In his path breaking novel, ‘Brave New World’, Aldous Huxley
speaks of a world where everyone is for everyone else and nobody has a
particular individuality or identity. People are categorized and conditioned
from the very time of artificial their conception and they are brought up to
become what they are supposed to become; planners, operators, workers and so
on. In this peculiar caste system (which is not identified as caste system or
social hierarchy because none is aware of a possibility of their existence in
other conditions or planes of life) everything runs so smoothly that none even
thinks of changing their given identity. If at all they are depressed for some strange
reasons (which is not expected to happen), they are given a daily ration of ‘soma’
tablets that send them to a sense of euphoria. There is no marriage and no
private property. In this world, words like ‘mother’, ‘conception’, ‘love’, ‘father’
etc are considered obscene. As everyone belongs to everyone else, as this
society and its constituent individuals are conditioned in this fashion, sex is
not a taboo and adequate precautions are always taken to avoid ‘pregnancy’
(another obscene word). None fights for women, property and money. There is no
war. Everything is conditioned and everything is conditioned in this world.
Thinking of it, we may find that living in such world would
be really fantastic. But, as we belong to a different world, with ample amount
of strife, war, and public and private problems we have a different parameter
in assessing the rosy picture painted by Huxley in ‘Brave New World’. Huxley’s
intention is not to celebrate such a controlled society, on the contrary he
narrates, through this fable, how offensive and horrible it would be for a
normal man to exist in such gentrified, categorized and conditioned world.
While his emphasis is on the authoritarian regimes that iron out differences
and make people absolute observers of orders without any sense of rebellion, he
also suggests that solving the world problems through homogenization of human
traits and effective ways of socio-cultural and political conditioning will not
take the human race to any progressive heights. Seen against this context, it
is pertinent ask how individuality could be retained, cherished and nourished
in a world that has been increasingly become homogenized during the evolution
of history. Today, with the free flow of capital across the boundaries of
nations, people all over the world have become addicted to certain ways of
living, which is termed as ‘good living’ in the general parlance.
For maintaining a good living, first and foremost, one has
to surrender all kinds of demands that individuality makes on the individual.
Individuality stems from free thinking, a certain amount of analytical
intelligence and the will to execute individualistic inferences. But good
living will become, according to the prevailing conditions, bad living when an
individual tries to exercise his/her free will. The idea of good living creates
an atmosphere, rather a charged environment, in which the individual is
expected to yield to the suggestibility of this environment. This ‘locale’ is
created out of goods and ideas pertaining to these goods. These ideas and the
creators of these ideas think for the individual and help him to choose the
life that they would want him to lead. Buying a new iphone or a new dress, or
even a refrigerator or washing machine is not related to its use value or peer
pressure anymore. It has a lot to do with the decimation of free willing and yielding
to the suggestibility of the ideas of good living. It becomes pertinent to have
a particular consumer item with us for satisfying the demand for a good living
irrespective of its use in the individual life. Seeing a program in a normal
television channel is a normal thing. But seeing it in a high definition
television with a plasma screen or a three dimensional television screen is a
different thing. While the idea of good living tells us about the aesthetical
experience that we would derive from such screens, it does not tell us why this
aesthetical experience is different from the normal television experience.
While picture quality and surrounding sonic ambience add to this aesthetical experience,
the fundamentals of visuals remain the same, but the idea of good living very skillfully
hides it from the consumer.
Goaded by this idea of good living, people slowly shed their
individuality and distinction of their lives from that of others. Even seen out
of the consumerist heaven of today, all other social practices are meant to
create this homogeneity amongst the people in order to maintain the so called
social structure, law and values. These structures, laws and values have been
developed over a period of time, by making additions and corrections so that a
larger number of people get benefit out of it by becoming a part of these homogenizing
societies. Take for example the way we choose our religions and related
rituals. In a society where we take birth, we are not given freedom to choose
our religion or caste. We are born to a society which has already made the
caste and religion of our parents fixed, notified and regulated. We are bound
to follow that. While language is a ‘natural’ choice, religion and caste are
not natural choices. As language is the mimicry of communicatory devices using
sounds and gestures, religions are artificially made cultural contexts which
are expected to be perpetuated by us without our consent. There are people who
change their religions as they grow up through conversions or philosophical
allegiance, and there are even people opt out of religion and practice
something like ‘a-religion’ as in the case of the agnostics and atheists who in
turn become addicted to those religions. Compared to the former, latter moves
may sound better. But in both the cases we are left with no option to practice
out of our religious ethos.
Religion is a very strong tool, like a name (that is closely
connected to religion in most of the cases) that society employs to keep the
individual under check. Such checking, though we see the kind of sanitized and
liberal existence of Brave New World quite repulsive and too regimented, is as
strong as its counterpart in the socio-cultural fables. Marriage is one such
institution that makes us tied up with the social structure and structuring and
severing all possibilities of exercising individuality and free will. Compared
to the eastern societies, the western societies in the matter of marriage are
considered to be a bit more liberal. However, when marriage is a reality,
whether it is in the eastern or western countries, the same kind of norms for
social structuring and homogenization come into practice. In a general sense,
once you are married, you are expected to live a good life, irrespective of
your economic status. What the idea of good life tells you is to adopt a life
style that makes all the married couples look alike. Religion plays a very
strong role in solemnizing marriages; so do the courts. Once a couple is
legally and religiously wedded, they are expected to perpetuate the idea of
social structure and good living by becoming a part of the established social
norms, either by producing kids, giving them good living conditions, good
educations, getting them good job, sending them off in marriage and handling
all what comes in between these or by behaving like well to do couples, who
look like many other well to do couples.
