Deindividuation and Deracination
Not sure how many of us can see this-- but from what I can understand about social dynamics in India, the picture is not reassuring at all. In fact, almost on a daily basis, I struggle not to panic about what is happening, and to think calmly about what can we do to counter this.
I still have no answer about the latter, but here is what I learned about the former.
Indian society today is a deadly combination of deindividuation and deracination.
Deindividuation refers to cultural invalidation of individual agency. The irony of this is that, our cultural roots are deeply anchored in the importance of individual self expression. Enlightenment is seen as self awareness, and our texts recommend several pathways (called margas) for self realisation. Yet, over the centuries, we have turned 180 degrees in this regard, and have made passive compliance and obedience to the collective will, as virtues.
It is not uncommon to see people proudly exclaiming that they are going to "lead their lives through their children." Not too long ago, when attending the birthday party of a toddler, I witnessed the father proudly saying that he would make his son achieve what all he could not achieve himself. The child is seen as an extension of oneself and not as a separate individual, whose individual agency needs to be nurtured and developed, rather than devices onto which we project our unfinished dreams.
Children's views are hardly taken seriously. Some time ago again, some elderly folks from India visiting the US were greatly amused by how their little grandchildren in the US confidently went up to the receptionist in a hotel and asked some questions, and to which, the receptionist answered with all seriousness (they were expecting her to laugh at them or say "aww how cute" and ignore their questions altogether).
This de-recognition of individual agency is the norm. The general template of behaviour is that, if one's child complains about something about the external world-- then by default, the child is the one who gets chided for being weak or not careful enough. The child's opinions and preferences have no legitimacy.
When a parent is suddenly supportive of his/her child, it usually means that they have a "plan" for their lives-- about their marriage or career. This plan usually involves setting up of some ground truths in the child's mind about what is considered successful and virtuous, which in fact would be representations of the parents' own dreams. Hence, for example, if the parent always wanted to live the "American (or "foreign" in general) dream" the child becomes the vehicle for realising it. The child is gaslighted to believe that realising this dream is a virtue, and just about every other alternative-- including asking why-- as unethical or lazy or something such.
Another commonly occurring pattern that I have seen being implemented rampantly, is the "dog and horse" pattern. Thanks to "family planning" in the previous generation, most families in my generation and circles, have just two kids. They don't enjoy a big sibling network like in the previous generation, to help build their lives. But there is hardly any acknowledgement of this "weak wicket" that our generation has. Rather, it is the opposite. We are considered "pampered" because we have received a lot of attention (which in fact, is a lot of expectations).
With just two children, the "dog and the horse" template is executed as follows. One of the child is gaslighted to stay back to look after the previous generation (the "dog"), while the other (the "horse") is used as a vehicle by the previous generation to live their dreams. This solves the problem of both realising one's dreams, and having a home to come back to. Except that the "weak wicket" that the next generation is playing on, becomes much weaker. But then, that is not the previous generations' problem.
This is a very very common pattern, which is "rediscovered" by different families, separately.
Deindividuation extends beyond family interactions to include just about all kinds of social interactions. Bosses are often worshipped and treated like Gods, by the subordinates. Their birthdays celebrated with great pomp and grandeur. And even the legal framework is such that one can get into trouble for vague things like "hurting sentiments."
"Selflessness" is considered a virtue, and independent critical inquiry is considered arrogant and disrespectful.
The second aspect of the deadly cocktail that we are fed with, is deracination. This refers to social psychological dynamics that alienates us from our own roots.
We all live at two levels-- what may be called the "doing" and "being" levels. The doing aspect of our lives pertains to what we do for a living, what technology we develop, what service we provide, what value we add, etc. The being aspect of our lives is about who we are. This is usually called our emotional self-- which is the result of thousands of years of evolution. We are all endowed with some latent characteristics which define who we are as a person. Usually it is late into one's life that one starts asking questions about who we are-- which is typically called the "spiritual" journey.
To help understand doing versus being, I usually give this example-- I can "do" the job of a teacher and earn my salary, but I can also "be" a teacher, which goes far beyond doing my job and earning a salary. And I can "be" a teacher, only if I "am" a teacher at my "being" level-- without which, I can only "do" the job of a teacher.
Most people ask the "who we are" question when most of our lives are over. There is no point to understanding ourselves when there is not much of our lives left to live anyway. This "spiritual quest" is something that needs to be asked in one's youth.
Unfortunately, our formal system of education leaves no room to address the "being" aspect of our lives. Usually, this "spiritual education" is left to the family, which itself is increasingly out of touch with its spiritual roots. Most "educated" families bring up their children for performance in the "doing" realm and teach little or nothing about how to explore one's own being.
