August 22, 2006
Culture
The smallness of their imagination and their creativity was additionally caught in a vicious cycle, a self-feedback loop. When there is no sense of purpose defining a life until its too late and the life is already defined for them, any realization of a need of a sense of purpose can only result in making the lack of imagination and a lack of sense of purpose itself a purposeful thing. As if the nullity is something to be cherished, something to be cultivated.
A society without an imaginative and a millenarian temper is a society in decay. True, it is possible for a society to have such a millenarian sense but lack the intellectual or imaginative capability to articulate it into continual refashionings of the prevailing orthodoxy, or in the creation of an entirely new orthodoxy. Such a society is like a recalcitrant adolescent, and the resulting temper tantrums can result in some unpretty results. But this is a price worth paying for not settling into a decaying somnolescence. You have to be an adolescent to mature into an adult.
The human craving for a sense of purpose can never be stamped out; even in a somnolescent society. What its people end up doing is to deify their lack of imagination. Put mediocrity on a pedestal, and call somnolescence their culture.
Read more »
A society without an imaginative and a millenarian temper is a society in decay. True, it is possible for a society to have such a millenarian sense but lack the intellectual or imaginative capability to articulate it into continual refashionings of the prevailing orthodoxy, or in the creation of an entirely new orthodoxy. Such a society is like a recalcitrant adolescent, and the resulting temper tantrums can result in some unpretty results. But this is a price worth paying for not settling into a decaying somnolescence. You have to be an adolescent to mature into an adult.
The human craving for a sense of purpose can never be stamped out; even in a somnolescent society. What its people end up doing is to deify their lack of imagination. Put mediocrity on a pedestal, and call somnolescence their culture.
Read more »
July 22, 2006
Indian Classical Liberalism
To get rid of the pestilence that is Indian Socialism and Marxism, one must first understand its metaphysical roots. And to understand its roots, one has to look at the history of metaphysical thought in India.
An "underlying metaphysics" is just a fancy word for the root of a peoples' morality. The problem to be tackled, with this rephrasing, is to see a change in India's socialistic morality to something less depraved.
The problem is further complicated by the fact that with an increasing awareness caused by the Internet and imperfectly understood Classical Liberal thought, there is already a metaphysical rebellion underway in many educated Indians. This would've been a good thing, except that I consider this strain of largely Classical Liberal revolt to be muddled. In particular, it is characterized by a nihilism that is of great attraction to all that is Indian in the newly Classical Liberal Indian rebel. I do not use the word rebel lightly, for that is where the source of his metaphysical passion lies, he is rebelling against the current Indian morality.
Let us first look at the Classical Indian/Hindu morality: which ostensibly suppresses individualism, and which embraces fatality and karma. To rebel against this requires more than just ability and effort, for this morality squashes the desire to rebel not by force but by a plasticity. It is a morality that does not present any rallying focus to rebel against. It proscribes the destiny of man with his own karma, and its notion of God is an all-permeating Brahman, permeating within every individual, even within every stone. To instinctively rebel against this, one is required to rebel against one's very self, the only possible course is nihilism.
Socialism was a natural addition to the Hindu morality, for it adds to the notion of fatalistic karma and a lack of individualism, by proscribing individualism. But by doing so, it provided a rallying focus to the Indian rebel.
People including myself have asked this question of why Classical Liberalism did not take root in India, and now one can see the answer is that Hindu morality did not require it in the first place. It is only with Socialism that a clear "villain" has emerged for the Indian to rebel against in a paroxysm of Classical Liberalism.
And it is in this nature of a revolutionary Classical Liberalism, its source lying in a metaphysical and passionate revolt, rather than an intellectual premeditation, that much of its muddleness is derived from as well. The greatest danger of which is a nihilism, which is unfortunate in that the released passions could be so fruitfully used for creation instead. Especially so, since Indians have almost lost the taste and passion for creation.
Note first of all that there is a contradiction between espousing complete individualism; and demanding that all individuals submit to a supra-individualistic ideal of "Liberalism".
But this muddleness and contradiction lies only in the minds of the passionate newly minted Classical Liberals, and not in the actual source of Classical Liberalism. Adam Smith, the author of "The Wealth of Nations" was also the author of "A Theory of Moral Sentiments", he was in fact a moral philosopher.
The classical Classical-Liberals advocated more of a Classical Liberal Orthodoxy, with its own institutions and a centrally imposed set of moralities, rather than a Classical Liberal revolt characterized in part by individually defined moralities: the latter is essentially a rephrasing of nihilism, whereby the task of creation, of constructing the societal moralities and institutions is not just not undertaken, it is considered to be not essential.
