What is at the root of the global polycrisis today? Environmental, social, political, technological & economic crises are crossing various thresholds and multiplying each other’s effects. Why is ecological modification brought about by human race so radically different from that of the other species of this planet? What is it in the human interaction with nature that fundamentally gives rise to these problems? If we reflect upon it a little, it will dawn upon us that the root of all these problems is a particular conception of human interface with reality i.e. a particular way of perceiving nature and our relationship with it.
Dr Iain McGilchrist, in his very influential work ‘The Master and His Emissary’, traces the crises to the dominance of left-brain hemisphere based frame of reference which amounts to employing the lens of specification, abstraction, quantitative detailing, reductionism, exploitation and control over things in nature. While as right-brain hemisphere registers broader context and sees reality as an organic whole, left-brain hemisphere (for the reason that humans have to perform individual tasks) decontextualizes things, abstracts them from larger setting, specifies them, reduces them in order to gain control and extract utility. It is the imbalance between these two ways of looking at the world, rather worse – the dominance of left-brain perspective, that the humankind has invited all these crises into being. Let us move further in the direction of Iain’s point and make few remarks on the philosophical foundations of these crises today.
In continuation with the above discussion, we may note further that behind the current exploitation of nature, different forms of violence, degeneration of the relationship with the “other”, mass consumerism, disappearance of the “ethical” & other related problems, there is a background history of – what some thinkers have referred to as – the metaphysics of violence i.e. the very way humans see nature and their relationship with it is violent in its conception. Occidental metaphysics, for example, from Plato to Hegel is the metaphysics of presence i.e. reality is seen as arrestable entities or “things” available for our manipulation. Under it, in tandem with humanism, reality is subjected to human categories of thought in order to clear the path for mastering it. “Subject”/ego is at the centre whether it be in Descartes or Kant or Hegel. Reality is seen as nothing but an “object” for human consciousness. Reality which otherwise is an “event” is pulverized into static entities in order for the human categories of thought to arrest them. This metaphysic is inherently violent in its conception. It is this dualist dialectic of human against nature (others) that begets violence in principle.
The root word of Hegel’s key idea i.e. “notion”/concept – Begriff in German – is “to grasp”. As we grasp something with our hands to take control so do our concepts go out to capture reality to take control. Concept/cognition appropriates object (i.e. makes it its own “property”). This metaphysic generates violent anthropocentrism. It is this background metaphysic which is at the root of epiphenomenal totalitarianisms. There are multiple “particulars” but it takes the violence of one “concept” to subsume them all. The concept of “cat” eats up all other finite particular “individual” cats. Hegelian “concept” or “universal” usurps all “individuals”; it is this logic which then reflects in his political philosophy. It is this language which manifests in “law”.
However, it is “Being”/Reality which in fact precedes human subject rather than the other way round. The more we try to appropriate being, the more it recedes like one’s sleep or love or joy. One has to be receptive to being i.e. let being be, in order for it to actually reveal itself to us. This is the complete ontological re-orientation that we need today. The solution to our problems is not merely political or technological but “ontological”; a shift in our thinking as a collective humanity. A particular ontology generates a certain way of thinking, speaking, behaving, acting – i.e. a certain form of subjectivity – and consequently a certain interface with the world. Instead of subjecting being to our control or supervision i.e. mastery over nature, we need to expose ourselves to being in order for it to transform us. This will be the alternate metaphysic of “renunciation”. Instead of “grasping” hands of the “concept”, we need to invoke “renouncing” hands of a “prayer”. This unlosing of hands is “openness” to reality; it is only in this receptivity that being arrives – not as an “object” but as a mystery that transforms. Ethics is nothing but openness to the “call” of the “other”.
No wonder that in present times, under the domination of metaphysic of violence, ethics is wanting.
It is for this reason that Levinas (reacting against Hegel’s logic of subsumption & closure) placed ethics as the first philosophy rather than (occidental) metaphysics. The human “other” always escapes Hegelian “totality”. The “subjective”/anthropomorphic projects of “stripping” nature, trying to figure it out, is the violence of cognition; trying to “eat up” every experience within rational explainable encircling wholes. It is this conceptual violence which gradually rises up to manifest in different forms of institutional violence.
Technology, for this reason, is not a random or sudden appearance in the present world. It is the end result of a certain metaphysic which provides grounding for modern science. It is only when being is reduced down to mere “number” that technology becomes possible. Technology (not as mere “technique” but as an “ontology” or way of seeing reality) is a certain form of “enframing” (to use Heidegger’s word); it converts everything into a resource. The reality is perceived through the “lens” of resource (standing reserve). As a result of this ontology, where everything is dissolved into the crucible of the “category” of “resource”, the exploitative, consumerist & instrumentalist mode of being reigns supreme. It is not a coincidence that capitalist mass consumerism and technological instrumentalism pair up with each other so well – both grounded in the same metaphysic of exploitation.
What we need today instead is a poetic interface with reality, that which registers multi-valency of “irreducible” reality i.e. the very mystery of existence. A poetry that which is a poetry of destitution, that which opens us up towards the “other” and not the poetry which “empowers” (or elicits) collective mobs towards violence (as Žižek notes). A poetic interface with reality which is a result of basic realization that the essence of reality escapes all scientific reductions or theoretical essentializations; an attitude that realizes that reality is much more than a “resource”. This humble registration of the mystery of reality can undo metaphysics of violence. We need a new thinking that which can enable renunciation of violence – that which can let being be. From consumptive mode of being we need to move towards openness/reception/receptivity. The solution, therefore, is not merely scientific or economic or political or technological but ontological.
P.S: This article was partly inspired by the writings of Professor Saitya Brata Das and his University classes.
(Author has done masters in Philosophy from Centre for Philosophy, JNU and is currently pursuing PhD from the same centre. Feedback: [email protected]
