The Labor and Practice of Ethics
(done as part of literature and the ethics of telling a story term paper 2)
Introduction
"Man cannot remake himself without suffering, for he is both the marble and the sculptor." — Alexis Carrel
The word ethics derives from the ancient Greek word ἦθος (êthos) which originally meant something close to "character", "custom" or "habit". In this term paper we first show how ethics is a continuous process, a dialogue between interacting individuals and communities. Utilising this understanding, we critically analyse the movie Ek Ruka Hua Faisla and Atin Bandyopadhyay's Kafir as media pieces that exhibit this "practice" of ethics in varying circumstances, viz. the community and justice for Ek Ruka Hua Faisla, and the individual and religion for Kafir. This paper is organized to shape this idea of ethics and trace its genealogy in the first section, and then analyse some specific aspects of the given works and how they interact with the developed idea in the second section.
Ethics as "Practice"
The main claim of this section is positing ethics as a technology for self-formation. We develop a genealogical argument for this as we trace the idea of a "practice" down from many traditions as something that defines the nature of ethical behaviour. This conception automatically defines it as a dynamic, moving conversation between different individuals and societies, which is our thesis about the stability of such behaviour.
Ethics is considered as a subfield of "Axiology" by many philosophers [1]. Axiology being the study of what we value, and ethics being related to character and habit makes ethics a study of what is valued in character. It is an often quoted argument against ethical realism [2] that objective moral values, if they were real, would be teleologically definitive of humans' actions, i.e. it would be morally binding to act in accordance with them. We do not concern ourselves with the validity of ethical realism here, and rest axiomatically on the weaker claim that it is possible to choose to pursue some values to some degree of agency.
For fields such as aesthetics, which are also types of axiologies, it is easy to see how such values may be pursued. If aesthetics is the axiology defined by the transcendental of beauty, ethics is the axiology that studies and explores the other transcendentals, viz. "The Good" and "The True".
This is not a definitive and comprehensive definition of all that ethics encompasses. Rather, we posit that understanding ethics as the practice and field which studies the internal work required to attain an idealisation of the aforementioned transcendentals is something that allows us to attain valuable insights.
Firstly, it must be understood why such a practice is required and the friction it causes. In sociological groups with objective moralities such as Christianity with a defined testament for behaviour, mystic sects and monastic orders have historically existed [3]. Their practice of hermeneutics is an ethical practice of bringing the codified objective morality into conversation with the social realities of the day. This is a tedious process, the friction coming due to the situational awareness required to bridge the changing social and technological order of a new age with that which has been written in the scriptures. Such sects were often rejected by orthodox traditional orders [4]. While this is a rather direct example, the claim is that most social groups have such intersubjective unspoken truths considered "sacred" [5] which requires constant practice to be aware of. Engaging in this practice of ethics causes friction and may put respect and power up for questioning. This will be expanded upon in the section covering the friction between society and the individual when it comes to ethical behaviour.
Secondly, there is a necessity of preparation required for engaging with such a practice. For example, consider the Eightfold Path of Buddhism [6] or the practice of Brahmacharya as defined in Patanjali's Yoga Sutras [7]. It is understood within these sects that the rituals are merely containers for passing the content of the knowledge by — a way to still the mind so that one can come into doing this work [8]. Consider the many esoteric alchemist societies with their initiation rituals into "The Great Work" [9], or philosophers such as Nietzsche expounding upon the process of constructing our own values. In [10][11] there is an extensive discussion about how this process conflicts societally, of the loneliness and suffering of such a practice, of its radically creative nature. While we cannot universalize this experience, these accounts converge on a sort of tension coming from sustained effort in this practice. The nature and mechanism for some of these contradictions that may come about due to living ethically will be explored in the section on epistemic underpinnings.
Thirdly, though this shall not be explored further separately in the rest of this paper, we point to how such a practice and performance of ethics is a political act. For example, we consider a breadth of ideologies across the materialist spectrum. Consider books such as Atomic Habits or Deep Work by Cal Newport, which are prototypical self-help books reflective of the technocratic, self-optimizing, productivity-obsessed late capitalist societies [12][13]. When James Clear writes "Each habit is a conscious vote for the person you are becoming" or Cal Newport writes "You are what you repeatedly give attention to," they are pointing again to this intentional, conscious practice of shaping your character. Marxists hold the ethical ideal of the class-conscious proletarian. Hegelians have an idea of the ethical life of a person or a community coming to self-consciousness [14]. But perhaps one of the best examples to specify the psycho-physico-political nature of this "practice" in Marxist thought is given by Gramsci's discussion of "The Intellectual" in his prison notebook essays "On Education" and "The Intellectual" — the vanguard of the few people who can be shaped through schooling to be responsible, conscientious, and powerful: to hold still and acquire understanding and mobilize political action [15].
