‘The
Name of the Rose,’ is a country that I visit every few years. I’ve
quoted the following, which comes at the beginning of the book, many
times:
‘In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God
and the Word was God. This was the beginning with God and the duty of
every faithful monk would be to repeat every day with chanting humility
the one never changing event whose incontrovertible truth can be
asserted. But we see now through a glass darkly, and the truth, before
it is revealed to all, face to face, we see in fragments (alas, how
illegible) in the error of the world, so we must spell out its faithful
signals even when they seem obscure to us and as if amalgamated with a
will wholly bent on evil.’
Umberto Eco, the author, seems to have
been fascinated with good and evil and their various manifestations,
sometimes with one disguised as the other. And so too, the complexities
of ‘truth’ and ‘falsehood.’
A few days ago, I revisited Eco’s
‘Serendipities: Language and Lunacy,’ where he explores, as blurbed,
‘[the ways in which] myths and lunacies can produce historical
developments of no small significance.’
Now it’s not hard to
understand that the best of intentions can produce unimaginable and
horrific tragedies (think of Marxist movements, free markets, democracy
[yes!] and the crusades). Sometimes of course lovely words and avowed
adherences to the sacred are used to justify and cover up all manner of
atrocities (think ‘empire’ and ‘colonialism,’ then and now). Purely
academic pursuits such as those which led to Einstein developing the
theory of relativity being applied to manufacture weapons of mass
destruction. We also have unabashed villainy or at least primarily
military interests leading to technological advancement that are of
considerable benefit to humankind.
If the worth of doctrines,
plans, strategies, philosophies, military logic, economic interests, the
drive to improve life chances of self, the individual in general or a
collective, whether rooted in selfishness or altruism, is measured
years, decades, centuries or even millennia later, it is quite likely
they would be dismissed as erroneous and detrimental even as they would
be equally applauded for being visionary and beneficial.
Eco,
in the first chapter of this book, titled ‘The force of falsity,’
begins by alluding to Thomas’ Aquinas’ observations on the relative
power of the king (ruler), wine, charms of a woman and truth, in terms
of which is more constructive. Then, drawing from a wide range of
historical moments with regard to various subjects, Eco offers that
falsehood has been as compelling as truth in impacting events that have
been crucial to monumental changes.
Today, we live in a world
where it has become hard to distinguish fake from authentic, truth from
falsehood, good from evil. When Noam Chomsky published ‘Manufacturing
Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media’ in 1988 it made news
and yes I am being tongue-in-cheek here. Today, we know that
manufacturing is almost like the bedrock of the overall media industry
in general. It seems at times that everyone is a manufacturer, be it a
news agency, media house, a president, a low-ranking politician and even
those who are avowedly against the distortions, violence and worse
perpetrated by such individuals and institutions.
We have
promises that the promise-makers never intend to fulfil. We have
criticism based on half truths, downright lies and rank ignorance but
nevertheless flagged as constructive and sober, and dressed up as
righteous — for, by and with the people and such. We have alibis galore
for all kinds of crimes against humanity, each and everyone of them
uttered by foul-mouthed, half-witted, imbecilic and ill-willed
politicians, their minions and approvers, but in tones of a penitent and
virtuous devotee of god or all things sacred. We have entire nations
being starved (when they are not being deliberately bombed and poisoned)
in the name of countering non-existent existential threats. We have
terrorists being called liberation fighters and protectors of citizens
and nations vilified as criminals against humanity.
Such
falsehoods abound. They aren’t new. We have had people and indeed
religious orders which even until a few centuries ago fervently believed
that the earth was flat and therefore declared and waged war on those
who thought otherwise. We have seen Jesus of Nazareth, a black Semite,
being transformed into a blond-haired, blue-eyed, Caucasian god. We have
had appropriations which the appropriators have sold back to the
appropriated as new, modern and revolutionary.
Time sets things right. Eco offers:
‘At
a certain historical moment, some people found suspicion that the sun
did not revolve around the earth just as crazy and deplorable as the
suspicion that the universe does not exist. So we would be wise to keep
an open, fresh mind against the moment when the community of scientists
decrees that the idea of the universe has been an illusion just like the
flat earth and the Rosicrucians. After all, the cultivated person’s
first duty is to always be prepared to rewrite the encyclopaedia.’
That
kind of preparation requires a certain mind-set, a particular kind of
discipline. I can think of no better guideline than the Buddha’s Charter
of Free Inquiry articulated by Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha, or the
‘Kalama Sutra’ the essence of which is captured in the following
invitation:
'Come, Kālāmas, do not go by oral tradition, by
lineage of teaching, by hearsay, by a collection of scriptures, by
logical reasoning, by inferential reasoning, by reasoned cogitation, by
the acceptance of a view after pondering it, by the seeming
competence of a speaker, or because you think: ‘The ascetic is our
guru.’ But when you know for yourselves: ‘These things are wholesome;
these things are blameless; these things are praised by the wise; these
things, if accepted and undertaken, lead to welfare and happiness,’ then
you should live in accordance with them.'
[This article was published in the Daily News under the weekly column title 'The Recurrent Thursday']
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