hi^Ztory

hi^Ztory[1]

Patricio Guzman draws an interesting relationship between archaeology and astronomy in his renowned documentary film The Nostalgia for Light. In the extremely arid setting of the Atacama in Chile, are arrayed some of the mightiest telescopes of the world. The site affords a lucid view of the sky. Hand in hand with this comes yet another geographical peculiarity of the Atacama- near zero humidity which means that historical remnants that can be unearthed from that terrain will be almost freed from the ravages of water. This presents an even more lucid picture of history. What calls for an unlikely matrimony of astronomy and archaeology is the fact that deep in the Atacama lies the mass graves where the dissidents in Pinochet regime were condemned to silence. There are women who scour this impossibly vast terrain with spades looking for the shards of their dearest ones- a feat of endurance that matches the immensity of the Atacama. Some of them were wishing that the telescopes could zero in on the ground as meticulously as they were combing the skies and bring out their beloved. Here the telescopes watch out for the origins of universe, an anthropically fine-tuned entity, and contributes to the knowledge of genealogy of man even as the archaeologists unearth those specters which points to the genealogy of terror. As John the Heretic of Gibran says, the wolves may kill the sheep in the night but at the break of the day all we see the blood and know what happened in the cover of the night.

It is not yet time to forget the Wikileaks episode which brought a brand new vision of the contemporary world construed in the eyes of the major players in world politics. It exposed the "paper trail" of classified information taking the ordinary man into the depths of what happens in reality contrary to his superficial perceptions. A paper trail is the lineage of documented evidence maintained in all the administrative machineries. The common lot is lured into believing that all the determinants of their lives are perceptible to them. Those in power do not want a popular reading of the reality or history. Reality is as they dictate it. In the increased bureaucratic settings of contemporary governments, there is only a selective dispensation of information. The media and the entire government machinery can be complicit in presenting a particular perception as a reality and nothing else. Nobody expect the loci of power to tell the truths, these days. The more immediate the history, the more vehement will be the effort to skew it as one feels. The immediate past is the greatest weapon in the hands of a propagandist in this age of media coverage whose strategies are dictated by the circulation departments. A piece of news is in vogue as long as it generates revenue. Why should there be a paper trail at all if it would transpire the truth at some later juncture down the road given that it is truth that needs to be suppressed at all costs? Truths have to be politically correct. The maintenance of the written documents is a vital part of that blame-game strategy that can ensue at any time if the operational details leak out. There should be always a space available to pass the buck. History cannot be undone.

There can be cases of historical instances getting petrified in the collective psyche of classes of people. Years of struggle and mythmaking can lead to some sort of siege mentality in people. The very identity can become permanently referred to a historical event or situation. Luis Bunuel who thanked God for still keeping him an atheist wanted to convey this fixation for history in his "heretical movie" The Milky Way. It is an exposition of various Christian heresies that confront the ways of two impoverished pilgrims. What is worth noting in the story line is the predicament of various religious affiliations to posit themselves in contrast to others to get themselves demarcated. The cases of religion getting a patriotic hue and any incursions on religion getting treated as treacherous have something to do with the historical consciousness. In the post-patriotic identities designed to suit the neoliberal economies historical oblivion has become a requisite to effect a destructuring of the workforce. It is only by proposing that history has reached its finality that a sense of accomplishment and ultimate dignity can be effected. The cult behaviour rampant in all walks of life is a signifier of an anticipation of an imminent eschatological or apocalyptic finale. History is yearning to come to a grinding halt.

Fukuyama drew inspiration from the development of natural sciences to understand human history. The progress of natural sciences is cumulative and directional. The logic of modern science is to make an economic reading of history that leads to capitalism. He speaks of thymotic pride in man, a concept first proposed by Plato. It is the spirited aspect of man whose satisfaction is crucial to his dignity. This satisfaction cannot be afforded by ordinary man in an authoritarian regime. Therefore democracy becomes the best option and history should have come to end in its developmental sense by the establishment of democracies, which exactly is not so. The problem of recognition is always there, the unquenchable thymotic pride. So we design irrational forms of thymos like nationalism, sectarianism but given that these options are detrimental to capitalist designs we design still more irrational forms of thymos. Since recognition is at stake we get more individualistic, a situation whose glimpses we have now. The eternal race for recognition and approval, the "i-you-he" types of game are catching up again with the barrage of social networking media. It is no accident that Facebook is providing a view known as "timeline view" in lieu of the "wall view." After all it is a bit of personal history which one can tamper with. The obsession with history never dies.