Worse, a spiritual quest into one's being is equated with "religion"-- and there are all kinds of distorted understandings about our "religion." And "religion" awareness in the family is reduced to meaningless rituals, narrating of weird stories and superstition, which are not to be questioned.
I have written a lot about the physical concept of dharma and how it has been central to our worldview, and how it is incorrectly translated into English as "religion." This distorted understanding is now all pervasive and has become pretty much the standard understanding of dharma. Recently, I was reading an English translation of the Bhagawad Gita by a well known spirituo-commercial agency that has its branches all over the world. In this book, the term adharma is translated as "irreligion"!!
Now what is the world is "irreligion"? As it is, we have suffered enough due to "religion"-- and now, here is a translation of a "holy book" that warns us against practising "irreligion"!!
That is how muddled and murky is the being space. For someone who has been brought up with "mainstream" education-- there is hardly anyone who can provide answers and guidance to navigate through the very painful space within us, to understand who we are.
Understanding our being, basically means understanding how we came to be. There is the broad contours of collective history (narrated from the victor's perspective) that we study in our history books. But there is also an individualised history of our individual, that is documented nowhere. We are our own book. And reading this book is extremely painful, since it stokes a lot of very raw emotions that we didn't even know we had within us.
Without someone who can help guide us in this labyrinth of our own selves, we end up denying those emotions that we have within us-- we are either very afraid or very ashamed of them. We then end up building elaborate defences and start projecting the insecurities we have within us onto others.
Understanding our being is very important to help us develop deep roots. As the saying by Carl Jung goes: The taller the tree wants to grow, the deeper its roots need to be. If we need to build an empowered population that can help sustain the society and the world, we need a lot of "being" level education.
Today, not only are we not helping individuals develop their roots, we are actively uprooting them and using them as resources to feed our dreams. An uprooted tree is just deadwood-- it is only useful for industries and factories, where they can be moulded into furniture and end up decorating someone's house or office.
A deracinated tree ceases to be a tree-- it will no longer enrich the soil, will no longer produce oxygen, no longer be home to an entire ecosystem under its shelter, and will no longer be part of the lung that sustains the earth.
I still have no answer about the latter, but here is what I learned about the former.
Indian society today is a deadly combination of deindividuation and deracination.
Deindividuation refers to cultural invalidation of individual agency. The irony of this is that, our cultural roots are deeply anchored in the importance of individual self expression. Enlightenment is seen as self awareness, and our texts recommend several pathways (called margas) for self realisation. Yet, over the centuries, we have turned 180 degrees in this regard, and have made passive compliance and obedience to the collective will, as virtues.
It is not uncommon to see people proudly exclaiming that they are going to "lead their lives through their children." Not too long ago, when attending the birthday party of a toddler, I witnessed the father proudly saying that he would make his son achieve what all he could not achieve himself. The child is seen as an extension of oneself and not as a separate individual, whose individual agency needs to be nurtured and developed, rather than devices onto which we project our unfinished dreams.
Children's views are hardly taken seriously. Some time ago again, some elderly folks from India visiting the US were greatly amused by how their little grandchildren in the US confidently went up to the receptionist in a hotel and asked some questions, and to which, the receptionist answered with all seriousness (they were expecting her to laugh at them or say "aww how cute" and ignore their questions altogether).
This de-recognition of individual agency is the norm. The general template of behaviour is that, if one's child complains about something about the external world-- then by default, the child is the one who gets chided for being weak or not careful enough. The child's opinions and preferences have no legitimacy.
When a parent is suddenly supportive of his/her child, it usually means that they have a "plan" for their lives-- about their marriage or career. This plan usually involves setting up of some ground truths in the child's mind about what is considered successful and virtuous, which in fact would be representations of the parents' own dreams. Hence, for example, if the parent always wanted to live the "American (or "foreign" in general) dream" the child becomes the vehicle for realising it. The child is gaslighted to believe that realising this dream is a virtue, and just about every other alternative-- including asking why-- as unethical or lazy or something such.
Another commonly occurring pattern that I have seen being implemented rampantly, is the "dog and horse" pattern. Thanks to "family planning" in the previous generation, most families in my generation and circles, have just two kids. They don't enjoy a big sibling network like in the previous generation, to help build their lives. But there is hardly any acknowledgement of this "weak wicket" that our generation has. Rather, it is the opposite. We are considered "pampered" because we have received a lot of attention (which in fact, is a lot of expectations).
