Consanguinity, Shared Vision, and the Refractory Minority
It is impossible that, of the twin bases of civilization, the one and primary being a shared vision of moral order, and the secondary being the “like lineaments” of consanguinity[1] , that a unified society should arise or continue long in the absence of either unity that is in view by the presence of a significant minority of refraction, arising out of grievance or of instinctive natal distinction. The social tensions exerted by such grievance, ever-alive to the sentiments of the minority, cannot be thought contributory to the conditions necessary for the peace, stability, or longevity of the society in question, but rather mark the presence of a pre-revolutionary body within the greater body, that acts to redirect the cultural functions of the host to its own ends, whether of political or existential motive. Those who favor the continued presence of the aggrieved minority must answer, at some point, why the order and peace of the majority are values to be subordinated to this grievance, real or imagined, and why, the existential claims of this majority are to become secondary to those for whom the redress of self-determination is little-considered.
How is it, then, that the body of a society should, in perpetuity, be subject to autonomic hostility and dis-ease within all its functions, absent a clear articulation of the means of help, of redress that will end it? Either the majority or the minority will be forced to abandon their claims to, on the one hand peace, and on the other redress, which, when sufficiently developed, become greater than claims of the need for specific conditions, that is, existential claims that bear directly on the question of rights. Abandonment of these claims, it is easily seen, would lead ineluctably to the adoption of the epistemological perspective of either victor or vanquished, whereon, during some indeterminate period, one or the other will be forced to relinquish any and all distinctiveness, identity qua their former existence, and content themselves with complete absorption and abnegation, an experience amply evidenced wherever sectional identity is to be found. The cultivation of grievance can never be a tolerable component of the shared moral vision of a people, one of the pillars of a healthy society.
[1] St. Cyprian of Carthage, Treatise 10:15 “On Jealousy and Envy”
