EVOLUTION & IMPASSE

Some special features of human nature have combined with material circumstances to produce the contemporary sickness of human civilisation.

By AMLAN DATTA
The Statesman, 28/29 October

MAN, it has been said, makes his own history. He does it through a struggle for overcoming contradictions. There are conflicts and contradictions of different kinds. Every epoch in history tends to be dominated by a particular kind of conflict and people belonging to that epoch become strongly inclined to interpret all history in the light of their fragmentary experience. It often happens that when a new age arrives people are handicapped by a kind of impaired vision as they live in the twilight of a past epoch. Thus, a shadow falls between consciousness and existence, for consciousness is not solely determined by the experience of time present; it is strongly influenced by inherited prejudices, memories of old enmities and the enchantment of an imaginary past. Enlightenment never ceases to be a struggle of escape from old and strongly entrenched habits of thought and feelings. This struggle provides the background for the role of reason in the making of history.

Our own epoch is dominated by a major contradiction which is quite special. In its range and implications for the future, it is unprecedented. It provides new perspectives for age-old ideas on unity and conflict in human society. Since the 1970s, an increasing number of people all over the world have become conscious as never before of the spectre of an ecological imbalance carrying with it the threat of a global disaster. The scale of this impending catastrophe makes it truly unprecedented. The problem can also be viewed in terms of the possible consequences of a big war in future. If a third World War does happen, it will demonstrate once for all and rather too late the ultimate unity of interest of all mankind by plunging the whole world in a common ruin.

The idea of the human family has been preached by saints memorably since ancient times. Interactions, both positive and negative, among different parts of the world have existed for a very long time. Despite this inter-relatedness of races and nations all past history has been the history of local civilisations. Mercifully, the devastation caused by the fiercest of wars in earlier times was local devastation. Notwithstanding the talk of “globalisation”, so common today, civilisations continue to be local in spirit. “Clash of civilisations” continues unabated and provides at this hour a leading theme for animated discussion. On the one hand, the threat to human survival at this hour is a global threat; on the other hand, humanity stays stubbornly divided and fragmented in spirit. This is the great contradiction that afflicts human society today.

When we look for an explanation of this situation, we risk getting confused by a multiplicity of proximate causes. What we need then is an inquiry at a deeper level. The search at that level leads on to a broader perception of the human predicament.

Some special features of human nature have combined with material circumstances to produce the contemporary sickness of human civilisation. When we take a purely materialistic view of this complex situation, we fail to arrive at an adequate understanding of the nature of the problem. At the same time, the material causes also deserve to be carefully noted. We have to pay attention to causal factors at two different levels and take into account the way in which they are inter-related.

For a true understanding of the crisis of our time it is best to look at the human condition in an evolutionary perspective. Among the factors which interact among themselves and chart the course of history, human nature is often thought to be a comparatively stable and changeless element. There is some truth in that thought, but it needs to be qualified in at least two ways. Changing forms of social organisation influence human nature by promoting some psychological tendencies and discouraging others, supporting certain aspirations and producing unforeseen discontents. There is also something else worth taking into account.

Human consciousness itself has stages of development. This makes any simple concept of a fixed human nature untenable. It will be just as well to elaborate on this theme. Human beings, to begin with, are ego-centric. This accords well with nature’s scheme. A person has to protect his body as a primary condition of survival. Since no two persons share the same body, attention to one’s body makes one self-centred as a matter of physical compulsion. However, it is also part of nature’s design to motivate human beings to reproduce themselves. The family comes to be included thus in an expanded image of the self. To a great extent, all kinship bonds, including the feeling of tribal solidarity, can be similarly explained. Such feelings belong to a primitive level of consciousness where active rationality does not play a major role. That is where “primitive” communism belonged. However that was not the end of history.

Trade played a vital role in guiding society towards new forms of human relationship beyond kinship. This equally marked a new stage in the evolution of human consciousness. Along with trade a calculating reason gained ascendancy and became influential, although “infra-rational” psychic forces did not cease to play a role in human affairs. As our way of life changes, so does our mode of thought.

The “calculus of pleasure and pain” induced a change in the concept of welfare. A normal family has a certain idea of collective welfare: a gain to one member of the family is felt as a gain for the whole family. Trading parties compete as well as cooperate; but each party has an idea of its separate interest and cooperation itself is based on calculated self-interest. Within limits, this looks reasonable. But it cannot provide a durable basis for a society at peace with itself.

