Relationship of meaning with reality
Ashutosh Ghildiyal
2001 01 234
Reality as a paradigm and its meaning has been deliberated umpteen times by prominent thinker’s right from Aristotle, Descartes in the west to Shankara and Lao-tzu in east. Post modern philosophers like Foucault and Derrida and Wittgenstein have composed treatises in quest of understanding reality and its relationship with human being.
Descartes said that he could doubt the existence of the external world and even be skeptical of the existence of his own body. For Descartes, the only fact he could be certain of was the fact that he was doing the doubting. In order to doubt the existence of the world, he must exist as a thinking entity. Descartes mind could exist even in the absence of external influences. Descartes famous statement: "I think, therefore I am", was the result of such thinking.
Even philosophers in east have debated the issues concerning reality with great fervor. Sankaracharya established advaita movement in which he postulated the non-dualistic nature of the world. The anti multiplicity advaitic viewpoint proposed that Brahman alone is truth.
Reality:
Reality can be looked at from two angels first is to consider reality as it appears the other is to use reason to deduce reality from the surrounding. Whichever approach we take the inference would not be possible until we bear in mind the relation of mind with reality. For it is the mind which interprets, deciphers the reality and thus brings out the meaning.
So if reality is looked at as a factual data which our senses perceive then it is possible to interpret reality as nothing but an electromechanical sensation which is sense comprehendible. The pertinent question is, that if reality is to be assumed as an electromechanical sensation than is there any other reality beyond the sensation?
This leads us to the ancient Indian view
“brahmam stayam jagat mithya”
(There is only one eternal truth everything else is false)
But to talk of things that fall outside reality is to engage in meaningless discourse, because there is nothing for such thoughts to picture.
Meaning:
Linguistically meaning is defined as the semantic essence of a sentence or dictum. Meaning is not words or sentences but it is the intention of words. The purpose of any exchange of words is to convey meaning. Since words are arbitrary empty tokens they can contain no meaning therefore the meaning is concealed in the arrangement of the words rather than the words themselves (GN Devy Lectures). Thus meaning has to be interpreted and the act of interpretation has to be done by mind. To treat 'meaning' as in some way an operation or relation of 'mind' leads one into the swamp of philosophical debate about mind and leaves one as puzzled as before about the most suitable philosophical approach to 'meaning'. Thus for meaning to exist mind has to be assumed as a reality. Thus meaning exits at much deeper level than words. Since human communication suffers from loss of information there is a loss of information which leads to difference between intended and interpreted meaning. So if the difference between intended and interpreted meaning is large then the communication loses its meaning.
Meaning henceforth becomes the central concept of information exchange in philosophy, and in everyday life.
Meaning, Reality and Language:
The central theme in understanding language is how it relates to the world we observe (reality). If we try to reduce the world and language to its basic components we will observe that components of language have one to one mapping to the world. Thus it is possible to assign one word for every real object (GN Devy Lectures). If this approach is followed than the world is reduced a set of discreet atomic facts
In words of Wittgenstein:
Language is also reduced in this fashion and each level of the structure of language matches a level of structure in the world. So, language can be reduced to a collection of propositions, which match facts in the world. These propositions can be broken down into elementary propositions (or atomic propositions), which correspond to states of affairs in the world.
This provides us with a view of language that mirrors all aspects of the real world (GN Devy Lectures). If this approach is followed then words gain their meaning by naming objects in the world. The crucial fact is that language is the only way by which we can picture the world. Thus the object being pointed at literally is the meaning of its name
The simple signs employed in propositions are called names"1
If this view is accepted then words, which have more than one meaning, will be difficult to account for using the theory mentioned. Furthermore words like god and symbols
like ∏ or Om have no reality counterpart. These words have a meaning, yet the meaning does not seem to exist as an object in reality.
Thus we conclude that meaning of a word cannot be determined by the real object its points to and to determine meaning we have to delve deeper.
It turns out that to meaning has one to one relation with the understanding and since understanding is a phase of conceptualization, which is mentally experienced, it is impossible to ascribe a real object. Instead, the meaning of words should be understood by the way in which they are used within their social context (Chomsky). In other words, the meaning of a word is nothing more than the role it plays in language. A word's meaning simply is the word's role in our grammatical calculus, and its use in language.