And it is in this regard that the newly minted Classical Liberal is different. His passion is derived from a visceral hatred against the socialist institutions; and he wishes not to create new institutions adapted to the nation, but to demand a lack of them. He cares not to think about creating a new orthodoxy of neo-Classical Liberalism, he wishes merely a destruction of the old. While this might seem a requisite intermediate stage in any revolt, we have to understand that this nihilism, a desire to see a lack of creation, as a primary component of a society-wide Classical Liberal revolt, is rather peculiarly Indian. And the reason is that this revolt is not just against Socialism, it is against the pre-Socialist Hindu orthodoxy as well, which by its very plasticity demands a certain degree of nihilism from any rebel.
Till recently, I attributed this facet of a lack of constructing of a viable orthodoxy to an incapability for high-level creation in most Indians, but the root of the problem is actually this strain of nihilism, there is no desire in the first place. It is not as if people are trying and failing, people are not trying at all.
This is unfortunate because by not presenting a conceivable orthodoxy, the Classical Liberal revolt in India is doomed to not only die out but also get booted out of reckoning for a long time. The greatest danger to true Classical Liberalism in India comes not from Socialists but from the neo-Classical Liberal rebels themselves. Read more »
An "underlying metaphysics" is just a fancy word for the root of a peoples' morality. The problem to be tackled, with this rephrasing, is to see a change in India's socialistic morality to something less depraved.
The problem is further complicated by the fact that with an increasing awareness caused by the Internet and imperfectly understood Classical Liberal thought, there is already a metaphysical rebellion underway in many educated Indians. This would've been a good thing, except that I consider this strain of largely Classical Liberal revolt to be muddled. In particular, it is characterized by a nihilism that is of great attraction to all that is Indian in the newly Classical Liberal Indian rebel. I do not use the word rebel lightly, for that is where the source of his metaphysical passion lies, he is rebelling against the current Indian morality.
Let us first look at the Classical Indian/Hindu morality: which ostensibly suppresses individualism, and which embraces fatality and karma. To rebel against this requires more than just ability and effort, for this morality squashes the desire to rebel not by force but by a plasticity. It is a morality that does not present any rallying focus to rebel against. It proscribes the destiny of man with his own karma, and its notion of God is an all-permeating Brahman, permeating within every individual, even within every stone. To instinctively rebel against this, one is required to rebel against one's very self, the only possible course is nihilism.
Socialism was a natural addition to the Hindu morality, for it adds to the notion of fatalistic karma and a lack of individualism, by proscribing individualism. But by doing so, it provided a rallying focus to the Indian rebel.
People including myself have asked this question of why Classical Liberalism did not take root in India, and now one can see the answer is that Hindu morality did not require it in the first place. It is only with Socialism that a clear "villain" has emerged for the Indian to rebel against in a paroxysm of Classical Liberalism.
And it is in this nature of a revolutionary Classical Liberalism, its source lying in a metaphysical and passionate revolt, rather than an intellectual premeditation, that much of its muddleness is derived from as well. The greatest danger of which is a nihilism, which is unfortunate in that the released passions could be so fruitfully used for creation instead. Especially so, since Indians have almost lost the taste and passion for creation.
Note first of all that there is a contradiction between espousing complete individualism; and demanding that all individuals submit to a supra-individualistic ideal of "Liberalism".
But this muddleness and contradiction lies only in the minds of the passionate newly minted Classical Liberals, and not in the actual source of Classical Liberalism. Adam Smith, the author of "The Wealth of Nations" was also the author of "A Theory of Moral Sentiments", he was in fact a moral philosopher.
The classical Classical-Liberals advocated more of a Classical Liberal Orthodoxy, with its own institutions and a centrally imposed set of moralities, rather than a Classical Liberal revolt characterized in part by individually defined moralities: the latter is essentially a rephrasing of nihilism, whereby the task of creation, of constructing the societal moralities and institutions is not just not undertaken, it is considered to be not essential.
And it is in this regard that the newly minted Classical Liberal is different. His passion is derived from a visceral hatred against the socialist institutions; and he wishes not to create new institutions adapted to the nation, but to demand a lack of them. He cares not to think about creating a new orthodoxy of neo-Classical Liberalism, he wishes merely a destruction of the old. While this might seem a requisite intermediate stage in any revolt, we have to understand that this nihilism, a desire to see a lack of creation, as a primary component of a society-wide Classical Liberal revolt, is rather peculiarly Indian. And the reason is that this revolt is not just against Socialism, it is against the pre-Socialist Hindu orthodoxy as well, which by its very plasticity demands a certain degree of nihilism from any rebel.
