SELF-AWARENESS WILL BE THE AXIS TO POWER IN COMING DAYS
Let's go back to 1915. A leader to be and a Messiah of South Africa, The Maverick Barrister, later to be known as, Gandhi ji and that time, Mohandas K. Gandhi. Although he was not that big in 1915. Before him is a strong competition and a sort of legacy in the form of Tilak, Gokhale and other people. But within 10 years, what makes this individual a sort of a mahatma. I believe it was a claim to power through Moral Conscience. Morality was his ultimate claim to power. His arguments rely on Morality. Let's analyze this.
When we say Morality, it is for me nothing but a stance to a goodness, a claim that this is good, and this should be done. This starts a logical and human level ideological struggle to what will eventually be called "right". Whenever a new leader comes up with his version of morality, he challenges the older order of right vs wrong, and he wants everyone to agree to him. There is nothing universal about morality although it might appear that way. Empathy, a value which guides in formation of a collective morality of a society is somewhat skewed in the Favour of the oppressed because in one way or the other, human, in his most sane tendencies, finds himself helpless, and wants help. Everyone needs help in times of helplessness, and this makes people empathetic to towards the other. There are some, who can harness this form of collective energy of empathy by giving an alternate model of morality from time to time and we call them leaders. I would like to think of Gandhiji as a Maverick in that sense that he could convince his claim to power to everyone who was a leader before and after him. This makes him a leader of the highest order.
But I do believe, this morality, as a claim to power is declining and dissipating in the age of skepticism and cynicism that we live in. To quote a very brilliant, and symptomatic author of our times, which will also be a case in point, Manu Joseph, "Be very cautious with the person who is always there to help people without any benefits for in the whole process, he might be the alone there to be benefitted." This is the ultimate spirit of cynicism of today's generation. We have got far more heroes and revolutionaries that have failed us. So, it seems an utmost responsibility of an average man and an average woman today to judge everyone who claims to be a leader. Whether or not revolution comes, our generation is highly skeptical about leaders. But every generation has a weak point. I have realized that this generation's weak point is self-awareness. You might hear people saying shit like "Do not judge me, I know what I am doing but..." and then they will go on to explain the excuse they are facing for why they will have to do something they know is wrong. This self-aware card seems to be a pass for everyone these days. A self-aware cringe is no longer cringe anymore; it is an irony. So, we come to the ultimate proposition, "People, in the coming days, will like to elect a leader who can take extreme steps and is ready to get away with it by accepting it as his fault." People might even forgive a Hitler today, if he, in a self-aware way, accepts that he has done a genocide. This leads us to the extra provocative version of my proposition," No genocide without Self-awareness in future." and "A self-aware Hitler is considered a Gandhi in this generation". Which leads me to my final proposition, "Morality will lose its status of being the ultimate claim to power because morality of people will be judged more too often in this generation". A leader, in future days, will not be someone who is moral but someone who will be immoral with a self-aware stance. Or even worse, an amoral person, lacking any moral sense, but just faking a self-awareness which will create an illusion in minds of people that he knows what he is doing. This blind faith on self-awareness will become the ultimate opium of masses in coming days. It will become the axis to power in coming days.
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