Ideological contradictions rule but can also spur new ideas
Philosopher George Santayana said the world is in “perpetual caricature" of itself because, every moment, it is presented with a contradiction of what it is pretending to be. This holds especially true even for the knowledge universe, where an eternal cycle of conflicts and contradictions ensures that the graveyard of old ideas is always full, leaving behind a vacuum for new ideas to take birth. This never-ending sequence becomes the source, the wellspring, for renewal and endless optimism.
As German playwright Bertolt Brecht put it, “In the contradiction lies the hope." But the path between the two is never easy because overcoming initial contradictions and reaching an eventual resolution requires the humility to accept incongruities, the courage to surmount the immediate challenge and to find solutions that bring forth new ideas which can stand on the shoulders of older ones. Corporate strategists, bean-counters and quant-heavy economists may be tempted to discard this as an abstract notion, but the world today is wracked by contrasting challenges—extreme heat waves in some parts with flooding in others—and crying out for change. India too needs to acknowledge economic inconsistencies and find long-term solutions.
In the old economic orthodoxy, ideologies were dichotomous and did not bleed into each other. Right-wing politics, free-market evangelism and distrust of the welfare state all tended to cohabit under the same tent. These rigidities no longer hold true.
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