Exercising of free will is one of the biggest hurdles that
marriage as an establishment and as an integral part of the social structure faces.
While an individual enters into the pact of conjugality, he or she is almost
ready to accept the ideas of social structuring and good living. It is the same
case with the rebellious couple who decided to enter in a live in relationship.
That is not so radical as it seems as it too replicate the same power relations
and hierarchies of the society in due course of its progress. One thing what
makes the living in relationship different from a religion approved or court
approved marriage is the easiness of its solvability. While the former could be
ended on a mutual agreement, as this mutual agreement is the basis of all
living in relationships, the latter is held together, despite all its problems
by the law of religions and courts. Couples, once they have produced a couple
of children find it extremely difficult to end the marriage or go out of it and
exercise free will mainly because in most of the societies the responsibility of
the kids is directly on to the parents. The state does not take any direct
responsibility in the upkeep of children. Hence, most of the couples live
inside a marriage that is not so interesting as the idea of good living
suggests.
A man or a woman, generally, gets married in their twenties.
There is a saying that most of happy families are happy in different ways but
most of the unhappy families are unhappy in the same way. There is no happy
ending in a marriage. Marriage is a beginning of a series of comedies and
tragedies. There are so many happy couples in this world who really respect and
appreciate their partners’ contributions to their lives. But most of the
couples live in a sour relationship. The reason should be sought in the idea of
good living. They get married at certain age and subconsciously they become
addicted to the idea of good living. Setting up a home is the first step and
each couple has a different way of setting up their homes. But this difference
is just skin deep because their idea of setting up of a happy home comes from
the same idea of good living. Once a happy home is set up, they bring kids into
it. Once the kids come, the parents become more responsible than before; this
responsibility, though apparently looks like, is towards the kids, in fact it
is more towards the structured society and the idea of good living. They want
to bring up the kids according to the demands set on to them by the society and
the idea of good living. They are to be taught in good schools and they are to
taken for vacations and they are to be given everything that the market
promoters say, is good for their growth.
But in reality, what are the things happen in that happy
home? When he/she gets into a marriage, they are not full blown/grown people.
Marriage is one step towards that growth. As they grown in that marriage, they
grow up biologically, intellectually and spiritually. Though there are couples
who grow up together to look like twins, though there are couples who read into
the minds of the partner out of habit and practice, they remain two different
people aspiring to grow in a different trajectory. However, the idea of good
living tells such couple who grow to curb all the reasons and passions for such
growth and pursue the path of good living. The realization of one’s own
trajectory, which is often radically different from the idea of good living is
the first reason for the entry of discordance in a ‘happily’ married couple’s
life. The moment this idea of self-growth occurs and the partner decides to
pursue that trajectory, if the partner is not so sympathetic about it and he
wants to go by the rules of the good living or his own trajectory, there will
be conflicts. When unsympathetic partners live under one roof, that marriage
turns out to be a living hell. I do not mean to say that there are no happy
couple who are absolutely sympathetic to each other and support each other,
care for each other’s spiritual as well as physical well being. Such couples are however rare and even if
they are found you could see either one of the partners is an active member in the
relationship and the other one is passive, or both the parties agrees to be a
part of the pursuance of good living or different from it. But when they both
pursue their trajectories in different ways, or when one tries to bring the
other to his/her trajectory trajectories are bound to happen.
The idea of good living has made our lives living hells. We
in the name of good life and happy life have been sacrificing, suffocating and
annihilating individualities for ages. The history of human race perhaps has
more stories about war and pestilence but compared to the domestic wars and
discordance such large scale wars fought out between powers out there in the
public domain look quite lackluster and lacking in severity. Whichever marriage
has become successful and has a happy ending in a cinematic way, I should say,
they are all the marriages of gory sacrifices and inexplicable adjustments. I
do not think that such marriages should be hailed or made as models to be
emulated. Whether it is the marriage of a genius and super rich or a poverty stricken
lay man/woman, such marriages of adjustments are not good for the free
flowering of our society. All the problems of our societies are caused by such
marriages. Marriages are not solemnized over fire and they are not affirmed by
seven rounds around fire, they are solemnized over future aggressions and
hidden knives. It is high time that we think about such marriages that curb the
growth of both the partners and the general growth of the children. People say
that divorce is one way out of it; but there should be more beautiful ways of
living together or living separately allowing each other adequate space for
their personal growth. If the welfare of the children is a question, the
parents in a bad marriage should make amendments to support the children from
their respective spheres.
It is not my intention to nullify all the marriages as bad
or write off the concept of marriage as humbug. My intention here is to say
that so long as one is in pursuit of the idea of good life, which is absolutely
imaginary and non-existent, based on myths and fables, the marriages are not
going to work; they may be successful in perpetuating the idea of living hell
than the celebration of the idea of good life.
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