization as a specific theoretical and empirical subject is relatively recent. One theoretical approach to globalization refers to the world-system theory of Immanuel Wallerstein. In the seventies of the last century he dealt with the origins and growth of the modern capitalist world-system, which has been in existence since the fifteenth century in Europe.
Subsequently, while it has spread to encompass the whole globe, a world-economy created its own socio-geographical divisions: The relation between the core exploiter and the periphery being overused is characterized by either exploitation or dependency, whereas the semiperiphery simultaneously is exploiter and dependent. Accommodating the Wallerstein approach to the most recent phase of globalization—digital instant communication and frontier-free capital flows—we can sum up by saying that the inequalities between the rich people of the Global North the core of globalization and the poor of the Global South peripheries are greater than ever.
In spite of that, globalization should not be comprehended as a one- way process of domination or exploitation only. The global trends are neither merely economic neoliberalism nor linked only to international relations. Hence globalization leads through cultural and ethical shifts. As Anthony Giddens convincingly argues: Global Solidarity Mission Impossible 13 experience. Our day-to-day activities are increasingly influenced by events happening on the other side of the world.
Conversely, lifestyle habits have become globally consequential. Giddens underlines the dialectical character of these processes: Globalization is not a single process but a complex mixture of processes, which often act in contradictory ways, producing conflicts, disjunctures and new forms of stratification.
Thus, for instance, the revival of local nationalisms, and an accentuating of local identities, are directly bound up with globalizing influences, to which they stand in opposition. The variety of directions and dynamics entails the multilevel changes. Many of them tend to deepen social stratification. In the classic debate, a wide range of scholars distinguished pre- modern from modern society in terms of a transformation from communal Gemeinschaft to associative and structured Gesellschaft. Consequently, the process of modernization progressively separates individuals from primordial engagement in communal locality Gemeinschaft while advancing greater differentiation across the individual itself and society Gesellschaft.
For Robertson, it leads to polarization with further implications at the global level. Those are separated Gemeinschaften thrown into one global context. On the platform of solidarity that tendency corresponds to local, group solidarities which are isolationist. The second perspective opts in favour of constructing a global community: In that context, as Peter Beyer describes it, a global order is 14 Giddens Such a conception puts the emphasis on harmonization of differences whether through absorption or toleration.
Examples are the views espoused by the Roman Catholic church, the contemporary peace movement, and various theologies of liberation. On the other hand, Robertson proposes two Gesellschaft approaches. The first one regards world order as a free association of open but interrelated societies. In that view interrelationship helps the societies in their growth. The second approach relativizes the integrity of national states and claims that deliberate and systematic world organizations are needed to manage global order. In that sense a form of world government is required and solidarity is to be introduced top-down, for example in a form of solidarism polity: In the second decade of the twenty-first century globalization is more and more characterized as the set of fostering processes of interdependence among countries and their citizens.
It therefore refers to trade liberalisation, trade integration; it refers to increased capital mobility. It refers in certain regions to increased labour mobility; and it also refers to the enhanced mobility of just about everything and anything that is permitted by the combination of technological change, lower transportation costs and communication costs that have been going on for a long time. Nonetheless, since we recognized the social and financial networks widespread across the world can we say that humankind is yet integrated in a harmonized way if at all?
An answer to that question leads to testing the idea of global solidarity. Global Solidarity Mission Impossible 15 Efficacy of a Solidarity Approach to Globalization Solidarity relationships between individuals and groups separated by physical, social and cultural distances have been present at least since the middle of the nineteenth century and its Marxian philosophy and working class movements.
Today solidarity activities are beginning to take place on a much wider front and the embryonic international community is becoming progressively more vital as an audience for political and solidarity activists. What is at play is an intensified globalization of social and cultural relations, a continuation of the democratization process, coming especially with its third way. A global consciousness entails the ability and aspiration to see the world as a single place, to recognize the oneness and wholeness of the world.
Such a conviction becomes a motive for examination of the solidarity approach. We can recognize and examine, then, some traits of solidarity across the globe. Following the analyses of Thomas Olesen, the scholar from the field of political studies, it is worth dealing first with his threefold typology, mainly political, human rights and material solidarity. Furthermore, we evaluate briefly a solidaristic face of world economy and spiritual and ethical forms of solidarity.
