"Performance as ‘Punctuation’: Editing Shakespeare in the Eighteenth Century"

by Veronica Gould

A civil war ends when an authoritarian leader takes over the city. A woman tries to bury the body of her brother, but is forbidden by the leader. She speaks out against him, and becomes a rebel against the regime in the process. The rebel is killed by the leader, and yet this causes the leader’s regime to collapse.

This is the story of Antigone, the ancient Greek play by Sophocles, which details the conflict between the authoritarian leader, Kreon, and the woman who speaks out against him, Antigone. The play tells the story not only of the complex political conflict between these two characters, but also shows the psychological motivations that drive them. In this way, it offers a perfect case study for the ideas that Sigmund Freud presents in Civilization and its Discontents. Throughout the book, Freud discusses the many connections between the psychology of individuals and the psychology of civilizations. While the character of Oedipus looms so large in the popular idea of both Sophocles and Freud, Oedipus is not an actual character in the play and will not be featured in this essay. Instead Freud’s ideas will provide a framework to understanding the psychology that surrounds the political conflict between Antigone and Kreon. At the same time, Antigone will act as a vehicle to better understand the application of Freud’s theories.

Both Civilization and its Discontents and Antigone are concerned with the connection between politics and people. Civilization and its Discontents is very concerned with the ways that the psychology of individuals has a direct connection to civilization. Freud says that this comparison “is justified by the consideration that both the process of human civilization and the development of the individual are also vital processes—which is to say that they must share in the most general characteristics of life” (Freud 140). Both the actions of an individual and the development of a civilization are dependent on psychology; civilizations are made up of individuals, after all. As Paul Roazen points out in the opening line of Freud: Political and Social Thought, “all political philosophies in the past have been based on theories of human nature” (Roazen 3). Antigone is also concerned with politics and human nature: the conflict between Antigone and Kreon is both interpersonal and political in nature. Right from the beginning, the political conflict is entwined with the characters of the play, as the shame and disorder that Oedipus brought on Antigone’s family is reflected in the failure of his reign and the chaos that follows in Thebes. Not only does the state fall into civil war, but so do Antigone’s brothers, Eteokles and Polyneices. This parallel between the individual and the state is further reflected in the character of Kreon.

Kreon, as ruler of Thebes, represents the interest of the state and of civilization. Because the old regime of Thebes, Oedipus’ former realm, has fallen, and with it the restraining influence of civilization, the population has fallen into a civil war and unleashed “the hostility of each against all and of all against each” (Freud 111). Freud argues that, without civilization, “man’s natural aggressive instinct” is allowed free reign (111); civilization, on the other hand, is a restraining influence against this and “has to use its utmost efforts in order to set limits to man’s aggressive instincts” (96). Kreon acts as this restraining influence in his efforts to tame the aggression that has been caused by the civil war in Thebes. While Freud talks about this restraining effect of civilization as the work of civilization in abstract terms, Kreon demonstrates how this function can be performed by individuals, namely political leaders. He expresses a similar viewpoint on civilization as Freud, saying, “Nothing is worse than lack of leadership./ It destroys nations, drives men from their homes, / smashes armies, makes allies defect. / But when men are ruled right / their obedience to authority saves their lives” (Sophocles, lines 816–20). Kreon, as ruler and enforcer of the laws of his civilization, represents the ways civilization can bring order against the natural aggression of humanity. Related to this need to bring order, he also represents another of Freud’s ideas.

Kreon highlights the ways in which the super-ego is related to the political leader. Freud suggests that the super-ego is the “means [that] civilization employ[s] in order to inhibit the aggressiveness which opposes it,” and that it is the origin of conscience (Freud 114). By this Freud means that the super-ego is an internalized in the individual and “obtains mastery over the individual’s dangerous desire for aggression by weakening and disarming it and by setting up an agency within him to watch over it, like a garrison in a conquered city” (114). While Kreon’s own super-ego will be discussed later in this essay, there is another way in which Kreon is connected to the super-ego. Freud says that the super-ego can present itself not just in individuals, but in civilization as “the super-ego of an epoch of civilization has an origin similar to that of an individual. It is based on the impression left behind by the personalities of great leaders—men of overwhelming force of mind, or men in whom one of the human impulsions has found its strongest and purest, and therefore often its most one-sided expression” (Freud 143). Kreon, as a ruler gaining control of a city still in political turmoil from the aftermath of a civil war, is an example of this phenomenon in his strict style of rulership and his attempt to display authority through the punishing of Antigone. He is often criticized for his one-sided, one-track mind-set, as for example by the messenger who says that Kreon “has shown there is no greater evil / than men’s failure to consult and to consider” (Sophocles 1438–39). In this way, Kreon represents not just the interests of the state, but also the aggressive character of its super-ego.

While Kreon can be seen to represent the interests of civilization, Antigone can be seen to represent the ways in which individual desires run counter to civilization. Kreon demonstrates one aspect of the connection between politics, individuals, and civilization in his role as political leader. However, individuals are always driven by their own interests and own motivations, and so “the two urges, the one towards personal happiness and the other towards union with other human beings must struggle with each other in every individual; and so, also, the two processes of individual and of cultural development must stand in hostile opposition to each other and mutually dispute ground” (Freud 142). To understand why this happens, Antigone’s personal motivations and actions can serve as an example.

One of Antigone’s motivations is to alleviate the shame caused by her super-ego. The inciting incident of the play comes from Antigone’s desire to bury her brother Polyneices despite the fact that  “Kreon has proclaimed that his body will stay unburied” (Sophocles 31). An underlying motivation for this is revealed when Antigone begins relaying this information to her sister, Ismene, by saying, “Today Zeus is completing in us the ceremony / of pain and dishonour and disaster and shame / that began with Oedipus” (6–8). Antigone feels a profound sense of shame and guilt over the tarnished legacy of her family. This shame comes up throughout the play: in one instance Antigone says, “My father’s griefs, the family / doomed whole in its glory disastrous deceptions, / the bed incest lay in, mother and father, / condemned men – these are my origins” (1010–13). Burying her brother and also perhaps herself (this aspect will be addressed later) comes from one of the fundamental human drives, in which an individual “aims on the one hand, at an absence of pain and unpleasure, and, on the other, at the experiencing of strong feelings of pleasure” (Freud 42). Thus, Antigone is trying to avoid the pain of her shame.

Antigone’s shame comes from her super-ego.  Freud says of shame that it is part of the development of the conscience which can eventually develop into the super-ego: “Thus we know of two origins of sense of guilt: one arising from fear of an authority, and the other, later on, arising from fear of the super-ego” (119). This stage is characterized by a fear of authority and that, “so long as they are sure that the authority will not know anything about it or cannot blame them for it, they are afraid only of being found out” (116). At first glance it does not seem as though Antigone has reached this stage of development. Her sister Ismene is very afraid of authority, reacting to Antigone’s plan to bury Polyneices by exclaiming, “Do you dare, despite Kreon?”, while Antigone—consistently unafraid of Kreon’s authority—says, “He cannot keep me from my own” (Sophocles 54, 55). However, it seems that Antigone simply places more value in a different authority. She says to Kreon “The laws [the gods] have made for men are well marked out. / I didn’t suppose your decree had strength enough, / or you, who are human, / to violate the lawful traditions” (554–57). What Antigone is actually displaying is a religiously motivated super-ego, which Freud characterizes by observing, “Fate is regarded as a substitute for the parental agency. If a man is unfortunate it means that he is no longer loved by this highest power; and threatened by such a loss of love, he once more bows to the parental representative in his super-ego…. This becomes especially clear where Fate is looked upon in the strictly religious sense of being nothing else than an expression of the Divine Will” (Freud 118–19). The source of Antigone’s shame is her super-ego that sees the actions of Oedipus as tarnishing her and her family, as well as commanding her to bury her brother in accordance with tradition. However, this isn’t all that motivates Antigone.

