BEING SINGULAR/ PLURAL

 (IMAGE: INSTALLATION DONE BY A GROUP OF ARTISTS IN SAHODARAN MEMORIAL HIGH SCHOOL, CHERAI)


( I apologize to you for employing sentences, titles taken from others in my texts, but have no intention to put an end to that practice.)

The world, as we know it, is always already divided between groups of all sorts- religious, racial, national, caste, gender, political and so on. One is always born into a group or other, and takes up several group identities during their lifetimes.  Family, religion, caste, political organization, gender group - all of which have their own rationales for existing and going about the world often conflicting with each other. The exclusionary practices are present almost everywhere, in each individual or group also since they have their own ideals or ideas, sometimes secretive, and one can only point towards certain directions in which absolute antagonisms that call for annihilation of the other can be avoided, even while trying to engage with the society as a whole in an egalitarian manner. But to lean on a particularity to make your argument doesn’t always suffice, since this immediately forecloses dialogue with other groups antagonistic to that collectivity. On the other hand to absolutely disconnect from all sort of collectivities also is impossible because it increases the peril of isolation, and further may lead to unhealthy dependencies.

How can we transgress these boundaries? Could it be done by simply forming another collectivity that tries to advance our ideas? We can also see that in spite of Universalist jargon, most collectivities end up in their own parochialisms. When we form a new group also , it naturally pits itself against certain others and end up reproducing the same rat race. So it is only possible for us to primarily engage with the already existing collectivities, working towards opening them up to dialogue and furthering the egalitarian aspects present in each, and trying to put  our own and the others collective ideals to test by discursively encountering its dilemmas, while upholding the mutuality and compassion that should ideally be holding together each of us in one way or other. There are always questions of rights and justice involved, which are to be pursued, and at the same time tendencies that have to be given up to make way for a further opening up of the society as a whole. Groups have also the tendency to impose their strictures on individuals, dictating the terms of engagement and exclusion. For the individual this could mean complying with ideas that are contrary to their liking.

This, one can say, is the moment and context of the possibility of being singular/plural, trying to engage with groups in so far us they are cognizant with your own individual ideals, and to mobilize opinion towards an opening up of your own and other particularities through a personal(no doubt political) engagement that can hold on to the strands of egalitarianism present in each particularity on the grounds of love and compassion and in a discursive manner. By confronting anti- egalitarian and violent obscurantisms in ones own kind as well as in others, laying  stress on the possibility of a dialogue that denies total exclusion and othering on compassionate grounds. No group will easily give up some claim towards of egalitarianism, but this varies in structure and kind for each group. When we acknowledge the fact that the society is plurally structured and that there are multiple groupings contending for space and power, one can start acknowledging the possibility of multi culturalism in our everyday lives. To undo the absolute nature of the antagonisms one will have to see what troubles us from within and without and structures society in a way that restricts our own freedoms, rights, pleasures and opportunities as well as those of others. The other(both within groups and without), when recognized as a necessary component of our society, and a portion of our own selves(since we are also always somebody’s other), then cannot be annihilated, but can only be opened up to dialogue. This means that there should be pleasurable and mutual means, underlining the love for each other as far as possible, to engage with the other including our own libidinal constitutions, art and culture and faith, which is necessarily a faith in the other, who is also God, since just us you are the children of god- whether you call yourselves materialists or idealists, they are also part of the godly(which is necessarily egalitarian) and cannot be totally excluded. An individual cannot establish direct contact with all other beings in the world other than conceptually or spiritually, and may have to make personal choices, but this should not be to the exclusion of all collective imagining and exchanges at a personal level where necessary. This opening up, then , is needed for all individuals and groups, because it widens their own repertories, and can only be done if the option of war as propounded by the war industry  is opted out, which is to be recognized as a path which ends the democratic dialogue.