Politics Political solidarity has its roots in the traditions of Marxism and socialism. Left-wing internationalism was prevalent especially in the first decades of the twentieth century. Such a general movement was not conceived of as the voluntary actions of individuals and civil organizations, but was structured from above through political parties and states with socialist or communist regimes. This old fashioned internationalism consequently had an explicitly national and class dimension.
Since the end of the Cold War this form of class solidarity has practically disappeared in vast parts of the world. The founding of the United Nations Organization stood as the culmination of such development. The promulgation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in gave ideological legitimacy to the notion of human solidarity.
In the second half of the century the solidarity with the Third World is another type of political solidarity. Activists of the time were mainly located in the global North, well-off regions of the world, especially Western Europe and the USA. Such a kind of solidarity grew up, inter alia, on the basis of the student movement in the late s and was concerned with the results of structural inequalities between the rich and the poor countries and regions.
Although Third World solidarity activists worked within a framework that divided the world into first, second and third worlds, it still reflected a growing global consciousness in which the world was analysed as one structure. In the s Third World solidarity activism was highly politicised and it typically considered the gross inequalities in poor countries to be fertile soil for the development of revolutionary movements.
When solidarity work consisted in aiding these movements it also often reflected the bipolar conflict between East and West. Their steering role is, nonetheless, ambivalent. So far global institutions such as the United Nations Organization with its many agendas have been inefficient in regulation and control. In many cases currently the Syrian civil war international forces are paralysed and powerless. In the economy the International Monetary Fund and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development are accused of imposing a narrow- minded neoliberal vision of social life. Moreover, high level political institutions contribute to increasing inequality between the global North and South, in other words, between the cores of globalization and its peripheries.
Human Rights Another type of solidarity is based on the concept of human rights. Rights solidarity is, thus, a form of common reaction concerned with 21 Olesen Global Solidarity Mission Impossible 17 human rights abuses and other forms of antihuman oppression or, particularly in the Western world, a call to democratization and strong opposition to authoritarian forms of government. Such a kind of solidarity aims at putting pressure on human rights abusers both individual and institutional. Rights solidarity is therefore often less politicised than political solidarity.
The main difference between historical and contemporary transnational rights solidarity lies in the institutional references available to rights solidarity activists in present times, as well as in the increasing interdependence of states. This interdependence, which is often a result of trade and economic agreements, makes it difficult to commit human rights violations without being subjected to criticism from other states and civil society organisations.
The transnational solidarity networks can be understood as supporting to implement and protect human rights across the world. Material Aid Another type of solidarity is directed mainly towards victims of disasters and to different forms of underdevelopment. These problems may have natural as well as human causes. Material solidarity reflects a global consciousness in that it constructs a world in which the fate of distant people can no longer be ignored. Historically, this form of solidarity goes back at least to the foundation of the International Committee of the Red Cross following the Battle of Solferino in The period following the end of World War II in particular witnessed the birth of a large number of organizations whose objective was to deliver aid to populations suffering from the consequences of conflict.
Like rights solidarity, material solidarity is often carried out by organizations that take a neutral position in specific conflicts.
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Nevertheless, material solidarity, how has been observed, refers rather to charity than to solidarity. We can express that 22 Olesen Material needs and emergency news become popular in global public opinion, but a one-way solidarity is related to compassion, fundraising and charity providing. Economy Some socio-economic measures are ambivalent about economic growth and the improvement of living conditions globally. The Gini for the world grew in the two last centuries from 0. The coefficient suggests that inequality increased globally, mainly because of the division between the First and the Third World mainly.
This is a view of the rising tide which lifts all boats up. Despite such an apparent improvement, the poorest population has increased, in absolute numbers, to about 2. It is worth adding that spectacular development has been observed particularly in China and India, while gloomy regression spreads in sub-Saharan Africa. For example, life expectancy has risen sharply from to by 20 years in India, doubled in China to 70 years and has risen by 7 years in the USA to 77 years.