In the words of Wittgenstein:
"Point to a piece of paper. - And now point to its shape - now to its colour - now to its number (that sounds queer). - How did you do it? - You will say that you `meant' a different thing each time you pointed. And if I ask how that is done, you will say you concentrated your attention on the colour, the shape, etc. But I ask again: how is that done?"7
The above mentioned emphasizes the importance of meaning as a mental act. So even though the object is the same i.e. paper when referring to its different attributes we mean different things. This further establishes the relationship between language as representative of reality and meaning. Thus to determine meaning we need to examine the complete social context. At this point it is also worth noticing that same reality can have different meanings since meaning is both language dependent and context dependent. In the above example of paper the same reality will have different meanings depending on the intention. Thus it is the context, which will decide whether it means paper or color.
Here is short story depicting the relationship of reality and meaning:
On one such occasion Ribhu, who had put on the disguise of a village rustic, found Nidagha intently watching a royal procession. Unrecognized by the town-dweller Nidagha, the village rustic enquired what the bustle was all about, and was told that the king was going in procession.
"Oh! it is the king. He goes in procession! But where is he?" asked the rustic. "There, on the elephant," said Nidagha. "You say the king is on the elephant. Yes, I see the two," said the rustic, "but which is the king and which is the elephant?" "What!" exclaimed Nidagha. "You see the two, but do not know that the man above is the king and the animal below is the elephant? What is the use of talking to a man like you?" "Pray, be not impatient with an ignorant man like me," begged the rustic. "But 'you said 'above' and 'below' -- what do they mean?"
Nidagha could stand it no more. "You see the king and the elephant, the one above and the other below. Yet ' you want to know what is meant by 'above' and 'below''' burst out Nidagha. "If things seen and words spoken can convey so little to you, action alone can teach you. Bend forward, and ' you will know it all ' too well". The rustic did as he was told. Nidagha got on his shoulders and said: "Know it now. I am above as the king, you are below as the elephant. Is that clear enough?" "No, not yet," was the rustic's quiet reply. "You say you are above like the king, and I am below like the elephant. The 'king', the 'elephant', 'above' and 'below' -- so far it is clear. But pray, tell me what you mean by 'I' and 'you'?"
When Nidagha was thus confronted all of a sudden with. the mighty problem of defining a 'you' apart from an 'I', light dawned on his mind. At once he jumped down and fell at his Master's feet saying: "Who else but . My venerable Master, .Ribhu, could have thus drawn my mind from the superficialities of physical existence to the true Being of the Self? Oh! Benign Master, I crave thy blessings
Conclusion:
It is almost impossible to conclude whether language does or does not reflect reality and whether meaning is a real or an imaginary postulate. But nevertheless we all have notions in which we regard diction as meaning-full or meaning less (sense or non sense). But the vital point lies in deciding what is meaning? So defining meaning in tangible terms would be perhaps a futile effort because meaning if it exits, exits at a plane different from that of words thus its would be tricky to describe meaning using words. Similarly questions like whether reality has any meaning? Or whether meaning exits (is real)? are questions where we will have no complete answer. These questions by their nature are open ended but it is crucial understand that such questions are the most pertinent questions in any discipline where exhaustive thinking is a requirement.
Meaning and reality thus are inseparable twins, which form the basis of communication, language and maybe our existence.
Wednesday, September 01, 2004
voilence
Prologue:
Present and past are tied together; all cultural, social and individual constructs are defined apropos a particular time and thus it is the constructs of past which make way for the constructs of present. Some constructs change, some survive the test of time while some get lost in oblivion. Every community and society (construct) has certain pragmatic notions which are present in the very nature of its being. Violence is one such concept which according to me is present in the very nature of a society. We cannot run away, shun or eradicate violence because as mentioned above it is an innate idea which hard to bequeath.
Violence as we understand was as much a reality yesterday as it is today.
