"You choose your helplessness"

At first, A Hegelian Joke. 

Three UPSC aspirants were talking about Indian Administration. 

One of the Aspirants said, "It is so sad, the kind of system we are aspiring to enter, it is so corrupt. Everyone takes bribes to do work, but nobody accepts." 

Other aspirant said, "Yes bro, I agree, everyone takes money, but nobody accepts. I will also never accept that I take bribes." 

The third aspirant said, "Yes, I Agree too. Everyone takes bribes but nobody accepts. I will accept." 

The first aspirant asked, "How about not taking bribe at all? what is this Liberal honesty?" 

Other two aspirants laugh at him, saying, "are you a nobody? Don't you realize the central principle, "Everybody takes bribes and nobody accepts! Be somebody like everybody and shut up and take bribes!"

First Aspirant returns to his home and starts reading Hegel again. 

The central idea of the joke is about the learned Helplessness that the society wants to teach us. Helplessness is a feeling, normally understood by a layman, by a feeling where you have no actions at hand that you can do to solve your problem. 

But let us dissect Helplessness further. What makes a man helpless? If you ask a person in power, He will also give the excuse of helplessness, he has to take a bribe because everyone is doing and social boycott etc. The powerless usually gives the bribe, and he will say, the powerful accepts bribes and that is why, I have to give bribes. The powerless can even go to the extent to say, "I am helpless, My helplessness is the genuine helplessness while his helplessness is an excuse." 

Our concern of the matter is not whose helplessness is genuine or spurious. Rather, a line of question, "Isn't helplessness, in its own definition, assumes a rather excuse?" Or, to put it simply, "Isn't helplessness an excuse the system tries to give itself?" 

Is not Inertia an excuse of every object that has mass, until a force is applied on it and then it changes. Inertia of rest becomes inertia of motion. The crucial aspect of this example is that the same excuse becomes the excuse of its negation. Inertia, which prior to application of force, was not letting the object move. After the force, it becomes the reason of motion. It becomes, "Inertia of motion". 

This establishes the fact that Helplessness as an excuse is not excusable since, it is in the structure of this very excuse where its negation lies. What I mean is that if someone asks, "What can I do? I was helpless." The appropriate response is to ask a counter question, "It is ok to be helpless. Why aren't you helpless to do the right thing? Why helplessness occurs to you only to do the wrong thing?" 

An honest man is also helpless but to do the right thing. 

This led us to the central thesis. Helplessness that is learned by the society is always detrimental. Society keeps helplessness as an educative category. Parents teach their wards helplessness. System teaches helplessness. This helplessness is there to keep the system intact. 

But the paradox is the very formulation of learned helplessness is the re-establishment of the same. What I mean is, even if you tell this to a learned helpless, he will use your learned category to justify his behavior. He will not ask, "How can I unlearn my helplessness?" He will say, "I have learned it and now this is very difficult to take out. Or It will take time." All this logic involves a certain systematic undermining of agency. 

Helplessness is actually a state of perceived loss of agency. Perceived because it is fake. Authentic helplessness is the spiritual helplessness. I cannot help it. I have to do the right thing. Even if it means my death. 

How learned helpless people try to cope with their helplessness? The answer is power. The reason the powerless in our above example says that the powerful is making excuses and he is not because he thinks power should solve the problem of helplessness. 

Power does not solve the problem of helplessness. Either you are helpless now and will remain so even after being powerful. Or you are helpful and will remain helpful to others even after being powerful. 

Power is just another variable defined here to cure the symptom but rather it becomes the symptom. Then we come across quotes like, "Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely!" 

The powerless strives for power in search of curing helplessness. He cures his powerlessness through this but not helplessness. When he enters the system, he finds himself in a mess, let us name it, Helpless mess. System seems like a helpless mess. 

Then he gets other sets of excuses. The only difference between a powerless helpless and a powerful helpless is the set of excuses they give to justify their helplessness. 

We need to agree on this that the whole construct of being helpless in a system is fake. Agency is never lost. Action can always be taken. But it is much easier and convenient to 

learn what system wants from you, that is, learned helplessness, so you choose to do it. 

"You choose your helplessness" can be an appropriate aphorism to explain this. Either you can choose the helplessness of an honest man, or you can choose the helplessness of a dishonest man, that is the learned helplessness. 

The task of theory thus is to catch the system with its pants down. Where the system tries to theorize its own existence. Why it exists and why it should exist. All excuses in history given by systems, like Divine theory of Kings, like existence of capitalism and private property, existence of slavery, existence of patriarchy, the system of that times, always tried to justify the existence of itself through the logic of helplessness. and intelligent theorists caught the system's lies and then created a critical framework where on paper, at least, through logic, it was impossible for the system to exist. And then revolution happened, and system changed. 

That is why, Theory is the foreground of revolution. Theory is and will be required. Otherwise, Revolution and the act of trying to change the system will look like an attempt of terrorism. Example: Umar Khalid is in jail. why? He tried activism without theory. Ambedkarites are in jail under UAPA. Why? Because the Ambedkarite theory is obsolete now. The revolution needs a new theory and a net set of theorists. 

History will provide itself with theory. We all historical agents of revolution will write. Write and leave the system with no excuses.