Thursday, October 20, 2016

History is a hostage of narrative; Theory is seduced by creativity

Reading and writing are indispensable parts of life now and hence no use in discussing pre-modern society. Further, numerous characters and legends are learnt through reading and there is no means of being insulated from them. This sedimentation is, in fact, a fact of life and one's view of life is moulded by the interplay of all these imports which are of no less import. This brings home the futility of separating myth from reality and the danger of the most austere theory falling victim to prejudices and predetermined trajectories. Theory, like poetry, nevertheless, has a validity of its own in the sense of catching unprecedented nuances through creativity.

Thus, the first step is to express respect to existing writings and past authors. But the intention is how to give them a miss and read only a handful of publications. So, who can provide such a filter? Or, how can one know the essence of all good things that has been told till date? This is a real problem and must attract attention in order to help the new generation. One such concern is what to read and what to avoid. Or, how much to accept and what to reject. How much fiction and the extent of non-fiction. Which movie to watch and what to ignore. So on and so forth; basically, deciding upon content that one can digest and assimilate. This pertains only to the volitional portion apart from the whole lot one, willy nilly, is bombarded upon, day in and day out.

Under such a project, many philosophical concerns and moral stipulations have to be kept in abeyance with only a few inviting focus. The beauty of history is that it can be told as a story by selecting interesting episodes. Even an intelligent and relevant sequencing can create a very plausible but misleading cause and effect narrative. Philosophy and psychology, too, are not free from such misrepresentations. Science also harbours numerous suppositions and superstitions. Thus, it's easy for an individual to fall prey to any of such traps including his own gut hunch. Day's news doesn't point to any future event but people spend the evening talking about their pet prospects. Similarly, current price of gold or any so-called bluechip stock is never a guarantee of future valuations. So at this point, it seems prudent and safe to beat a hasty retreat by recalling "The more things change, the more they remain the same" to end this peregrination. [TNM55]

Misc. References:

This is a story about you.



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