Does salvation of man lies in the preservation of the cultural tradition?

 

 

Hello friends,

 

No system of morality is accepted as universal, and the answers  to the question “what is morality?” differ sharply from place  to place, group to group, and time to time, for some it means  conscious and deliberate effort in guiding one’s conduct by reason based on fairness and religious belief.

Eliot describes the despair and hopelessness of the Modern Age. People are emotionally dead and physically alive so what is the purpose of human life? To come out from the modern complexities or vulgarity of modern civilization, and modern anxiety, he becomes the innovator of Indian philosophy as the ultimate solutions of all problems. In search of salvation for modern men who are suffered from their own self, he shows the path of ' Santana Dharma' which is suggested into Indian Philosophy. Eliot believes in one's salvation which lies in the preservation of cultural tradition. It is pre-existed means already there and which must preserve it chaos is to be avoided. If all things crumbling down gradually, how all those things reconstructed?

Past and present always go together. To find out the answers or solutions of the problems, Eliot goes into the past and fined the answer which is suggested by Indian culture or Indian Vedic Sahitya. People only sustain through their culture not primitiveness. Thus, giving the importance to culture , he is differed from the Freud who gave the concept of collective and individual balance which should be constantly take into account man's primitive instincts. Western Society has lake of spirituality and much sexual perversion which leads them towards the darkness and they have no hope for better future. Culture and traditions are there, it is within us not primitiveness. In other words, we may say that Culture sustain within us rather than primitiveness.

Eliot knows the knowledge of Indian spirituality and uses all in his poem as the solution of salvation and relief of human lives. 

 

People are physically living and morally, spiritually or mentally died. They are living yet not! So, what's the use of this kind of life? He has made a fair use of the Hindu Scriptures, specifically the wisdom of the Vedas, the Upanishads. Here, we will seek to explore the relation between Indian Philosophy and T.S.Eliot's The Waste Land.

 

Poem delves between spiritual degradation and sexual perversion. It delves into corruption of human soul, lack of moral uprightness and spiritual barrenness of modern times but what's interesting is, also give solutions to these drastic problems of humanity.

 

The Modern Age - 20th century is the time of much anxiety and have no faith in humanity. Eliot has great faith in philosophical solution and religions which provide some kind of relief. Going back to past, he informs that we have to preserve the culture through which we can sustain our life. Though people cannot change the past which is lived, past is the thing which leads our present. 

T. S. Eliot is known as religious poet. He has great knowledge of different cultures, religions, literatures, history and common senses. The same way, He has knowledge of Indic philosophy, language, and culture. And we find such references in his poems. He uses different languages like...... English, German, French, and Sanskrit and different religions like Buddhism, Hinduism, and Christianity.

 

It was the period of modern world. sexual sterility and lack of proper love in the 

Modern world.

There is some dangerous aspect also how to sustain in such kind of state of affairs. In poem there is much deep philosophical concern and some psychological aspects. And it evidently psychologically it also connected with it. 

It also contains common themes such as modernist literary traditions, including the disjointed  nature of time, the role of culture and nationality, and eventually the desire to find universality in a period of  political unrest. 

Freud believes in individual freedom and personal desire. He thinks that society is constructed the behaviors with norms and that's why there is the conflict between individual expectation and community which is harm the society. Whereas Eliot gives the cultural identity rather than the personal desire. Eliot believes that Mankind has cultural norms and regulation before our existence and through which Human being survives. So, sometime personal desire and instincts becomes only imagination and have to face reality which is totally different. So, let's try to find without their different point of view discussing some poems and let's see from where he find out the solutions

That is the whole; the whole is this:

from the whole rises up the whole;

and having seized the whole of the whole, the whole alone remains

 

" Where sun beats ,

And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief ,

And the dry stone no sound of the water."

One cannot imagine life in this kind of circumstances. This is the cultural situation of the 20th century modern civilization where human life is unimaginable and what sort of life it would be. Harold Bloom rightly observed that in The Waste Land. The problem poem presents it runs throughout five parts of it.

“How can people live well if the culture is broken , harsh and cannot support them?"

Or

What sort of human can grow in barren culture? How mankind make or create a worthy culture of the environment in which it grows undermines life rather than nature it?

This quest to repair to reclaim, re-establish, to bring back to the faith, spirituality and the culture of the past. So, Eliot goes back into past to find out answers and also achieved universality of thoughts by recalling mythos historical answers to the contemporary malaise.

Observing both Eliot and Freud, we may say that Eliot is regressive .He has great belief in the past or culture rather than primitiveness. Freud believes in collective and individual balance which should be constantly take into account man's primitive instincts. Whereas, Eliot believes in one's salvation which lies in the preservation of cultural tradition. It is pre-existed means already there and which must preserve it chaos is to be avoided

The central idea of ' The Waste Land ' is sexual perversion and spiritual drought both are inter woven in the poem. Freud also says , spirituality and sexuality are inseparably related. For example, intuition and creativity cannot function in individuals who are sexually inhibited or who repress sexual guilt and shame. (SIGMUND FREUD & FREUDIAN PSYCHOANALYSIS) Eliot emphasizes on Culture and traditions which is within us not primitiveness which is given by Freud. 

In other words,

It seems that Eliot tries to says that

 Culture sustain within us rather than primitiveness. 

If all things crumbling down gradually,

Freud believed that humans were driven by two instinctive drives, libidinal energy/Eros and the death instinct/than to with example it indicates that......... , if one feels stuck or depressed, it may be the foreshadowing of a creative burst. Eros is also at the root of our philosophic or religious exploration and the urge toward self-actualization 

As we have remarked in the earlier part of the paper that in this age there is growing interest in psychology , Freud and other psychologists have also tried to get solution of the present dilemma of hopelessness ,rootlessness and decaying culture. The remark made by Gustoy Hell the member of the Swedish academy at the Nobel Prize ceremony. This remark help us in reading or at least how the psychological solution is connected with the Waste Land. 

"For Freud the most profound cause of the confusion lay in the Unbehagen in der Kultur of modern man. In his opinion there must be sought a collective and individual balance, which should constantly take into account man's primitive instincts. You, Mr. Eliot, are of the opposite opinion. For you ( Eliot) the salvation of man lies in the preservation of the cultural tradition, which, in our more mature years, lives with greater vigour within us than does primitiveness, and which we must preserve if chaos is to be avoided. Tradition is not a dead load which we drag along with us, and which in our youthful desire for freedom

we seek to throw off. It is the soil in which the seeds of coming harvests are to be sown, and from which future harvests will be garnered”

( Nobel Prize Speech)

But what Freud said that to give free vent to primitive instincts, is not always possible when we are living in groups of human beings called human society , because the free vent of primitive instincts can lead to chaos into society. It is true that giving free way to primitive instincts can provide at self satisfaction and happiness which is momentary but that happiness even remains up to individual only and cannot become collective happiness which can lead a better society and culture. And that's why Eliot is better than Freud because he goes to past with cultural reference to find contemporary malaises.

How all those things reconstructed?

Does it rise again from the ashes?

Though individual made up the society , society never accept the individual's decisions. Psychologically, it symbolizes the inner darkness of life. There is nothing to be done.

Though people are alive they seem like dead because of sexual perversion. They are similar to dead. They have no strength to do something. They all are impotent . Though they are human being, they are laying spiritual incapacity in the both.

Thank You.