What is the meaning of action in the face of uncertainty? It is neither healthy nor viable to worry about every possible event or every pos...
What is the meaning of action in the face of uncertainty? It is neither healthy nor viable to worry about every possible event or every possible outcome of an action. To borrow metaphors from mythology and religion, such an approach is likely to turn us to stone or salt, immobilised and frozen into inaction or ready to crumble under the slightest pressure.
And yet, it is a perfectly legitimate desire to want some sense of stability in which to ground one’s existence. In times when difference is treated as dangerous and those seen as visibly different face the threat of exclusion and violence, the question of how we behave towards our fellow humans also takes on a special urgency.
Who are our kin? Who are Others? What is the nature of our obligations towards our fellow beings? This is a question that takes on a heightened salience in light of the kinds of identities and differences – national, cultural, religious, sexual, ethnic, caste, racial, gendered, bodily and others – that we, as individuals and communities, assert, negotiate and encounter today, perhaps at a scale unprecedented in human history.
Of equal import is the matter of war, both literal and metaphorical. What sense do...