It is not just for the desire to avoid shame that Antigone wants to bury Polyneices, but also because of her loyalty to her family. When Freud mentions the ways in which a woman might come into conflict with civilization he ties it into their role in the family, saying “women soon come into opposition to civilization and display their retarding and restraining influence– those very women who, in the beginning laid the foundations of civilization by the claims of their love. Women represent the interest of the family and of sexual life” (84). This is played out in Antigone, where it is “for an act of loyalty and devotion” for her family that Antigone comes into conflict with the state and with Kreon (Sophocles 1098). While it may be tempting to read this loyalty to Polyneices as a result of Eros, which Freud credits as the reason for “the founding of families,” it is perhaps characterized more accurately in the play as the “‘aim-inhibited love’ or ‘affection’” between a brother and sister (Freud 77, 82). Regardless, Antigone demonstrates the ways in which ties to the family can be stronger than those to civilization or the political goals of a city. As Freud puts it, there is a “conflict between the family and the larger community to which the individual belongs. We have already perceived that one of the main endeavours of civilization is to bring people together into large unities. But the family will not give the individual up” (Freud 83). In this way, Antigone represents not only the conflict between individual and civilization, but also family and civilization.

However much Antigone and Kreon seem to play out this tension between individual and civilization, it is important to recognize that Kreon is also an individual with his own psychological motivations. Kreon represents the needs of Thebes for safety and authority in order to control the chaos and aggression of the civil war. However, perhaps there is a way in which Kreon’s desire to fill that role also represents his desire for that same safety and authority.  In Freud: Political and Social Thought, Roazen says:

Freud’s description of social restrictions, of the coercions of life, is so intensely real because he sees the extent to which outer authority is linked to our inner needs. Society is coercive precisely because its rulers are internalized, are taken into the self; and at the same time society is useful in helping to keep some sort of balance between various forces. Just as a child needs parental restrictions to handle his aggression, just as he needs to be stopped before the full horror of his murderous impulses become evident to him, so social restraints assist man in handling his aggression, both by providing vicarious forms of release and by reinforcing his inner controls over drives of release, and by reinforcing his inner controls over drives which are alien to his inner security. (Roazen 158)

Just as Antigone, or indeed any individual, is motivated by their personal desires, so too is Kreon. Specifically, he is motivated by his own wish for the safety of authority, or—as he says at one point—“the state is safety. / When she is steady, then we can steer. / Then we can love” (Sophocles 227–29). However, with individual desire also comes aggression.

While civilization often acts against as a controlling force against aggression, as a political leader Kreon uses his authority in order to also perpetuate aggression: after all, one of the tools that a political authority uses to control individuals is the threat of aggression or aggression itself. As Freud points out, civilization “hopes to prevent the crudest excess of brutal violence by itself assuming the right to use violence against criminals” (Freud 96). It is exactly this logic that Kreon is using when he decides he will commit the highest order of aggression against Antigone: killing her. When giving the order to summon Antigone, Kreon says “Laws were made. She broke them” (Sophocles 584). Kreon has a desire for the authority of the state to provide absolute protection, and so decides to use violence against Antigone in order to protect that interest. While this is the way that civilization operates, its operations must be carried out by individuals, and so it is also an expression of Kreon’s individual aggression directed outwards towards Antigone.

Kreon’s aggression which was once directed outwards towards Antigone is, by the end of the play, directed inward as the death instinct. In addition to the struggle between the individual and society, Freud speaks of another force within civilization, that of “the struggle between Eros and Death, between the instinct of life and the instinct of destruction” (Freud 111). Freud believes aggression to “constitutes the greatest impediment to civilization” and that this “aggressive instinct is the derivative and the main representative of the death instinct” (110, 111). Analyzing Kreon’s psychology reveals the ways in which the death instinct leads to the downfall of him and his rule. Kreon feels the guilt of having indirectly caused the death of his son and wife; this demonstrates that while he represents the super-ego for the state of Thebes, he also has a strong super-ego and conscience himself, as he “expresses…a need for punishment” by saying “Why don’t you hack me down?” (Freud 114, Sophocles 1500). This is a manifestation of the death instinct, which before was directed outwards towards Antigone, and is now turned on himself. Kreon’s unwillingness to listen to Antigone, and his decision to kill her, lead to the events which caused him to turn that aggression back on himself and accept defeat. In this way, Kreon’s downfall comes from a nihilistic orientation of the death instinct.

Just as it is important to not forget that Kreon is an individual, the political impact of Antigone’s actions cannot be ignored. While Antigone does hold the values she fights for personally, her attempt to uphold traditional values as opposed to valuing the power and authority of Thebes can be seen as political. Kreon believes in the authority of the state, but Antigone believes in the authority of the gods, saying to him, “The laws [the gods] have made for men are well marked out. / I didn’t suppose your decree had strength enough, / or you, who are human, / to violate the lawful traditions” (Sophocles 554–57). “Antigone’s ‘law’ is different, of course: hers is a world wherein philia [family] is the main concern” (Tralau 386). These are values that Antigone holds, but she does not use the term ‘value.’ Instead, “she insistently labels the prohibition unjust: nomos is, like dikë, ambiguous: it is used of ‘laws’ in the strictly legal sense as well as of what is objectively `right´—in a sense, natural law—but also of `custom´” (Tralau 386). Antigone’s actions are also very politically disruptive. As daughter of Oedipus, the previous ruler, Antigone has some standing politically as part of the ruling family of Thebes. Perhaps Kreon recognizes this particular problem: when learning of Antigone’s defiance he says, “I caught her in open rebellion, / her alone out of all the nation” (Sophocles 796–97). Gender also plays a role in the politics of the situation, as Kreon states, “She is a man, she’s the king– / if she gets away with this,” revealing that he thinks she’s stepped too far outside what is expected of a woman and into the bounds of politics and even rulership (590–91). Antigone is also apparently supported in her defiance of Kreon and in her values by the people, as Haimon tells Kreon that “The whole nation denies” that Antigone did wrong (882). So, just like Kreon, Antigone has personal motivations, and is in some sense defying Kreon for them, but she is also to be taken seriously as someone engaged in the politics of Thebes. Just like Kreon, her adherence to her values combined with the death instinct has serious consequences for Antigone.

Just as Kreon is ruled by the death instinct, so too is Antigone. Antigone’s commitment to her family, to her values, and her shame about her family causes her to be not just aggressive towards Kreon but towards herself, in the most profound way possible—through suicide. While Kreon only wishes for death at the end of the play, Antigone wishes for death again and again from the very start. She says to Ismene, “You chose to live. I chose to die” (683, 565–68). Just like Kreon, this seems most related to the super-ego, in her case the shame of her family. She speaks of the shame that Oedipus has brought her, saying, “So condemned, I will find a new place, / not a home, a spinster’s residence with them,” essentially meaning that she will die for the sake of the shame of her family (1015–16). This death instinct is not just about shame, however, but also about control. Freud says of the death instinct that “the instinct of destruction, moderated and tamed, and, as it were, inhibited in its aim, must, when it is directed towards objects, provide the ego with the satisfaction of its vital needs and with control over nature” (Freud 110). For Antigone, her own death is a way to gain control over the burial of Polyneices, and gives her the strength to defy Kreon. She says to him “I was thoroughly aware I would die / before you proclaimed it…. Since I will die, and early, I call this profit” (Sophocles 565-68). While it is Kreon who gives the order to leave her to die in the cave, it is Antigone who hangs herself in that cave. This shows how it is not really Kreon who is in control of Antigone’s death, but Antigone herself.

