We are living in an accelerated condition. What does acceleration do to our thinking may be an interesting question that we may ask ourselves. Does acceleration speed up the thinking of the masses? Does it slow it down? We Goans are also experiencing a social acceleration. What it is it doing to us is an important issue that we need to come to terms with. In this chain of articles, I have raised the question and tried to answer it. The question is highly significant and cannot be easily and adequately answered. Here we raise another significant aspect that troubles me. While we experience social acceleration, we do not seem to be on the fast lane of thought. Social acceleration has slowed our thought. It is not just the case with Goans, we can trace the same condition across our country and the world. Although Modernity has accelerated our society, it has slowed down our thought. An accelerated thought will become nomadic and would continuously fly in all directions. Such a thought can be productive. But social acceleration does not allow us to invest in it. The slowing nature of thought can be discerned from the state of philosophy in our country. The state of philosophy is that philosophy has become the philosophy of the state. This is why identity thinking has become central to us in Indian, Goa and several other places in the world. Identity thinking brings along with it narcissistic hierarchical raking that raises the intolerance levels of our society.
The philosophy of the state is based on three important constituents. It derives everything from the original principle and regards it as true much like the way we think about the notions of Ganvkar, Bamon and other castes. Now the original is sought in terms of religion and it is regarded as the truth of our society. This has legitimated discrimination and division between the majority community and the minority communities in our country. In Goa, we have another original principle that is afflicting us. It is the Goan that is original and the non-Goan outsider. Just like the majority community across our country considers itself as original and the minority community as fake or counterfeit, we in Goa also think in similar terms about the non-Goan outsiders. The second principle that we can derive from the philosophy of the state is the drive to drive everything from an ideal and call it justice. This is why the notion of Hindu nation may not be truly representing India but appears just for the majority community. The third principle is to unify both that which is regarded as truth and justice in the state. This perhaps explains silence to the ruthless treatment of Muslims in contemporary India. Now the slowing of our thought has occurred to such an extent that this philosophy of the state has become the philosophy of the individual mind. Each mind has become a mini-state that is unified in the supermind of the state. This why we seem to be fascinated by what is actually the fascism of the state.
The rhizomatic thinking does not ride identity but flows with a difference. With the social acceleration, we might have thought that it would become natural to us. This mode of thinking is not natural to us, we have to cultivate it. Goan Susegad attitude does have shades of this mode of thinking but we cannot say that rhizomatic thinking is natural to us. Against the vertical and hierarchical thinking of identity which has become the philosophy of the state today, rhizomatic thinking is horizontal and non-hierarchical. It networks and nests on the horizontal plane. We do think rhiromatically as Goans when we embrace all Goans without any discrimination. But this embrace does not remain closed. It opens to every other human person. Some others call rhrizomatic thinking as nomadinc thinking as it always remains open and stays dynamic. This means rhizomatic thinking always remains humble and open and never reaches its closure. Identity thinking is closed thinking and conservative in nature. In an accelerated society we naturally uprooted and fall upon conservative identity thinking to save us from a sense and fear of being blown away. This is perhaps the reason why we can see identity thinking on rise across all socially accelerated societies. Unfortunately, identity thinking animated the philosophy of the state in our country. this is why the question that we raised about what social acceleration is doing to our thinking is both vital and relevant to understand what is happening to us and find ways and means of addressing so that we can become Goans that enrich each other as well as Goa and the world.