DIVERSITY, YES. BUT UNITY IN DIVERSITY? WHAT IS THAT?

DIVERSITY, YES. BUT UNITY IN DIVERSITY? WHAT IS THAT?

Nature has its inherent diversity which will not allow any particular religion to rule over humanity and make a monolith of it.

The element of antithesis invariably works to oppose the existent thesis. The synthesis that resolves out of this conflict is not the endpoint of social evolution but the starting point of the new thesis, and so the cycle goes on, progressing every turn and approaching the ever-receding utopia of social perfection. Meanwhile, human blood keeps spilling as these cyclical changes are conflict-ridden and never peaceful. For peace cannot provide the force for social evolution as the status quo invariably fosters the fruits of conservatism and consequent corruption. Thus, revolutions occur to sweep away the accretion of the ages and replace systems with fresher ones aimed at ensuring social justice. But like the proverbial curly tail of the dog which never straightens out for good save for the moment of critical thrust on it, society also falls back upon regressive tendencies and the process of continuous revolution must redress it. But at what cost?

Marx says, "The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways. The point, however, is to change it." So, despite pious propositions and counterfeit claims about rendering a just human situation, exploitation abounds not only in commercial corporations and political parties but even in spiritual organisations where the individual is coerced into submission even by citing scripture. "Note the Devil doth cite the scripture for his purpose" may have been said by Shakespeare in another context but it bears a universal import.

Exploitation of man by man seems a human law that has been outlawed on paper in democracies but operates, nonetheless, with unabated vicious vigour within the leguslative framework. As Lenin famously remarked on freedom in an exploitative society as an illusion, so liberty in legislated exploitation truly is. For a famished family can scarce enjoy the fruits of freedom than a dried-up tree bear fruits. And within this complex network of conflicting interests and ideologies -- each attempting its own solution to the intractable problems of collective existence that society is -- ideologies are wending their way forward, battling out at every stage amidst coercion and repression, crafty maneuvering and manipulation, till one among them emerges supreme by force and throttles all others. But such a thing cannot in absolute terms ever be for the counterforces inevitably emerge as well to resist such monopoly over the human mind and matter. There is ever the inherent diversity that opposes such repressive unity of ideology and history bears testimony to the fact that never has there ever been a single system that has held sway over the mass of mankind and converted it to a monolith. 

Diversity there has been always but this oft-quoted phrase, 'unity in diversity', is a wishful idea, a pious proposition, even a pretentious one, for a unity of mutually exclusive and incompatible surface systems is an impossible idea, far less an achievable one. Depth-unity in universal philosophy is a different matter altogether, such as the Vedanta offers, but fanatical ideologies will never subscribe to it. Hence, there will reign this diverse pool of political systems masquerading as religion, whose only purpose is the domination of the world using God and consequent superstition as a tool to fool the subscribing masses, and there will forever be conflicting resolutions of these in an unending series of advancing dialectics. Meanwhile, selfish people will keep carving out the prized piece of the socioeconomic cake and fatten themselves. 

Written by Sugata Bose