As I was speaking with Sahana Simha, a dear friend and scholar studying at the Università degli Studi di Torino, the other day, I found myself wondering: Is it really the ideas that spark new thinking, or is it the expression of those ideas that makes the difference? I think it’s the latter, often, if not always. Let me exemplify.
It is trite to hear that “things were different in the past,” or that “it depends”—those classic early responses tossed around in classrooms and conversations. Everything, we are told, depends on context, perspective, and history. These are familiar tropes—so familiar, in fact, that we rarely pause to parse them consciously. But then, why do some thinkers, like Foucault—who spoke of discourse, power, contingency, and discontinuity—still strike us as so distinctive? (Foucault is just an example that comes to mind. We can also think of (e.g.,) the Buddhist notion of Śūnyatā, and see how it makes us rethink our understanding of the world we already know. While there might not be anything new, or something we have not heard or thought, it can still offer something to rethink our position.)
Take, for instance, the idea that power governs us, not necessarily people or laws, but the way we speak and think about certain things, certain people, certain practices. This is not an entirely new notion. Many of us feel this intuitively, even if we don’t always name or blame it.
Here, think of a friend who calls you at 3 a.m., wanting to discuss something serious. I might be half-asleep, or drowned in a deadline. And yet, I will likely pick up the phone—because s/he is a friend, is in need, and matters to me. And as the legends go, good friends don’t leave each other in the lurch.
In that moment, it’s not just my personality or kindness that governs my response (i.e, my choice to disturb my sleep and leave the draft I was working on). It’s also the discourse—the way of talking—about friendship, care, loyalty, karma, and so on. These ideas—these discourses—shape our behaviour. But they do so contingently, not universally.
That is, not every society expects a friend to call someone at 3 AM and expect the other person to discuss serious matters. The upshot is that these things don’t act like rules; they inhabit us through culture, emotion, and memory.
Let’s take another example. Think also of a romantic relationship. One couple in rural India may carry a significant burden of monogamy, patriarchal norms, and greater interdependence. A relationship in the West, while not necessarily free of patriarchy or monogamy, might involve entirely different expectations about emotional expression, domestic roles, and even/especially whether one should live with parents. These expectations—these meta-norms—quietly configure the power dynamics of a relationship.
And again, these are not some revelations; we already know them, feel them, live them. What gives them force is when they are named, framed, and expressed in the language and articulated using (e.g.,) history, sociology, or economics. It is then that they begin to broach some limitations in our understanding, tickle a part of our existing thinking and prompt us to ponder on things we have already known and felt.
Suddenly, an intuition begins to brim in a different light, unfurling a new set of ideas or topics that did not appear to us like that before. By nudging us and by unsettling us. It forces a reckoning with something we had already known, but not quite seen.
The rub is that it’s just the power of their ideas. Ideas, after all, are everywhere—floating, flexible, fragile. We all encounter them, even without reading the complete works of major thinkers. For example, I haven’t read all of Foucault, nor have I read many others, for that matter. And I am sure my understanding will change as I read more of them and other related materials.
Yet, some of the concepts I have encountered, when combined with my own experiences, life, and language (especially Hindi and Marwari), have generated ways of thinking for me that were not obvious before.
So … what makes some ideas resonate, I believe, is not just their content, but their grounding—the way they are pinned to specific signs (e.g., words, phrases) that they begin to feel real, different, practical, and empowering.
And that’s when they erupt, thinking and catapulting a new thought, a new idea, or an argument.
At least, I think so. What do you think?
IP Musings 