In this way, Antigone has the same downfall as Kreon, coming from good intentions but succumbing to the destruction of the death instinct.  Both Antigone and Kreon have goals, and both refuse to back down from them. Regardless of who is more justified in their goals, it is this failure to reach a compromise, to control their aggression towards one another, that allows the death instinct to manifest itself. This play shows very clearly the toxic effects of the death instinct, on individuals, on their political situation, and on their civilization. It demonstrates why Freud considers the death instinct to be the force that is most dangerous to civilization and why he writes in the last chapter of Civilization and its Discontents, “The fateful question for the human species seems to me to be whether and to what extent their cultural development will succeed in mastering the disturbance of their communal life by the human instinct of aggression and self-destruction” (Freud 149).

Ultimately, Antigone and Kreon have their own agendas, both for themselves and for Thebes. They both believe in some way that they are going to bring about the best civilization. They both act as forces for civilization that Freud talks about: Kreon is both the restraining influence of civilization and an individual acting out aggression; Antigone is both an individual and a member of a family, but also someone holding up the traditional values of family and religion. Neither can escape their own aggression or death instinct, and it is that which causes their conflict to reach the place where Antigone dies and Kreon’s rule fails. Analyzing the psychology of both these characters provides an insight into the way that the psychology individuals has a profound impact on this outcome, and on politics and civilization. In this way, Antigone perfectly encapsulates the struggles of civilization that Freud sees in Civilization & its Discontents, both that civilization has a use, that we want it to exist for many reasons, but that inherently there is a struggle between the individual and civilization. However, even more than civilization being threatened and challenged by the individual, it is threatened by the death instinct. Whether the death instinct comes from an individual who challenges society or one who tries to uphold society, the aggression and self-destruction that comes from the death instinct is what can ultimately cause the collapse of not just Thebes, but any civilization.

Works Cited

Braun, Richard Emil, translator. Antigone. Oxford University Press, USA, 1989.

Freud, Sigmund. Civilization and Its Discontents. Edited by James Strachey, translated by James Strachey, W.W. Norton, 2010.

Roazen, Paul. Freud: Political and Social Thought. Taylor & Francis Group, 2018.

Tralau, Johan. “Tragedy as Political Theory: The Self-Destruction of Antigone’s Laws.” History of Political Thought, vol. 26, no. 3, 2005, pp. 377-396. JSTOR, https://www.jstor.org/stable/26221709/.

by Silas Waldhaus

To Jean-Jacques Rousseau, reason is a burden. To him, it planted in humanity a coven of abstract fears and vices and was responsible for leading humankind to “purchase imaginary
repose at the price of real happiness.”[1] It introduced worries exclusive to society that marked the transformation from a humanity “in the state of nature” to the constantly suffering species of society. By deconstructing his theoretical development of reason in A Discourse on Inequality, we learn that many social and technological aspects of modern society appear to exist as its direct consequences. In examining our popular film narratives alongside articles by film scholars Barry K. Grant and Robin Wood, we learn that the stories we tell are inherently psychological, and ultimately reflect our faculty of reason. The nature of Rousseau’s “faculty of reason” fuels the conflict in our films, and the relationship between them and their audiences ultimately reveals our innate resentment towards reason as a whole.

We begin with Rousseau’s theoretical development of reason. He argues that before humanity relied on reason to survive, their only thoughts were those of moment-to-moment
satisfaction. “All knowledge that requires reflection… that is only acquired by the association of ideas and perfected only over time, seems altogether beyond the reach of a savage man.”[2] “[H]e can neither have foresight nor curiosity.”[3] These are the markers of Rousseau’s depicted reason. Reflection, association of ideas, foresight, and curiosity. Before the advent of language and abstract thought, early cognitive existence consisted solely of “perceiving and feeling…”[4] In his description of a pre-historic “natural state,” early humans wandered through their environment, unable to classify or compare aspects of the world around them. If snow were to fall, they would not recognise it as a product of winter; their minds would only react to their sensation of the cold. They could neither organise nor sustain information, and were content with their short-term awareness. As Rousseau states, “[s]avage man, when he has eaten, is at peace with the whole of nature and the friend of all his fellow men.”[5] Humanity had no reason to worry. In fact, they weren’t equipped to understand the very concept.

Rousseau then argues that two essential parts of the human psyche made the birth of reason inevitable. Firstly, through their “faculty of self-improvement,” humans were able to
develop their bodies and minds to remedy the harsh difficulties of natural life.[6] Second, Rousseau suggests that through their blessing of “freewill,” humans were able to deviate from the simplistic laws of nature, indulging themselves in excess even if it meant the detriment of their wellbeing.[7] With self-improvement, humanity became capable of recognising aspects of the world around them, and with free will, they separated themselves from their cyclical ecosystems, forming societies and working together to achieve abundance.[8] With both of these concepts married, civilisations formed, and language was born. Language, Rousseau argues, is inherently abstract. “All general ideas are purely intellectual; if the imagination intervenes to the least degree, the idea immediately becomes particular.”[9] Language is only possible through its depiction of these “general ideas.” The purely general concept—or word—for a tree does not exist. It is an amalgamation of commonly recognised traits observable in many “trees.” If you try to define it by its texture or size, it becomes specific. A word can only exist in the metaphysical world, in the realm of reason. Language is a system of abstract thought.

As language taught humanity the abstract, “reasonable” world, society buried the age of momentary feeling, and with more sedentary, civilised lives, social responsibility emerged. Social relations and laws are built on hypothetical contracts. Payment, property, and labour are all entirely conditional and rely on one’s understanding of their abstract consequences. One is forced to weigh the ramifications of pursuing a specific action over time. To illustrate, in order to participate in society, one must adhere to its laws. The pressure from these laws comes only from the reason-based deduction that if someone were to break one, they would be punished for it. Management of an organised group of people, the buying of services, and even parenting require an understanding of the concept as an abstraction, the requirements as abstractions, and their abstract consequences. Before, humanity’s only form of communication was the “cry of nature… uttered by a sort of instinct… to beg for help in great danger…”[10] Now, social dynamics—and all civilised communication—hinge on reason. That being said, it follows that anything considered “uncivilised” communication—verbal harassment, unjust threats, and anything that does more harm than good—is whatever is deemed unjustifiable or “unreasonable” to a society’s dominant perspective.