Nature of Violence:Levels of Violence: More often than not violence is experienced fundamentally at two levels at the individual level and at a collective level. The way an atomized individual sees violence is also different from what the group understand by violence. A concrete example of this is war in which the family of a dead soldier remembers the war not as a national calamity but as a personal loss.
Homogeneity: Violence homogenizes people on whom violence is inflicted it brings them together and puts them under one head, miserable. In the case of “Srilanka” the Tamil groups are diverse and highly plural but the Sinhalese club all of them together and give them an identity of Tamils (Daniel 1997: 18). This clearly reveals the reductionist approach of violence as pointed out by Das in Science Hegemony and Violence (1988) “Reductionist science as epistemological Violence”
Idea of the Other: Implicit in the idea of homogeneity is the idea of ‘the other’ (Pandya 2000:4). Homogeneity creates division by creating marked limits and thus introduces a boundary (Leach 1976: 33) and instigates conflict in which the inflictor of violence is seen as different from the one on whom violence is imposed. Thus violence is extended to a dimension of differential space where each side sees the complementary side as ‘the other’.
This idea of the other is sometimes enlarged to include everyone one except the imposer of violence like in the case of computer virus, the hacker wants every computer to be down.
(Excluding his own)
Freedom and violence: Violence has a very sublime relation with freedom. Denial of freedom is one of the chief characteristic of violence. The sufferers of violence are unquestionably denied freedom. The case of emergency is a perfect example of violence as denial of freedom, when the Govt. intrudes deep inside in your personal space and restricts your entitled freedom as citizen (Tarlo in Das 2000:243). Even in the case of Ireland the camera becomes the equivalent of gun and the observing eye of the vigilant curbs personal freedom (Feldman in Das 2000: 47)
Snowball Effect Violence multiplies and begets violence. One violent act is not the culmination of one phase of violence rather a violent act marks the beginning of series violent exchanges to follow. “Experience of violence generates desire for violent revenge” (Pandya 2000:15)
Society and Violence:
Significance of violence is established by its omnipresence. There is no time and space during which violence was/is absent. Today we see various forms of violence in society.
Science and violence: Science has in various terms redefined violence. As Alvares in Science Hegemony and Violence (1998:76) claimed “In the name of experiments scientists can detonate nuclear violence on human beings” .This depicts that a supposedly rational scientist shuts his ears and eyes in the name of scientific progress to all societal and human concerns, he wants his errand to be kept away from values and ethics which generates concern for the society at large, and thus the society has to deal with the ravages of violence imposed on them through the scientific method.
“Modern science is violent even in peaceful domains like health and agriculture”(Kothari 1998: 180).
Violence in daily life: We see violence becoming a routine part of everyday life; violence is in our bedroom, in our mind and in our heart of hearts through the impetus provided to it by the media. Seeing an act of violence is also violence. “Images of violence by the media in turn performs social violence –moral aesthetic and experimental” (Kleiman in Das 2000: 232).We also see the structured violence in which the violence is imposed on the lower strata of society which is under extreme poverty. (Kielman in Das 2000: 227). Domestic violence is a fact of life particularly in South East Asia where fair sex is targeted (Das 2000:206) and has to face the yoke of humiliation. The violence which totalitarian state incises is political face of violence for example the CCP regime in china (Kielman in Das 2000: 233). The nexus of medicine and violence are ubiquitous as air. The commoditization of modern medicine (Kielman in Das: 235) reiterates the fact that hospital can be the most dangerous place on the earth and furthermore only wealthy has the right to be healthy. Miracles of modern medicine prolongs the pointlessly life of nearly dead patient.
“Iatrogenic (doctor made) hell is paved with professionally good therapeutic intentions ”. (Kothari 1988: 168)
Thus the psychosomatic as well as the socio-dynamic impact made by violence on society assumes its significance in the aforementioned cases.
