Taj Mahal
An etude on pollution, laziness, and unwashed masses
Today I caught a glimpse of a documentary on ancient Islam architecture and technology. Among the monumental fortresses sprinkled throughout the whole Spain, clever use of iron metallurgy, or vertical windmills (though not an Islam invention), there was of course one of the probably most famous (not only Islam) buildings — Taj Mahal.
The documentary in itself was quite interesting, but what really got my attention were two very brief shots of Taj Mahal’s surroundings. First was this (it seems as if that image was taken straight out of said documentary):
And the second one was something along the following line:
The image depicts Yamuna river flowing behind Taj Mahal. What cannot be seen in the picture is the amount of industrial waste as well as raw sewage dumped into the river. What can be seen, on the other hand, is the continuous multilayered carpet of consumer waste. Something you will expect to see on a communal junkyard.
Suffice to say, and according to people who understand the natural processes that go with it, this slowly degrading plastic carpet is one of the major causes why there’s e.g. an ongoing water crisis in the region. In short, and as far as I got it (or not), while the industrial pollution makes the upper layers of water toxic and unusable for domestic use or even irrigation, the degraded plastic gets flushed underground and forces the groundwater to recede deeper and deeper as it blocks the natural water cycle.
Irrespective of the industrial waste, which is a slightly different can of worms, I saw many poor settlements some of which had no sewers, no gas pipes, or even water supply system and none of them resembled a dumping ground. Yet, I also saw some which did. In both kinds lived rather simple(minded) people, a lot of them alcoholics, and almost without exception quite below the level of poverty (exceptions being money lenders or various kinds of tribal kings).
But while the villagers in former were all pretty hard-working folks (essentially existing in a way very similar to peasants two or three hundreds years ago), the latter ones were exclusively a home to groups of people who segregated themselves on ethnic basis, who were (and continue to be) unwilling to join a wider community, live from social security benefits and bemoan their poverty (blaming it on the community they refuse to join) all the while clutching expensive smartphones in their obese hands. Ah, and they also breed like hamsters.
And that got me thinking — do you remember how Jews gave Moses hell because they were fed up with short-term hardships in the desert? (If you don’t know what I’m talking about, be a human of culture, pick some Bible, and read Exodus.) No matter how historic or mythical that story is, the moral of it has some profound insights applicable to this day, and may even help us to understand the history.
Let’s go roughly six thousand years back, approximately to the first year of Jewish calendar. North Africa and Near East, once the areas of lush pastures and fertile soil — literally a paradise on Earth — saw a dramatic climate change that turned these places into deserts we know today (Clarke et al., 2016). It’s not that hard to imagine how the already firmly ingrained sedentary way of life, by now big and still growing population, droughts and resulting shortages of food created a new, unprecedented situation for everyone living through that ordeal.
Let’s also not forget that in those times animism was still the only ontology known to humankind. Given the dynamics of human communities, which to this day didn’t change much if at all, it was obviously up to shamans, elders, and other natural authorities to come up with solutions.
Hence, the first temples emerged. But in this case don’t imagine places of worship as we know them today. Temples in 4th millennium BCE were “holy granaries” — rather small, 1–2 storey buildings, in function akin to our shops and supermarkets, only tinted with proto-religious connotations, because, well, the raw survival of the tribe at large hinged on this never-before-seen system (which, on top of it might have originated in the “visions” of shamans searching all “realms of universe” for a solution, hence the idea itself might have been regarded as “holy” … well, even today enormous number of people almost religiously worship shops and supermarkets).
Anyway, the whole system operated roughly as follows: as was perhaps already a common occurrence with pastoral practices where the cattle of the whole settlement was grazed together as one herd, now that system was applied to agricultural production too. That is to say, the crop from all fields was collected in a communal “holy granary” and a system of distribution was set in place, one that was (presumably) expected to ensure everyone a fair share (most probably in proportion to individual contribution of work, but maybe also needs). Everything under the supervision of shamans, elders, etc. who were expected to be fair arbiters.
Yet, as the story from Exodus teaches us, average human animal is an ungrateful, impatient, and greedy creature. Thus it was only a matter of time when someone started to grumble about their rations. It may have been justified response to the emerging elites of arbiters cutting themselves profits off of the common resource pool or preferring some members of community before others (after all, opportunity makes a thief); it may have been just a simple feeling of frustration or being wronged simply because the amount of food was (deemed) not enough; and it may have been several factors together, because the communal dynamics is a complex “thing” no matter the era. Be as it may, the discontent was slowly rising until it resulted in some pretty violent revolts as can be seen in Arslantepe where the granary and accompanying complex (of what are most probably elite residences?) was burned down sometimes in the middle of that crazy millennium (Frangipane, 2012).
However, if we look at how the problem of frustrated masses was tackled in e.g. Sumer (invention of writing that allowed better record keeping as opposed to mere seals used before, army to keep the settlement and with it the food of the whole community safe also from inside, etc.), I would wager on a gradual rift that grew between masses and the arbiters, with constant anger of the former (after all, the natural authorities could not solve the root of the problem itself), and disenchantment of latter with their own tribes, whom they slowly started to view as less-than due to their unwillingness to come to terms with the reality of the situation. At some point in time, the new elites probably lost all patience and said, “Fuck you, folks. If you are this ungrateful, at least we fuck you up as you are no better than stupid animals.”
Perhaps the rationale was different and more along the lines of, “Times are hard, we need a strong and impartial hand no matter the means if the ends are met.” In any case, what is undeniable is that the very first elites, basically the cream of the crop of the tribe (whether emotionally, intellectually, or physically), established a hierarchy, invented religion based on animism to back the hierarchy up (polytheism), and the rest is history.
To be honest, seen in that light and no matter how much I don’t like the idea, it seems that blaming the state of our current world solely on the rich and powerful is simply misguided.
Sure, the hereditary worldview people today adopt while they rise to the top of social hierarchy is full of condescension and disdain for the (so-called) “unwashed masses”, and is in its entirety just plain disturbing. However, the “unwashed masses” rightfully earn that disdain day in day out for not giving a hoot about living like domesticated pigs literally in the midst of their excrements, expecting to be fed at a fixed time, and being entertained in the process. And that has nothing to do with the abject poverty, which in turn is indeed directly caused by the wealthy and socially powerful, and is a valid, even if somehow displaced, reason for outrage. And we are talking about billions of people here.
And so I wonder — looking at the “elites” today, it appears as if they all were just pigs that escaped from a cote and taught how to act human. Some are better at it than others; still, how can they show or teach the rest what is right? Especially, when they continue to feel like better pigs, because, well you know, they escaped from the cote and somehow got wealth and power. Our day-to-day reality clearly testifies that they are simply not able to, because the days when elites were truly the best a community could provide are long gone.
So, on one hand we have elites who are elites for the sake of being elites, and on the other there are billions of whining lazy human animals without any motivation whatsoever to go beyond their animality because to do so is too much work for them (and completely forget lofty aims such as “enlightenment”).
Quite a conundrum. And this all, just because some folks six thousand years ago could not stand their moral ground, which was their fucking, god-given responsibility, no matter the backlash of unhinged human nature they faced in those trying times. They should have nip it in the bud right then and there, but what is done is done.
At least evolution is still at work.
