Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Mytholgies

There are real humane situations,- awkward, impossible, real imbroglios - one can overcome by inventing a phrase and relocating into the comfort of it. So for a time at least one can decisively divest of the uneasy feelings which would otherwise cling as a proverbial limpet, as it were, to the recesses of one's being. Ironically, some such terms, which originally would not have signified anything real, after a time gathers legitimacy, a host of meanings congealing around this figment of unhealthy imagination,and the word, in it's travail through all the infinite realms of discourses ends up as being true. A veritable case of a word in search of meaning, a corresponding reality, a world order for it to denote. External, objective reality is one thing and truly human reality is quite another. The very fact that it is human suggestions that add uniquely human value to reality engenders the possibility that reality cannot escape the whims of imagination including willfully mendacious fabrications.

A quintessential case of the above phenomenon is the term 'Peace Process'. When we come across a term like that we are naturally inclined to link it up with what we already know, for learning is always historical. So we get to ransack the old lessons of Chemistry classes to get an idea of the word process. Then the assumption we reach to will be of something which has a beginning and which would, as a necessary condition, end in something, at a different point in space and/or time. Not really. In this case as it appears the words 'Peace' and 'Process' are stripped of the original meanings for what we witness is an unending process. So the conjured up conjugal bed of peace and process tend to end up in something endless, a process which is never ending. That is to say global politicians and diplomats when faced with questions regarding international disputes can readily board the comfort of this verbal yacht immune to everything.