Cultural and Historic Notions of Violence:
Every culture has some amount of built in violence. Significant point is the assimilation of violence which is observed not as an act of seeing but as activity of being. Thus the internalization of violence into every culture is to an extent that it is no longer recognized as violence. Thus be it the Jihadi idea of state, be it perpetual scuffle between the surs and asurs (gods and demons) there is remarkable way in which violence is incorporated by every culture and history at large. One can also draw parallels between cultures to prove the ritualization of violence like the karnachedan sansakara in Hindus where ears of a Brahmin child are pierced and the khatna in the muslims (Mehta in Das 2000: 33). In both cases we see that community as an entity is present as an approving authority which gives recognition to the act. The Mohharam as a festival is a classic case of self-violence and tries to depict the exhibitionist as well as the repetitive character of cultural violence. Thus in the cultural context violence needs to be
a) Exhibited (Demonstrative Nature)
b) Relived (Re-Experienced)
The Sinhali Tamil conflict in Ceylon is a concrete case in which the Sinhalese believe that
“Tamils were enemy of glorious past of Sinhala people” (Daniel 1990: 26) thereby using history to place blame on one community and the Tamils using their heritage to counteract.
“Tamil cultural heritage of dance literature architecture and sculpture was not considered bourgeoisie even by these revolutionaries” (Daniel 1990: 27) Thus during violence the focus is on the dissimilarities instead of the similarities thus Sinhalese looked only at the historic and cultural differences (and not similarities) between himself and the Tamil.
In the words of Daniel (1990:31) “we define who we are by defining who we are not”.
Language is also used to create separatists identity of “the other” thus revealing the linguistic tinge of violence, as in the case of Srilanka dialect of Tamil is seen as an apple of discord between Jafna and estate Tamils
“these two groups of Tamils make fun of each others dialects of spoken Tamil proving the inability of language alone to sustain an imagined community that linguistic nationalism needs “(Daniel 1990: 18) Time and again we see history being used to either heighten or diminish violence. The tension between the Israel and the Palestinians, India and Pakistan, China and Tibet rely heavily upon history as object, an object which catalyzes violence. Just like the Sinhalese –Tamil conflict in which one sees the historical evidences being used to support or refute violence the cases mentioned above also draw their arguments from history. The very fact that the object of history is seen is as; “not finding truth but making it true” (Daniel 1990:32) gives the historical basis of violence a stark permanence. History is also used for diluting violence. “He called India his first love because it was land of Buddha “(Daniel 1990: 26)
The underlying unity of past and present which I have mentioned at the begging of the essay asserts the fact that causes of past have profound effect on events of present and future this is because history doesn’t exist as a buried chronology of events but as an idea in our minds which is rejuvenated from time to time when required.
Power and violence:
Similar to the idea of ‘the other’ we have the construction of a command and an obey class in which the command class uses power to do violence on the obey class. Thus violence becomes a case of abuse of power. Thus it is abuse of power which is the primary aspect in violence. There is also a patriarchal structure which is fundamental to power in which the control is administered by a selected few at the top of hierarchy. Bureaucratization is also an indispensable element because one needs a planned manner of transfer of power from the pinnacle to the base, as in the case of Auschwitz, the power was exercised by the state machinery in an organized fashion. In the Indian context the period of emergency vividly describes abuse of power to achieve targets defined on paper. (Tarlo in Das 2000: 253) The mechanism in which power works is by creating efficiency; the violence executing machinery creates a reward or punishment based system to support the process. Thus all those who got their vasectomy done were either rewarded (monetarily or otherwise) or the defaulters had to face harsh consequences.(Tarlo in Das 2000: 244 ) Thus power strives to create to complete submission to violence and curbs social freedom. The accounts of violence in china in the case of CCP regime also presents an aspect of the use of power for politicization of violence and the routinization of social sadism ,where collective experience of fear shook the very foundations of society. The idea of the other in this case is easily understood as the idea of the command class and the obey class in which command class enjoys certain freedom which obey class doesn’t (Keliman in Das 2000: 233). The visual characteristic of power is also central to violence. The Michel Foucault‘s idea of Panopticon of power, conceptualizes visibility completely around a dominating and observing gaze. Thus power assumes an all-encompassing “all-seeing” form. (Foucault 1977:226)