Till recently, I attributed this facet of a lack of constructing of a viable orthodoxy to an incapability for high-level creation in most Indians, but the root of the problem is actually this strain of nihilism, there is no desire in the first place. It is not as if people are trying and failing, people are not trying at all.
This is unfortunate because by not presenting a conceivable orthodoxy, the Classical Liberal revolt in India is doomed to not only die out but also get booted out of reckoning for a long time. The greatest danger to true Classical Liberalism in India comes not from Socialists but from the neo-Classical Liberal rebels themselves. Read more »
July 18, 2006
Human Condition
There is so much about the human condition that can be illuminated by critical analysis, yet so much of our conceptions about the subject come from fantasy, either self-induced or induced by others. We approach this mental world as a primitive human would approach the physical world, intuitively, rather than analytically.
Much of philosophy seems to be an intuitive grasp at what should be approached through analytical rigor.
Mathematicians, masters at analytical rigor, nonetheless seem to flounder; the few of these who expound on matters related to human nature seem naive, superficial. The poets, and writers, through a tapestry of fables and fantasy, seem to convey far more about the human condition than those few mathematicians who have attempted to do so.
Conversely, most mathematicians do not even have a very high respect for such endeavors, driven in part by the belief that the human condition is outside the domain of true analytical pursuit.
One can see this in varying extent in most human-nature related fields, in which an intuitive and a "humanistic realism" is always seen to be better than a completely analytical approach.
There is a reason for this, and it is that there is a lack of a systematic formalism, a systematic language for human nature, that could lend itself to analysis.
For the primtive cave-man, the concept of fire was a subject to be tackled by intuitive and "humanistic realism". For an analytical approach to understanding fire, and consequently fully controlling it, one needs a language of physical and chemical understanding.
In the absence of such a language, intuitive realism is all one'll have.
But this still does not answer fully why our foremost analytical thinkers, our mathematicians, fail so miserably when it comes to analyzing the human condition relative to the poets and authors.
The answer lies in the way they typically approach any analytical endeavor. In the absence of a language, or a formalism, a mathematician approaches the human condition problem by abstracting it into a fantasy abstract (and more definable) world and analyzing this world. It is in this earlier step that his failure lies.
Thus Einstein who seemed so naive when he touched upon political issues, was actually referring to an abstract world that did not exactly correspond to the world we live in.
What angers me is that if we can praise bumbling poets and authors who make "intuitive" dabbles at the human condition using their "humanistic" lens, something which also leads to an imperfect understanding, why do we ridicule the efforts of the analytical masters who instead of solving a difficult problem bumblingly, first attempt to approximate the problem and then solve that approximate problem exactly?
The reason why this angers me is that it is by these initial approximating forays that we can ever develop this language that is needed for a more systematic analysis.
If man had restricted himself to "intuitively" understanding fire, we wouldn't be where we are; the human condition is such an equally epochal problem.
Read more »
Much of philosophy seems to be an intuitive grasp at what should be approached through analytical rigor.
Mathematicians, masters at analytical rigor, nonetheless seem to flounder; the few of these who expound on matters related to human nature seem naive, superficial. The poets, and writers, through a tapestry of fables and fantasy, seem to convey far more about the human condition than those few mathematicians who have attempted to do so.
Conversely, most mathematicians do not even have a very high respect for such endeavors, driven in part by the belief that the human condition is outside the domain of true analytical pursuit.
One can see this in varying extent in most human-nature related fields, in which an intuitive and a "humanistic realism" is always seen to be better than a completely analytical approach.
There is a reason for this, and it is that there is a lack of a systematic formalism, a systematic language for human nature, that could lend itself to analysis.
For the primtive cave-man, the concept of fire was a subject to be tackled by intuitive and "humanistic realism". For an analytical approach to understanding fire, and consequently fully controlling it, one needs a language of physical and chemical understanding.
In the absence of such a language, intuitive realism is all one'll have.
But this still does not answer fully why our foremost analytical thinkers, our mathematicians, fail so miserably when it comes to analyzing the human condition relative to the poets and authors.
The answer lies in the way they typically approach any analytical endeavor. In the absence of a language, or a formalism, a mathematician approaches the human condition problem by abstracting it into a fantasy abstract (and more definable) world and analyzing this world. It is in this earlier step that his failure lies.
Thus Einstein who seemed so naive when he touched upon political issues, was actually referring to an abstract world that did not exactly correspond to the world we live in.
What angers me is that if we can praise bumbling poets and authors who make "intuitive" dabbles at the human condition using their "humanistic" lens, something which also leads to an imperfect understanding, why do we ridicule the efforts of the analytical masters who instead of solving a difficult problem bumblingly, first attempt to approximate the problem and then solve that approximate problem exactly?
