Claws and Slave Morality
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| Illustration by Copilot Designer |
Irvin Yalom, existential psychotherapist, thought it
his primary duty to help his clients from being those who call themselves good
because they have no claws. When you understand that ‘claws’ for him meant ‘power’
or ‘strength,’ the meaning of the statement becomes clear. Yalom was drawing on
Nietzsche’s distinction between ‘master morality’ and ‘slave morality.’
For Nietzsche, the strong and
powerful define ‘good’ as what is noble, life-affirming, and capable (including
the capacity for aggression and harm – hence ‘claws’). The weak, by contrast,
invert this: they perceive their powerlessness and the resultant restraint,
humility or harmlessness as ‘good’ and they label the strong as ‘evil.’ Their
morality is reactive, born of inability rather than affirmative choice.
Yalom considered goodness without
power as incomplete. Real moral or existential integrity demands the capacity
for ‘claws’ and the conscious decision about their use.
I was reminded of Yalom and his ‘claws’
when I saw the covers of two notable news magazines of India: India Today
and The Week. Both have put the Election Commission of India (ECI) on
the cover. India Today’s editor, Aroon Purie, who is an expedient
acolyte of Modi – as he would be of anyone with political ‘claws’ – writes without
mincing words that “the credibility (of the ECI) is now under strain in ways
that cannot be dismissed as Opposition noise.”
Purie clearly indicts the ECI for
excluding as many as 133.9 million names from voters lists in the country. “That
is 13 per cent of India’s billion-strong electorate, roughly the entire voting population
of Uttar Pradesh,” writes Purie. Credibility was the ECI’s “most precious asset”
and now that is lost.
Philip Mathew, editor of The Week
and quite as expedient in his political loyalties as Aroon Purie, not only
points an accusing finger at the ECI but also digs up Gyanesh Kumar’s (Chief
Election Commissioner) corrupt past to show that his ‘claws’ were not used with
any sense of public responsibility.
The youth of India are now protesting
the misuse of ‘claws’ by the ECI, particularly Gyanesh Kumar. They want nothing
less than the resignation of the man. And Modi doesn’t seem to care. On the
contrary, Modi has got his own men like Open magazine’s editor S
Prasannarajan to dedicate a whole issue to celebrate his greatness as the
greatest leader India has seen hitherto.
Prasannarajan
highlights how Modi has maintained a unique connection with the Indian public
by balancing astute political instincts with a steadfast commitment to his core
ideological principles. For people like Prasannarajan, who are hardcore
right-wingers, Modi is the ideal leader even if he has misused every
institution in the country – the ECI, Supreme Court, Enforcement Directorate,
CBI, Income Tax department and the police – for his political purposes. After
all, India is a country whose god Krishna employed all the possible varieties
of chicanery to win a war of dharma over adharma! And people like Prasannarajan
believe that Modi is the incarnation of God Vishnu (as Krishna was) in our own
times.
Yalom, with
whom I started this post, might approve of the ‘claws’ possessed by the major
leaders of the world today. But I don’t think he will endorse the misuse of
their claws as tools of indefinite conflict, institutional weakening, and self-aggrandizement.
Yet they are all adored by a lot of people in their own countries. Claws govern
us. Unless we, the ordinary mortals, learn to develop claws and use them
wisely, we will be quite worthless.
I hope the
youngsters who are protesting in Delhi and other places now against what
Gyanesh Kumar did to the country will meet with success sooner than later. Let
India not become a country of people with slave morality.
Claws. I'm going to need to ponder this a bit. It's hitting on something that's bothered me for a long time about our own liberal political party. They don't have claws, I think. And that's what's wrong with them.
ReplyDeleteThe era of people like Mahatma Gandhi is gone. Now we have to fight claws with claws.
DeleteThe photo was frightening, but the text made it worse.
ReplyDeleteOur Election Commission has become something like your ICE. Disenfranchising citizens, taking away their citizenship itself...