One important aspect of power and violence is control and whenever power is used on a large scale in tandem with violence it is the ability to control, which is central. The basic feature of colonialism which is intolerance of other cultures is extended to denial and oppression of the powerless. Thus the colonizing force (powerful) by means of power controls the colony (powerless) and thus gets the moral right to violence. Along with control power also requires vigilance as in the case of Ireland the camera keeps a ceaseless watch and thus vigilance becomes an aspect of control. (Feldman in Das 2000: 47) When power is used for violence it often diminishes with time thereby demanding the use of more power to maintain authority. Thus in Srilanka we see that the Govt. increases deployment of troops; thus sort of puts in more power to exercise control.(Spencer in Das 2000:123). Even in the case of Jarwas one sees Govt. using more and more power to subvert the revolution. (Pandya 2000: 15) Thus power constantly demands power and thus violence in a sense becomes a watch dog which is held by the chain of power, but the tenacity of violence decreases with diminishing power so we have circumstance where Asha who was overpowered by family which symbolizes authority and power was considerably relieved when she breaks the social ghetto and remarries. (Das 2000:208) We also see the power being used for transforming or changing the oppressed class, this can be justified either in terms of civilization (in the case of colonialism) or modernization (in the case of Jarwas).(Mukopadhyay 2002:38 )
Another critical relationship between power and violence springs out when the power starts depleting then often the powerful resorts to violence to maintain its power for example the in the Jammu and Kashmir case when the Indian Govt. starts losing control of a territory it deploys more force to maintain clout. Protracted violence therefore causes decrease in power making more violence necessary.
Epilogue:
The very act of creation ensures obliteration. The moment you say life you have to also accommodate death. The positive brings into being the negative. This doesn’t mean that the complementary is an unwanted element, a necessary evil. What it means is; that only in mind we can create strict territories of distinguishable logic where we can differentiate one from the other but perhaps the reality is unity. Perhaps the reality doesn’t believe in clear cut expository divisions. It is with this underlying unity we need to understand violence, violence not as malevolence, which demands eradication, but violence as disposition of Nature. Violence not as an aggressive foreigner but as especial native, an eternal native, which needs to attended, addressed and understood.
Bibliography
1. Daniel, Valentine E. 1997 An Anthropography of violence, , pp. 1-134
2. Das, Veena The Act of Witnessing ‘Violence, Poisonous Knowledge, and Subjectivity’, In Veena Das, Arthur Klienman, 2000 Violence Knowledge and Subjectivity New Delhi:OUP, pp. 205-224
3. Feldman, Allen Violence and Vision ‘The Prosthetics and Aesthetics of Terror’ In Veena Das, Arthur Klienman, 2000 Violence Knowledge and Subjectivity ND: OUP, pp. 46-77
4. Klienman, Arthur The Violence in everyday life, In Veena Das, Arthur Klienman, 2000 Violence Knowledge and Subjectivity ND: OUP, pp. 226-240
5. Kothari, Manu L. and Mehta Lopa A. Violence in Modern Medicine, In Ashish Nandy 1988 Science, Hegemony and Violence ND:OUP, pp. 167-207
6. Leach, E.R. 1976 Culture and Communicaton: the logic by which symbols are connected. Cambridge: Cambride University Press
7. Mehta, Deepak Circumcision, Body, Masculinity ‘The Ritual Wound and Collective Violence’, In Veena Das, Arthur Klienman 2000 Violence Knowledge and Subjectivity ND: OUP, pp. 79-101
8. Pandya,Viswajeet Making of the Other: Vignettes of Violence in Andmanese Culture, In Critique of Anthroplogy, Vol20,(4) 2000, pp1-23
Present and past are tied together; all cultural, social and individual constructs are defined apropos a particular time and thus it is the constructs of past which make way for the constructs of present. Some constructs change, some survive the test of time while some get lost in oblivion. Every community and society (construct) has certain pragmatic notions which are present in the very nature of its being. Violence is one such concept which according to me is present in the very nature of a society. We cannot run away, shun or eradicate violence because as mentioned above it is an innate idea which hard to bequeath.
Violence as we understand was as much a reality yesterday as it is today.
