Abhijit Naskar's Blog - Posts Tagged "social-progress"
On the Nature of Democratic Psychology
The human society has been running on fumes – the fumes of pleasure, reward, gratification and charm. And while walking on this illustrious path, they have constructed illustrious ideals without thinking about their practicality and actual implications in the society and have tried their best to stand up for those ideals, despite the fact that these so-called ideals have nothing to do with genuine everyday human existence whatsoever. On this disorderly path of delusions, humanity has organized its religions – it has developed its methods of education – and to watch over all these structures, it has developed its so-called governments on an illustrious ideal of democracy. Democracy – that is what it’s called, when a huge population of sapiens are made to think that they are competent enough to choose the individual or individuals who would essentially be in control of their lives in the society.
Democracy is supposed to be a system of government constructed by the people, for the people. Now here is the question? Do people really construct the government! Democracy of today’s society is dictatorship without the bitterness. At the current mental maturity of the human species, democracy is as barbarian and degrading as dictatorship – it just doesn’t feel that way, because of the illusory sense of control. Please don’t freak out or think of me as anti-democratic. I am not anti-anything, except anti-fundamentalism and anti-sectarianism. We are just beginning our journey of investigating the actual implications of the so-called system of democracy upon the human society. And this is not going to be a criticism of democracy. I despise criticism, because it brings out no positive outcome in the society, but only makes one waste time and energy. Criticisms and revolt do not solve a thing, what does, in actuality, not in theory, is awareness of the reality. And the reality is democracy can be effective, productive and progressive only in a society where people live with the awareness of the self, beyond the labels of traditions and ideologies. But in the current mental state of the human society, though superior to tyranny in terms of comfort of the masses, democracy is actually inferior to dictatorship, because of its hypocrisy and its manipulative nature.
Read Full Paper (PDF)
Democracy is supposed to be a system of government constructed by the people, for the people. Now here is the question? Do people really construct the government! Democracy of today’s society is dictatorship without the bitterness. At the current mental maturity of the human species, democracy is as barbarian and degrading as dictatorship – it just doesn’t feel that way, because of the illusory sense of control. Please don’t freak out or think of me as anti-democratic. I am not anti-anything, except anti-fundamentalism and anti-sectarianism. We are just beginning our journey of investigating the actual implications of the so-called system of democracy upon the human society. And this is not going to be a criticism of democracy. I despise criticism, because it brings out no positive outcome in the society, but only makes one waste time and energy. Criticisms and revolt do not solve a thing, what does, in actuality, not in theory, is awareness of the reality. And the reality is democracy can be effective, productive and progressive only in a society where people live with the awareness of the self, beyond the labels of traditions and ideologies. But in the current mental state of the human society, though superior to tyranny in terms of comfort of the masses, democracy is actually inferior to dictatorship, because of its hypocrisy and its manipulative nature.
Read Full Paper (PDF)
Why do we crave for social approval
Nobody is immune to social conditioning or as people like to call it, social programming. Which means that everybody is vulnerable to this process of social programming - to social pressure. But the question that we are interested in here is why? Why do we crave for acceptance from the society? Why do we crave for approval of the society.
Unless a person has some sort of pathological condition that makes the person unable to create a healthy bond between the self and the society, everybody has the urge for being accepted by the society, by the community, by the environment - to look for approval from others. So, what is the reason that we look for approval from others, from the people around us? The reason is that we are not wired to be loners. We are social animals. Being in a community makes us stronger. And that's the faculty that actually enabled our ancestors in the jungle to survive against the forces of nature - against predators and all sorts of wild obstacles.
So we built communities, but it's not enough to build communities. The members in that community must have a neurological bond with that community - they must have a craving to belong to that community. You cannot just gather some people and say, this is my community. They must feel that they are part of that community in order for the community to survive against all odds, which at that time, that is, in the kingdom of the wild was rather imperative.
So being in a community means we are psychologically wired to feel that we are part of that community, which brings along an innate craving to be accepted by others in that community - by the majority of that community - to look for approval in everything that we do from others in that community - to look for appreciation for our actions - to look for appraisal from others, for our achievements, for our successes.
In the wild, it worked well. And even today it keeps a people together. That's okay. So it is not completely harmful, but what is harmful is that this very trait has also a negative side and rather devastatingly negative side negative aspect, which is that this craving, this social conditioning often compels a person to go against his or her own passion, his or her own uniqueness to be accepted by the society. So the person ends up doing what the society wants instead of doing what that person really wanted to do in the first place, whether it is about living life, whether it is about achieving a certain goal, or anything else.
In the end, the majority of people end up achieving the goals that a society wishes them to achieve as members of the community. And the same goes for wishes, the same goes for desires, the same goes with behaviors, the same goes for thought thinking - the same goes with emotions and feelings and sentiments and ambitions and so on. So we ended up living secondhand lives. We end up living lives of mindless machines - we end up living lives of slaves of the society instead of living the life that we want.