Likewise, newborn mortality in globalizing countries has dropped dramatically, though it remains high in regions detached from the mainstream of globalization, such as sub-Saharan Africa. Specifically regarding the 24 Galeano Global Solidarity Mission Impossible 19 developing countries, the meagre economic level of some countries might be an effect of their sufficient openness to the world economy and its turbulence or exploitation, or whether they have been deficient in the institutions and capacities that would have enabled them to benefit from globalization in a sense of interdependence.
Nevertheless, we say that there is a lack of or deficit in cooperation. There is no evidence of any firm implementation of econcomic solidarity amongst the nations of the world. The correlations between modern globalizing capitalism and the solidarity of humankind are even more ambivalent than those articulated by Brunkhorst.
Spirituality Some kind of conceptualization to spiritual solidarity arrives from the field of religion and Catholic Social Teaching in particular. The pope recommended solidarity as the moral virtue and the fitting approach for the current age of interdependence. Solidarity becomes then a function of justice and peace: This then is not a feeling of vague compassion or shallow distress at the misfortunes of so many people, both near and far.
On the contrary, it is a firm and persevering determination to commit oneself to the common good; that is to say, to the good of all and of each individual because we are really responsible for all. We now know that all humanity is genetically related and that we are all composed of stardust. We are theologically and physically brothers and sisters. Methodologically, solidarity-as- function-of-social-nature gives rather an evocative function of language than an analytical character. However, the call to solidarity brings into the social field practical needs and consequences: A couple of years later, yet in the context of a globalized world, the next pope also underlines the need for friendship and social charity while saying: On the other hand, within the field of religion, group solidarity provides a means of antiglobalism, as Robert Schreiter credibly emphasizes: It is an act of resistance to late modernity, an act based on 30 Thompson Global Solidarity Mission Impossible 21 conservative religious traditions.
In consequence, processes of globalization are supposed to be reoriented towards a strong group identity that is not universal but particular, and loyalty to a hierarchical centre of orthodoxy. In general, religious or spiritual solidarity tends to build up limits and barriers that can protect orthodox exclusive identity against globalizing patterns of a multipolar and fast-modernizing world. Ethics Another type of solidarity is based on nondenominational ethics. Global solidarity, if it is achievable at all, presupposes human fellowship.
Many scholars have argued that a unity of humankind can be established on the basis of some essential values36 like mutual respect. Do good to others as you would like good to be done to you. These are some of their formulations: Ethics based on religious presumptions can be ambiguous, but it is reasonable to take note of the positive role of religions in the formation of ethics because their institutional forms still command the loyalty or sympathy of hundreds of millions of people.
And there will be no peace between the religions without a dialogue between the religions. Moreover, the idea of common global ethics has not materialized in the shape of any social movement. Without such a form of support at the back a shared ethics stays as a rather vague illusion or dream. Limits of Global Solidarity The forms of solidarity described so far display elements of inequality or are just evocative.
Some forms denote a one-way relationship between those who offer aid and those who benefit from it. As a consequence the benefactor of solidarity is supposed to be stronger than the recipient. This factor is evident in most instances of rights and material solidarity and in solidarity relationships between people and groups in the rich cores of globalization and the poor peripheries of globalization. This type of solidarity usually involves the transfer of different forms of resources.
It is the result of initiatives by activists in the rich world, but may also be inspired by calls from aggrieved groups and populations in the poor parts of the world. In general, rights and material solidarity are rather non-political and do not fundamentally challenge the underlying causes of the grievances that inspire the solidarity effort.
Global Solidarity Mission Impossible 23 In contrast to rights and material solidarity, wider global solidarity should involve a more reciprocal relationship between providers and beneficiaries, blurring the distinction between both sides. While all forms of transnational solidarity build on a degree of global consciousness, global solidarity is an expression of a more extensive global consciousness that constructs the grievances of physically, socially and culturally distant people as deeply intertwined.
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This perception is partly inspired by the increasing awareness that environmental problems and risks cannot be contained within national borders. Such a world risk society is therefore a self-critical society capable of analysing events not only in locality but in a global perspective. It was argued above that rights solidarity and material solidarity are characterized by relatively low levels of politicization.
