{"id":1863,"date":"2025-03-01T06:08:57","date_gmt":"2025-03-01T06:08:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rajnidamboor.com\/?p=1863"},"modified":"2025-03-03T06:17:20","modified_gmt":"2025-03-03T06:17:20","slug":"pride-prejudice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rajnidamboor.com\/index.php\/2025\/03\/01\/pride-prejudice\/","title":{"rendered":"Pride & Prejudice"},"content":{"rendered":"

RAJGOPAL NIDAMBOOR<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

The philosopher Aristotle thought of a fundamental political unit, or \u2018polis,\u2019 as a state having both authoritative control and a civil society of organised communities with varying degrees of congregating interests. His political theory does not reflect the idea that the \u2018polis\u2019 should possess the essential stamp of approval alongside a framework trespassing existing human rights. His articulation is a classic example of political naturalism \u2014 one that treats human beings as political animals who flourish only within the context of a robust, well organised \u2018polis.\u2019 The \u2018polis,\u2019 as Aristotle also explained, emerges into being for the sake of living, yet it remains in existence for the purpose of living well.<\/p>\n

This, in today\u2019s context, celebrates the seminal idea that we are all organisational creatures, born not only into a society and culture, but also into a specific, also complex organisation. You\u2019d call it family, education, marriage, industry, business, or what you may. In addition, we all seem to know only too well that we live in society, a society of contrasts \u2014 a society that has almost forgotten the glory of what it means to be human. This is precisely where there\u2019s something seriously wrong with us and others \u2014 not so much with our culture where values may not change.<\/p>\n

So, what’s the remedy? The answer is simple. According to M Scott Peck, the renowned psychiatrist and author, \u201cWe are in need of healing,\u201d because our illness is incivility \u2014 an imposing amalgam of morally destructive patterns of self-absorption, callousness, manipulative deceit, and materialism so deeply entrenched in our routine behaviour that we don’t even recognise it. Or, when we somehow do, we’re always trying to keep our \u2018powder dry\u2019 and ignoring them with cultivated disdain.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe end of the twentieth century,\u201d as Judith Blackwell, Murray Smith and John Sorenson, put it, in their perceptive book, Culture of Prejudice<\/em>, \u201cwas characterised by two dominant phenomena \u2014 the triumphalism of corporate globalisation and the resurgence of ethnic nationalism.\u201d They elaborate, \u201cDespite the apparent contradiction, much of the idealisation of traditional cultures often came as a response to the disruptions brought by the spread of the free market. Previously existing hierarchies became destabilised and many people experienced changes to traditional patterns of behaviour while facing economic futures that seemed uncertain, or bleak. In these circumstances, nationalism provided some with a sense of community and identity while promising to pave the way for a better future.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nationalism \u2014 in their analyses \u2014 is necessarily an imaginative commitment not only requiring that people construct a sense of community, kinship, and shared identity with large numbers of other people, whom they will never meet, but also involving fantasies of belonging and history. Nationalism advocates shared identity \u2014 albeit every nation is multicultural, nationalists emphasise the boundaries that separate the national family from others, while exaggerating common identity and minimising differences that exist within such boundaries.<\/p>\n

Nationalism is \u2018keyed\u2019 to arouse sentiments of public responsibility and that commitment to community may often encourage noble acts too. However, such commitments to the nation, as Blackwell, Smith and Sorenson underline, are often uncritical [\u2018My country; right, or wrong\u2019], what with the sense of community being too narrow \u2014 rather than recognising common interests of humanity as a whole, one often gives loyalty only to one\u2019s national group. The importance and intensity of such attachments, they explain, are rather surprising when one considers that modern nation-states are relatively recent developments with mere ephemera when seen in the broad context of human evolution. What\u2019s more, while operating with a rhetoric of family and inclusion, nationalism is always exclusionary \u2014 it also readily yields to the same extreme urges found in racism and religious dogma.<\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t all. Digital technologies too are donning a vigorous role in contemporary forms of nationalism to instigate nationalist sentiments with much attention devoted to the importance of ethno-symbolism. This proves that not only the nation, but also race and ethnicity are returning to the centre of the political spectrum in our contemporary world.<\/p>\n

The inference? There\u2019s something awfully wrong with our personal and organisational life. This is primarily because we have only half-heartedly made that all-important, conscious decision to foster civility into our lives and our organisations. Isn\u2019t it, therefore, high time we did something unique and practical, without too much jingoism, to bring about effective change in us and our organisations? In other words, we need to move from our lurking, debilitating organisational illness to good health.<\/p>\n

This connotes that walking the tightrope of ethics and submission, selves and systems, marriage, divorce and separateness, ambiguity, pain, and disease, with the need to achieve will not ease. There\u2019s also no panacea, or quick-fix, unless and until we try our best to drive the \u2018devil\u2019 within us and embark on a voyage of [re]discovering ourselves and [re]visiting our own \u2018Utopia.\u2019 This isn\u2019t all. The evolution of such a \u2018Paradise Found\u2019 applies equally well to us all \u2014 including organisations that are in the world, but not in the world.<\/p>\n

We need to get allied to one supreme fact of life \u2014 the essence of \u2018greatness\u2019 of spirit and one’s burden in a competitive world that is too germane. This is because, as Peck articulates, \u201cAll of us are actors in a marvellous, complex, cosmic drama.\u201d The best thing we\u2019d all do is connect this emblematic allegory with the saga of Sigmund Freud as a case example. It holds good for each of us, and others, in their own situation in life. To highlight Peck\u2019s aphorism: \u201cI do not know you. If you have a sense of destiny, it cannot certify that sense, sight unseen, to be perfectly sane. And, even if I meet you, it is unlikely I could forecast \u2014 no matter how sane you are \u2014 that you will, in fact, do the great things you feel you ought to be doing.\u201d Or, maybe, you will.<\/p>\n

\u2014 First published in The Himalayan Times<\/em>, Nepal<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

RAJGOPAL NIDAMBOOR The philosopher Aristotle thought of a fundamental political unit, or \u2018polis,\u2019 as a state having both authoritative control and a civil society of organised communities with varying degrees of congregating interests. His political theory does not reflect the idea that the \u2018polis\u2019 should possess the essential stamp of approval alongside a framework trespassing […]\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1864,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[6],"class_list":["post-1863","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science-philosophy","tag-featured"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rajnidamboor.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1863","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rajnidamboor.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rajnidamboor.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rajnidamboor.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rajnidamboor.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1863"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/rajnidamboor.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1863\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1865,"href":"https:\/\/rajnidamboor.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1863\/revisions\/1865"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rajnidamboor.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1864"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rajnidamboor.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1863"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rajnidamboor.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1863"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rajnidamboor.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1863"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}