എന്തുകൊണ്ട് ബാക്കസ്/ ഡയോണിസസ് ? എന്തുകൊണ്ട് ഷോഡ? Bertrand Russell, Introduction to Western Philosophy. കണ്ണുള്ളവർ കാണട്ടെ, ബുദ്ധിയുള്ളവർ മനസ്സിലാക്കട്ടെ. മദ്യം കേരളത്തിൽ കിട്ടാതിരിക്കാനേ പോകുന്നില്ല. എന്നാലും ഇത്തരം ഒരു തീരുമാനം എടുക്കുന്ന ഒരു സ്ഥലത്തിന്റെ ബൗദ്ധിക-സദാചാരപാപ്പരത്തെയോർത്ത് സങ്കടപ്പെട്ട് ഷോഡാ കുടിക്കുന്നതായി സങ്കൽപ്പം. ജയ് ബാക്കസ്! The civilized man is distinguished from the savage mainly by prudence, or, to use a slightly wider term, forethought. He is willing to endure present pains for the sake of future pleasures, even if the future pleasures are rather distant. This habit began to be important with the rise of agriculture; no animal and no savage would work in the spring in order to have food next winter, except for a few purely instinctive forms of action, such as bees making honey or squirrels burying nuts. In these cases, there is no forethought; there is a direct impulse to an act which, to the human spectator, is obviously going to prove useful later on. True forethought only arises when a man does something towards which no impulse urges him, because his reason tells him that he will profit by it at some future date. Hunting requires no forethought, because it is pleasurable; but tilling the soil is labour, and cannot be done from spontaneous impulse. Civilization checks impulse not only through forethought, which is a self-administered check, but also through law, custom, and religion. This check it inherits from barbarism, but it makes it less instinctive and more systematic. Certain acts are labelled criminal, and are punished, certain others, though not punished by law, are labelled wicked, and expose those who are guilty of them to social disapproval. The institution of private property brings with it the subjection of women, and usually the creation of a slave class. On the one hand the purposes of the community are enforced upon the individual, and, on the other hand the individual, having acquired the habit of viewing his life as a whole, increasingly sacrifices his present to his future. It is evident that this process can be carried too far, as it is, for instance, by the miser. But without going to such extremes prudence may easily involve the loss of some of the best things in life. The worshipper of Dionysus reacts against prudence. In intoxication, physical or spiritual, he recovers an intensity of feeling which prudence had destroyed; he finds the world full of delight and beauty, and his imagination is suddenly liberated from the prison of every-day preoccupations. The Bacchic ritual produced what was called enthusiasm, which means, etymologically, having the god enter into the worshipper, who believed that he became one with the god. Much of what is greatest in human achievement involves some element of intoxication,15 some sweeping away of prudence by passion. Without the Bacchic element, life would be uninteresting; with it, it is dangerous. Prudence versus passion is a conflict that runs through history. It is not a conflict in which we ought to side wholly with either party.
Posted on: Sun, 24 Aug 2014 07:10:36 +0000
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