The concept of global solidarity is more politicized as departing from the centre point of neoliberal economics and politics in the service of neoliberalism. If we accept the claim that global solidarity rests on a more politicized relationship with the exception of some of the highly politicized forms of material solidarity between the s and the s between providers and beneficiaries, it may appear that it shares more with the political and Third World solidarity described earlier. On the contrary, global solidarity would be, if it is practically possible or theoretically comprehensible, a form of solidarity that emphasizes similarities between physically, socially and culturally distant people, while at the same time respecting and acknowledging local and national differences.
Seen in this light, global solidarity constantly mediates between the particular and the universal through a democratic matrix. In that context the concept of solidarity can be treated as a moderately useful term for social sciences.
Nonetheless, solidarity is limited and suppressed by class or rather group solidarity lobbies , individualism, consumerism, exclusivist protectionism of a welfare state42 or even a group of states. Finally, a globalized world economy directs our reflections towards the lack of corresponding or adequate legal and political institutions that might ensure some kind of solidarity. Inclusion disruptions at the level of a globalized society are effects of the one-sided globalization of power, money and law, without a corresponding globalization of democracy influenced by solidarity.
The world is yet far away from forming a democratic global civil society. A polity of solidarism is much more needed than a descriptive and evocative sentiment of solidarity. There will be no such global solidarity without the development of forms of democratic self-governance beyond the confines of the nation-state. Even though Brunkhorst claims that solidarity is an inherent element of Gesellschaft which knits society in a formal and structural organic but not mechanical way, such an idea of integration for worldwide society is vague.
A global state or other forms of a political world community do not exist yet, and cannot be achieved automatically. Consequently, a Durkheimian organic solidarity is unattainable at the global level unless some global political institutions emerge. Brunkhorst, in fact, finds in recent global protest movements the beginnings of a transnational civic solidarity.
That conclusion seems unpersuasive, though, and empirically unproven. Even now, at the time of protests and democratization claims in the Arab Spring since , a form of communication is put into practice through the operational and organizational role of internet technology but without any wider grasp of solidarity or community. Observing anti- globalist protests or debate on global civil society we concede that we lack even any soft social structures, like social movements, that could carry the 44 Schwartz Global Solidarity Mission Impossible 25 solidarity value sufficiently.
The role of emotions in constructing global solidarity might be the glue of the anti-apartheid movement or so called Global Justice Movement,47 though this is socio-structurally irrelevant. Moreover but unsurprisingly, transnational business corporations have neither interest nor profit in a Rortarian flexible feeling of sympathy for each other. On the other hand, transnational NGOs operate in the realms of crisis charity, environmentalism, human rights promotion and protection.
They are much more reactive than proactive in promoting a notion of solidarity. From Theory to Action Basingstoke: Polity Press , — Social Theory and Global Culture London: Emerging from the Theoretical Shadows? As our practices, field works, writings and other activities are not only describing reality but are ways of intervening, Humanities are ethical and political fields, even if we do not consciously sustain a position.
What we propose here is a reflection about this question approaching two different and apparently opposing traditions: Mahayana Buddhism2 and Marxism. For if one can talk about revolutionary passion, why not speak of revolutionary compassion? The self-titled mahayanists, in general, criticized the scholastic attitude, emphasizing a more open, inclusive one. The dates of Mahayana literature are uncertain but are attributed to the period between the first century BC and the first century AD, spanning the period from AD Tibetan Buddhism and Zen Buddhism are the main representatives of Mahayana today.
See Williams ; Skilton On Compassion and Ethics 29 Marx and love are two words rarely found together, one beside the other. What would connect them at all? What would they have to do with each other, the militant theorist of class struggle and the sublime feeling sung by poets?
What impression would produce, together in one frame, the energetic bearded philosopher and the child god Eros, son of Aphrodite? Only our time, fascinated by lacerating audacity and unconventional questions revisions could find interest in this strange approach. Not just because unconventional times allow it, but as a relevant discussion to Humanities, that of sensitivity to others, expressed as compassion and solidarity.
