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the scalpel becomes just that - an art, rather than a science.
But we shall march on bravely to the, it is hoped, clear light of consensus among all men, women and other humans.
So, here we go again:
Some people of course, achieve arty genius. Arty people transcend mere art and achieve the distinction of pulling order out of chaos - these souls see the chaos, identify the conflicts but seek order. Secular philosophers (who may be artists or writers or even scientists or businessmen) fall in this category. The unknown author(s) of the Vedas, wherein the discussions of reality and existence achieve such an eloquence and sense of empathy that even a translation cannot manage to quite garble the message, Socrates, Krishna (as narrator of the Gita - whose main message of karma yoga is extremely secular), maybe Plato, Leonardo da Vinci - one gets the drift....

Then there are, and we are now officially in the deepest and most treacherous part of our journey where the dark waters may churn up heads of Loch Ness monsters left and right.
Political/ historical/ religious/social bigwigs like Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Castro, Saddam, Idi Amin, Indira Gandhi and the various religious prophets/icons of the world fall into a category that I'm not quite sure about. Did they create chaos or order ? Undoubtedly, for true followers of these icons, they created order but there have also been the bloodiest wars and some of the darkest periods in human history that can be associated with, if not directly attributed to these figures, or to be accurate, with their followers, who, by definition, follow from them.
Apparently, they sought order, but some of them may have achieved chaos. The only difference between these and the 'arty genius' is that this category of humans (and/or their followers) not only sought order but sought also to impose it, to dictate it, to presume that their way was somehow better. Arty genius combined with pure pig headedness with an added touch of megalomania (which really makes the potion deadly).
And then there are the multitudes we call the common people, neither particularly arty nor geniuses but, by god, sufficiently so to disposition the ones who aspire to it to the various bins of history.

Learn more about this author, Ashish Gokhale.
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