No love seems to be lost these days between liberals and conservatives, so-called left wing and right wing. For quite sometime now, at least in India, both have been going hammer and tongs at each other’s theses if not throats. Almost always they seem to be talking past each other, and not really listening to each other sincerely to engage in a meaningful and constructive dialogue.
Be that as it may, I would like to suggest that we should look past the paradigm of liberalism and conservativism, which seems to have long outlived its utility, and instead looked at the political arena, the public discourse, and the private sphere (because feminists like to remind us “the personal is political”), through the paradigm of the purusharthas.
I know some of my liberal friends will wince at my seeking to make purusharthas the paradigm because they would see it as a term laden with religious baggage, in particular, that of Hinduism. However, I am sure that a little explication of that term would convince even them that it is more a philosophical concept and ideation rather than a religious one.
Pray, what are the purusharthas, some of you might exclaim impatiently. Simply put, the purusharthas are nothing but the arthas (goals or ends) of a purusha (person, literally dweller (shayana) of the pura or city, the body being conceived a nine-gated city; one could think of it as a soul). They are four in number and all four are considered the “legitimate” ends of a human being. They are Dharma (righteousness or moral values), Artha (wealth or property), Kama (desire, longing, and pleasure), and Moksha (liberation from the cycle of birth and death or samsara).
The philosophical attitude here is not ascetic and allows you to pursue even Artha and Kama, subject to the following of Dharma in their acquisition and enjoyment. What’s more, even the pursuit of Moksha is subject to the following of Dharma, for the obvious reason that wrong means cannot take you to the portals of Truth.
The ordering of the purusharthas is also not arbitrary. Let us see why. Dharma is placed first because pursuing the other three ends without following Dharma is illegitimate or wrong. Then comes Artha followed by Kama because loosely speaking, you need to have pursued and earned the Artha to acquire the objects of pleasure with it. Moksha is placed after Artha and Kama because without the enjoyment of Artha and Kama to some extent the mind will not turn in the direction of seeking Moksha.
What has this got to do with the two political philosophies that I declared at the beginning as having outlived their utility? Let us proceed gingerly and without any preconceived notions.
What are the ends of any political philosophy? To be sure, political philosophy, at least in the West, had its beginnings with Plato, who wrote the classic The Republic. What did Plato have to say? In The Republic, he laid out an almost utopian ideal of how a society should be and function. Above all, he saw the end goal as Justice. Who can disagree with that? Every liberal and conservative wants justice to prevail, only their conceptions of justice differ.
How did Plato conceive that justice will come about in a polis (the Greek city) of his time? The ideal polis he called Kallipolis (Beautiful City), in which he said the population could be divided into three classes – the guardians, auxiliaries, and producers – based on what characteristic was dominant in them.
This classification is based on Plato’s conception of the human soul (psyche, if you will) as being tripartite – Reason, Spirit, and Appetite. Reason tracks truth and is the source of all nobler desires. In the just man, the soul is ruled by reason. Spirit is the source of our desires for honour and victory. In a just soul, the spirit sees to it that the appetites adhere to the commands of reason. Appetite is the seat of our desires for food, drink, sex, and other pleasures. It contains necessary, unnecessary, and unlawful desires. Plato dubbed appetite as “money-loving,” since money is essential for satisfying most of the desires. In a just man, the appetite is strictly regulated by reason and spirit.
Reason was dominant in the guardians, spirit in auxiliaries, and appetite in producers. Hence, the guardians are responsible for ruling the city. The auxiliaries are the warriors against external threats and peacekeepers ensuring that the producers obey the rulers’ commands. The producing class is the largest class that includes all professions other than warriors and rulers.
One, especially we Indians, may smell a caste system of sorts in this classification or stratification, which is no doubt hierarchical, but people were to get sorted into these classes based on merit in education and character, and not through the arbitrary lottery of birth.
