We need to understand why drives the socialization process in us

Sep 19, 2017 Letters

Dear Editor,
I commenced writing recently in an attempt to introduce a debate as to whether what we know is the only truth or is it that there is a need to seriously question what we have been taught, what we have been socialised into and what we have accepted to be true.
The idea is that there is a need to possibly unlearn some of the things we have accepted. This of course is an extremely difficult task. This demands a separation of our egos from our information base. The information base can be replaced. I studied English history. It was a collection of events dates and individuals. No analysis; no system change; no information about the workers movements and organisations.
The impression is clear, men makes history. There are no objective laws; no objective influence; we humans are in charge and we make history, we have free will. After all we make decisions. But what is behind the decisions; what influences and guides the decisions making processes. Or is it we are instruments and we, with some relative independence effect decisions within some preset set of circumstances. And are we not product of history before we can act to change history.
My understanding is that history does have some cause effect, continuum; cause creating effect which effect become cause creating other effects. History throws up some necessities. It alerts us as to a number of things that need to be done, or could possibly be done, historical necessities (objective conditions) . And then there are the chance factors (subjective decision making). We as historical creatures have to respond to these necessities. Depending on our own socialisation we do or we don’t. We make one choice or another. So there is this interaction between historical necessities and our personal decision making driven by our own socialisation.
Our consciousness however tells us we are in charge as we make decisions. We are not ever taught that history itself and objective conditions determine how we think and so how we choose. So we are trained to be dogmatic. I recall when I was in Moscow in a discussion with the leader of the African National Congress Group i said that we cannot blame the British for what they did in Africa and he was pretty upset with me. In fact he stopped talking to me.
Three weeks later he came and apologised. He understood what I was talking about. The British did not sit down and plan the movement of history but in as much they took decisions and acted, circumstances dictated the decisions. They had 16 hours slave shops exploiting the labour force and accumulated more than they could utilise or even sell in England so they had to find foreign markets. This led to merchantilism as they needed ships.
The growth in manufacturing demanded more raw materials. The system also needed cheap labour and eventually more markets. The Portuguese controlled the route to India and so Columbus sailed west to get to India. The gentleman from the ANC had begun to understand the flow of history and how this very development determined certain necessities.
Of course I should add that the same does not pertain today as we have advanced and we have in place certain global standards and rules etc so genocide etc has become outlawed. It would be interesting to understand the development of ancient slavery. I recall when I was a Tutorial Master at UG, the lecturer Theo Morris asked me about the origin of ancient slavery and I told him of the development of the requisite technology. He on the other hand, spoke of one tribe attacking another and enslaving those conquered. I pointed out to him that before those conquered were killed, technology created the basis for a man to produce more than he needs to live, it is then the material basis was in place to enslave instead of killing the conquered. Later I will discuss in a more detailed form the influence of technology in socio economic transformation.
Rajendra Bisessar
BSc, Sociology, LLB

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