If a person is happy with living the way that the person is living while following the norms of the society, then that's completely fine. But if the person has to completely change himself or herself to follow the norms of the society, then that's dangerous and downright inhuman because all the progress that we have attained so far as a species took place because of the handful of so-called misfits who had the courage to go against the societal norms, to follow their dreams, to follow their passions, to follow their own original thoughts and ideas and inklings and passions.
In short, rules and norms of a society do not ensure progress. In fact, the rules that the society creates are there to ensure security, not to ensure progress. To ensure progress, one must first sacrifice security to achieve something that nobody has achieved ever before - one must have the guts to turn a blind eye to the mockery, the criticisms, the disapprovals of one's society. Only by doing this can one achieve what that person really wants for himself or herself. This doesn't mean rebelling against society violently or aggressively - it simply means paying no attention to the society's selfish expectations, instead, the person must focus all their attention, all their energy on the one idea that is most important to them - to that one dream, that one passion, that one purpose.
Unless a person has some sort of pathological condition that makes the person unable to create a healthy bond between the self and the society, everybody has the urge for being accepted by the society, by the community, by the environment - to look for approval from others. So, what is the reason that we look for approval from others, from the people around us? The reason is that we are not wired to be loners. We are social animals. Being in a community makes us stronger. And that's the faculty that actually enabled our ancestors in the jungle to survive against the forces of nature - against predators and all sorts of wild obstacles.
So we built communities, but it's not enough to build communities. The members in that community must have a neurological bond with that community - they must have a craving to belong to that community. You cannot just gather some people and say, this is my community. They must feel that they are part of that community in order for the community to survive against all odds, which at that time, that is, in the kingdom of the wild was rather imperative.
So being in a community means we are psychologically wired to feel that we are part of that community, which brings along an innate craving to be accepted by others in that community - by the majority of that community - to look for approval in everything that we do from others in that community - to look for appreciation for our actions - to look for appraisal from others, for our achievements, for our successes.
In the wild, it worked well. And even today it keeps a people together. That's okay. So it is not completely harmful, but what is harmful is that this very trait has also a negative side and rather devastatingly negative side negative aspect, which is that this craving, this social conditioning often compels a person to go against his or her own passion, his or her own uniqueness to be accepted by the society. So the person ends up doing what the society wants instead of doing what that person really wanted to do in the first place, whether it is about living life, whether it is about achieving a certain goal, or anything else.
In the end, the majority of people end up achieving the goals that a society wishes them to achieve as members of the community. And the same goes for wishes, the same goes for desires, the same goes with behaviors, the same goes for thought thinking - the same goes with emotions and feelings and sentiments and ambitions and so on. So we ended up living secondhand lives. We end up living lives of mindless machines - we end up living lives of slaves of the society instead of living the life that we want.
If a person is happy with living the way that the person is living while following the norms of the society, then that's completely fine. But if the person has to completely change himself or herself to follow the norms of the society, then that's dangerous and downright inhuman because all the progress that we have attained so far as a species took place because of the handful of so-called misfits who had the courage to go against the societal norms, to follow their dreams, to follow their passions, to follow their own original thoughts and ideas and inklings and passions.
In short, rules and norms of a society do not ensure progress. In fact, the rules that the society creates are there to ensure security, not to ensure progress. To ensure progress, one must first sacrifice security to achieve something that nobody has achieved ever before - one must have the guts to turn a blind eye to the mockery, the criticisms, the disapprovals of one's society. Only by doing this can one achieve what that person really wants for himself or herself. This doesn't mean rebelling against society violently or aggressively - it simply means paying no attention to the society's selfish expectations, instead, the person must focus all their attention, all their energy on the one idea that is most important to them - to that one dream, that one passion, that one purpose.
All Roads Lead to People (First Sonnet of 2025) | Abhijit Naskar | Azad Earth Army: When The World Cries Blood
What the world needs is character,
character civilized enough to
prioritize benevolence over borders,
awake enough to tell right from wrong,
and not kowtow to cannibal ancestors,
alive enough to value first the welfare of
the living over the last wishes of the dead,
human enough to identify as human, beyond
the gaslighting spell of prejudiced fairytales.
What burns the bigots most is
an unbending flame of inclusion,
what the world needs is character,
radiant with loving assimilation.
All roads spring from people,
and they lead back to the people.
Whenever we deviate from each other,
we are bound to end back in the jungle.
character civilized enough to
prioritize benevolence over borders,
awake enough to tell right from wrong,
and not kowtow to cannibal ancestors,
alive enough to value first the welfare of
the living over the last wishes of the dead,
human enough to identify as human, beyond
the gaslighting spell of prejudiced fairytales.
What burns the bigots most is
an unbending flame of inclusion,
what the world needs is character,
radiant with loving assimilation.
All roads spring from people,
and they lead back to the people.
Whenever we deviate from each other,
we are bound to end back in the jungle.
