Must we remain a Slave?
A very peculiar feature of our nature is that we prefer to remain confined within the limits of our own mental formations. Our ideas, beliefs, principles, and inferences, formed from various experiences at an individual level and imposed on us over the years by the social, political, and religious convictions at a collective level, become the most powerful governor of our lives. These formations constantly influence and determine our thoughts, feelings, and actions, although we may not be quite conscious about their working or existence. At times we become aware of them, especially when they contradict our self-interest, but even on such occasions they usually prevail upon our independent thinking. We hesitate to think liberally or act freely, mainly because of our old habitual way of thinking which has a very strong hold on us. We prefer to operate from a base of which the laws are known to us rather than try to tread on new grounds where the consequences are unknown. In a way, this resistance to things new originates from our ignorance, which causes in our mind a fear of the unknown. We suspect what we do not know and, curiously enough, reject a new idea even without caring to ascertain its values. Admitting a new concept into our thinking or living requires a certain amount of courage and a liberal mindset, which are not the most dominant traits of our nature.
This tendency of clinging to the known ground is not peculiar to the ordinary man pinned down to their day-to-day life who has no time to think beyond their struggle for existence but is quite common even for the learned and the elite. In their case though it usually takes a different form. While ordinary men accede to a stereotyped life primarily out of compulsions, the elites usually remain satisfied with an “average humanity” more by choice, mainly due to their intellectual vanity arising from receiving a decent education and a variety of other information from diverse sources, which they consider as knowledge. Having acquired high university degrees with certain intellectual activities they believe that they have become sufficiently wise which gives rise to intellectual pride. They refuse to believe that there can be any other way to improve the conditions of human life than what in their opinion is right for humanity. Their egos become so inflated with what can only be defined as ‘partial knowledge’ that they assert their views even in the fields in which they have no authority. They deny everything that contradicts their views, refusing even to consider or examine what they deny.
There are very few things more dangerous and detrimental to the progress of a man than this egoistic intellectual pride. This kind of self-appeasement constructs an impenetrable mental wall around an individual leaving very little chance for the light outside to enter through it. For only so can the half-light inside be protected and preserved—in its self-created obscurity and darkness. It is not that one is not aware of the flickering, dwindling nature of this halflight one is trying to protect, but what is most pathetic is that one still prefers to judge everything with its help. No wonder then that a self-contained intellectual cannot understand or accept a new idea, especially when it invalidates his own views. His intelligence circumscribed by his attachment to his half-knowledge and governed by his ego does not allow him to admit it. For, if the views that he holds so dear are proved wrong by the admission of a new idea, his own intellectual pride will get hurt and he will fall from his self-esteem. Consequently, he refuses to accept a higher idea, a greater truth for fear of losing his own identity as a knowledgeable intellectual. Not only the refusal but also a hostile rebuttal of greater ideas provides the best opportunity for the survival of his views that is so dear to him.