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[1] ^Z (Ctrl+Z) is the key combination for an undoing an operation in computer-aided editing. Can we undo history or atleast some parts of it to pamper ourselves?

facecook

                According to the standards of the current times, a smile has become the most deceptive technique. We are cooking up faces- faces that may smile and smile and still be villainous. Compéres come to us as embodiments of perpetual composure. Their ravishing smiles are a matter of professional prowess. They keep smiling and laughing and keep the counters ticking. The most convenient thing about a smile is that it never betrays your real feelings.

            Humour has many variants. "Funny ha-ha" and "Funny Peculiar" seem to have become vague demarcations. Since nowadays we invent reasons to smile, the first step towards it can be to create a target audience and contrast it with a subgroup that can furnish the laughing stocks. Run-of-the-mill movies have bored us enough with slapstick comedies and of late we have started enjoying subtle humour. Slapstick comedies create a fictitious situation with an avalanche of follies and a fistful of funny characters. Allusive humour often breaches the banks to become a counterfactual political weapon.

            Shutterbugs know how easy it is to craft a smiling bunch in a good shot by asking them to pronounce "cheese", the more pious even going for "jesus." There can be formalizations of laughter. Every expression of joy warrants histrionic aspects (absence of which can question the very existence of joy), whereas a bout of rage would require biochemical triggering which is largely involuntary. A bit of wit from a boss, though stale and watery, can command a gamut of laughter (everybody can recall at least an instance of being uneasy about the laugh-worthiness of a humour underway and being forced to keep a laughter standby lest one offends the wit-cracker; this is not bothersome if the speaker is far down the rungs, you can always obfuscate him.) As a rule of thumb, the more important the person, the more vociferous should one laugh at his wit. Franciscan joy is far from such formalizations; it was rather a joy shared among a lot bound by Sacred Poverty and love. There was no hierarchy of humour involved. In "Of gods and of men" Brother Christian speaks how poverty helps us to enter into relationships other than those based on power. Things have changed a lot now. You get as many "likes" (à la facebook™) as your following and people have their own reasons to follow. No wonder, you become an instant hit!

            Judith Butler reflects on the theme of grievability. The movie "Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada" is a vivid portrayal along these lines. Which losses are grievable and which are not?  It depends on the associated ideological prowess. In the Indian mythology an incarnation of a god can stamp down a just king, albeit a demon, to the netherworld and exegesis vindicates the former and the Keralites get their fair share of celebration as the nemesis wanes each year. Even your goodness shall not exceed your station, so the myth says. To the Nazarene who thought even the fall of a sparrow grievable, one knows not how to explain one's weird standards and yardsticks.

            After a spell of cancer from which she recovered, Susan Sontag notes how a scheme of victimization underlies even our understanding of pathologies. A century before, tuberculosis was considered a wretched disease and one afflicted with it as desperately unfortunate. Decades before it was cancer that was thought to be scourge. Now as lifestyle associated cancers are on the rise we tend to vilify the patients only about those cases of cancer which are linked to an abusive lifestyle by terming them as just deserts. Everything else is a "strange twist of fate." These days we can speak of AIDS as a condition which springs out of "sheer irresponsibility." Even in such vulnerable and terminal situations of life, does man maintain a hierarchy and find laughing stocks to stoke his complacency.

                Perhaps we should hark back to a pre-rational sensitivity to the life of others as profoundly explained by Levinas, Marcel et.al, to reclaim the times which the sciences of our times robbed us of. Who knows who shall have the last laugh?

ephraem maria gilbert

Thumpoly capuchin ashram

May 26, 2012