Nature of Violence:Levels of Violence: More often than not violence is experienced fundamentally at two levels at the individual level and at a collective level. The way an atomized individual sees violence is also different from what the group understand by violence. A concrete example of this is war in which the family of a dead soldier remembers the war not as a national calamity but as a personal loss.
Homogeneity: Violence homogenizes people on whom violence is inflicted it brings them together and puts them under one head, miserable. In the case of “Srilanka” the Tamil groups are diverse and highly plural but the Sinhalese club all of them together and give them an identity of Tamils (Daniel 1997: 18). This clearly reveals the reductionist approach of violence as pointed out by Das in Science Hegemony and Violence (1988) “Reductionist science as epistemological Violence”
Idea of the Other: Implicit in the idea of homogeneity is the idea of ‘the other’ (Pandya 2000:4). Homogeneity creates division by creating marked limits and thus introduces a boundary (Leach 1976: 33) and instigates conflict in which the inflictor of violence is seen as different from the one on whom violence is imposed. Thus violence is extended to a dimension of differential space where each side sees the complementary side as ‘the other’.
This idea of the other is sometimes enlarged to include everyone one except the imposer of violence like in the case of computer virus, the hacker wants every computer to be down.
(Excluding his own)
Freedom and violence: Violence has a very sublime relation with freedom. Denial of freedom is one of the chief characteristic of violence. The sufferers of violence are unquestionably denied freedom. The case of emergency is a perfect example of violence as denial of freedom, when the Govt. intrudes deep inside in your personal space and restricts your entitled freedom as citizen (Tarlo in Das 2000:243). Even in the case of Ireland the camera becomes the equivalent of gun and the observing eye of the vigilant curbs personal freedom (Feldman in Das 2000: 47)
Snowball Effect Violence multiplies and begets violence. One violent act is not the culmination of one phase of violence rather a violent act marks the beginning of series violent exchanges to follow. “Experience of violence generates desire for violent revenge” (Pandya 2000:15)
Society and Violence:
Significance of violence is established by its omnipresence. There is no time and space during which violence was/is absent. Today we see various forms of violence in society.
Science and violence: Science has in various terms redefined violence. As Alvares in Science Hegemony and Violence (1998:76) claimed “In the name of experiments scientists can detonate nuclear violence on human beings” .This depicts that a supposedly rational scientist shuts his ears and eyes in the name of scientific progress to all societal and human concerns, he wants his errand to be kept away from values and ethics which generates concern for the society at large, and thus the society has to deal with the ravages of violence imposed on them through the scientific method.
“Modern science is violent even in peaceful domains like health and agriculture”(Kothari 1998: 180).
Violence in daily life: We see violence becoming a routine part of everyday life; violence is in our bedroom, in our mind and in our heart of hearts through the impetus provided to it by the media. Seeing an act of violence is also violence. “Images of violence by the media in turn performs social violence –moral aesthetic and experimental” (Kleiman in Das 2000: 232).We also see the structured violence in which the violence is imposed on the lower strata of society which is under extreme poverty. (Kielman in Das 2000: 227). Domestic violence is a fact of life particularly in South East Asia where fair sex is targeted (Das 2000:206) and has to face the yoke of humiliation. The violence which totalitarian state incises is political face of violence for example the CCP regime in china (Kielman in Das 2000: 233). The nexus of medicine and violence are ubiquitous as air. The commoditization of modern medicine (Kielman in Das: 235) reiterates the fact that hospital can be the most dangerous place on the earth and furthermore only wealthy has the right to be healthy. Miracles of modern medicine prolongs the pointlessly life of nearly dead patient.
“Iatrogenic (doctor made) hell is paved with professionally good therapeutic intentions ”. (Kothari 1988: 168)
Thus the psychosomatic as well as the socio-dynamic impact made by violence on society assumes its significance in the aforementioned cases.