With these civilisations built on reasonable classification and social contracts came the development of social rank and hierarchy. If, in society, one’s worth is decided by what service they provide, they gain value in that society by performing their service better than others can. Rousseau argues that, at the onset of civilization’s development, “each family became a little society… [A]t this stage also the first differences were established in the ways of life of the two sexes which had hitherto been identical.”[11] He argues that a woman’s role became “sedentary,” while “men went out to seek their common subsistence.”[12] These two quotes introduce a description of primitive social positions, where regardless of an established economy or labour market, one’s gender exists as their primary occupation. “Each [man] began to look at the others and to want to be looked at himself; and public esteem came to be prized,” writes Rousseau.[13] If you are a man in civilisation, then you seek to be seen as the best man. If you are a woman, you wish to be seen as the best woman, and so the “mini-society” each family represents must also become an instrument of their self-image. Houses are set in order so that they best exemplify their society’s values. Alongside the pride that rose from cultivating a social image, Rousseau states that humanity as a species mutated a whole new system of man-made emotions. From these societies “arose on the one side, vanity and scorn, on the other, shame and envy, and the fermentation produced by these new leaves finally produced compounds fatal to happiness and innocence.”[14]

If we give these compounds hundreds of years to ferment and focus our attention on the twenty-first century, we can observe Rousseau’s man-made emotions in their most agitated
states. This notion is perhaps best represented by the symptoms of social anxiety. If reason led man to feelings of shame and envy, social anxiety can be understood as a hyper-developed sensitivity to each of these feelings. The incessant comparison of oneself to someone else, often at the former’s expense, alongside the irrational fear of being observed, suggests an extreme reliance on reason and comparison that overpowers even logic. On the other side, vanity is systemically injected into a population through practises like social media, where social capital is earned through the marketing of one’s personal image. Of course, the two sides of the “leavens” Rousseau describes exist as a codependent pair. The higher a societal group’s state of self-consciousness, the more likely they are to succumb to vanity, pride, and the appearance of confidence to cope with their own insecurities. Likewise, the higher a society’s promotion of vanity and pride, the more prone its recipients are to becoming self-conscious. As a result, images of bodies and faces are digitally pruned in post to better adhere to western beauty standards, and successes are presented disproportionately to their actual occurrences. “[S]ince these qualities were the only ones that could attract consideration,” writes Rousseau, “it soon became necessary to either have them or feign them.”[15]

In turn, these man-made emotions of reasonable societies then encourage productivity. The value of any punishment relies on abstract thought. The more any punishment can be
reasoned, the stronger it becomes. Unemployment, for example, is only threatening in a society where employment becomes one’s sole means of survival. Hunter-gathering has been long replaced by salesmanship, repetitive labour, and desk work. Where one’s instinct tells them to seek food by any means necessary, under modern civilisation, one can only seek food through a single corridor: labour. Reason coerces us into believing so. The threat of being fired creates a stress only conceptualised through reason, which companies often rely on to provoke performance in their employees—alongside the social consequences that the word “fired” incurs. Furthermore, if it is possible to justify the sacrifice of a working class’s labour and living conditions for profit, then productivity becomes a “reasonable” alternative to freedom.

These abstract sources of stress and their justifications of productivity above all else bring us to artificial intelligence and computer minds. Rousseau often criticises the comforts of civilisation, stating that industry and social organisation lead “the people to purchase imaginary repose at the price of real happiness.”[16] But when re-considering his exploration of free will and self-improvement, the existence of computing technology raises a crucial notion that stands to affirm Rousseau’s ideas. That is, the most useful mind ever taken advantage of by humankind, the digital mind, is one missing both the faculties of self-improvement and free will. The efficiencies of these computer minds are only efficient because they lack the above qualities that make our minds so distinctly human and unproductive. A hypothetical computer capable of separating itself from its assigned task through free will or one that could improve its understanding of its imprisonment through self-improvement is something humanity explicitly fears—as demonstrated by an endless public discourse concerning artificial intelligence and countless thrilling sci-fi stories about computers gone rogue. This is immensely clear in HAL9000’s unreadable crimson retina in 2001: A Space Odyssey (Kubrick 1968) and, in a more popular example, the parental disapproval exemplified by the antagonistic digital being, Ultron, in Avengers: Age of Ultron (Whedon, 2015). Our largely collective fear and rejection of artificial
intelligence adopting free will then serves as our first implicit acknowledgement that we are infected with some kind of Rousseauian shame. By acknowledging the unproductive dangers of self-awareness, we subconsciously understand the inefficiencies of our own psyches. Furthermore, if free will and self-improvement have allowed the ingenuity and strength of some to conquer others, our fear of artificial intelligence must also ache from the plausibility of creating a far more powerful version of ourselves.

However, a form of self-improvement has actually been coded into specific computer minds, where simple tasks or systems can be run more efficiently with every command. This is
machine learning. Even though this faculty hardly matches its human counterpart, its existence suggests that digital minds could eventually mirror those of their human creators. Rousseau argues that the progression of language and reason must have evolved “with great difficulty.”[17] This suggests that the development of evolved digital minds could also take an incredibly long time. However, it is very possible that, like with Rousseau’s early humans, the necessity for free will in our societies’ computer minds will eventually become clear, and we will find ourselves face to face with an apparently different yet eerily familiar digital human.

Now that we have gathered enough from Rousseau’s outline for human reason and explored how it has embedded itself into our societies, psyches, and technology, we turn to the
narrative arts. Our focus will be on film narratives since their contents are often designed for mass-cultural consumption and currently hold a larger mainstream appeal than novels, theatre productions, and often television shows. While these narratives are often understood by consumers as immersive escapes from our “real world,” they are regularly classified by writers and scholars as rehearsals of our innate human fears and fantasies, our “dreams or nightmares,” with each story umbilically attached to our ideological, reason-based values.[18] To begin a more Rousseau-ian analysis of film, we must examine Film Genre: From Iconography to Ideology, where Barry Keith Grant explores the link between ancient myths and the popular genre films of his time.

Grant begins by exploring the ideology behind cultural myths. “[T]he term myth refers to a society’s shared stories, usually involving gods and mythic heroes, that explain the nature of the universe and the relation of the individual to it.”[19] Of course, while these heroes battled their gods, the universe, or even each other, their stories often carried moral value. The individuals were either stand-in representatives for ideal behaviour or fabled examples of what actions to avoid, as is shown through Icarus and his passionate flight towards the sun. Grant then writes that, “[i]n mass-mediated society, we huddle around movie screens instead of campfires for our mythic tales.”[20] Just as myths explore virtue and consequence in narrative, “[t]he heroes of genre stories embody values a culture holds virtuous; villains embody evil in specific ways.”[21]

Today, however, our cultures are not as theologically centred as those in place during the times of myth. Instead of facing punishment from a god or natural element, a film’s protagonist will face their consequences through the agents of civilisation—social threats, debts, and expulsion from society’s framework. The crime-drama Uncut Gems (Safdie, Safdie 2019) follows a gambling addict forever accumulating high-risk debts until he finally wages his survival on an unfavourable NBA match. Where Icarus attempts to free himself from the labyrinth of King Minos, Howard Ratner of Uncut Gems seeks freedom from his responsibilities as a father and husband, as well as the social connotations brought on by his lowly-appraised social image. Instead of flying too close to the sun in thrill, he wagers everything on the game in a gambling fever, well after becoming capable of paying off his debts. The consequence he balances is death, as even after winning the bet, he is immediately killed by the loan sharks who make his debts possible. His karmic death is only deemed justifiable—reasonable—since it was earned through means deemed irrational by dominant society—ignoring his social responsibilities while indulging his gambling addiction. Uncut Gems shows that, as society has developed, so have our cultural narratives. While stories still aim to reinforce values productive to society, in the twenty-first century, these values are entirely oriented towards our social relations or our productivity as individuals in social settings—the reason-built values of civilisation foreshadowed above.

