The Dynamics of Thesis, Antithesis, and Synthesis in Societal Evolution
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A thesis (idea or historical movement) inevitably generates its opposite, an antithesis, and as they interact, a new synthesis (idea or movement) emerges. The antithesis is not wholly dissimilar from the thesis. Though periodically coated a different colour, the thesis is always the thesis. The present society is based on individual acquisitiveness; and its opposite, with the resulting synthesis, is what you call the new society. In your new society, individual acquisitiveness is opposed by State acquisitiveness, the State being the rulers; the State is now all-important, and not the individual.
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This does not mean that we must stay as we are, with society""s exploitation and corruption. But your revolution is no revolution, it is only a change of power from one group to another, the substitution of one class for another. Obviously, there must be a fundamental revolution in man""s relationship to man; we all know that things cannot go on as they are without increasing sorrow and disaster. But most reformers like the so-called revolutionaries, have an end in view, a goal to be achieved, and both use man as a means to their own ends. The use of man for a purpose is the real issue, and not the attainment of a particular end. You cannot separate the end from the means, for they are a single, inseparable process. The means is the end….
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As long as man is psychologically or physically used, society will be based on violence. When you use another for your mutual gratification or advantage, there is no relationship…. The use of another makes that person the dead instrument of our gratification. Relationship can exist only between the living, and usage is a process of isolation that breeds conflict, antagonism between men. Existence is relationship…. Relationship is society. The structure of our present society, being based on mutual use, brings about violence and destruction; if the so-called revolutionary State does not alter this usage, it can only produce further conflict, confusion and antagonism. As long as we psychologically need and use each other, there can be no relationship. Relationship is communion; and how can there be communion if there is exploitation?
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Exploitation implies fear, and fear inevitably leads to all kinds of illusions and misery. Conflict exists only in exploitation and not in relationship. Conflict, opposition, enmity exists between us when there is the use of another as a means of pleasure, of achievement. This conflict obviously cannot be resolved by using it as a means to a self-projected goal; and all ideals, are self-projected. To see this is essential, for then we shall experience the truth that conflict in any form destroys relationship, understanding. There is understanding only when the mind is quiet; and the mind is not quiet when it is held in any ideology, dogma or belief, or when it is bound to pattern of experience or memory. The mind is not quiet when it is acquiring or becoming. All acquisition is conflict; all becoming is isolation. The mind is not quiet when it is disciplined, controlled; such a mind is dead, it is isolating itself through resistance, and so it inevitably creates misery. The mind is quiet only when it is not caught in thought, which is the net of its own activity. When the mind is still, not made still, a true factor, love, comes into being.