Cultural and Historic Notions of Violence:
Every culture has some amount of built in violence. Significant point is the assimilation of violence which is observed not as an act of seeing but as activity of being. Thus the internalization of violence into every culture is to an extent that it is no longer recognized as violence. Thus be it the Jihadi idea of state, be it perpetual scuffle between the surs and asurs (gods and demons) there is remarkable way in which violence is incorporated by every culture and history at large. One can also draw parallels between cultures to prove the ritualization of violence like the karnachedan sansakara in Hindus where ears of a Brahmin child are pierced and the khatna in the muslims (Mehta in Das 2000: 33). In both cases we see that community as an entity is present as an approving authority which gives recognition to the act. The Mohharam as a festival is a classic case of self-violence and tries to depict the exhibitionist as well as the repetitive character of cultural violence. Thus in the cultural context violence needs to be
a) Exhibited (Demonstrative Nature)
b) Relived (Re-Experienced)
The Sinhali Tamil conflict in Ceylon is a concrete case in which the Sinhalese believe that
“Tamils were enemy of glorious past of Sinhala people” (Daniel 1990: 26) thereby using history to place blame on one community and the Tamils using their heritage to counteract.
“Tamil cultural heritage of dance literature architecture and sculpture was not considered bourgeoisie even by these revolutionaries” (Daniel 1990: 27) Thus during violence the focus is on the dissimilarities instead of the similarities thus Sinhalese looked only at the historic and cultural differences (and not similarities) between himself and the Tamil.
In the words of Daniel (1990:31) “we define who we are by defining who we are not”.
Language is also used to create separatists identity of “the other” thus revealing the linguistic tinge of violence, as in the case of Srilanka dialect of Tamil is seen as an apple of discord between Jafna and estate Tamils
“these two groups of Tamils make fun of each others dialects of spoken Tamil proving the inability of language alone to sustain an imagined community that linguistic nationalism needs “(Daniel 1990: 18) Time and again we see history being used to either heighten or diminish violence. The tension between the Israel and the Palestinians, India and Pakistan, China and Tibet rely heavily upon history as object, an object which catalyzes violence. Just like the Sinhalese –Tamil conflict in which one sees the historical evidences being used to support or refute violence the cases mentioned above also draw their arguments from history. The very fact that the object of history is seen is as; “not finding truth but making it true” (Daniel 1990:32) gives the historical basis of violence a stark permanence. History is also used for diluting violence. “He called India his first love because it was land of Buddha “(Daniel 1990: 26)
The underlying unity of past and present which I have mentioned at the begging of the essay asserts the fact that causes of past have profound effect on events of present and future this is because history doesn’t exist as a buried chronology of events but as an idea in our minds which is rejuvenated from time to time when required.
Power and violence:
Similar to the idea of ‘the other’ we have the construction of a command and an obey class in which the command class uses power to do violence on the obey class. Thus violence becomes a case of abuse of power. Thus it is abuse of power which is the primary aspect in violence. There is also a patriarchal structure which is fundamental to power in which the control is administered by a selected few at the top of hierarchy. Bureaucratization is also an indispensable element because one needs a planned manner of transfer of power from the pinnacle to the base, as in the case of Auschwitz, the power was exercised by the state machinery in an organized fashion. In the Indian context the period of emergency vividly describes abuse of power to achieve targets defined on paper. (Tarlo in Das 2000: 253) The mechanism in which power works is by creating efficiency; the violence executing machinery creates a reward or punishment based system to support the process. Thus all those who got their vasectomy done were either rewarded (monetarily or otherwise) or the defaulters had to face harsh consequences.(Tarlo in Das 2000: 244 ) Thus power strives to create to complete submission to violence and curbs social freedom. The accounts of violence in china in the case of CCP regime also presents an aspect of the use of power for politicization of violence and the routinization of social sadism ,where collective experience of fear shook the very foundations of society. The idea of the other in this case is easily understood as the idea of the command class and the obey class in which command class enjoys certain freedom which obey class doesn’t (Keliman in Das 2000: 233). The visual characteristic of power is also central to violence. The Michel Foucault‘s idea of Panopticon of power, conceptualizes visibility completely around a dominating and observing gaze. Thus power assumes an all-encompassing “all-seeing” form. (Foucault 1977:226)
