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| Thursday, 29 July 2004 |
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Post-modernism opens the floodgates to sensual greed
A remarkable utterance I thought. So very soul-stirring, soul-searching and deep. What's more, I found its relevance in the much wider and broader arena of historical development and the political economy that followed, which fruit was the ecstasy of some and the agony of many. Modernity's results the renaissance, the industrial revolution, and the voyages of discovery propelled man into what he knew not. So far, so good. However, the waiting tragedy perhaps even man himself missed out on a tragedy of which he was the architect - a sad and destructive state arising out of his own greed which in contemporary intellectual jargon is termed Modernism. In this period, there was nothing that man did not lay his hands on bereft of pecuniary advantages. Losing sight of his intellectual awakening, he began channelling that exalted state into some misdirection when he perhaps thought it better to move out of the "handful" existence state for purposes of intense acquisition. This then is where all the problems startd. The "handful" state later turned disdainful, pushed man in to fierce competition and aggressive marketing, leading him into a valueless state where he undermined the whole purpose of life. Money and status were the adorned garbs, the much priced goals of the vulgar and "ordinary". Not surprising then the exit from "handful" and entry into bagful domain. Today, in the post-modernism era, even the bagful wouldn't suffice as it witnesses the total effacement of whatever that was left of values under modernism. 'Anything goes,' seemingly the day's order, conditions man into a total guilt-free state of words spoken and actions taken with tainted misgivings. As man goes through this process of modernity, modernism and into post modernism noteworthy is his fall as speedy as his rise if not, speedier. Which tally so well with the logical findings of all religious personalities. The end varies in definition from Kalpa Vinase to "world's end". The moral convictions of absolute values undermined heavily by contemporary relative values put modernity to much test, more so man himself - as to how and in which direction he would guide his newly-found intellectual awakening. The test's acidity - probably too strong - made man a dismal failure as he felt the urge to move out of 'handful' to realism more alluring and 'beneficial' with little knowledge of how it would boomerang. Interestingly, the lines of some author cross my mind at this point: "Blessed is he who can close his eyes And let this vain pageant of life pass by, Untouched by the magic the earth can keep His soul awake, while his senses sleep." |
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Someone once said, "All what each of us need is a handful of
paddy, the harvest of which is more than enough to keep us going for some
time. Anything beyond a handful is simply greed."