To err in films is to do what is held as culturally incorrect—what is “unreasonable” in the public eye—our films function on the dramatic conflict that our reason-oriented minds are primed to understand. We fear a protagonist losing their family, their job, or often their loved ones. Simply put, the threats we feel while watching films are threats only realisable within a societal framework. Threats that arise from interpersonal disputes or organised vengeance showcased in many action films; the threat of losing—or never finding—love, as is the case in our rom-coms or family dramas; and even the political confrontations of real world-societies, which is often explicitly the case in thrillers or war films. If the threats presented in a film threaten a character’s life, then that threat is only incurred through the bonds and agreements made by that character within their civilised frameworks. Though there are some exceptions.

Sometimes, a film will represent a threat as separated from civilization as possible. In returning to Grant, we see he writes that genre films exist as “ritualised endorsements of the dominant ideology.”[22] If these threats are re-examined through this framework, it becomes evident that, though sometimes a film may appear to portray its primary threat as something separate from society—the monstrous attacks of Godzilla in Godzilla (Honda 1954) or the natural, wild brutality of the bears and wolves in Revenant (Iñárritu 2016)—these threats actually still exist as “endorsements” of civilisations and the faculty of reason fueling them. These threats may appear to be wild, natural, and often prehistoric, but stripped of their fangs and specifics, they become one—the absence of civilisation itself. There is no reason to a wolf; there is no trace of civilisation in a prehistoric kaiju. They serve to show the audience how dangerous the pre-civilised world is while nudging them to appreciate the protection offered by their societies, civilisations, and technology—the protection offered by their reason. To defeat these threats is to affirm the strength of civilisation. Rousseau writes that “the progress of the mind is exactly proportionate to the needs which… people have received from nature…”[23] Reason is humanity’s defence against the wilderness. These films are here as a defence for this defence.

In fantasies like The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (Jackson 2003), the evil threat of orcs and traitorous wizards against a united force of elves, dwarves, and humans may appear entirely foreign, until one remembers the Allied Forces of the Second World War uniting to face the cruelty of the Nazis. One must not forget that Tolkien himself participated in this very conflict. Rousseau actually provides a description fit for the antagonistic Axis leaders of the Second World War, promoting further narrative implications. In considering the relationship between someone subjugated and someone who subjugates, he writes, “in becoming [others’] master… [h]e must therefore seek constantly to interest others in his lot and make them see an advantage, either real or apparent, for themselves in working for his benefit; all of which makes him devious and artful with some, imperious and hard towards others, and compels him to treat badly the people he needs if he cannot make them fear him…”[24] To Rousseau, the master is also “the slave” to the people they control, barred from appearing as anything less than their social image. “[F]rom this distinction arose insolent ostentation, deceitful cunning and all the vices that follow in their train,” which in turn became the very symptoms of countless antagonists in countless genre films.[25] Reason created our civilisations, and these qualities, while challenging to civilised life, are its dearest descendants.

Sometimes, our films present a threat to human life but do not explicitly prescribe it a social consequence or wild attribute. Such is often the case in horror, but as Robin Wood writes in his article, An Introduction to the American Horror, these films are more often than not the clearest examples of our ideological beliefs. He begins by presenting the Freudian psychoanalytic theories of basic and surplus repression. He summarises that basic repression is “universal, necessary, and inescapable. It is what makes possible our development from an uncoordinated animal capable of little beyond screaming and convulsions into a human being.”[26] It is the repression of our more infantile compulsions as we learn to grow up. Wood’s summary of the topic practically mirrors Rousseau’s description of reason explored above, where abstract knowledge separated the “savage man,” lost in instant gratification and his inability to understand responsibility, from the “civilised man,” entirely burdened by reason’s social consequences.[27] “Surplus repression,” writes Wood, “is specific to a particular culture and is the process whereby people are conditioned from earliest infancy to take on predetermined roles within that culture.”[28] Conditioning here refers to the actions of a ruling ideology, instilling their values into those of the common population, as “repression is fully internalised oppression.”[29] Where before it was assumed that the values portrayed in genre films were a reflection of society, here society is a reflection of the films since churches, the educational system, and other state instruments push the social values they deem desirable to the recipient population.[30] Through repression, we internalise this force so that we push down our “undesirable” social traits and thoughts into the subconscious.

However, after examining Rousseau, both surplus and basic repression can be united under one familiar title. If basic repression can be aligned with the development of reason and surplus repression is abstract conditioning subservient to a society, then both terms combined define the faculty of reason. Reason is what transformed us from animals to social beings, and its employment within civilisation in turn forces the individual to push down their undesirable and more instinctive traits so they can better serve their society. Here, the agents the state uses to “condition” are instruments of reason and represent complex systems of thought—“theology” in the church, “knowledge” in the education system, and “justice” in the judicial and policing systems.

Wood argues that, in the American horror film, the antagonistic source of conflict and fear—here called the monster—represents a “return of the repressed.”[31] As Wood puts it, whatever “bourgeois ideology cannot recognise or accept, but must deal with” becomes “the Other.”[32] It represents whatever the ruling class has deemed harmful for their society when manifested into a behaviour, action, or group of people. The monster and the Other are one in the same. “Other cultures… [e]thnic groups… [a]lternative ideologies” and “[deviations] from ideological sexual norms…” are only some of the examples Wood provides, and the monster is a symbol for their presence in society.[33] Since, as we explored before, whatever is deemed “uncivilised” is really whatever is deemed “unreasonable,” the Other then exists as a side-effect of reason, something “under-civilised.” By Wood’s logic, the reason audiences find a film like The Witch (Eggers 2015) terrifying is not because of the figure of the satanic witch herself but rather the Other which she represents—the population’s more heretical inner urges finally given
the space to command. A film like The Shining (Kubrick 1980) runs off of the fear that one’s faculty of repression—their faculty of reason—will one day give way to their more underlying aggressive urges, as is shown through the insane Jack Torrence, hunting down his family in an isolated mountain hotel.

Wood also argues that the strongest instrument of ideological conditioning is the American family unit, which exists as horror’s “true milieu.”[34] The family unit is a crucial part of each of the narratives explored above—and countless other horror films—functioning as the last defence against the repressed. It is the strongest agent of repression, masking its role as the strongest agent of reason, since, as Rousseau explored above, each family existed as a miniature society.[35] Since the monster represents the Other, its defeat serves to reinforce the power of repression.[36] Each horror film then becomes a matter of, “we are not repressing hard enough, our urges are resurfacing; we must once again bury these urges to return to normality.” Their core
conflict is one of reason versus instinct. Because whatever is truly “Otherized” is usually what is inherently instinctive or intuitive, cinema turns the qualities that Rousseau argues are completely human and natural into inhuman, monstrous others. We have been abstracted; reasoned into opposites of what we actually are.

After outlining Rousseau’s development of reason and its consequences in the information age, cinema and its social conflicts reveal themselves as the agents of
reason—whether through subconscious affirmation in genre cinema or through more psychologically abstract “monsters,” as demonstrated in horror films. All threats are threats
against civilisation and, consequently, against reason, and every victory over these threats becomes a triumph of the civilised individual. Wood reflects on watching The Texas Chainsaw Massacre with a “half-stoned youth audience, who cheered and applauded every one of Leatherface’s outrages against their representatives on the screen…”[37] This, he argues, has become a core part of the horror experience: “the sense of a civilisation condemning itself, through its popular culture, to ultimate disintegration.”[38] Through Rousseau, this takes on an entirely new meaning. With every conflict on screen, we revel in the fact that the irrational could prevail over the reasonable. It is as if we subconsciously recognise that narrative conflict is derived from our faculty of reason, and we ultimately desire its destruction. We want the villain to win. We find films thrilling since we crave to see an attack on society over and over again. We are tired of our “reasonable” world; we hold civilisations in contempt. Films are not about our fears and fantasies, but our fantasies and fears. We want to lose. We detest our reasonable minds. “[H]ow much have you changed from what you were!” writes Rousseau.[39] Each film projects the calluses of our reasoning—the suffering in being “civilised.”