In the hedonistic ethics of a commercial civilisation, happiness is measured separately for each individual. Also an idea gains ground that commodities, sold and purchased, provide the principal means of procuring happiness. To a large extent this makes happiness indistinguishable from sensuous pleasure. The basis is laid for materialistic ethics.

These ideas have played a positive role in liberating human mind from the stranglehold of “supernatural fears”. But they have their own shortcomings. Some of these shortcomings are simple, others more subtle. It is well known that the additional pleasure that a consumer derives from any particular commodity starts diminishing beyond a point as more and more of it is consumed. It is possible to seek an escape from this situation by courting a variety of luxury goods.

But this route of escape creates at least two kinds of problems. Only an affluent class can choose this route. The “conspicuous consumption” of this affluent class sharpens discontent among a much larger number of people who cannot afford that style of life. An unequal competition for wealth undermines the basis of happy social relationship and beyond a point luxury cannot compensate for this loss of genuine companionship. There is an additional complication that tends to go unnoticed. The rich are envied, but it is doubtful if they are enviably happy. Bondage to luxury cripples even the capacity to distinguish between purchasable excitement and the joy steady that proceeds from true union.

There is a state of union which ought to be valued not for the sake of any material gain, but for its own sake. This is not as uncommon or mysterious an experience as it is often supposed to be. One can detect it in the laughter of a child, although people made skeptical by the disappointments of life often fail to recognise it even when they come by it. Nature itself has planted in the human mind the capacity to feel an incomparable sense of freedom in motiveless union of what is within and what is without, overstepping the boundaries of an obstinately isolated self. A conscious recognition of the value of this freedom marks the beginning of that stage of consciousness which can be called the spiritual stage. The spiritual goes beyond the rational, but does not contradict reason.

Although a certain recognition of the higher levels of consciousness is not altogether missing at this hour, a tenacious and at times fierce feeling of tribal solidarity continues to play a role in human affairs. The individual feels a certain sense of security in staying tied to a limited group, even though the cost of group rivalry goes on escalating fearfully.

It is evident that there is a critical mismatch between the stage of development of man’s consciousness at large and what the material and ecological conditions demand today for human survival. Can mankind overcome this basic contradiction in the foreseeable future?

There is no certain answer to that question. Two contrary tendencies of human mind are ever at work side by side. On the one hand, there is inertia which makes one accept the present state as the only natural state and a reasonable basis for deriving rules for all time.

On the other hand, there is an evolutionary force, elan vital, which does not allow the human consciousness to stay permanently at rest, but urges it on to move from one stage to another. There are forms of social organisation which link up notably with states of consciousness. In large parts of the world the dominant form of social organisation today has been determined largely by the requirements of commerce and the market economy. Economic and political power have got intimately intertwined. Power, economic and political, is what leaders of this society aim at and accept as the purpose of their life with that devotion which religious people reserve for God. Other considerations exist but peripherally. Thus, for instance, when one has amassed enough wealth, it is considered proper and decent to use a small portion for charity, an act which still leaves one’s central purpose in life unaltered. This is a view of life which is difficult to reject in a society where power belongs to those who conform to it. Nonetheless, a rebellion against the status quo is unavoidable with unforeseeable consequences.

There was a time when Marxism promised to provide a major plank for an ideological and political assault on the bourgeois civilisation. It now appears that communists in India and elsewhere professing the Marxian ideology have themselves adopted the essential features of the order which they wanted to overthrow. The spirit of rebellion against the dominant order of the day must seek now an alternative route and a new philosophy of life. In fact, there are several alternatives and some of these are unsafe, even regressive. What has been called “religious fundamentalism” as a mode of protest against modernism provides such a regressive ideology, leading back to a lower level of consciousness; marked by primitive solidarity, collective hatred and organised intolerance.

The fascination of totalitarianism in one form or another, combining a vindictive tribalism with modern technology, has misled successive generations in recent history. History counsels abundant caution. One may seek an exit from the existing situation, but there is the risk of landing in a worse situation unless one has the right sense of direction. One has to take reasonable precaution against losing one’s sense of direction.

