Is insecurity our biggest strength?

I tried hard to forget these words, but somehow, they never left my mind. Sitting in my chair, with Pam Grout’s E-Squared in one hand and a hot mug of soup in the other, with the rain lashing down in the garden, I wanted to believe that this quote which I just read is simply false. Because if it were to be true, it would simply mean that all my failures had been my own fault and I had falsely placed the blame on others or on my ‘unfortunate circumstances’. It would mean that everytime I failed to do something, it was simply because I had not been strong enough to fight my weaknesses and to break the chains that held me from succeeding.

However, the harder I tried coming up with a hypothetical situation to disprove this quote, the easier it became to counter that hypothetical situation. Suddenly, I realised that there could be some situations where the society forges the chains that bind an individual. I asked myself, “Why do I not commit crimes? Isn’t it because of the society?” The answer to this turned out to be “You can commit crimes if you want to. No one is stopping you from breaking into that house and stealing. You may face consequences, but in the present no one is stopping you. It is you who chooses not to commit such a crime, no one is stopping you from doing something in the present”.

This is when I realised that society is never a barrier for someone to achieve his dreams. The society makes one consider the consequences of one’s actions but never completely prevents that individual from doing something he or she wants to do.

From the early Paleolithic era to the recent Neolithic period, humans have been accustomed to living in small groups which we call communities. Be it the hunter-gatherer groups roaming in the wild, hunting for food and sleeping in caved communities under one roof or the Neolithic man tilling his farm alongside other farmers and setting up colonies of straw-huts next to rivers, humans have been forming societies to synergise and benefit from each other. This is the universally accepted reason as to why humans tend to form societies, but my opinion differs.

I believe that a more important reason for why humans form societies is because, as highly complex and evolved individuals, they want a balancing system, a system which enforces law and justice to keep everything in check. In my opinion, humans primarily form societies so that they can enforce “moral policing”.

Let us consider another hypothetical situation to evaluate my point. Suppose that humans send a group of 100 people to set up settlements on the moon and scatters them around on the moon. As a human, my first instinct would not be to take someone’s help to build my settlement because I know that that individual would be too busy building his own settlement. Instead, I would want to make sure that someone does not come and kill me to take my resources. So, I would form a community with 4 or 5 people to make sure that my own resources are safe. If the community becomes big enough (i.e. about 50-60 people), there would be more danger inside the community than it would be outside the community. In such a case, the community chalks out some laws and guidelines to keep those inside the community safer and that is how societies come into being and evolve. Synergisation is a by-product of society-formation but the actual reason for this is the innate insecurity that humans feel when they are alone.

When we take a look into the past while keeping this perspective in mind, we begin to see how many of the major decisions in the history of the world have been largely driven by the various insecurities of individuals as well as communities. The mutual hatred that develops between two communities practising different religions is fueled by their insecurities. The insecurity of the German Nazis and the Italian Fascists towards the Jewish communities is what drove them to commit such horrendous crimes. It is this same insecurity which drives the North American communities to exhibit an “Anti-Muslim” behaviour and prevents Muslims from immigrating to the United States of America.

Looking at the recent Pulwama attacks in Kashmir, we can clearly see how the insecurities of certain communities, when cultivated in the wrong environment, can play out to have an extremely negative consequences. Insecurities of certain communities, such as terrorist organisations, can stir up their emotions. These insecurities blind them and can lead people to be driven by their emotions, while all reason and logic gets side-lined.

Therefore, insecurities, when bred in anti-social communities, can take wrong turns and cause disasters. However, the same power of insecurities, when driven in the right direction and by the right vision can help the community prosper and grow into a utopian world. Such guidance is only provided by a leader who is moral, just and ethical. If we want to create a utopian society, the first step towards this goal is choosing the right leader for the community and this is why it is extremely necessary for us to cast our votes wisely!

So, the next time someone criticises you for your insecurities, remember the fact that it is these little insecurities that we have which have helped us build this global village. These small insecurities of yours have helped mankind create complex societies which have made humans what they are today. If we did not have such insecurities, where would we be today?