A nice little conversation that happened very late last night made me think again about the idea of an eternal nomad. The eternal nomad may , at first thought, unassumingly pass off as just another theoretical construct born as the result of one of those flights of imagination associated with any “theoretical philosopher’ ( this term will be the subject of a later post) in the popular imagination. But, I prefer to think otherwise. The eternal nomad, to me, is a clueless wanderer in the rough terrains of morality which is either popular imagination’s own theoretical construct or one of those evolutionary gifts that mankind delights in messing up completely. He exists by deconstructing and endeavouring to destruct the strands of moral absoultism that shrouds our acts and beliefs, handicapped by the inability to drive home his point in a society where moral hypocrisy itself is barely understood but strictly defined. His moral relativism exits from his willingness to acknowledge that human existence precedes its essence, undaunted by the vagaries of having to stick to endless straws in an effort to lead a life whose essence is void and meaninglessness. He makes efforts to move with the shifting ground beneath him, knowing all along that absolutism exists with different rules, axioms and dogmas at different times not bothering to not change with time. He opposes the idea of this vulgar stasis which depraves human imagination by assuming the role of the unchanging ethic at all times. He understands the motivation for its origins, its futility, its need for destructing human freedom and above all, its propagation as a panacea for all civilisational ills. He rests at times, making his struggle simple to observe, has the most permanent claim to civilisationl identity and starts again. He will keep wandering as long as existence is a mystery and perfection is a distant dream.
Tags: Pseudo-intellectual rants, Why are simple things complex?, why gabo was right
January 10, 2009 at 12:08 am |
Moral relativism, of course, is painstaking for its practitioners in that it leaves no room to assume the comforts of paltitudinal reconciliation. You end up owning up what was and still is the same. There is no shift in moral fundamentals that pose as ever-present and all knowing. But, in these times, even ideas and records are in danger. Why, we might even lose the semantics for alternative ideas and values. Relativism is taking a new form of opportunism called well-being, distorting its assumptions about morality guarded fervently and passed on to us by some of our forefathers amidst extraordinarily trying circumstances. Gabo will not mind, write more.
January 10, 2009 at 11:57 am |
Sometimes they r rcognised for their uniqueness amidst absolutism but since they are poorly understood, get labelled as prophets and become the founts of the next wave of absolutism.
But i disagree on one point. It isn’t just relativism that characterises such nomads. They are characterised by the absence of any essence in their morality that excludes the huge mystery behind the species’ existence. Some, turn out to be pacifists (not the vulgar types of the likes of Gandhi) while others trod on.