The reason why this angers me is that it is by these initial approximating forays that we can ever develop this language that is needed for a more systematic analysis.
If man had restricted himself to "intuitively" understanding fire, we wouldn't be where we are; the human condition is such an equally epochal problem.
Read more »
July 08, 2006
Tinkerers
I have a very great respect for evolution; inefficient though it might be, it has resulted in something as magical as the human mind. And evolution has equipped this human mind with a most powerful tool: inductive intelligence.
This might lead one to think that civilizations which do not use this tool to supplement the usual set of evolutionary pressures are prone to decay. And hence, enlightened humans, philosophers, should manipulate societal pressures so as to steer the civilization in a beneficient direction.
This view might seem simplistic to some, abhorrent to others.
But as a wise man once said, human thinking, as well as reality for that matter, is both abhorrent and simplistic. The above reasoning and the ensuing tinkering has been historically present, and the results have been mixed and complicated, if not exactly abhorrent.
The intellect-driven societal tinkerings, one should stress however, are less of arbitrary creations and more of structurings of evolutionarily evolved societal instincts. The structurings are required for multiple reasons:
1. Many of these instincts are contradictory.
2. Many of them do not apply to a societal environment that is different from the environment in which it evolved, and thus might have to be repressed (with the help of other contervailing instincts)
3. Some of these are essentially adaptive instincts that require a pre-defined moral environment.
Thus any moral code arising out of evolutionarily evolved instincts can benefit a lot from man-made systematization.
Civilizations, with human tinkering, have thus reaped many benefits as well as pit-falls; depending on the nature of the tinkerings. But a purely evolutionary-survival view does not tell the full story when one deals with agents having free-will: if a tinkering results in a pit-fall why isn't it corrected upon realization of the pit-fall?
In short, why do civilizations suffer the inevitable and abhorrent result of human-tinkerings: remaining trapped in a pitfall (as if in a vicious cycle) till evolutionary forces of survival come knocking to knock them out?
For an elaboration of the problem, let's get back to evolution: normal evolutionary pressures "improve" survival through the simple logic of feedback. If a particular mutant trait helps the species to survive better, it gets dominant amongst the species by survival and culling.
The question with respect to societal tinkerings of humans is, if the feedback is negative, why is it not realized and acted upon, till very survival is threatened? And the only possible reason seems bizarre: that negative feedback is actually construed as positive.
This bizarre occurrence can only occur in a species for which the utility function itself is malleable. Through man-made moral-code interventions a people's utility functions can be corrupted to construe specific negative feedback as positive, or at the very least, not to construe them as negative.
This quite naturally leads to decayed civilizations, that either dodder along or are replaced or wiped out: when the culmination of all that negative feedback (just because its existence is not realized does not mean it does not exist) comes calling.
There are some simple observations to be made given the above analysis.
First is that there shall always be tinkerers, the most powerful intellectuals of that civilization. Our very (cognitive) hardware is designed to be manipulable (that is it was designed to be adaptive); thus leaving us naked to the manipulations of tinkerers.
Second is that what is a positive tinkering and what is a negative tinkering is only available from hindsight.
Third is a corollary of the second: there has to be a diversity of tinkerings if society is not to decay due to a vicious-cycle negative tinkering. To date, this has been provided by the existence of different civilizations, as opposed to different tinkerings within the same civilization.
Fourth, the downstream effect of a vicious-cycle negative tinkering is essentially a large set of people with corrupt utility functions. Some of these would be able to partly recover from the corruption, by an intellectual exertion, but most cannot. Most intellectuals from the civilization would actually try to rationalize and extend the corruption the characterizes the negative tinkering.
There are only two ways to remedy things without allowing the civilization to die a slow painful wiping out: one is an external coercion and the second is a countervailing tinkering. This is a slow process, albeit one that offers hope.
Read more »
This might lead one to think that civilizations which do not use this tool to supplement the usual set of evolutionary pressures are prone to decay. And hence, enlightened humans, philosophers, should manipulate societal pressures so as to steer the civilization in a beneficient direction.
This view might seem simplistic to some, abhorrent to others.
But as a wise man once said, human thinking, as well as reality for that matter, is both abhorrent and simplistic. The above reasoning and the ensuing tinkering has been historically present, and the results have been mixed and complicated, if not exactly abhorrent.