Let us begin by distinguishing compassion from pity. The latter figure comes from Latin pietas: Compassion, in turn, relates to the plane of ethics, addressing the question of how we want to live together: As Bresciani states,7 for Marx, as for other nineteenth-century revolutionaries, political passions also have their place in political engagement.
All translations from Portuguese are mine. But at the same time, they acquire a new need—the need for society—and what appears as a means had become an end. This practical development can be most strikingly observed in the gatherings of French socialist workers. Smoking, eating, and drinking, etc. Company, association, conversation, which in turn has society as its goal, is enough for them. The brotherhood of man is not a hollow phrase, it is a reality, and the nobility of man shines forth upon us from their work-worn figures.
An appetite, a desire, it does not matter if originated in the stomach or in fantasy, as says the bearded philosopher in his Capital. It is a materialistic value. His anger with echoes of this religious ideological rhetoric in the work of the philosopher Feuerbach in appears in this excerpt from The German Ideology: He gives us no criticism of the current living conditions.
On Compassion and Ethics 31 revolutionary compassion poison, could meet the Indian goddess, learning from her a different kind of love, which is less passionate, but not less intense. Karuna would be an act of hospitality, of making oneself available, closer to Western notions of psychological motivation, intention and attention, rather than emotion. Nevertheless, we must attend to the fact that it is not natural, but a historical value, as we choose to cultivate it. This sense of compassion could approach that of solidarity: As the zen-activist Franco Berardi says: Matter here is understood not as an ontological substance but as fruit of many transient conditions,15 for which materiality might be a better word, including a sense of plasticity which is due to historical determination of human activity.
In Mahayana Buddhism they say that the world, in itself, is empty sunya. In fact, Mahayana Buddhism is around two key ideas: The following sentence from Nagarjuna, one of the founder thinkers of Mahayana, best embodies this spirit: By this compassionate way, social and political transformation would not come from the critics of weapons, as Buddhist ethics is essentially non-violent.
We can be a little more sceptical about a hopeless romantic love, which seeks to deny the differences between antagonistic social classes, an unearthly and abstract love for humanity. Interview with Franco Berardi Bifo. On Compassion and Ethics 33 http: The doctrinal foundations London: Hindu philosophy argues that the Self, the atman, is a part of the Absolute, Brahman. The etymology of atman is uncertain. Equally uncertain is the earliest usage of this term. However, the Upanishads in number can be considered as the pioneering texts for the exposition of the concept of atman. The Self transcends the limits of space and time.
Therefore the atman, although residing within and pervading the body, is not confined to the body. Therefore, the atman is not identified with the body but maintains its individuality. Atman also is not time bound, since self-realization can happen only in the present where time is a non-existent entity. The individuality of the atman is further realized through the understanding that it is self-dependent and self- satisfied: The Vedantists have further extrapolated the idea of unity between the Self and the Absolute in the form of a movement of thought from one ontological level of particularity to another level of universality and then the ultimate level of unity.
It would be sufficient to say that with the 1 I sincerely thank my very dear friends Ajinkya Lele, Vinay Patil and Yashraj Gandhi for providing me with all the necessary resources and some healthy discussions upon various issues raised in the paper. I am equally grateful to Prof. Makarand Paranjape from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, who patiently went through the initial drafts of the paper and gave valuable suggestions.
Absolving the Other 35 understanding of the Self the Absolute is also known. The shunyavad Nothingness in Buddhism was countered by purnavada Wholeness in Advaita. The nirvana in Buddhism which is the ultimate stage of human development was countered with the concept of moksha in Advaita. It is, however, Sankara who is considered as the greatest exponent of Vedantic philosophy. But with a sudden realization of the distinctness of the Self, one attains the Absolute.
In the post-Sankara period, this self-awareness took two forms—the savikalpa samadhi and nirvikalpa samadhi. In turn, the concept of the Other is unknown to it. Thus Hindu philosophy did not consider any stratification based upon caste, colour or gender. And even if a social stratification did exist, as per the varnashrama system, it was purely for occupational purposes. The occupational social stratification allowed mobility between different classes. Thus a Brahmin a priest could become a shudra a menial worker. This highly idealized varnashrama system did not remain 2 Nakamura The social hierarchy created by this caste system attained a formal structure during the Gupta period fourth to sixth centuries CE.
