“A lesser degree of civil freedom gives intellectual freedom enough room to expand to its fullest extent.” – Immanuel Kant
The state of affairs in agitated democracies where the freedom of conscience is being hampered by intolerance and indifferent attitudes, which stems from ideology as a source of legitimising political power, is a matter of concern. The tendency of democracy to fall and rise has resulted in the elimination of some prejudices and creation of new ones to control the great unthinking mass.
The two sides of ideology (left and right) need a moderate ideology in society which recognises that both sides have a piece of the truth and see flaws in the standard liberal and conservative perspectives. The values of logic, reason, respect, honesty, plurality and tolerance need to be embraced to make citizens act more reasonable. There will be no limitations to this moderate ideology since it will not be influenced by negative notions attached to identity, ethnicity, culture, caste, race, gender.
There is a need to unite common elements of each and form a community where there is a chain of thought dominated by logic, reason and humanism so that when democracy rises again, it produces real reform in ways of thinking.
“The public use of man’s reason must always be free, and it alone can bring enlightenment.” – Immanuel Kant
A sense of community is what is missing among the intelligentsia of countries where intellectual freedoms are being curtailed. The fear among intelligent masses to exercise their reason publicly needs to be removed by establishing a knowledge culture in a society where the youth gives more weight to viewpoints derived from reason and logic in contrast to views based on identity, religion or emotions.
Symbolism is a crucial aspect of legitimising any ideology in society. BJP has the orange colour, Lotus, Holy Cow, Lord Ram, etc. as a means to further its interests/agendas; communists have red. I propose to symbolise blue (plava in Croatian) as the colour which reflects rationality. Our society is like a rainbow where different colours stand for various sections differing in religion, culture, languages and ideas. Blue being the central colour of this rainbow will symbolise the tolerant intelligentsia, rational enough to guard against any undue bias.
The helpless youth along with people in public spheres have to provide legitimacy to actions of this community of moderate intellectual people (lawyers, social scientists, activists, sociologists, economists, teachers, environmentalists, artists, historians, etc.). This community will be an unbeatable asset to Indian society, an ever-flowing river, helping in uplifting and engaging masses.
There is a need to gather competent people who are ready to devote some time to establish this community by using the tools provided by information and communications technologies since scattered citizens actions and people’s movements can’t replace organised social and political action. There can be many ways to build this community. For starters, we can run a social media platform which embraces the symbolism of the community and forwards certain directives like:
- Building trust through engaging in rational conversations.
- Embracing plurality of ideologies by unbiased dialogue.
- Creating a sustained equilibrium of thought which promotes action based on logic.
- Establishing the legitimacy of knowledge in society by forming a youth community which backs the intelligentsia in the country/state/district/village/community.
- Forming a moderate perspective in society. Engaging intellectuals with the youth to create a chain above and below.
- Stimulating democratic ideals of debate and discussion in every sphere of communication-based on specific parameters of conversation which eliminates the possibility of irrational elements taking ground.
A crude example of what a capable community like this does can be exemplified here:
- It can provide more backing to researchers, petitioners, activists in their methods to influence governance.
- Remove social cleavages by fostering dialogue within the two generations (old and young) at present.
- The current migrant crisis we witnessed where the governance machinery failed and we saw hostile attitudes of people with each other. Such a community could have resolved things by their way of value-based action in which the migrants are voluntarily offered food, water and shelter in times of a grave humanitarian crisis.
If you resonate with the proposed ideas and are a concerned citizen, respond to this with your thoughts and ways by which such a community can be built.