“For man, when perfected, is the best of animals, but, when separated from law and justice, he is the worst of all; since armed injustice is the more dangerous, and he is equipped at birth with the arms of intelligence and with moral qualities which he may use for the worst ends. Wherefore, if he have not virtue, he is the most unholy and the most savage of animals, and the most full of lust and gluttony. But justice is the bond of men in states, and the administration of justice, which is the determination of what is just, is the principle of order in political society.”

― Aristotle, Politics

The state of human nature is defined by a dichotomy, a dichotomy which through misunderstandings has become, the dichotomy. The dichotomy of good versus evil, the concept of rationality vs irrationality, logic versus disorder, human vs beast. This is the very concept which declares whom is civilised, and whom is in need of civilisation. The weight of this dichotomy has been pressed upon the necks of millions, stabbed into the stomach of billions, and caused the suffering of epochs. This process knows many names, the ‘otherization’, the segregation, the ostracisation. This binary is false, the concept of Fukayama and Hegel’s ‘Last Men’ is false.
The state of human nature is one in which all of humanity shares in the ‘essence’ of being human. The essence is that of the Greek Logos, the Sanskrit Vivek, the Chinese Dao, the Japanese Kami. This essence of humanity not only connects humans to their humanity, but more importantly, it connects human-beings to their cosmological order of the universe. The purpose of this paper is to correlate readings for Comparative Political Thought befitting my dissertation; the running title being, The State of Human Nature: Divine Reason. I will be writing a philosophical theory on how human nature derives from the Vivek, the Logos, (and other “divine reasons”) to create an essence of humanity.

What do I mean by the essence of humanity? I mean “that which makes us human”. To understand what is to be human is to not only understand what compromises humanity, but more importantly what doesn’t. This correlates to one of the fundamental laws of the universe, and the very first law we are taught upon consciousness, our sense of discrimination, or more aptly Vivek. Vivek fits best into this first divine reason as it directly translates into the word discrimination, or rather the discrimination of reason. One might assume that these concepts are incommensurable across cultures, that one cannot truly transcribe or even understand these concepts across languages. This belief is one which, I do not share. I do not believe that there are definite cultures, or static identity of any sort. I do not believe that concepts cannot be understood cross-culturally. This correlates to the first author of whose theories have deeply resonated within my conscious, Mr. H.K. Bhaba. Bhaba begins in his landmark, Location of Culture,
The very concepts of homogenous national cultures, the consensual or contiguous transmission of historical traditions, or ‘organic’ ethnic communities —as the grounds of cultural comparativism —are in a profound process of redefinition. The hideous extremity of Serbian nationalism proves that the very idea of a pure, ‘ethnically cleansed’ national identity can only be achieved through the death, literal and figurative, of the complex inter weavings of history, and the culturally contingent borderlines of modern nationhood. This side of the psychosis of patriotic fervour, I like to think, there is overwhelming evidence of a more transnational and translational sense of the hybridity of imagined communities.
This quote imparts the methodology of practice for my dissertation, my essence of humanity is one which exists as the medium for the practice of this ‘hybridity’ as imagined by Mr. Bhaba. This essence being shared by all, allows for a universal hybridity of not only culture but also fluidity of understandings. Bhaba’s concept of the “interstitial” space, of where culture is shaped and exchanged aligns to the discursive element of my dissertation, in that humanity through “mechanisms of interstitialness” (for lack of a better word) share humanity amongst humanity.

Can this abstract be understood, shared, translated? Yes of course says Walter Benjamin. His argument within the Translators Task would agree in the line of reasoning that not only do these concepts and ‘knowledges’ travel amongst cultures, they also are approached through the original abstract metaphysicality of concept. True translation (of concepts) then does not borrow from the literal but the meta, transcribing concepts across cultures opens up the inherent logos within ‘set cultures’ to expand their methodology of thought, to expand and inhabit the human essence.
The translator’s task consists in this : to find the intention toward the language into which the work is to be translated, on the basis of which an echo of the original can be awakened in it…the translation calls to the original within, at that one point where the echoin its own language can produce a reverberation of the foreign language’s work…For the great motive of integrating the plurality of languages into a single true language is here carrying out its work.
My work takes from the ‘true language’ to ascribe the humanity found within all peoples. The (false) binary of translation does not apply to my theory as it takes from this metaphysical (Logos) to bring forth an inherent cosmological order (of humanity). I take from the state of “pre- knowledge” (a state which all humanity derives their logos from) to bring forth an ontology of the natural human and more importantly the natural human (political) state.

Why does this matter? What is the meaning of my dissertation? It is to ascribe what is the human state of political being and what is not. It is to ascribe the definite mechanisms of which the beastital (unhuman) nature comes forth through misreason, or the imbalance of the logos. Some attributes of misreason or the state of (unhuman) can be ascribed as ethnocentric nationalism, tribalism, and genocide. Through my theory I will stipulate forth as stated by Mr. Benjamin, “a language of truth, in which the ultimate secrets toward which all thinking strives are stored up, at peace and even silent, then this language of truth is —”the true language.” The true language of all people. Another failure of the “unhuman” that I will describe is one that Mr. Bhaba routinely bequeaths as the death of civilisation: the concept of nationalism. Nationalism in the sense that Bhaba speaks of is one of ‘ethnic’ or tribalistic superiority, and will be a “failure of the Vivek”, as stipulated forth by my theory.

I conclude on the divine reason of “Namaste”, the very concept of, totalilizes my theory. The concept of my soul, my being, my essence, seeing and respecting yours. It is the concept of how we share one vibration, the cosmic vibration which rings the sinner as much as the saint. This cosmological unity, this oneness, the quintessential and eternal humane of humanity is what I seek. My pursuit may-be incompatible with current Political Theory paradigm(s), but that is the point, to imagine an entirely new paradigm of political thought, and more importantly, of political being.