The methods used by the upper castes to maintain their dominance in the society included the use of religion. Thus the yoga-marg or the karma- marg rituals and sacrifices as a means to achieve self-realization were accessible only to the rich and the dominant sections of society. Innately Buddhism did not accept the caste system. Thus one witnesses an exodus of the lowly castes shudras towards Buddhism.
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Early Buddhism also allowed women to participate in their ritual practices. It had turned into a degenerate heterodox sect which had deified the Buddha and had restricted entry standards. The Sankarian Dyana-marg path of knowledge as mentioned earlier used Buddhist methodology and aimed at a renewed spread of Hinduism. However, once again, the Sankarite and post-Sankarite philosophy remained unavailable to the masses due to its language Sanskrit being the lingua franca and its dense hermeneutics.
The Bhagavad Gita, supposed to have been written around the second century CE, somewhat filled this gap. It provided a platform for people of low caste to practise religion in the form of bhakti-marg the path of devotion. Further, since the Bhagavad Gita was incorporated in the Mahabharata, it quickly attained the status of folklore. The Bhagavad Purana, composed soon after the Bhagavad Gita, further mystified the character of Krishna, granting him divinity.
It is here then that a division between the Self in the form of devotee and the Absolute in the form of reincarnated Divine-human was established. A plausible means available for salvation for the shudras was however quickly obstructed by the Brahmins, wherein temple entry to the shudras was banned, Brahmins became middlemen for addressing Krishna and the Otherness of the shudras remained unabated.
With the rise of vernacular language all of this started changing. With the composition of Thirukkural in the Tamil language in the sixth century CE vernacular poetry started emerging in 3 Jaiswal and Sharma Absolving the Other 37 various parts of India till the eighteenth century. In the following centuries the Bhakti movement captivated all the regions producing their own saint poets. Hundreds of saint poets wrote thousands of poems describing the Divine. They used various literary forms such as bharud, abhang, goulan, dohe etc. The area of work for this movement was largely religious and cultural in nature.
While the European Reformation period roughly coinciding with the Bhakti movement received the additional support of class struggle between the feudal lords and the serfs, the Bhakti movement did not attack the caste system. What it did rather was to emancipate the shudras from within. Saint-poets argued that external conditions, although perishable, cannot be changed overnight. To get out of misery and suffering, an intrinsic change in the human psyche is needed. With this transformed psyche the external world would be perceived as divine. While some saint-poets showed signs of criticism of prevailing social evils, the resistance quickly subsided.
In north India, the saint-poetry influenced the Sufi sects which in turned influenced Bhakti tradition. An interesting intermingling of various heterodox sects was seen during this period. Saint-poets emerged from all classes of society. Their poetry amply speaks of their class consciousness. Large numbers of women saint- poets like Mirabai, Sahajobai and others appeared.
Saint-poets were not readily accepted by the upper castes due to their socially inclusive behaviour. To cite just two examples, Kabir wrote poems dedicated to both Krishna and Allah. Society charged him with blasphemy. Saint Dnyaneshwar, although Brahmin by birth, was unacceptable to the Brahmin clan because he refrained from practising any traditional Brahmin rituals. Further, by reinterpreting the Bhagavad Gita as a devotional text readily available to all, he invoked the ire of the priestly class.
The examples can be multiplied. My argument is that the lives of these saint-poets became exemplary while their teachings broke down traditional notions of exclusionary living and worshipping. New cults like the Vaishnava sect under Chaitanya Mahaprabhu provided cult status to Krishna.
The Bhakti teachings provided a means to freedom. This freedom was for the Self. By negating the social inferiority in the mind of the Other, the Bhakti movement introduced morality and ethics to the private sphere.
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Despite undergoing unnameable atrocities, misery and suffering, the saint-poets continued to work for human emancipation. No evidence of any form of revenge or retribution nor even grudge is reported on behalf of the saint-poets. They forbade violence practised in any form and urged masses to venture in search of Truth. What medieval saint-poetry did was to create the necessary conditions for the establishment of modernity in India. It recognized the Other and unsuccessfully tried to assimilate it with the Self.