Finally, it is pertinent to mention that there is a large physical component to this practice as mentioned [7][15]. There are modern master practitioners such as Ido Portal who has been inspired by techniques such as somatic grounding to explore this same practice with a focus on the body and the individual. However, in this paper we choose to focus on the psychological and sociological implications of such practice.
To conclude this section, we restate the important parts of our final understanding developed through this section, defining this practice of ethics concisely as the sum total of intentional choices of politico-psycho-physiological action that brings one's ideals about "The Good" and "The True" into conversation with larger society around them and the acceptance of the consequences arising from such a friction.
Going forward, we evaluate the effects of such a practice on the epistemic underpinnings of one's foundational beliefs and the sociological implications of such a practice and how the authors specifically explore them in the given stories.
The "Practicing" Life
On the surface, Kafir is a story of Paran's attempted escape from a town torn by communal riots. But on a deeper reading, it may be seen as an account of a journey one takes when they continue to practice ethics in a society that has a fixed sense of morality. This is explored through Hashim's character. In this section we connect this facet of the ethical practice through an analysis of the story.
Firstly, we notice that the tone of the story, though very personal and intimate, is a third-person narration. We are never acquainted with the internal emotional turmoil or intellectualization that would have led to the actions we see portrayed by Hashim.
Secondly, we focus on the specific instances the narrator chooses to recount. The setting of the story is a very rural village in Bangladesh. There is a marked absence of technology compared with repeated mentions of nature. The effects of the riots are first and foremost described in terms of donkeys not being drawn to the watercourse (p. 1). The most interesting story Jubeida remembers that draws her close to Paran is when she was pregnant and out feeding a goat (p. 5). Even with Paran's journey, what Hashim is paying attention to and that which is narrated is a description of the landscape (pp. 8–10).
Hashim is defined more in his relationship to nature and his friend. For example, when Paran offers to go away on his own after having heard of Ismat Ali's death and Hashim bars the door (p. 3), by page 5 we see an interesting shift where getting Paran to safety has become associated with Hashim's self-respect and humanity for him.
The intentional withholding of internal narrative, along with the descriptions of the narrator and the specific actions we see Hashim take, allows the reader to project a believed common-sense understanding onto Hashim's worldview. We see how his belief system dictates being there for his friend while his religion declares him a kafir the moment he leaves his house.
As one's practiced morality deviates from the societal prescription, this dissonance is almost necessitated. However, the intentional withholding through narration hides another thing: any opportunity for self-doubt in monologue. In action, we see Hashim always stand for his friend as described previously. By the time he is walking on the riverbank, he is comparing his journey to a pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina (p. 7); this performs an interesting reversal where he is able to give the spiritual significance of the Hajj to his own journey of protecting a friend and defying society in doing so.
By the end of the story, where Hashim has almost confronted being murdered and has been pushed by stress to the point of delirium, the concept of a kafir has been totally deconstructed for him. His laughter towards the juvenile murderers is almost bitter as he questions them about Allah (p. 12). When people arrive at the scene after having heard the murderers' cries of "kafir," he is left questioning who the kafir really was. He is left confronting the naked and arbitrary construct with the sole utility of sociological othering, and its essential role in mobilizing people to kill those close to him and plunder the land and animals he respects so dearly. When the people find him shovelling the ground, the narration points out very specifically: "Hashim felt now he was truly himself. He had forgotten his own identity" (p. 13).
In concluding this analysis of Kafir, we see here not only the practice of an individual and the journey it led him through — self-doubt, questioning, asserting one's created values against the community, the socio-psychological stress that came with every part of it — but also the isolating effect of such a practice. As Hashim continued performing his own ethics, he became systematically isolated from a community based on performing a certain kind of othering. The stylistic narrative elements help the reader to project onto the story the internal content of this movement of friction with internal ethical ideals.
