The War on Darkness, How Our Ancient Bias for Light Fuels Modern Injustice and Ecological Crisis

The War on Darkness, How Our Ancient Bias for Light Fuels Modern Injustice and Ecological Crisis

Each year, as the goddess Durga is immersed in water during the Vijayadashami ceremony, social media algorithms dutifully resurface Gaganendranath Tagore’s iconic painting, Visarjan. The image, like George Gidley Palmer’s The Durga Puja Being Celebrated on the River Hugli, captures a profound moment where the deity transforms into a radiant orb of light, a divine beacon defiantly holding back the enveloping, inky gloom. This annual digital ritual, while predictable, points to a far deeper and more pervasive human obsession: the veneration of light and the concurrent demonization of darkness. This bias, etched into our collective psyche over millennia, is not an innocent aesthetic preference. It is a powerful cultural and psychological force that has shaped our art, informed our social prejudices, and now, in an age of relentless artificial illumination, threatens to blind us to both ecological catastrophe and profound social injustice.

The hypnotic appeal of luminescence, as seen in these paintings, is a microcosm of a grand, ancient narrative. Across cultures and epochs, darkness has been cast as the realm of all that is evil, sinister, and irrational. From the bloodthirsty Count Dracula lurking in his Transylvanian castle to the brooding, malevolent woods of Gothic fairy tales, from the “black fiends” of Emily Brontë’s Heathcliff to the primordial fears in Goya’s Black Paintings, and from the rakshasas (demons) of Indian mythology to the leyak of Balinese folklore, darkness has been the universal canvas onto which humanity projects its deepest anxieties. This “innovative, collective inclination to demonise darkness,” as the article notes, is a foundational thread in the tapestry of human civilization.

The Prejudice of Luminescence: Race, Gender, and the Colour of Sin

To frame this predisposition as merely a fear of the unknown is a travesty. As historian Nina Edwards argues in her seminal work, Darkness: A Cultural History, the prejudice against darkness has been systematically mapped onto human beings, with race and gender serving as its principal registers. The symbolic association of darkness with evil provided a convenient justification for centuries of racial bigotry and colonial subjugation. The “stubborn malaise of looking down on those with a dark countenance” is a global phenomenon, from the colorism rampant in a “supposedly decolonised” India to the systemic and egregious violence endured by Black people in America. The language of light and dark became the language of moral and civilizational hierarchy, where whiteness was equated with purity, reason, and divinity, and blackness with sin, savagery, and corruption.

This bias is equally evident in gender dynamics. Charlotte Brontë’s Bertha Mason, the “madwoman in the attic” in Jane Eyre, is a Creole woman whose majestic darkness is pathologized as madness, a terrifying force that must be locked away and hidden from the civilized world of light. This trope reveals how the fear of the dark is intertwined with the fear of the uncontrolled, the passionate, and the “other”—often embodied by women, particularly women of color.

Subverting the Binary: Alliances in the Shadows

Yet, the rigid opposition between light and dark is not immutable. Throughout history, intriguing alliances have emerged, challenging this simplistic binary. The article points to the delicious irony within the Shakta tradition of Bengal, where Deepavali, the festival of lights designed to vanquish darkness, centers on the worship of Kali—a fierce, ebony-complexioned goddess. Here, the ultimate source of divine power and liberation is not light, but a profound and terrifying darkness, subverting the very symbolism the festival appears to champion.

Artistically, the Renaissance gave us chiaroscuro, a technique that used stark contrasts between light and shadow not to vanquish the latter, but to collaborate with it. It was the interplay, the tension between illumination and obscurity, that gave form, depth, and drama to the works of Caravaggio and Rembrandt. Darkness was not the absence of meaning but an active participant in its creation, essential for revealing the full dimensionality of the subject.

The Emancipatory Blaze of Opacity: A Modern Reclamation

In response to the long history of racial prejudice, modern scholarship has begun a defiant reclamation of darkness. The French-Caribbean philosopher Édouard Glissant, as cited by Teju Cole, locates an emancipatory potential in the concept of “opacity.” In a world that demands transparency—where marginalized people are expected to explain, justify, and make themselves legible to the powerful—opacity becomes a radical act of resistance. Glissant champions “the right to opacity,” the right of Black, Creole, and colonized peoples to not be understood, simplified, or catalogued. Darkness, in this framework, is a shield against the penetrating, objectifying gaze of the oppressor, a space of privacy and self-possession.

Nina Edwards extends this idea to a mundane, everyday object: the sunglass. The dark tint, she argues, is a tool of subversion. It protects the wearer from scrutiny, granting anonymity and privacy in a hyper-surveilled society, while simultaneously not impeding their “right to look back at, confront, [and] scrutinise the world outside.” The sunglass thus becomes a modern artifact of empowerment, allowing the individual to manipulate the dynamics of light and vision to their advantage.

The Aesthetics of Shadow: Tanizaki’s Lament and the Lost Nocturnal Sky

Beyond politics, there is a profound aesthetic and spiritual case for darkness. The pre-eminent Japanese novelist Junichiro Tanizaki, in his celebrated essay In Praise of Shadows, lamented Japan’s capitulation to a Western modernity obsessed with illumination. He wrote poignantly of attending an autumnal moon-viewing ceremony, only to find that “electric light in five colours had devoured the fainter, but far more beautiful, lunar lustre.” For Tanizaki, the “pensive shadows” of traditional Japanese aesthetics—the soft glow of lacquerware in a dim room, the subtle beauty of a tarnished silver pot—held a depth and mystery that harsh, uniform electric light destroyed.