The intellect-driven societal tinkerings, one should stress however, are less of arbitrary creations and more of structurings of evolutionarily evolved societal instincts. The structurings are required for multiple reasons:
1. Many of these instincts are contradictory.
2. Many of them do not apply to a societal environment that is different from the environment in which it evolved, and thus might have to be repressed (with the help of other contervailing instincts)
3. Some of these are essentially adaptive instincts that require a pre-defined moral environment.
Thus any moral code arising out of evolutionarily evolved instincts can benefit a lot from man-made systematization.
Civilizations, with human tinkering, have thus reaped many benefits as well as pit-falls; depending on the nature of the tinkerings. But a purely evolutionary-survival view does not tell the full story when one deals with agents having free-will: if a tinkering results in a pit-fall why isn't it corrected upon realization of the pit-fall?
In short, why do civilizations suffer the inevitable and abhorrent result of human-tinkerings: remaining trapped in a pitfall (as if in a vicious cycle) till evolutionary forces of survival come knocking to knock them out?
For an elaboration of the problem, let's get back to evolution: normal evolutionary pressures "improve" survival through the simple logic of feedback. If a particular mutant trait helps the species to survive better, it gets dominant amongst the species by survival and culling.
The question with respect to societal tinkerings of humans is, if the feedback is negative, why is it not realized and acted upon, till very survival is threatened? And the only possible reason seems bizarre: that negative feedback is actually construed as positive.
This bizarre occurrence can only occur in a species for which the utility function itself is malleable. Through man-made moral-code interventions a people's utility functions can be corrupted to construe specific negative feedback as positive, or at the very least, not to construe them as negative.
This quite naturally leads to decayed civilizations, that either dodder along or are replaced or wiped out: when the culmination of all that negative feedback (just because its existence is not realized does not mean it does not exist) comes calling.
There are some simple observations to be made given the above analysis.
First is that there shall always be tinkerers, the most powerful intellectuals of that civilization. Our very (cognitive) hardware is designed to be manipulable (that is it was designed to be adaptive); thus leaving us naked to the manipulations of tinkerers.
Second is that what is a positive tinkering and what is a negative tinkering is only available from hindsight.
Third is a corollary of the second: there has to be a diversity of tinkerings if society is not to decay due to a vicious-cycle negative tinkering. To date, this has been provided by the existence of different civilizations, as opposed to different tinkerings within the same civilization.
Fourth, the downstream effect of a vicious-cycle negative tinkering is essentially a large set of people with corrupt utility functions. Some of these would be able to partly recover from the corruption, by an intellectual exertion, but most cannot. Most intellectuals from the civilization would actually try to rationalize and extend the corruption the characterizes the negative tinkering.
There are only two ways to remedy things without allowing the civilization to die a slow painful wiping out: one is an external coercion and the second is a countervailing tinkering. This is a slow process, albeit one that offers hope.
Read more »
July 04, 2006
The mystery of the animal
A large part of the hits to a typical blog come from google searches. Some of these searches, one might imagine, would have nothing to do with the site. This blog has been a glad exception in that all but a very few searches seem to be more or less related to the specific posts they land up on.
But there's one search, which is both persistent --- four or five each day, and intriguing.
It is "six animal" or its equally frequent manifestation, "animal six". Now when I first saw this, I thought perhaps it had to deal with a beastiality connoisseur with a spelling problem (sex --> six); but that would not explain its daily occurrence. Perhaps there is some custom, some story about a set of animals, six in number, that I did not know about. So I set about on my investigative journey, starting first at the source, with a google search for "six animal". Unfortunately it only effected to increase the mystery.
First, my site does not occur even in the first many hundreds of links for that particular search!
Second, the numerological importance of six apropos the subject of the animal was lost on Google. There was the six-flags wild safari, a group of six animal rights activists who'd gotten into trouble, and ebay was offering six animal figurines on auction. Perhaps this would explain why the purveyors of the "six animal" search scoured past hundreds of pages onto my web site.
But the four to five searches for that term landing up on this site daily given the hundred-plus depth? Assuming any reasonable decay in the number of clicks with respect to search ranking, that would indicate hundreds if not millions of people dutifully doing their daily search for "six animal". A grand monumental search for an elusive numerological grail.
One is forced, at this point, to close the case as an X File, with the conjecture that the search might have to do with the mark of the beast (~ animal) which ostensibly is six six six. Perhaps it is the beast who is magically sweeping all those searchers past hundreds of no doubt less important pages, down to this very site. I only hope it wasn't a part of any Faustian bargain I'd have made in a hazy past! Read more »
But there's one search, which is both persistent --- four or five each day, and intriguing.
