Everybody likes a good ‘ism’, don’t they? That’s why we have so many of them; Objectivism, Sophism, Hinduism, Atheism, even Christianity and Islam could be technically categorised as Christianism and Muslimism. All of these are schools of thought, belief and ways of life so what do I mean when I call them ‘isms’? The fact is that for most of us now, they imply groups rather than philosophies. I find it hard to think of Hindus as those who follow the Hindu way of life, rather I see them as part of a large group of individuals, bonded by the label; Hindu. Maybe I’m just being a bigot but I think that people like to label themselves with various ‘isms’ just for the sense of belonging that comes with being associated with a particular label.
The fact is that in our increasingly urban world, it is getting progressively easier to be alone and lonely whilst in the midst of a crowd. Additionally, I have a theory (and I’m probably wrong about this) that humans are not exactly social animals as we like to describe ourselves but we are rather tribal beings. We aren’t exactly equipped to deal with social groups on a scale found in most modern cities, we would prefer much smaller groups. It may be a result of our inability to deal with a large number of people or just our fear of differences, something that is inevitable in a large population. In large cities with mixed populations, it is common for those with something in common to settle down close to each other. For instance in Delhi areas like CR Park are full of Bengalis and Jama Masjid and Nizamuddin exist for the Muslim population. Even where there are no external forces to cause this ghettoisation, people end up accomplishing it themselves.
That is what I mean by tribal, that even within seemingly cosmopolitan cities, there exist these tiny boundaries that people erect to separate ‘us’ from ‘them’. This is where the ‘isms’ come into the picture. As a simple suffix, ‘ism’ generally implies a whole philosophy based on a few fundamental tenets, however, now I find, that ‘isms’ are used more in differentiating between people who follow different philosophies, like between Hindu and Muslim.
Our tribal urge, forces us to seek out others who hold similar beliefs and to bond with them. People will join online communities and discussion groups, not just because they want to share ides but also because they want to belong. To belong to groups that think the way they do and who believe in what they believe.
Now, for real society (as opposed to online societies), the world is growing smaller, however an unfortunate by-product of the global shrinkage is an increase in bigotry. Most of us just can’t deal with different cultures and belief systems. India for instance is in the midst of an identity crisis as a result of culture shock. Our country and culture despite the periodic invasions remains resistant to change. This time, however there is no physical invasion, rather we are experiencing what we like to call cultural colonisation. Despite raving about the benefits of multiculturalism, we defiantly oppose any cultural change of our own. Unfortunately the more persistently western cultural influences batter down on our resistance, the deeper we shrink within the shell of our own ‘isms’.
This however is a problem around the world too, nobody it seems is too comfortable dealing with other peoples ‘isms’. What I can see is that every major philosophy is eventually broken down by people into smaller and smaller ‘isms’ till what we are left with are tribes. Islam for instance is divided into the Shia and Sunni factions each hell bent on wiping-out the other.
Maybe it’s genetic, maybe somewhere far back, shrouded in the impenetrable mists of time, there existed a world where the tribe was more important than the whole species (actually there is no maybe, this was probably the case) and our tribal instincts are thus an atavism, reflecting our humble origins. Our behaviour in this regard is too universal to be considered culture specific. All human cultures share at least one common thread, that of discriminating against others different from themselves. At some time, this instinct may have served to preserve our species; it could be directly responsible for our widespread success today.
If we travelled, far back in our history to that the time of our proto-human ancestors, when the first groups were formed, more for self-preservation than out of a shared belief. When our first ‘individual’ was born, our rebel-ancestor who wanted to do something differently, maybe he liked to eat babies. The rest of the tribe would have protested this aberrant behaviour strongly and he’d have probably been clubbed him over the head for behaving weirdly. Then as the rest of the tribe hungrily tore at his limbs, ripping flesh from bone, devouring the freak, they would mentally congratulate themselves (in their own limited capacity of course) for having saved themselves from this monster. If we managed to actually see all this, we would be witness to the birth of an institution, the birth of the Almighty ‘ism’.
Face it we treat all those different from us basically as baby-eaters too don’t we?
The fact is that in our increasingly urban world, it is getting progressively easier to be alone and lonely whilst in the midst of a crowd. Additionally, I have a theory (and I’m probably wrong about this) that humans are not exactly social animals as we like to describe ourselves but we are rather tribal beings. We aren’t exactly equipped to deal with social groups on a scale found in most modern cities, we would prefer much smaller groups. It may be a result of our inability to deal with a large number of people or just our fear of differences, something that is inevitable in a large population. In large cities with mixed populations, it is common for those with something in common to settle down close to each other. For instance in Delhi areas like CR Park are full of Bengalis and Jama Masjid and Nizamuddin exist for the Muslim population. Even where there are no external forces to cause this ghettoisation, people end up accomplishing it themselves.
That is what I mean by tribal, that even within seemingly cosmopolitan cities, there exist these tiny boundaries that people erect to separate ‘us’ from ‘them’. This is where the ‘isms’ come into the picture. As a simple suffix, ‘ism’ generally implies a whole philosophy based on a few fundamental tenets, however, now I find, that ‘isms’ are used more in differentiating between people who follow different philosophies, like between Hindu and Muslim.
Our tribal urge, forces us to seek out others who hold similar beliefs and to bond with them. People will join online communities and discussion groups, not just because they want to share ides but also because they want to belong. To belong to groups that think the way they do and who believe in what they believe.
Now, for real society (as opposed to online societies), the world is growing smaller, however an unfortunate by-product of the global shrinkage is an increase in bigotry. Most of us just can’t deal with different cultures and belief systems. India for instance is in the midst of an identity crisis as a result of culture shock. Our country and culture despite the periodic invasions remains resistant to change. This time, however there is no physical invasion, rather we are experiencing what we like to call cultural colonisation. Despite raving about the benefits of multiculturalism, we defiantly oppose any cultural change of our own. Unfortunately the more persistently western cultural influences batter down on our resistance, the deeper we shrink within the shell of our own ‘isms’.
This however is a problem around the world too, nobody it seems is too comfortable dealing with other peoples ‘isms’. What I can see is that every major philosophy is eventually broken down by people into smaller and smaller ‘isms’ till what we are left with are tribes. Islam for instance is divided into the Shia and Sunni factions each hell bent on wiping-out the other.
Maybe it’s genetic, maybe somewhere far back, shrouded in the impenetrable mists of time, there existed a world where the tribe was more important than the whole species (actually there is no maybe, this was probably the case) and our tribal instincts are thus an atavism, reflecting our humble origins. Our behaviour in this regard is too universal to be considered culture specific. All human cultures share at least one common thread, that of discriminating against others different from themselves. At some time, this instinct may have served to preserve our species; it could be directly responsible for our widespread success today.
If we travelled, far back in our history to that the time of our proto-human ancestors, when the first groups were formed, more for self-preservation than out of a shared belief. When our first ‘individual’ was born, our rebel-ancestor who wanted to do something differently, maybe he liked to eat babies. The rest of the tribe would have protested this aberrant behaviour strongly and he’d have probably been clubbed him over the head for behaving weirdly. Then as the rest of the tribe hungrily tore at his limbs, ripping flesh from bone, devouring the freak, they would mentally congratulate themselves (in their own limited capacity of course) for having saved themselves from this monster. If we managed to actually see all this, we would be witness to the birth of an institution, the birth of the Almighty ‘ism’.
Face it we treat all those different from us basically as baby-eaters too don’t we?
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