Now, it becomes clear as to why guardians are rulers in the first place because it stands to reason that reason should be lord over honour and appetites for a harmonious and peaceful existence. In fact, even in the producers, appetites are not to be given unbridled license but are to be governed by reason. Thus, when reason is in charge at the individual and societal level, justice prevails. Where there is justice, the citizens of such a polis will be able to conduct their lives harmoniously and peacefully, pursuing, within the bounds of reason, whatever strikes their fancy.
Plato held that only when kings are philosophers and philosophers are kings will the state be in safe hands, hence his advocacy for philosopher-kings. The justification for that is not hard to discern because only in philosophers is reason predominant. Of course, in the modern sense, we could say those in whom reason is predominant are those highly educated or otherwise morally upright with a fine sensibility for what is right and wrong. By education, I do not mean merely the technical and professional kind, but more one conforming to the liberal arts or any other discipline that develops one’s thinking and social and political imagination, whereby one can be sure of reason becoming predominant in oneself.
Welding the paradigms of Plato and purusharthas together, we see what ails the Indian polity now. Our politicians are not philosophers because almost all of them are not educated in the right manner, nor is their moral conscience awakened by other means, so reason is not the predominant virtue in them and so they do not pursue Dharma in the discharge of their duties as politicians. Not only do they not pursue Dharma by being guided by reason, but they are also excessively enamoured of Artha and Kama, which proves to be disastrous for the Indian polity because they resort to their acquisition and enjoyment by any means necessary, Dharma be damned.
Being uneducated, morally depraved, bordering on the criminal and often being criminal, and hence being pursuing Artha and Kama through adharmic means, both so-called liberals and conservatives can neither understand the philosophies of liberalism and conservatism correctly nor can they put them into practice faithfully. So, until our politicians are philosophers and philosophers are willing to take up the profession of politics, the mess we are in today will continue indefinitely into the future.
But, wait. What is the society like from which these politicians are springing up? Is it any better? Sadly, it is not. After all, the level of corruption among all the working populace, be they salaried, self-employed, or professionals, in India, is staggering. Which means what? The majority of us Indians are resorting to adharmic means in our pursuit of Artha and Kama. The pursuit of Moksha has almost been abandoned by us, maybe because as Nietzsche proclaimed at the end of the Nineteenth Century, “God is Dead”. But, sadly, in Indian society, it is not only God that is dead, but even “Morality is Dead”.
To compound matters, given the state of elections in India, which has been the case almost since the beginning of Independence, where money and muscle speak, no “philosopher” will be inclined to enter the field of politics, and those that do, end up not rising up in the party hierarchy, let alone win the elections, given their lack of command over money and muscle.
In such a scenario, what does it matter whether you are a liberal or conservative in politics or professional and personal lives? Both liberals and conservatives are now devoid of reason, are not philosophers, and so let us learn to look beyond the dichotomy of liberals and conservatives to bring about a resurgent India.
How we can make our citizens more dharmic, law-abiding, and largely governed by reason? Liberal arts education could be one such means, and the inculcation of virtues in children at a very young age by their parents through the telling and retelling of imagination-firing stories from our religious traditions that portray virtuous conduct could be another way.
It is up to us to discuss these things concerning the laying of the very foundations of morality and dharma in our society. Instead, we waste time in our media discussing liberalism and conservatism, which these days turns on the single issue of religion.
To bring about a positive change in society, ultimately we as individuals need to change. As Thomas Carlyle remarked quite sagely, “Make yourself an honest man, and then you may be sure there is one less rascal in the world.”
When one follows Dharma/reason in one’s pursuit of Artha and Kama, it will lead to a refinement of one’s inner nature, removing all the dross and coarse elements from it, bringing in its trail care, consideration, empathy, compassion, affection, and love for one’s fellow citizens. Where such emotions reign in our being, whether our profession be politics or something else, we will know what is the right thing to do in our policies, promulgations, and practices in the discharge of our day-to-day obligations and duties. As St. Augustine said rightly, “Love, and do what you will.”
<Acknowledgement: Thanks are due to my friend Balakrishnan Satyam, who gave useful feedback on the first draft of this article.>
Know Thyself 