By Saswat Pattanayak

The signs of the times are often determined by the signs of the ruling classes. This houses an intrinsically flawed assumption too. Which is, that the ruling classes then are endorsed by the ruled subjects.

This first leads to a diversion I wish to address. The political correctedness of our times demand that we not call subjects thus, because they are in fact participants who have human hearts, you see. But so long as the research is in the domain of the experimenter and the people actually do not have a say in the conclusions or the ways to get about to that owing to research limitations, what good is it to call one participant when one is actually not determining the course of study.

Of course some one gets benefited from these subtle word usages. The ones who end up calming the potential agitations.

With such subjects, feeble with access but holding no control, the history of the ruling classes emerge depicting the signs of their times. Its important to remember that the signs of their times necessarily relate only to the times led by the ruling class people, not of the times led by their subjects. Hence the history texts not only talk of the times as glanced by the ruling class elites, always few in number, but also the subtexts run contrary to the historical sentiments expressed en masse by the large population of working peoples.

In effect, all histories written in the past, as documented and used as secondary sources, need not only be revisited for revisions, but also replaced with the anti-text which will be truly representative of the majority peoples’ lives, and hence secure place as the only legitimate history narration.

That’s simpler done than said. Life lies ahead and for us folks who agree to do that formidable tasks, its never too late, for I believe there are fellow-believers who will succeed in generations to come too.

And yes, we gotta take a side, even though the side may not always look at our best. That’s the humble irony at many a times. Hence when we address the societal fallacies it includes us also. For example, our collective disgraceful tolerance of our generation of an unforeseen capitalistic domination in the world. To begin with. More shames will follow. More we realize our gory pasts, more we can look forward with promising future: one made by us, not meted out on a platter manufactured in Hong Kong sweatshops marketed by Wal-Mart family of billionaires.

Tags: Saswat, Philosophy, Economics, Capitalism