Nationalism as opium

Mad About Pyramids

The above link is an article in the 22 September issue of Science which reports a growing trend in the erstwhile developing nations but now seems to have engulfed all the societies in its grip. The gist of the report is that the archaeologists in Bosnia & Sarajevo are prevented from studying a hill over a small town called Visoko that resembles a pyramid (in shape). The archaeologists contend that the underlying rocks that form the structure of the hills are

stone slabs ... nothing more than fractured chunks of sediment called breccia, the remains of a 7-million-year-old lakebed that was thrust up by natural forces.

But the media, general public, and the politicians do not want to listen to the scientific explanation, and worse, they do not want to continue scientific study of the hills, instead they want to support the millionaire businessman who promises to find pyramids that will fill the poor Bosnians minds with a pride of the distant past, a prehistoric supercivilization, because the present has nothing much to offer. The archaeologists are teeming with anger as they say that the layer between the surface and underlying breccia has remains which are crucial to the study of the history of the last two millennia, but that layer is being destroyed by the overzealous diggers scouting for a pyramid. The archeologists' community is suffering from severe fund shortage, and the whole social and economic machinery is killing them in lieu of some false glory pertaining to the distant past.

The academic in me cringes whenever I come across such news, and these are getting more frequent nowadays. The rich guy will behave like an all encompassing god bringing a sense of romantic adventure by disclaiming all the orthodox notions of study, the general public will follow suit with salivating tongues, hoping for a redemption from their dreary existence by a deliverance that will not need any effort on their part, the politicians will feed on the ego of the rich guy, and the drunken fervour of the general mass to secure his own position by the support of money and popular choice. And the media will, of course, sell whatever that earns hard cash.

Building a culture of any worthy note requires generations of very hard sincere work, there is no shortcut to it. Cultures in the decline have the tendency of looking back to their glorious past to rejuvenate their fledgling morale. If the glorious past doesn't happen to have occurred in the near past then one doesn't have much choice but to look in the very distant past, and if someone conjures up something in the guise of lost glory then the public goes into frenzy. Nationalism can be used as a very effective opium to guide the people off from thinking coherently, logically, to lure them into a false sense of well being, and the politicians love it as it doesn't involve any effort on their part. The truth can go to hell!!

This particular news is from Bosnia, but this is a very common feature all over the world, in fact this trait confirms the universal nature of man. Everywhere, at all times, few scrupulous people lure the masses into the false belief of well being by using nationalism (and religion) as opium to stifle all scientific, progressive thoughts by not allowing the development of a free debating atmosphere where opposing perspectives are dealt with respect and candour.

Nationalism, at best, is the natural love for the innate particles, thoughts, emotions and philosophy that constitute the man, and at worst is the hatred for the innate particles, thoughts, emotions and philosophy that constitute the other man. Stifling the gain of knowledge by logical, rational study retards growth, which is the antithesis of life, because life implies growth, of knowledge, awareness, leading to the realization of self.

Picture of the earth

What effect does a picture of the earth shot from space (that includes moon) have on the general public?

Imagine the cave man, looking at the passing of the seaons as heavenly wonders that he has no control on. He has grown up seeing the strange phenomenon of moon, changing its size with a definite periodicity, appearing, disappearing and reappearing, giving the impressions of Godlike forces acting on the heavenly bodies. His perception tells him that he is at the centre of the universe, a unique flat land engulfed by a bowl of blue sky that turns dark when the sun goes to sleep revealing the twinkling stars. He is a usual chap, not the philospher kind who ruminate over the mankind's past-present-future as well as its location in the this whole scheme of things. His worries are the same as the worries of the usual guy of today, providing food, shelter etc. etc., but the connotations of the images that he has grown up with gives him his bearing on this earth, in this life.

Now imagine the 21st century average guy who grows up seeing the following picture since his childhood:-

(Courtesy http://www.skydiveelsinore.com/space_posters/space_posters.html)

Does this picture alter the subconscious awareness of one's being in the mind and heart of Mr. Joe Average? Does it fill his heart with awe, his mind with the feeling of extreme beauty and vastness of this universe? Will this affect the the way the Mr. Joe Average looks at his life, bothered with his mundane worries and works? Will it affect the way he lives his life? Will it anyway change the way he starts his day in the morning and hits the bed at night? Does the the distance from which the photograph of the earth is taken alter his perspective through which he views himself, his life and his aspirations? Does this view of the earth from space change his life in any small or big way? Or to use the current fashionable phrases, 'Will his quality of life improve in any way' on seeing this picture and growing up with the attitude that the earth is unique as well as not so unique in this macroscopic scheme of things called the universe?

The answer to all the questions above is a resounding YES! Forget the philosophical implications, scientific aspirations and understanding or the academic interest. At a practical level life is a series of problems, and all our efforts to live can be classified as a list of solutions that we are searching for, trying out and implementing for the problems that our lives dish out at every moment. The key factor that affects the finding of solutions and implementing them is the perspective from which we see the problems, i.e. this world, and a wider perspective gives us a better understanding of the system in which we live and solve the problems, and it is imperative that Mr. Joe Average of the 21st century will have a broader database to define his problems of life, find and try out solutions from the perspective he has developed (perhaps unconsciously) by growing up with the picture of earth rising as viewed from the moon. Even an unlettered man will look at the problems, i.e. his life, with a different attitude once he grows comfortable with the picture from the moon, it affects each one of us to the core of our thinking, no matter how distanced our day to day life is from the the ones who are gathering funds for further missions to shoot some more such pictures!