It is "six animal" or its equally frequent manifestation, "animal six". Now when I first saw this, I thought perhaps it had to deal with a beastiality connoisseur with a spelling problem (sex --> six); but that would not explain its daily occurrence. Perhaps there is some custom, some story about a set of animals, six in number, that I did not know about. So I set about on my investigative journey, starting first at the source, with a google search for "six animal". Unfortunately it only effected to increase the mystery.
First, my site does not occur even in the first many hundreds of links for that particular search!
Second, the numerological importance of six apropos the subject of the animal was lost on Google. There was the six-flags wild safari, a group of six animal rights activists who'd gotten into trouble, and ebay was offering six animal figurines on auction. Perhaps this would explain why the purveyors of the "six animal" search scoured past hundreds of pages onto my web site.
But the four to five searches for that term landing up on this site daily given the hundred-plus depth? Assuming any reasonable decay in the number of clicks with respect to search ranking, that would indicate hundreds if not millions of people dutifully doing their daily search for "six animal". A grand monumental search for an elusive numerological grail.
One is forced, at this point, to close the case as an X File, with the conjecture that the search might have to do with the mark of the beast (~ animal) which ostensibly is six six six. Perhaps it is the beast who is magically sweeping all those searchers past hundreds of no doubt less important pages, down to this very site. I only hope it wasn't a part of any Faustian bargain I'd have made in a hazy past! Read more »
July 02, 2006
Discriminative ferment
From a comment here:
Chandrahas has an excellent review up of the book, "The acid thoughts of Sasthi Brata". The book is an autobiography of Sasthi Brata, a disaffected man; disaffected with the repressive and regressive elements in Indian customs and mores, disaffected with the effects these have had on his psyche, disaffected by how he cannot do anything about it, except to examine it curiously, much like one would examine a wound, in the hope that greater self-knowledge would afford him power over it. In the process, he flails and rejects both society and himself.
At the end of the review, Chandrahas observes:
A common criticism against figures such as Brata and Naipaul is that they are too caustic, that they're too plaintive, that their works do not serve any purpose other than as a vehicle of the authors' egotistical flailings.
As Chandrahas observed, such flailings do serve an important purpose, that of encouraging self-examination in the peoples who suffer from the same psyche-corrupting environments as the author; except that they don't realize it.
But such figures serve a far more important purpose than mere encouragement to self-examination:
they engender a climate of discriminative and introspective ferment.
One cannot proclaim the importance of this enough; if one is to accept that human civilization is shaped by a few truly powerful and transformative thinkers; it is only from a climate of such discriminative ferment that transformative thinkers can arise.
But for such a ferment, they would dissipate away their energies into mediocrity; their true greatness never coming to the fore.
No civilization can survive such decay; and is in my opinion, the single-largest tragedy that any civilization can encounter. Read more »
Chandrahas has an excellent review up of the book, "The acid thoughts of Sasthi Brata". The book is an autobiography of Sasthi Brata, a disaffected man; disaffected with the repressive and regressive elements in Indian customs and mores, disaffected with the effects these have had on his psyche, disaffected by how he cannot do anything about it, except to examine it curiously, much like one would examine a wound, in the hope that greater self-knowledge would afford him power over it. In the process, he flails and rejects both society and himself.
At the end of the review, Chandrahas observes:
"Brata (although there must be more writers like him in other Indian languages) remains the kind of discontented, questioning figure of whom we do not have enough - it seems clear to me we do not have enough."
A common criticism against figures such as Brata and Naipaul is that they are too caustic, that they're too plaintive, that their works do not serve any purpose other than as a vehicle of the authors' egotistical flailings.
As Chandrahas observed, such flailings do serve an important purpose, that of encouraging self-examination in the peoples who suffer from the same psyche-corrupting environments as the author; except that they don't realize it.
But such figures serve a far more important purpose than mere encouragement to self-examination:
they engender a climate of discriminative and introspective ferment.
One cannot proclaim the importance of this enough; if one is to accept that human civilization is shaped by a few truly powerful and transformative thinkers; it is only from a climate of such discriminative ferment that transformative thinkers can arise.
But for such a ferment, they would dissipate away their energies into mediocrity; their true greatness never coming to the fore.
No civilization can survive such decay; and is in my opinion, the single-largest tragedy that any civilization can encounter. Read more »
July 01, 2006
Pragmatism, Principles and Foreign Policy
Wikipedia defines foreign policy as "a set of political goals that seeks to outline how a particular country will interact with the other countries of the world."
At first sight, this might seem to correspond to a macrocosmic definition of what is true even at a microcosm:
At the individual level, each man has his own "individual" policy that defines a set of goals that seeks to outline how he interacts with other individuals.
