The Regime of Reason

Dec 19th, 2013 | By | Category: Latest, Social, World

Your intelligence is different from mine. And mine is different from yours.

Times changed. “My intelligence is superior to yours”, said Reason.

Who and what is ‘Reason’?

Reason was born and raised like any other intelligence.

It too lived on the imaginative outskirts of human minds.

It too insisted that it had a point.

‘A point to a point’ as it put it.

The point, it ‘reasoned’, was to get to a point.

“It was right”, thought others, “in its own right.”

“You do make a point”, it was told.

But then. One day. Out of the blue. It panicked. It reasoned.

“Is it enough to make a point that is valid? Shouldn’t my point be the only valid one?”

It ran towards the city. It made an announcement.

It “reasoned” that there can only be one intelligence.

Intelligence could be more or less. Not merely ‘this’ and ‘that’.

It was not enough to be different. It had to be superior.

It told others that they must accept its singularity.

Reason alone is intelligence.

Reason’s intelligence alone is Reason.

“Such a wild proposition”, it was told at first.

But then it gained strength.

It used its skills to make a point to reach a point.

It reasoned itself into power. It took over. It ruled a tyrannical rule.

Order was ordered.

Opposition was crushed.

The vulnerable were executed.

Resistance was punished.

Compliance was rewarded.

The terror of Reason became the regime of Reason.

Reason declared the non-existence of all intelligences except its own.

Intelligence was singular.

There was only one intelligence.

This was absurd. This was bizarre. This was letter of the law.

“How can redness describe the colorfulness of yellow”,  drew an artsy intelligence.

“How can sweetness describe the tastefulness of a hamburger”, cried a fanatic intelligence.

“Your truth will never compare to mine”, prophesized a mystical intelligence.

Art, emotion, religion were executed.

The death of God was declared.

Man was born.

The Man of Reason began to exist.

Existence became the universal privilege of reasonable man.

“I am being rational”, said reasonable man.

“Your rationality is irrationality. It must not exist.”

“Millions must die so I can build Reason’s civilization.”

Civilization was built on a graveyard of unreason.

Unreason was buried.

There was reason and there were lesser reasons.

The lesser could exist insofar as they acknowledge reason’s sovereignty.

The lesser could exist insofar as they acknowledged their imperfectability.

They could exist if they severed their claims to intelligence.

They were made to destroy their selves to become the self of reason.

Their generations grew under these conditions.

With time, they forgot their ancestors withdrawn rights altogether.

This system. This system that decided which intelligence is intelligent and which is not.

It was very real.

It became realer.

Then it became reality.

Reality was this system.

It was how things are.

It was how things are supposed to be.

It was all for our own sake.

It produced. It produced stuff we needed.

We need that stuff.

We must stuff ourselves with that stuff.

We may not be able to have that stuff today.

It will trickle down tomorrow.

It will trickle down the day after.

It will trickle down later.

It will trickle down.

Trust me.

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Saad Lakhani

About the author

Saad Lakhani is a student of Social Sciences based in Karachi. He tweets @Saadlakhani12

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