One important aspect of power and violence is control and whenever power is used on a large scale in tandem with violence it is the ability to control, which is central. The basic feature of colonialism which is intolerance of other cultures is extended to denial and oppression of the powerless. Thus the colonizing force (powerful) by means of power controls the colony (powerless) and thus gets the moral right to violence. Along with control power also requires vigilance as in the case of Ireland the camera keeps a ceaseless watch and thus vigilance becomes an aspect of control. (Feldman in Das 2000: 47) When power is used for violence it often diminishes with time thereby demanding the use of more power to maintain authority. Thus in Srilanka we see that the Govt. increases deployment of troops; thus sort of puts in more power to exercise control.(Spencer in Das 2000:123). Even in the case of Jarwas one sees Govt. using more and more power to subvert the revolution. (Pandya 2000: 15) Thus power constantly demands power and thus violence in a sense becomes a watch dog which is held by the chain of power, but the tenacity of violence decreases with diminishing power so we have circumstance where Asha who was overpowered by family which symbolizes authority and power was considerably relieved when she breaks the social ghetto and remarries. (Das 2000:208) We also see the power being used for transforming or changing the oppressed class, this can be justified either in terms of civilization (in the case of colonialism) or modernization (in the case of Jarwas).(Mukopadhyay 2002:38 )
Another critical relationship between power and violence springs out when the power starts depleting then often the powerful resorts to violence to maintain its power for example the in the Jammu and Kashmir case when the Indian Govt. starts losing control of a territory it deploys more force to maintain clout. Protracted violence therefore causes decrease in power making more violence necessary.
Epilogue:
The very act of creation ensures obliteration. The moment you say life you have to also accommodate death. The positive brings into being the negative. This doesn’t mean that the complementary is an unwanted element, a necessary evil. What it means is; that only in mind we can create strict territories of distinguishable logic where we can differentiate one from the other but perhaps the reality is unity. Perhaps the reality doesn’t believe in clear cut expository divisions. It is with this underlying unity we need to understand violence, violence not as malevolence, which demands eradication, but violence as disposition of Nature. Violence not as an aggressive foreigner but as especial native, an eternal native, which needs to attended, addressed and understood.
Bibliography
1. Daniel, Valentine E. 1997 An Anthropography of violence, , pp. 1-134
2. Das, Veena The Act of Witnessing ‘Violence, Poisonous Knowledge, and Subjectivity’, In Veena Das, Arthur Klienman, 2000 Violence Knowledge and Subjectivity New Delhi:OUP, pp. 205-224
3. Feldman, Allen Violence and Vision ‘The Prosthetics and Aesthetics of Terror’ In Veena Das, Arthur Klienman, 2000 Violence Knowledge and Subjectivity ND: OUP, pp. 46-77
4. Klienman, Arthur The Violence in everyday life, In Veena Das, Arthur Klienman, 2000 Violence Knowledge and Subjectivity ND: OUP, pp. 226-240
5. Kothari, Manu L. and Mehta Lopa A. Violence in Modern Medicine, In Ashish Nandy 1988 Science, Hegemony and Violence ND:OUP, pp. 167-207
6. Leach, E.R. 1976 Culture and Communicaton: the logic by which symbols are connected. Cambridge: Cambride University Press
7. Mehta, Deepak Circumcision, Body, Masculinity ‘The Ritual Wound and Collective Violence’, In Veena Das, Arthur Klienman 2000 Violence Knowledge and Subjectivity ND: OUP, pp. 79-101
8. Pandya,Viswajeet Making of the Other: Vignettes of Violence in Andmanese Culture, In Critique of Anthroplogy, Vol20,(4) 2000, pp1-23
genesis
ishwarah paramah krishnah sachhidanadah vigrayah
anadi radi goravidah sarva karan karanam
mukam karoti vachalam
pangum lgamayate girim
yat kripa tamaham vande
paramnada madhavam
yatr yatr raghunathm kirtanam
tatr tatr mastkangalim
anadi radi goravidah sarva karan karanam
mukam karoti vachalam
pangum lgamayate girim
yat kripa tamaham vande
paramnada madhavam
yatr yatr raghunathm kirtanam
tatr tatr mastkangalim
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