Now, the "game" of interactions with other entities such as oneself is inherently leery of fixed principles. If everybody else has fixed principles, it leaves you in a very comfortable position to exploit them. Seeing this, why should the others have a fixed set of principles?
The equilibrium that thus results is not optimal.
Evolutionarily, there have been two effects on humans due to the above:
1. We developed large brains, that are required to solve the complicated game-theoretic problem of how to deal with other entities that do not have fixed principles.
"...primate brains have evolved primarily to deal with social problems. Primates, they argue, live in relatively large groups where an individual's survival and reproductive success depends on its ability to manipulate others within a complex web of kinship and dominance relations"
http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/99/7/4141
2. Evolution of "Group" instincts such as caring for others within your group brings the equilibrium closer to one that would result from having fixed principles.
I'd argue that having a fixed set of moral principles is necessary, if one looks at a long time horizon. If one has a short horizon, one might be tempted to do the expedient thing at the expense of one's principles, but it has its consequences in the long run. In particular, the macroscopic consequences, at the level of a society, are quite huge.
I hate to say this, but somewhere along the line, Indians have lost this respect for high principle. Weak-kneed pragmatism seems to be the zeitgeist: and we're paying the price for this.
Now, to foreign policy. Foreign policy cannot be as rigid with respect to fixed principles as would be possible at an individual level: due to a threat of annihilation and a lack of enforcement at a global level. But that does mean one should resort to weak-kneed pragmatism either. Regarding India's foreign policy, the less said the better: if one is weak-kneed at an individual level, one has to be but more so at the foreign policy level.
Given the above discussion, a refreshing breath of fresh air, in Indian foreign policy analysis, is Nitin Pai of The Acorn. His blend of adhering to high principles while not advocating being naive towards unscrupulous elements, is a model of how foreign policy should be; and to a great extent, how the policy at the level of an individual should be as well.
Previous posts on pragmatism and principles: [1][2]
Read more »
At first sight, this might seem to correspond to a macrocosmic definition of what is true even at a microcosm:
At the individual level, each man has his own "individual" policy that defines a set of goals that seeks to outline how he interacts with other individuals.
Now, the "game" of interactions with other entities such as oneself is inherently leery of fixed principles. If everybody else has fixed principles, it leaves you in a very comfortable position to exploit them. Seeing this, why should the others have a fixed set of principles?
The equilibrium that thus results is not optimal.
Evolutionarily, there have been two effects on humans due to the above:
1. We developed large brains, that are required to solve the complicated game-theoretic problem of how to deal with other entities that do not have fixed principles.
"...primate brains have evolved primarily to deal with social problems. Primates, they argue, live in relatively large groups where an individual's survival and reproductive success depends on its ability to manipulate others within a complex web of kinship and dominance relations"
http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/99/7/4141
2. Evolution of "Group" instincts such as caring for others within your group brings the equilibrium closer to one that would result from having fixed principles.
I'd argue that having a fixed set of moral principles is necessary, if one looks at a long time horizon. If one has a short horizon, one might be tempted to do the expedient thing at the expense of one's principles, but it has its consequences in the long run. In particular, the macroscopic consequences, at the level of a society, are quite huge.
I hate to say this, but somewhere along the line, Indians have lost this respect for high principle. Weak-kneed pragmatism seems to be the zeitgeist: and we're paying the price for this.
Now, to foreign policy. Foreign policy cannot be as rigid with respect to fixed principles as would be possible at an individual level: due to a threat of annihilation and a lack of enforcement at a global level. But that does mean one should resort to weak-kneed pragmatism either. Regarding India's foreign policy, the less said the better: if one is weak-kneed at an individual level, one has to be but more so at the foreign policy level.
Given the above discussion, a refreshing breath of fresh air, in Indian foreign policy analysis, is Nitin Pai of The Acorn. His blend of adhering to high principles while not advocating being naive towards unscrupulous elements, is a model of how foreign policy should be; and to a great extent, how the policy at the level of an individual should be as well.
Previous posts on pragmatism and principles: [1][2]
Read more »
June 30, 2006
East and communism
From a comment here:
What is it with East and communism?
Eastern hemisphere: more communist, Western hemispere: less communist.
Eastern Indian subcontinent: more, Western Indian subcontinent: less.
Eastern India (Bengal/North-east): more, Western India: less.
It has something to do with the sun. The east watches with envy while the west gets to have sun set in it, with much more beauty, with much more color; with much more red color that is; which thus spurred Marx to found an ideology that would cause civilization, if not the sun, to set in the East, with the color red.
It is thus unfair to blame the east; one should blame the sun. Read more »
What is it with East and communism?
Eastern hemisphere: more communist, Western hemispere: less communist.
