Sunday mornings are never really mornings, they tend to have an existence outside measured time. A Sunday morning can extend from an hour to 24 hours in real time. Watching the political round-up of the week and existing in this independent time zone, the spectator in me wants to be on stage, or rather such a possibility is the tail that “we” chase life-long. By “we” I mean to address the most abundant political species on earth, the common man.
The hustle and bustle of a political democracy is always an interesting tune. It is a mixture of the steamy loud crave of caffeine and the loathing of cold storage meat. The common man whose identity is non-identity represent the basic notes of this political octave or rather any for that matter. We the common people who exist in this epoch of democracy distinguish our political system as state-of-the-art in the supposedly progressive route map of political structures. How is a common man distinguished in any political system?
This has to be enumerated by identifying the characteristics of this basic cell that constitutes the political human race. Abiding, Average and Assuming can be the universal characteristic of this being. The moment society identifies a common man, the common man identity of this being is lost, turning it into an inferior or superior cell distinguished by mutation or injury. In all political argumentation, both parties try to assume the role of a tutelary to the common man. An exegesis of the fundamental nature of this political species tends to be dangerously theological. God is analogous to this species, in terms of omnipresence and omnipotence. This analogy is further substantiated by the trivial role played by both in epochal global events, in spite of their omnipresence. Yet they are omnipotent, as all rituals are performed for the sake of the deity.
An agnostic perspective reveals another interesting similarity between the common man and the supreme being. The common man is always rhizomatic. Each of us who is a part of this structure is addressed collectively as common man. But does anyone have an unambiguous claim to be the common man? Thus the common man is non-existent but omnipresent.
The common man is infinity and null simultaneously. This divine nature of the demiurgal political species drips down as the ink on national flags and currencies. The praja of the Vedic age, the plebs of the Roman age and the proletarian of the modern age can be considered the denominated derivatives of this species. It is enthralling to take note of the reciprocating relationship that the demiurge and the common man have had. All forms of the incorporeal supreme being, be it monotheistic or omnitheistic, be it the anthropomorphic deities of Mesopotamia, the Semitic Abrahamic religions, the Vedic and Spinozist pantheistic values, or the Marvel and DC universe superheroes, all have been bolstered, venerated and mummified by the preference of the common man.
The commoner wants to be at the mercy of the divine order and not at the mercy of crude natural anarchy. Thus, the commoner survives with the magnanimity of the demiurge shining upon it. I assume the vitality of both the praja and the demiurge ultimately lies in desire, or “Jouissance” in Lacanian terms. The desire of every Clark Kent who is not a kryptonite. The desire of the spectator to be on stage and the empathy with the staged act of human life, is the breath-like verve of the common man. Does this desire, and by implication this political species, have a valid metaphysical existence?
As Slavoj Zizek put it, “desire is a wound of reality”, and this I assume is the innate essence of the common man and the demiurge. I assume my Sunday morning has just been pulled over by an official mail, and I am off to be a Common Man.