DeleteHari OM
ReplyDeleteYou have introduced a concept with which I was unfamiliar: I can understand what is meant here and am inclined to agree. The point Krishna wished Arjuna to see was that sometimes you have to stand up - pick your battles, for battles must be fought, no matter how much we wish they didn't... YAM xx
You're speaking about the Gita, forgetting what Krishna actually did on the ground. The killing of Drona, Karna, Jayadratha, the use of Shikhandi in order to decimate Bhishma, the defeat of Duryodhana - all these were done deceptively. Since the Mahabharata was utterly evil through and through, the Gita was added later by some clever Brahmins. I think even that cleverness doesn't salvage the epic's moral universe.
DeleteYalom's stance on " Claws" Is ambiguous, esoecially, if he himself and others accept him as a psychologist and an intellectual, whose word matters. This Doublespeak of the Politicians and Intellectuals is more danngerous than the Political Unconscious of the Public. As Romila Thapar stated at the onset of the Modi Era of Intellectual Silence, frightened of the "Claws" Of Most, "To be or not to be. ",That is the Question.
ReplyDeleteI do understand your point. We live in a country in which even the possibility of growing claws has been taken away from certain sections of people. But the answer is not playing the victim role, Yalom would say. That would be of absolutely no use, especially when your antagonists are monstrously powerful and venal. How does a chicken deal with a hawk? The chicken has to go into hiding until it grows claws or fangs or whatever. You can't preach morality to the buffalo that comes to kill you, as the Malayalam saying goes.
DeleteLet me throw a challenge for you. Do you think preaching the kind of love and compassion that Jesus taught, to the right wing in India today will do any good?
Not at all. Far from it. The task of Religion is to. be Chilly, not Opium. Both are possibilities. Tactical Retreat is entirely different from connivance and opportunism. For example, the CBCI, which came out with an official statement against the SIR, is too late.., tring to ride on the crust of the waves of the Popular Upheaval, which is gaining momentum. As regards the FCRA Amendment, it took the lead because it had much to loose. Same sense of Urgency is not displayed in the context of the Constitution, it's Institutions and the Cuture and thr robustness of Democracy.
ReplyDeleteIn July this year, Amnesty International brought out a report on Modi's obsession with the minority communities and FCRA.
Deletehttps://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/research/2026/07/india-fcra-tighten-control-civil-society-undermine-freedom-of-association/
It says (among other things):
1.Permissible foreign-funded activities are confined to a strict list (religious, cultural, economic, educational, and social). It explicitly excludes work with political/ideological content, proselytization, and rights awareness, effectively barring foreign funding for human rights advocacy, policy research, and legal aid.
2. NGOs must now register and pay additional fees separately for each specific purpose and location (state/union territory). A new minimum spending threshold of INR 1 million over two financial years is mandated, which penalizes smaller NGOs, alongside an existing 20% cap on administrative expenses.
3. The rules require mandatory field inquiries before releasing funding installments, mandatory disclosure of social media accounts, donor identities, and detailed annual activity reports.
4. Human rights organizations assert that these rules violate the right to freedom of association and expression under Article 22 and Article 19 of the ICCPR, as well as FATF recommendations, which call for targeted risk-based oversight rather than blanket restrictions.
Modi's ultimate objective is to decimate minority communities by hook or by crook.
No way we, the Indians, are going to develop claws in the near future. We'd rather shake our antennae vigorously and pretend they're claws.
ReplyDeleteGandhi understood the Indian psyche better than any other leader and that is why he shrewdly opted for a clawless revolution. Of course We love to honour the claws of Bhagat Singh and Bose posthumously. We place Savarkar a notch above them because he managed to retract the claws into the sheaths in the nick of time.
You remind me of what James Mill wrote about Indians: "Hindoos are minstrels of perfidy and cowardice, and Muslims of sensuousness and promiscuity."
DeleteI didn't realize this. It's definitely something to think about though.
ReplyDeleteIt's highly applicable in your country too.
Delete