Today, Tanizaki’s beloved shadows are in global retreat. The proliferation of artificial light has created a perpetual, planetary daytime, erasing the night sky for vast swathes of humanity. This loss is not merely sentimental; it is a form of cultural and ecological amnesia. We are losing our connection to the cosmic spectacle of a starry night, a sight that has inspired art, philosophy, and science for millennia. The mellow light of stars and galaxies is now drowned out by the “crude flooding of the night sky with artifice that bedazzles.”

The Peril of Eternal Day: Ecological and Social Consequences

The consequences of this war on darkness are dire and tangible. The World Bank now measures night-time light as a metric for development, formally enshrining artificial luminosity as a proxy for economic enlightenment. This policy ignores the devastating ecological toll:

• Wildlife Disruption: Migratory birds and sea turtles, which navigate by celestial light, are fatally disoriented by urban glow, veering off course and often dying.

• Ecosystem Collapse: Artificial light disrupts the reproductive cycles of countless insects and animals, threatening the delicate balance of entire ecosystems.

• Human Health: For humans, the constant bombardment of light, especially blue light from screens, disrupts circadian rhythms, leading to sleep disorders, and has been linked to increased risks of depression, obesity, and certain cancers.

But the greatest peril, as the article concludes, may be social. “The greatest ally of the modern tribe of the illusionist—statesmen, politicians, Wall Street wizards, Big Tech bosses—is luminosity.” In a world perpetually dazzled by the glare of screens, stadium lights, and neon signs, it becomes easier to hide the shadows where truth often resides. The relentless focus on the bright, the new, and the shiny deflects attention from the “great iniquities and injustices” festering in the unseen corners of our societies—deepening inequality, environmental degradation, and systemic oppression. Light, in its modern, aggressive form, does not always illuminate truth; it can be used to blind us to it.

The challenge before us is to rediscover the value of darkness—not as a void to be feared, but as a sanctuary to be cherished. It is in the dark that we rest, dream, and find respite from the relentless performance of daily life. It is in the shadows that mystery, intimacy, and true depth reside. To forge a more balanced, just, and sustainable future, we must end our war on the night and learn, once again, to see in the dark.

Q&A: Unpacking the Cultural and Social Dynamics of Light and Dark

Q1: How exactly has the symbolism of light and dark been used to justify racial prejudice?

A: The symbolism provided a pseudo-moral and philosophical framework for racism. By equating “light” with purity, goodness, reason, and divinity, and “dark” with evil, sin, savagery, and the unknown, colonial and racist ideologies could position white Europeans as the enlightened bearers of civilization. Conversely, people with darker skin were symbolically linked to these negative traits, dehumanizing them and justifying their subjugation, exploitation, and slavery. This wasn’t just a metaphor; it was a powerful ideological tool that embedded racial hierarchy into the very language of virtue and vice.

Q2: What is the “right to opacity” as defined by Édouard Glissant, and why is it considered emancipatory?

A: The “right to opacity” is the right of an individual or community to remain unknowable, complex, and not fully transparent to an external, often dominant, gaze. In a world that forces marginalized groups to constantly explain, justify, and make themselves “legible” to power structures, demanding transparency is a form of control. Opacity is emancipatory because it rejects this demand. It asserts the right to self-definition and privacy, refusing to be simplified, categorized, or understood on terms set by the oppressor. It is a claim to mystery and autonomy.

Q3: The article mentions the worship of the dark goddess Kali during Deepavali, a festival of lights. Isn’t this a contradiction?

A: It is a profound and intentional subversion, not a contradiction. While the popular narrative of Deepavali (or Diwali) is about the victory of light (Rama) over darkness (Ravana), the Shakta tradition focuses on the worship of Kali, who embodies a different kind of power. Her black skin represents the formless, infinite void from which all creation emerges and into which it will dissolve. She is not “dark” as in evil, but as in the ultimate, transcendent reality beyond dualities. This challenges the simplistic light-good/dark-bad binary, presenting a theology where the darkest force is also the most creative and liberating.

Q4: What are the concrete ecological impacts of light pollution mentioned in the article?

A: The article highlights several critical impacts:

• Fatal Disorientation: Migratory birds and sea turtles that use the moon and stars for navigation are drawn off course by artificial lights, leading to exhaustion, predation, and fatal collisions with buildings.

• Reproductive Disruption: The natural light-dark cycles cue breeding, feeding, and migration for many species. Artificial light at night disrupts these cycles, threatening insect populations and the animals that depend on them.

• Loss of Natural Heritage: The erasure of the starry night sky severs a fundamental human connection to the cosmos, with immeasurable cultural, spiritual, and scientific costs.

Q5: How can artificial light be used as a tool by “the modern tribe of the illusionist” to hide injustice?

A: The “illusionists”—such as politicians, corporate leaders, and marketers—use luminosity as a tool of distraction and spectacle. The constant, dazzling glare of media, city lights, and commercial displays creates a sensory overload that makes it difficult for people to focus on complex, slow-burning crises. It encourages a short attention span and a focus on surface-level appearances. While society is bedazzled by the latest technological gadget or a brightly lit political spectacle, it becomes easier to conceal corruption, environmental destruction, and growing inequality that occur in the proverbial “shadows”—the unglamorous, unlit spaces of policy details, supply chains, and marginalized communities.