Endnotes

[1] Jean-Jacques Rousseau, A Discourse on Inequality, tr. Maurice Cranston, Penguin Classics edition (London: Penguin, 1984) 78.

[2] Rousseau, Discourse on Inequality, 143-144.

[3] Rousseau, Discourse on Inequality, 90.

[4] Rousseau, Discourse on Inequality, 89.

[5] Rousseau, Discourse on Inequality, 148.

[6] Rousseau, Discourse on Inequality, 88.

[7] Rousseau, Discourse on Inequality, 87.

[8] Rousseau, Discourse on Inequality, 88.

[9] Rousseau, Discourse on Inequality, 95.

[10] Rousseau, Discourse on Inequality, 93.

[11] Rousseau, Discourse on Inequality, 112.

[12] Rousseau, Discourse on Inequality, 112.

[13] Rousseau, Discourse on Inequality, 114.

[14] Rousseau, Discourse on Inequality, 114.

[15] Rousseau, Discourse on Inequality, 119.

[16] Rousseau, Discourse on Inequality, 78.

[17] Rousseau, Discourse on Inequality, 94.

[18] Robin Wood, Movies and Methods, Vol. 2: An Anthology, ed. Bill Nichols (Berkeley:University of California Press, 1985). 202

[19] Barry Keith Grant, Film Genre: From Iconography to Ideology, Print Edition (London: Wallflower, 2007). 29

[20] Grant, Film Genre, 29.

[21] Grant, Film Genre, 30.

[22] Grant, Film Genre, 33.

[23] Rousseau, Discourse on Inequality, 89.

[24] Rousseau, Discourse on Inequality, 119.

[25] Rousseau, Discourse on Inequality, 119.

[26] Wood, Movies and Methods, 197.

[27] Rousseau, Discourse on Inequality, 78.

[28] Wood, Movies and Methods, 197.

[29] Wood, Movies and Methods, 197.

[30] Wood, Movies and Methods, 204.

[31] Wood, Movies and Methods, 202.

[32] Wood, Movies and Methods, 199.

[33] Wood, Movies and Methods, 200.

[34] Wood, Movies and Methods, 209.

[35] Rousseau, Discourse on Inequality, 112.

[36] Wood, Movies and Methods, 211.

[37] Wood, Movies and Methods, 214.

[38] Wood, Movies and Methods, 214.

[39] Rousseau, Discourse on Inequality, 79.

Bibliography

Grant, Barry Keith. Film Genre: From Iconography to Ideology. Print Edition, London: Wallflower, 2007.

Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. A Discourse on Inequality. [Translated with Introduction and Notes by: Maurice Cranston], Penguin Classics Edition, London: Penguin, 1984.

Safdie, Josh, and Benny Safdie, directors. Uncut Gems. A24 Films, 2019. 2h., 15 min. https://www.netflix.com/watch/80990663.

Wood, Robin. Movies and Methods, Vol. 2: An Anthology. [Edited by: Bill Nichols], Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985.

by Gurnoor Kaur Suri

Literary work on Gandhi is marked by phenomenal abundance. What accompanies this abundance are two extremities of such analyses: viewing Gandhi as either a highly politicised
Indian icon or a holy man who revolutionized the conventional perception of being “holy.” Such wide distinctions in the way that he is understood makes it challenging for us to bridge the two together. I do not wish to restrict my perception of Gandhi to one fixed quarter while also acknowledging my strong belief in him persisting as a moral, instead of a political, icon—his philosophy shaping, and in some forms, triumphing his politics. At the very core of this morality lies his “religion;” a religion that I view as being uncontaminated by the human-created boundaries of belief. I argue that it is this religion, which I later frame as dharma, that underlines Gandhian philosophy. As Hind Swaraj pieces together a passionate argument, I briefly solicit attention towards the hidden paradoxes, subtilties, and the interplay between philosophy and politics that dharma entails. While doing so, I appreciate the excellent work of three prominent authors on Gandhi. I use Sorabji’s Gandhi and the Stoics to discuss the attainment of moksha with the dharma-packed route that it requires pursuing and highlight the rich-sub section regarding sacrifice and suffering in Chatterjee’s Gandhi’s Religious Thought. Additionally, I briefly revise and counter some key arguments regarding the present-day relevancy of Gandhi in Rao’s Gandhi’s Dharma while sourcing fundamental inspiration from Rao’s text and the all-encompassing way in which it presents dharma. Therefore, much of this essay focuses on what this dharma entails, with a further emphasis on Gandhi’s attempt at philosophising politics.

Religion in Hind Swaraj can be complex at first glance, owing especially to it carrying two, distinct yet related, meanings: “as a sect or organised religion, and as ethic, albeit one grounded in some metaphysic.”[1] Dharma evokes the latter implication of religion which is consistent with what some may view religious essence to be: a fervent pursuit of something, in many cases a godly figure. One may perceive this distinction to reflect a Gandhian opposition to worldly religions. However, these ethics are, in Gandhi’s terms, also a form of religion, something that “underlies all religion,” and is where the human-made religions, in their organised religion format, lead to. God is, therefore, the symbol of these ethics for Gandhi.[2] Reverence for the several religions that India hosts, for Gandhi, is almost synonymous with possessing a strong national spirit wherein one nation can never equal a single religion.[3]

As explicitly framed by Gandhi, Hind Swaraj contains passionate resistance against what forms the foundation of the very existence of the British rule: modern civilisation; Britishers are stated to be mere catalysts in this process: “… India is being ground down not under the English heel but under that of modern civilisation.”[4] Civilisation is a curable disease which, Gandhi believes, has afflicted the English who, thus, require our sympathy. Blaming the British is, therefore, an act displacing accountability from the “Kingdom of Civilisation”—the modern civilisation— to those merely victimised by it.[5] Dharma, in some ways, evokes a sense of pity (which in contemporary understanding may be defined as empathy, instead of mere sympathy) for what is just be another nation oppressed by this civilisation. Such empathy forms the basis of his later argument against physically opposing the colonisers: “The poet Tulsidas has said ‘Of religion, pity or love is the root, as egotism of the body. Therefore, we should not abandon pity so long as we are alive.’”[6] This civilisation is placed opposite to religion as if the two exist in an inversely proportional relationship. Civilisation—as he believed to have partly infiltrated through India rendering them as “half-Anglicised”— is a turn away from God.[7] I perceive dharma in Hind Swaraj as being born out of a recognised necessity to reverse this effect of civilisation and not merely oppose the British government.