When this seemed impossible then the Other was provided with a God a larger Other as an instrument for emancipation and happiness. Colonialism and the Emergence of the Other The entry of Europeans to the sub-continent can be traced back to , when the British East India Company set up a factory in Surat with the permission of the Mughal Emperor Jehangir. With the collapse of the Mughal Empire and the subsequent creation of smaller princely states, the colonial project began in earnest. The mutiny by the sepoys in and the subsequent colonial rule unleashed in India is an all too familiar history unnecessary to be repeated here.
This forced the British to regard Indian society as simply superstitious, adhering to witchcraft and magic. As against this decadence, British saw themselves as the bearers of rationality and scientific attitude arising out of the eighteenth-century Enlightenment. Absolving the Other 39 By borrowing heavily from Western sources of knowledge, these thinkers introduced modern political practices to India; or they counterposed Indian meta-narratives against Western epistemology thus proving the native knowledge as superior; or else they jubilantly mingled the best of the native wisdom with Western rationality and a created new methodology of political thought.
Colonialism, then, created a pan-national caste consciousness which was non-existent before. As Heidegger was to explain later, the image of the human being introduced to India by the West was in the form of a temporal, linguistic and interpretative entity. Thus colonists saw themselves always in relation to other persons and things. An observing Self was always a part of a certain culture, language, religion, caste and gender.
It seems strange that most of the nineteenth- and early twentieth-century modern Indian political thinkers immediately went to the classical literary tradition to find answers. Thus we see active revival of ancient Sanskrit texts in modern India through their translations into English and various vernacular languages. Gandhi, Bankimchandra Chatterjee and Swami Vivekananda reinterpreted the Bhagavad Gita to suit their purpose of national awakening. Secondly, as with all movements aiming at egalitarianism, it had lost its popular appeal by the nineteenth century and was regarded as a pseudo-religious literature.
By the nineteenth century the 11 Guru Hence it was possible to continue with Bhakti tradition during colonial times without necessarily characterizing its existence. The tradition of Hindu classicism was reinvigorated through its reinterpretations. Various medieval ideals like tolerance, brotherhood and egalitarianism became active tools for political engagement with British colonists.
Compassion karuna became an important political practice during the anti-colonial movement in Gandhi. His political instruments for forging a national unity irrespective of any differences included satyagraha and fasting. But before looking at the Gandhian methodology of seeking universal solidarity on the basis of compassion, I will venture into a short exposition of the way to achieve this highest state of existence.
Daya became one of the ways to achieve nirvana. This daya was towards all sentient beings. Compassion achieved through complete non-violence was preached in Jain philosophy. Even accidentally killing an insect was considered a sin. Penance and fasting became tools for getting rid of sins and achieving nirvana. While compassion was the method to get over reactions arising out of sensory perceptions, no ancient philosophical thought mentioned the way to achieve it.
Hinduism, as mentioned earlier, through its conception of non-difference between the Self and the Absolute identified compassion as a goal to be achieved; it is saint-poets who exemplify the importance of forgiveness through their action. The saint-poets asacribe all that happens in their life to their revered God by calling it His wish. But again, although their act of compassion is evident, the method seems unknown. All this is so partly because both classical Indian philosophy and the medieval Bhakti movement do not accept the category of the Other.
If all are different portions of the same Higher Self, then compassion is easily possible.
Lyn Asmar Reverend, Metaphysical Priest, MR
Modernity clearly creates two separate spheres of the Self and Other. In such a scenario the earlier belief in a composite Self fast recedes. Compassion, if necessary, cannot be achieved by appealing to the larger Self either. Humans having cognitive abilities reflect upon misconduct done to others due to negligence or intention and later might repent their action. Forgiveness is sought from the Other who is hurt but also from the Self for its actions.
For such self-forgiveness to be actualized, a deep sense of acceptance of our own erring part is necessary. Errors, misconduct and failure on our part to end the exploitation should not be rationalized. The question is whether there is essentially a dichotomy between the earlier erring Self and the present repenting Self and the future forgiving Self? The move towards compassion goes through four basic steps.