Epistemic Upheaval
In this section we cover how ethical practice relates to questioning what we take for granted as true. We explore this through an analysis of Basu Chatterjee's Ek Ruka Hua Faisla.
Firstly, we consider the effects of how Chatterjee crafts narrative boundaries. The narrator of this movie only appears in the beginning (00:00:00–00:01:06). It is an authoritative voice that rigidly sets out the constraints and agenda with a shot of the round table in the background. This appearance, along with the restriction of the movie to two rooms except for very brief recollection sequences and the ending, is intentional. The first consequence is that the viewer gets as focused and occupied with the resolution of the ethical dilemma as each of the characters involved. More importantly, it sets in stone the fact that the prisoner should not be put on death row if a certain decision cannot be reached. This normative statement then juxtaposes with the repeated loss of certainty through the movie.
Secondly, we consider how the movie utilises Juror No. 8 (henceforth J8). J8 is the closest thing to a protagonist in the given narrative. The movie regularly places him in a position to give moralistic speeches (00:01:43), and through his diction, his technical and "respectable" job of an architect, and his aesthetics he can be seen as the ideal of the politics of 1980s "middle-of-the-road" cinema Chatterjee is famous for - someone who sides with the downtrodden but knows how to be poised and deal with the elite. The ethical content of this role is not in this moralistic standing, but rather in the borderline pedantic care for detail that repeatedly positions him as a trigger for the group to perform the labour required for producing an ethics. Such attention to detail is an essential part of practice, along with accepting the consequences that may come due to it. We now focus on three emotions that frequently come up when questioning that which is taken for true, and how Chatterjee displays them through J8's interactions.
Impatience — At 00:45 there is a shot in the movie where a poster in the washroom reads "Justice is Truth in Action." This is supposed to be an ethical ideal upheld by the institution of jurors, whereas with the unfolding of the case we see how due process for the accused and due diligence for the evidence was repeatedly not carried out. What masquerades as trivialities not worth considering is often the agenda-setting nature of power. In one of the first sequences of the movie, we see how the trial is trivialised for most of the jurors (00:05:00–00:08:00). J12 is drawing on his sheet, J6 is concerned with not being late for his movie, two jurors have a conversation about how this is a recurring occurrence for them and an "open-and-shut" case. We later learn about the accused's social standing as belonging to the "nichla tapka," and about the views of many jurors towards them. This is what elevates the vote for "not guilty" in the first vote, when the whole gathering wants to rush to a decision (00:10:40), even when J8 has no significant reason except wanting to be thorough - making it a radical act. Another pertinent example is the sequence where we see him doing the experiment to check the time it would have taken the old man to move from his bed (01:12). Chatterjee even slows down the pacing of the narrative to a halt and moves the whole film in tandem with J8's limping to show just how frustrating mundane attention to detail can be.
Anger — As J8 continuously serves as a trigger forcing each member to think and reconsider that which they take to be a fact, this initial cordial behaviour turns to frustration and slowly boils over into anger. The anger is expressed across each of the different fault lines for each of the members, such as when the old man feels trivialised or when the north-south divide is triggered (01:24), but the most vivid and most relevant description to the case is J10's monologue (01:43). This shows how each juror is having a hard time coming to grips with the work required for considering the case in detail beyond their preconceptions, while simultaneously showing the necessity for it.
Sadness — This is captured primarily towards the end of the film with J3's monologue about his relationship with his son and the sombre music that plays as the jurors finally leave the room. This captures the sadness that comes with the grief of letting go of that which was previously given as true. As J8 comes and supports J3 (02:05), there is finally an uncomfortable and bittersweet acceptance.
In this section, we have shown how Ek Ruka Hua Faisla can be seen as the story of the practice of ethics for a group and the repeated contradictions that arise out of it, especially with regard to what is considered "True." We see the labour required to come to any kind of certainty through this practice — a labour not only of the analytical mind but psychological and physical too. This explicitly connects to our description of why traditions of ethical inquiry have required a significant period of initiation and preparation.
Conclusion
In this term paper we have first posited a specific perspective on understanding ethics as a practice and then analysed two facets of such an understanding through the stories of Kafir and Ek Ruka Hua Faisla. We have shown how the emotional arcs and stylistic elements portray specificities of experiences of such a practice and the implications they have for understanding the nature and stability of such a practice.
References
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