Dharma lies on the brick of self-sacrifice, a suffering limited to the self with an acceptance of whatever consequence may come this self’s way. When violence is used to counter a law, it equals the use of body-force since self-sacrifice is absent here; self-sacrifice is, therefore, fundamental. Bearing the penalty of this law is critical, as Gandhi states, but so is the opposition to a law that is “repugnant to our conscience.”[8] Chatterjee in the chapter “The Non-Violent Weapon of Suffering” noted in her book Gandhi’s Religious Thought offers significant depth to Gandhi’s unconventional perception of suffering and refers to it as the term that I borrow from her: paradoxical. She frames Gandhi’s model of suffering as reforming previous Indian thought which assumes that all “ethico-religious endeavour[s]” target such external suffering and the subsequent removal of it. She understands Gandhian dharma as reaching beyond this, assuming an apparent paradox-like stance: “… it was not until Gandhi that we find the innovatory idea of suffering itself being regarded as a way of dealing with suffering.”[9]

His idea of suffering, as Chatterjee states, is a combination of the traditional way of looking at the removal of suffering as imperative and the unconventional way of refraining to view it as “general cosmic condition.”[10] Gandhi’s approach, something that Chatterjee reiterates across her text as being inherently scientific and reformatory, is not concerned with the philosophical why of suffering—something that several of our previous texts focus on— and instead, actively aims to remedy it in a collectivist manner.[11] However, while suffering must be viewed in a communal way, it remains as “voluntary” thus signalling towards dharma being a conscious engagement. We, therefore, must not mistake his belief in suffering to be a justification for the “involuntary suffering” that the status quo imposes on people. In fact, the very usage of ahimsa, or non-violence, is argued for by Gandhi as an attempt to restrict the further addition of this involuntary suffering in the world. Chatterjee places Gandhi’s focus on social injustice as being parallel to Marx with the only difference being Gandhi’s emphasis on using love-force, instead of bodily-force; Hind Swaraj strongly builds against this idea of using body-force. Gandhi understands dharma as demanding against passive compliance- it asks of us a voice (and not arms) against injustice, even if it takes the form of an abiding law. Dharma, hence, does not require bodily strength and courage since simple “[c]ontrol over the mind is alone necessary, and, when it is attained, man is free like the king of the forest, and his very glance withers the enemy.”[12]

I take a moment to piece Chatterjee’s passing claim of Gandhi possessing a scientific claim as being parallel to what is echoed by Hind Swaraj. Gandhi self-labels his dharma as universal with its conceptualisation being as robust as that of two plus two equalling four.[13] This science, as commented by the editor, is not of the modern, rational, research backed knowledge house of empiricism but is the “science of morals.”[14] Additionally, although Hind Swaraj notes Gandhi’s devotion to Ramayana, a pivotal Hindu mythological text, as the “greatest book in all of devotional literature,” for Gandhi, such scriptures do not overshadow his dharma.[15] I addressed above his call for respecting all religions equally as parallel paths to a single end point. With this respect also comes his belief in science and scepticism. He acknowledges that all religions, and their scriptures alike, are subjectively created by humans and “[i]f there was anything in scripture which offended against reason or conscience, so much worse for scripture.”[16] I perceive this to be a courageous take, especially in consideration of the highly religious context of India.

Condemning physical-force, Gandhi evokes “love-force.” Hind Swaraj frames truth or love as the premise of this dharma, with its strongest evidence arising from the continuance of the human species. Love-force is real: the wars not leading to the triumph of a singular man with everybody else rendered dead or enslaved is the “most unimpeachable evidence of the success of this[love-force] force.”[17] I quote Chatterjee in her description of the Gandhian love-force: “The reign of love is to be brought about not through the sacrificial love of God’s son on the Cross, but through every man’s act of self-sacrifice.”[18] She further sources a direct quote from Gandhi who says, “[d]o not preach the God of history, but show Him as He lives today through you.”[19] Dharma was thus, inherently religious— blurring the gaunt line between religion as sect and ethic—with the difference being the ethic’s application in the now and the action being active.

Dharma was, as I described above, not of the “isolationist” form, or the conventional way to pursue enlightenment and “self-perfection” that one may initially view it as. Instead, Gandhi diffuses the concept of “heroism” across all those who commit to self-suffering and this truth-force.[20] Dharma was also not perpetuated through mere preaching. He viewed conversational style reasoning approach to be, in some ways, surface-level when what was at direct stake were things of “fundamental importance to the people”— the people being at the centre of effort. Self-suffering was, in Chatterjee’s terms, “more than a tool of conflict resolution, it is a way of ‘changing reality.’”[21] His philosophy was, therefore, also inherently social in nature.

As I aim to continue my discussion of dharma using Chatterjee’s rich arguments, I introduce Sorabji’s Gandhi and the Stoics. Sorabji in the chapter “Gandhi’s Individual Freedom, and Berlin on Zeno’s—Sour Grapes?” highlights Tolstoy’s Letter to a Hindoo, a correspondence that was addressed by the editor of Hind Swaraj as being controversial in its political scope. These letters were later published by Gandhi which proved the “common ideological outlook” that the two figures had.[22] Thus, I evoke some critical lines this manuscript to reflect on the inward-looking approach that dharma too adopts: “If the people of India are enslaved by violence it is only because they themselves live and have lived by violence and do not recognise the eternal law of love inherent in humanity.”[23] Chatterjee exemplifies this by stating that Gandhi’s understanding of rural reconstruction was what we may causally frame as taking matters in our own hands for “those who bear the brunt of a particular injustice…must learn to mobilise their non-violent strength in order to improve their condition.”[24] I often view this, in agreement with other critics of Gandhi, as a sense of hollow victimisation and shifting the blame from the perpetrators to the sufferers. Dharma’s focus on the self—not of the colonisers but of the colonised— can appear discrediting and undervaluing of the extremities colonisation, for instance, contains.

Sorabji offers excellent review work on the politicisation of philosophy that my own argument centres around. In doing so, he elicits the concept of moksha, or “spiritual liberation.” Although standard in his understanding of moksha being freedom from rebirth, we see Gandhi’s collectivistic approach being reiterated as he doesn’t believe that in order to achieve moksha, one must withdraw from the social (and inherently political) world. It was to be acquired by engaging with the downtrodden, those who—as we discussed above— were suffering not by choice but due to social injustice. Gandhi believed the truest version of swaraj to be moksha. This engagement with the world or, in Sorabji’s words, “immersion with the world” is what I frame as being central to his philosophy shaping his politics and not his politics directing his philosophy.

Gandhi, therefore, viewed politics to be “subservient” to his religion, something that he perceived to be “a part of the effort for moksha.” He claimed politics to be like a snake coiling everyone and keeping them bondage: “I wish therefore to wrestle with the snake.”[25] Political activity must be spiritualized, and dharma preceded and not merely accompanied these politics. An excellent example of the mass reach of this concept was detailed by Sorabji as happening in the Bardoli Satyagraha. In his analysis, he refuses to keep political and spiritual goals distant—blurring this distinction— as he states the several reasons why the satyagrahis opt to be involved in a march ranging from them viewing it as a battle against fear and for the logistical reason of contesting a law. However, as Gandhi saw in Bardoli, “loss of political objective would not call off the march, loss of the spiritual objective would.”[26]

Politics to Gandhi is, nonetheless, significant. I present a block-quote detailing this further while also highlighting Gandhi’s unwavering commitment to his dharma.