With just two children, the "dog and the horse" template is executed as follows. One of the child is gaslighted to stay back to look after the previous generation (the "dog"), while the other (the "horse") is used as a vehicle by the previous generation to live their dreams. This solves the problem of both realising one's dreams, and having a home to come back to. Except that the "weak wicket" that the next generation is playing on, becomes much weaker. But then, that is not the previous generations' problem.
This is a very very common pattern, which is "rediscovered" by different families, separately.
Deindividuation extends beyond family interactions to include just about all kinds of social interactions. Bosses are often worshipped and treated like Gods, by the subordinates. Their birthdays celebrated with great pomp and grandeur. And even the legal framework is such that one can get into trouble for vague things like "hurting sentiments."
"Selflessness" is considered a virtue, and independent critical inquiry is considered arrogant and disrespectful.
~*~*~*~*~*~
The second aspect of the deadly cocktail that we are fed with, is deracination. This refers to social psychological dynamics that alienates us from our own roots.
We all live at two levels-- what may be called the "doing" and "being" levels. The doing aspect of our lives pertains to what we do for a living, what technology we develop, what service we provide, what value we add, etc. The being aspect of our lives is about who we are. This is usually called our emotional self-- which is the result of thousands of years of evolution. We are all endowed with some latent characteristics which define who we are as a person. Usually it is late into one's life that one starts asking questions about who we are-- which is typically called the "spiritual" journey.
To help understand doing versus being, I usually give this example-- I can "do" the job of a teacher and earn my salary, but I can also "be" a teacher, which goes far beyond doing my job and earning a salary. And I can "be" a teacher, only if I "am" a teacher at my "being" level-- without which, I can only "do" the job of a teacher.
Most people ask the "who we are" question when most of our lives are over. There is no point to understanding ourselves when there is not much of our lives left to live anyway. This "spiritual quest" is something that needs to be asked in one's youth.
Unfortunately, our formal system of education leaves no room to address the "being" aspect of our lives. Usually, this "spiritual education" is left to the family, which itself is increasingly out of touch with its spiritual roots. Most "educated" families bring up their children for performance in the "doing" realm and teach little or nothing about how to explore one's own being.
Worse, a spiritual quest into one's being is equated with "religion"-- and there are all kinds of distorted understandings about our "religion." And "religion" awareness in the family is reduced to meaningless rituals, narrating of weird stories and superstition, which are not to be questioned.
I have written a lot about the physical concept of dharma and how it has been central to our worldview, and how it is incorrectly translated into English as "religion." This distorted understanding is now all pervasive and has become pretty much the standard understanding of dharma. Recently, I was reading an English translation of the Bhagawad Gita by a well known spirituo-commercial agency that has its branches all over the world. In this book, the term adharma is translated as "irreligion"!!
Now what is the world is "irreligion"? As it is, we have suffered enough due to "religion"-- and now, here is a translation of a "holy book" that warns us against practising "irreligion"!!
That is how muddled and murky is the being space. For someone who has been brought up with "mainstream" education-- there is hardly anyone who can provide answers and guidance to navigate through the very painful space within us, to understand who we are.
Understanding our being, basically means understanding how we came to be. There is the broad contours of collective history (narrated from the victor's perspective) that we study in our history books. But there is also an individualised history of our individual, that is documented nowhere. We are our own book. And reading this book is extremely painful, since it stokes a lot of very raw emotions that we didn't even know we had within us.
Without someone who can help guide us in this labyrinth of our own selves, we end up denying those emotions that we have within us-- we are either very afraid or very ashamed of them. We then end up building elaborate defences and start projecting the insecurities we have within us onto others.
Understanding our being is very important to help us develop deep roots. As the saying by Carl Jung goes: The taller the tree wants to grow, the deeper its roots need to be. If we need to build an empowered population that can help sustain the society and the world, we need a lot of "being" level education.
Today, not only are we not helping individuals develop their roots, we are actively uprooting them and using them as resources to feed our dreams. An uprooted tree is just deadwood-- it is only useful for industries and factories, where they can be moulded into furniture and end up decorating someone's house or office.
A deracinated tree ceases to be a tree-- it will no longer enrich the soil, will no longer produce oxygen, no longer be home to an entire ecosystem under its shelter, and will no longer be part of the lung that sustains the earth.
~*~*~*~*~*
Next time someone asks why I am so depressed all the time, perhaps this post can help explain a bit. It is hard not to be depressed when the world around us is dying a slow death, and we are helpless to do anything about it.
Comments
Great piece sir, articulating thoughts on these topics is pretty hard. I still remember what you had said in one of the first few lectures of yours I attended - "writing shows how sloppy your thinking is".