“The men have no defensive armour. They are exposed to blows at all points, and no one ever strikes in vain….There is no helmet or shield to deflect the weapon. What is the need of defensive armour, or of skill? All these mean delaying death….The spectators demand that the slayer shall face the man who is to slay him in his turn; and they always reserve the latest conqueror for another butchering. The outcome of every fight is death, and the means are fire and sword. This sort of thing goes on while the arena is empty” (Epistles, VII)
We are living in an era where there are unwanted dominations by the hedonistic junkies[i] of the society. This domination is giving some very peculiar effect in the dynamics of human co-relation. The social fabrics upon which the dominations have its impact, instead of sustaining the blissful elements, is creating a self-destructive mechanism. This self-destruction, again, is in the form of defying the very process of natural evolution itself; evolution in the sense of development and improvement. This hindrance, on the other hand, is also being paraded forward under the delusion that, it must necessarily provide the future with all kinds of prospects.
The idea of ‘man’ in its most singular sense, down to the individual being with a title, has its own characteristics to walk along with the nature. Going along with the nature, primarily requires the sense of survival, or rather the popular notion of ‘struggle for existence’. This struggle is unique, and on the other hand, it is also highly generic. A child is endowed with all kinds of capability contributed by the Nature itself, instigating and motivating the very continuity of the species and the essences it necessitates. The principle of self-subsistence is highly anticipated, in the sense that, the basics of life and its fundamental principles are consistently observed by the living man throughout his life. For instance, a man’s life is staked upon the rhythms of mere cardiovascular pulsations. In the same sense, his existence in time requires his own struggle that goes parallel to the norms of Nature.
Now, that being the case, we cannot skip the notion of ‘dependence’. One can simply argue that the idea of self-reliance, the phenomena of independence, is significantly vague. Because, the path of sustaining, needs some kind of track upon which he is mounted to proceed, and upon which he relies for the direction. In simple words, man’s dependence upon the nature; nature in its multiple manifestations, is purely inevitable. But, is there any other reason, especially for the part of man, to depend on something else, apart from the above-mentioned survival instincts? If, dependence happens for the sake of some hedonistic calculus, then, I believe, extreme form of distortion arises. One may easily use the term ‘compromise’, or more appropriately, for moral persons, they used the phrase ‘selling one’s soul’.
This reminds us of Roman Gladiators. Their slaving part in the form of duties is within the walls of an amphitheatre. Are they truly fighting for survival, or are they fighting for pleasure? All we know is the promised freedom, and other modes of enjoyment guaranteed through victory. But to our astonishment, there were people who enters the ring voluntarily. So, as history speaks, two types of gladiators emerge – one who become gladiators from compulsion, and the other who walked into it on their own.
Now, in a system created by dominating & oppressive mindset, and intentions, working out for self-satisfaction, propagating the principle of dependency for hedonistic ends, would eventually yield people conforming to the second type of gladiators; voluntary gladiators. For them, the idea of dignity, self-reliance, individual endeavours to overcome challenges, become phrases and words with empty meanings. They become the man who intends to solve the problems of life through a mortal fight, orchestrated by the masters for their own purposes. Their preferences lie with the glass of wine tossed after the battle, rather than the pile of wheat reaped through sweat and blood of freedom.
Few of us have failed to digest the immediate necessity of interviewing a candidate who recently cracked a civil service examination. It would be more appropriate to reserve the motivational interview after the candidate have performed his/her newly assigned duty in such a way that it could potentially inspire the younger generations. When you start celebrating after winning a battle, set up by your masters, for their own purpose, you are also deceiving yourself as a successful person against the truth of becoming a gladiator bound by the rules of enslavement.
Nature must be explored through individual strive, and so it extends itself to the domains of society. This innate principle to strive ceases to function if dependency is being used as a means to some hedonistic ends. And hence, the rise of the modern gladiators.
[i] A person who gets an unusual amount of pleasure from or has an unusual amount of interest in something-
The writer is Assistant Professor, Imphal College