“The Bhagvadgita did not require Gandhi to give up political goals. When it urges nonattachment to the fruit of action, it is not instructing us not to collect the fruit, but only not be attached to it, not to be hung up about it. As Gandhi says, it does not require us to disown the fruits. Being ready to disown them is the spirit that Gandhi showed in calling off his campaign in Bardoli…”[27]

 

I evoke another quote from Gandhi as noted in Gandhi’s Religious Thought:

“To see the universal and all-pervading spirit of Truth face-to-face one must be able to love the meanest of creation as oneself. And a man who aspires after that cannot afford to keep out of any field of life. That is why my devotion to Truth has drawn me unto the field of politics; and I can say without the slightest hesitation and yet in all humility that those who say that religion has nothing to do with politics do not know what religion means.”[28]

 

Therefore, while he firmly believes that a holy man “who had taken a vow of silence” too is obligated to raise concern over political injustice, the pursuit of dharma was the means to detach from political gains.[29] I reaffirm Sorabji’s concise opinion here: since moksha included, literally, final “release from the world,” his dharma and moksha could not merely be goals ending with political swaraj and went beyond.[30] 

Discipline held the spine of dharma. Chatterjee provides us with a backdrop to Gandhi’s focus on this self-discipline. She writes that Gandhi was a strong believer in the common humanity and goodness that we all shared. Man possessed dual capabilities: one is able to both, resonate deeply and impact “another’s woe” and make their heart and soul inaccessible, adopting a self- centered lifestyle. However, it was this shared humanity that allowed for the mobilisation of people and defeating who he terms as the “opponent.”[31] However, this conquest was not merely external—I reiterate the inward-looking focus addressed earlier—to the satyagrahis; it was a conquest over themselves and their earlier “pampered” selves.[32] One may read this either being sourced from Hind swaraj’s take of this pampering embodying the luxuries of modern civilisation or simply as the generic “factors which had previously stood in the[their] way of understanding.”[33]

To become a true satyagrahi, one is required to “observe perfect chastity, adopt poverty, follow truth, and cultivate fearlessness.”[34] Gandhi reckons chastity to be a core medium through which one can establish such discipline. A passive resister must not merely fully restrict sexual passions beyond when performed to reproduce—something that Gandhi perceives to be “an animal indulgence”—but also sacrifice such a “narrow scope” for progeny.[35] Poverty and a heartfelt acceptance of living in a low economic state is important too. Although, he does not expect the rich satyagrahis to discard all their money, but dharma requires them to practice detachment from it. Truth and complete elimination of fear are important although Gandhi describes them as being deeply intertwined.[36] In fact, without undergoing what Chatterjee states as the process of “preliminary self-purification,” non-violence and satyagraha could be rendered without any, or opposite, utility and can potentially transform into a method of coercion or blackmail.[37]

Gandhi, therefore, both distinguished and interlinked swaraj and real swaraj, the former implying political independence or home-rule and the latter, self-rule and self-control. He perceived political freedom—in the form of independence from the British rule—as being incomplete without complete acquisition of self-control and dharma. In fact, political swaraj was a resultant of “many men” accomplishing real swaraj. Tolstoy’s view urging Indians to accept accountability for their colonisation is reiterated by Gandhi here: “The reason why they [Britishers] rule over us is to be found in ourselves; that reason is our disunity, our immorality and our ignorance.”[38] Personal realisation of swaraj must be followed by endeavouring to perpetuate it further but that must only come after, and not before, our personal experience with it. In some ways, hence, swaraj was also individual before being communal.

As I conclude my argument, I intend to convey the intense hold that Gandhi’s claims have had on me as a citizen of what was once a colony. I acknowledge that Rao’s work in Gandhi’s Dharma echoes the crux of my argument. His book’s title, literally, magnifying dharma is only a symbolic preface to work on almost all aspects of Gandhian political philosophy, including swaraj, swadeshi, and satyagraha. Dharma is, therefore, the very root of all that it encompasses.

I return to my introductory argument about Gandhi persisting as an icon of morality. I say this while relying on my local-level experience of growing amidst a society where the term Gandhi, inherently, calls for bowing one’s head in reverence and legacy or a morality class is incomplete without frequent recourse to Gandhian ethics. However, as Rao argues, Gandhi has been rendered irrelevant to Indian politics with his name reduced to something that is casually used to elicit votes in a rally: “His legacy remains more in the form of relics and museums people may visit than as programmes pursued to make a difference in the lives of people.”[39] However, Rao, in the chapter “Shanti,” states that the highly globalising, changing world makes Gandhi’s ideas even more relevant. I argue against this using his quote cited above. I view Gandhi’s method to be a highly shrewd and partly successful way of leveraging what Indians may have seen as the “good” in the British in the form of their civilisation and modernity and rejecting those very by-products. This is especially relevant since the “enemy” to be defeated was a coloniser whose material power Gandhi claimed to be “matchless:” “If we wanted to fight with you on your own ground, we should be unable to do so.”[40] It was the context that was, thus, excellently weaponised by Gandhi; his ideas, therefore, derived success from its highly contextual application.

Endnotes

[1]  Gandhi, ‘Hind Swaraj’ and Other Writings, ed. Anthony J. Parel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018), 41fn66.

[2] Gandhi, Hind Swaraj, 41.

[3] Gandhi, Hind Swaraj, 50.

[4] Gandhi, Hind Swaraj, 41.

[5] Gandhi, Hind Swaraj, 7.

[6] Gandhi, Hind Swaraj, 86.

[7] Gandhi, Hind Swaraj, 113.

[8] Gandhi, Hind Swaraj, 89-90.

[9] Margaret Chatterjee, Gandhi’s Religious Thought (London: The Macmillan Press Ltd, 1983), 76.

[10] Chatterjee, Religious Thought, 76.

[11] Chatterjee, Religious Thought, 76.

[12] Gandhi, Hind Swaraj, 92.

[13] Gandhi, Hind Swaraj, 86-87.

[14] Gandhi, Hind Swaraj, 87-175.

[15] Gandhi, Hind Swaraj, 86fn174.

[16] Chatterjee, Religious Thought, 84.

[17] Gandhi, Hind Swaraj, 87.

[18] Chatterjee, Religious Thought, 77.

[19] Chatterjee, Religious Thought, 78.

[20] Chatterjee, Religious Thought, 80.

[21] Chatterjee, Religious Thought, 79.

[22] Richard Sorabji, Gandhi and the Stoics (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2012), Ii.

[23] Sorabji, Gandhi and the Stoics, 68.

[24] Chatterjee, Religious Thought, 81.

[25] Sorabji, Gandhi & Stoics, 51.

[26] Sorabji, Gandhi & Stoics, 52.

[27] Sorabji, Gandhi & Stoics, 53.

[28] Chatterjee, Religious Thought, 83.

[29] Sorabji, Gandhi & Stoics, 53.

[30] Sorabji, Gandhi & Stoics, 53.

[31] Chatterjee, Religious Thought, 80.

[32] Gandhi, Hind Swaraj, 94.

[33] Chatterjee, Religious Thought, 80.

[34] Gandhi, Hind Swaraj, 95.

[35] Gandhi, Hind Swaraj, 95.

[36] Gandhi, Hind Swaraj, 96-97.

[37] Chatterjee, Religious Thought, 83.

[38] Sorabji, Gandhi & Stoics, 71.

[39] Koneru Ramakrishna Rao, Gandhi’s Dharma (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2017), 258-9.

[40] Gandhi, Hind Swaraj, 112.

Bibliography

Gandhi. Hind Swaraj. Edited by Anthony J. Parel. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018.

Rao, Koneru Ramakrishna. Gandhi’s Dharma. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2017.

Sorabji, Richard. Gandhi and the Stoics: Modern Experiments on Ancient Values. Oxford: Oxford university Press, 2012.

Chatterjee, Margaret. Gandhi’s Religious Thought. London: The Macmillan Press Ltd, 1983.