Umar Nizar
The allegation that was levelled against Socrates was that of corrupting the young. Similarly present day philosophers such as Zizek and Badiou has a huge following among the youth. But there are controversially radical figures like Jordan Peterson who dehumanises victims of violence, who also attract the minds of the young in large numbers.
In Kerala, a state in India with an educated and literate populace, the case Neo-rationalism has been made by C.Ravichandran an English teacher in a Government run college. He is the localised avatar of Richard Dawkins, the author of cult classics such as `The Selfish Gene’. Ravichandran himself is driven by cognitive logic and empirical validity and proof, or so he claims.
Many of his claims have been debunked as hollow by fellow atheists themselves, like Dr.Vishwanathan., a clinical physician and a man of science.
The major irony and lacunae in Ravichandran’s work, is his own status as an English teacher. His sense of revulsion and disgust towards his own livelihood also finds its way towards the Marxian labour theory of value.
Never even in his speeches to his legion of followers does he mention his vocation or his career as a teacher. The immense wealth of knowledge that he claims to have acquired via numerous degrees that are appended to his name, has come from this epistemological foundation rooted in the humanities. Not that the humanities cannot form a solid basis for knowledge seeking endeavours. But Ravichandran in his hubris has repudiated the methods of the humanities themselves. There is a certain self-hatred underlying his invectives that are aimed at bigots, religious folks, profferers of victimhood and especially, Muslims. This is not just an attitude he has casually picked up by way of Dawkins, Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett et al. Ravichandran once infamously linked the Mongol conqueror Chengiz Khan and the atrocities he committed to Islam, though Chengiz Khan himself was not a Muslim.
The fundamentalist quest for empirical validity goes hand in hand with a lack of awareness towards concrete realities. This is what I would like to call the Zombie mentality. In today’s world, data is wealth. Those who possess information, possess wealth literally. Knowledge has become money. Mostly, this is empirical knowledge, not transcendental theory or philosophy. But what the zombie mentality fails to take into consideration is the fact that it is the transcendental theory and philosophy that actualise the empirical real.
The quest for cognitive truth has lead Ravichandran and his followers into blind alleys of self-hatred.
India as a nation has been historically deprived of resources and this resource crunch, can in the new idiom be made good by focussing on data- that too, cognitively potent knowhow which can explain the proliferation of data hungry and resource poor individuals on social media who often spread fake news and calumnies online. While pretending to lead a crusade against such sham knowledge, Ravichandran has become a perpetrator of the same.
The famished zombies and the resource rich vampires flush with their conquests-these are the polar opposites of an increasingly unequal world. The GINI co-efficient would show that the global south has some of the world’s most unequal nations. In India, this dichotomy between the vampire and the zombie has been accentuated by the caste system. The Brahminical elite who copy the upper caste customs have advanced materially through exploitation. There is a post-facto aspiration for caste-status among such social groups which MN Srinivas has called Sanskritization. Sanskritization, Latinization, Arabization and such wannabe quests and aspirations for the classical and elitist have led to future anterior situations where an individual behaves in a particular way so that things appear, `in order to have been’. In order to have been elite, cognitive aggrandisement in the present is necessary. This is the simple logic of the Sudra zombie.
The vampire on the other hand is flush with life and the filched wealth of the oppressed. The `Twilight’ series has highlighted the diabolical nature of the vampire who cannot love for fear of the bodily fluids of the other. This Brahmanical behaviour is condoned by tradition and such encumbrances which entrap the majority of the people. In the Kerala public sphere, Rahul Easwar, a media personality, performer and former philosophy student has cornered the space of the vampire. His lush locks and chiseled looks and suave mannerisms and diction have given Easwar a presence in the national television media in India, that the zombie likes of Ravichandran can never aspire to emulate. The English language television media in India finds its go to person on Kerala-related issues in Rahul Easwar. He has been the cynosure since his counterintuitive interventions on behalf of tradition in various issues including those related to the entry of women into certain religious places of worship, which hitherto were considered the preserve of men. Unlike the zombie, the vampire cannot aspire to a mass following, since loneliness comes with the territory of power. The likes of Rahul Easwar occupy a rarefied zone where they cannot be perturbed by the ordinary reality. Yet they often condescend to `speak the truth’ which no one else would dare to and such `free speech acts’ which appear counter intuitive, against the grain and bold gain them aficionados even from among the zombies. Nay, the zombies form the vast majority of the vampire followers.
While the Sudra Zombie is driven by a sense of impoverishment and resource crush towards a state of self hatred, the Brahmanical vampire is driven by the lust for the meagre resources of the indigent. In this illicit quest for the wealth of the poor, the vampire is driven by infinite self-love. They cannot have any hindrances in this extortionist quest for resources. The zombie and the vampire are mutually reinforcing and have formed a symbiotic relationship. Even though they appear to be at loggerheads, in fact there is an extremely resilient undercurrent that connects the zombie ideology with the vampire, so much so that, one cannot exist without the other.
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Umar Nizarudeen is at Goldsmiths, University of London. He has a PhD in Bhakti Studies from the Centre for English Studies in JNU, New Delhi. His poems and articles have been published in Vayavya, Muse India, Culture Cafe Journal of the British Library, The Hindu, The New Indian Express, The Bombay Review, The Madras Courier, FemAsia, Sabrang India, India Gazette London, Ibex Press Year’s Best Selection etc.