Constructive work

Reasonable precaution quite often takes the form of hedging or combining opposites. It is a good idea to combine a movement of protest and resistance against injustice with a programme of constructive work and a visible commitment to peace. Let us present the problem concretely in a material context.

Spread of industrialisation across the globe is a major feature of the history of our time. Industrialisation has been justified on the ground that it is necessary for alleviation of poverty. But there are alternative patterns of industrialisation and the really important question relates to choice among these alternatives. The history of state-sponsored industrialisation from the time of Peter the Great to modern China as well as market-based “mercantilist” economies strongly suggests that the choice has all along been influenced by the presence of a special tendency at work. Let us state the matter in the simplest language. Industrialisation has proved attractive to nation states because it is necessary for military power. To that has been added the seduction of luxuries of a new middle class, the dominant class in society. This is a bias that economists very often overlook, nay, endorse on the ground that they should be professionally neutral about political matters. This professional neutrality has unfortunately strained the quality of the debate on industrialisation. The pull of power and wealth distorts the pattern of industrial development; those who criticise this distortion are wrongly accused of being opposed to industrialisation; and a kind of endorsement of this unfair accusation is provided by a deceptive silence on the part of those who are expected to know better.

Historically speaking, industrialisation has been an exceedingly painful experience in the early stages for large chunks of uprooted humanity. Some ameliorative measures are usually adopted at higher stages to give the process a semblance of respectability. But that still leaves a basic problem substantially unaltered. A widely adopted pattern of industrialisation leans distinctly towards heavy industry geared to the production of military hardware. Along with that come almost inevitably a number of other things, such as a centralised political system, growth of a powerful managerial stratum of society, a new middle class which lauds and leads this pattern of development, a consumerist culture and supporting social norms. Economic progress has come to denote all these things taken together. An unavoidable outcome of this situation is a crisis wrapped in a dilemma. Competitive programmes for strengthening national security lead to a frightful accumulation of weapons of mass destruction. What looks prudent for individual states considered separately takes the character of an increasing threat to the collective security of the world as whole. It is not easy for any single nation to opt out of this march towards a collective doom.

This makes a concerted peace movement an essential requirement for overcoming the contemporary crisis. Success along this line cannot be achieved overnight. There is no alternative to a gradual process of restoring sanity in human affairs. The spirit of the peace movement must percolate to all the constituent parts of society. It must also set in motion fresh ideas on the political and economic reorganisation of human society with an accent on decentralisation of power and sustainable development. The question of correct pattern of industrialisation and appropriate technology and the right balance between the city and the country should be set and settled in this larger context.

There is a related point which cannot be too strongly emphasised. India is struggling to make a transition to industrialisation under conditions of political pluralism and universal suffrage. No major country in the past had to face the same challenge of combining industrial development with broad-based democracy. This makes the Indian experiment a historic exception. The social sciences have to adjust themselves to the new requirements of material development consistent with peace.

Most of our thought is done in parts, thus leaving a special space cut out for philosophy. As the parts to be harmonised belong to different spheres of experience, one has to stand back to gain that larger framework within which an adequate integration is possible.

We have talked of institutions and ideas and discussed briefly the relationship between the two. Institutions are materialised ideas. It is not enough to have new ideas; we need a change in the material outfit of life. But all institutions are corruptible; therefore, it is not enough to have just a new set of institutions however ingeniously designed.

Social conscience

We need new institutions and energising ideas in close embrace and a wakeful social conscience keeping vigil. We have to have a sense of history and, at the same time, be watchful of what is happening right now. Man, like other animate beings, lives from day to day. But, unlike other animals, he has an awareness of an ancient inheritance and a moral commitment to a future beyond his own generation. It is only by a dialectical movement at several levels simultaneously that the evolutionary impasse of our times can be effectively negotiated.

For humanity as a whole, there is no roadmap to guide its onward journey. All we have is a certain sense of what we have left behind, some knowledge of where we are placed now and an intuitive understanding of the direction in which mankind has to strive and move in future. Hopefully it is possible to get an idea of progress derived from an enlightened view of stages of human development.

If that too sounds overly contentious, let us agree on something simpler: we have to aim at nothing higher or more mysterious than a tolerant and friendly human society. The transition from the present world to a global union of friendly societies is bound to be a long process with successive approximations across endless hurdles on the way and lots of surprises too.

The author, a noted economist, is former Vice Chancellor, Visva Bharati.