Eastern Indian subcontinent: more, Western Indian subcontinent: less.
Eastern India (Bengal/North-east): more, Western India: less.
It has something to do with the sun. The east watches with envy while the west gets to have sun set in it, with much more beauty, with much more color; with much more red color that is; which thus spurred Marx to found an ideology that would cause civilization, if not the sun, to set in the East, with the color red.
It is thus unfair to blame the east; one should blame the sun. Read more »
May 07, 2006
Political Economy
It seems the politico-economic theory and human-nature-analysis theory that I was talking about in the previous posts falls under the (existing) interdisciplinary field of political economy. Do check out this Wikipedia article on the same - Political Economy. Quite interestingly, the Theory of Moral Sentiments is listed as an important publication in Political Economy. Perfunctorily, there seems to be a lack of an evolutionary psychology perspective in all of this, something which'd potentially give a stronger handle on human nature previously unavailable to politico-economic theorists.
Read more »
Politico-economic theory
Current economic theories and schools seem to look at the markets and goods and services and efficiencies (in production, consumption, distribution) therein, in exclusion to their sociological components.
While at first glance this seems rigorous, it is not: an economic theory has essentially to be applied to the polity; and is useless as a theory inasmuch as it is not acceptable to the polity; and frequently something is not acceptable to a polity because it is not even applicable to that polity.
Economics seems to aver that this socio-political concern is a matter for political philosophy, not economics, which should focus on goods and services.
Apparently this separation of economic theorizing and political application of the economic theory to a peoples is a relatively recent phenomenon; and it does not seem to be a workable arrangement.
A polity is a more complicated system than a system of rational agents or even boundedly rational agents. It is a system of agents whose utility functions are defined by the culture, the religion, the moral codes of the area. This implies that the economic theory that is applicable to one area, might not be applicable to other areas, and to leave the mantle to the political theorists to "force" economic theories onto inapplicable peoples is going to lead to failure.
To be fair, a lot of free market theorists have addressed this fact by avering that that free markets and a laissez faire system is applicable to all peoples. There are many flaws in their analyses, and I'll just touch upon two of them.
Adam Smith, the father of the free market system, was basically a moral philosopher; the field of "economics" did not exist in its current form then; who wrote "The theory of moral sentiments" before his seminal work of "The Wealth of nations". He did not view self-interest as mere acquisitive selfishness, but as something that "betters one condition" both morally and materially, and assumed, as a precondition for a society of liberty, a peoples with an "inner check" of an "impartial spectator" (conscience) and for whom approbation from others is an end on its own.
Later Classical Liberal economic theorists tried to get around this by trying to show how approbation from others is required for self-interested material prosperity, but this is manifestly not true, and many, including Amartya Sen, show the problem with this line of reasoning. In addition, this leaves one open to attack from the anti-laissez faire theorists who aver that the laissez faire system is not morally sound, and this finds resonance with a majority of peoples who still have a instinctual need to accord importance to this "approbation from others".
The thing is that Adam Smith lived in a time when societal moral codes were strong, and "soft" constraints therein took care of the "checks" on the laissez faire system.
But if economic theorists now refuse to adapt the laissez faire system to the existing moral code situation, they shall not curry favor with a peoples who still have very real moral instincts that make them uncomfortable with this. Relying on political theorists to wave a magic rationality wand at the peoples is not going to work.
The second problem is that an economic theory, if it is to be politically feasible, should accord special focus to the utility functions and moral codes of the elite, whosoever they are, in a society. In certain cases, the only option is for a political revolution to overthrow the elite for an economic theory to be applicable to a society. This was the case, for example, with the many communist revolutions. But this is not always feasible, and the economic theory should not follow the intellectually cowardful path of assuming the political theorists "will take care of" the elite.
With respect to India, I feel it is a rich area for political and economic theorists to get together to formulate a cogent theory that is actually applicable to the Indian peoples instead of lazily hoping to apply wholesale theories that originated in a different culture with different moral codes.
To be fair though, I believe the enormous middle class in India, is ripe for a laissez faire-ish society, but that there is a interregnum that is required that this middle class is incapable of either providing or sustaining. Factoring in the elites makes it an even more difficult problem. A big apple to chew for the many laissez-faire theorists who feel the problem lies sorely in the political domain. Read more »
While at first glance this seems rigorous, it is not: an economic theory has essentially to be applied to the polity; and is useless as a theory inasmuch as it is not acceptable to the polity; and frequently something is not acceptable to a polity because it is not even applicable to that polity.
Economics seems to aver that this socio-political concern is a matter for political philosophy, not economics, which should focus on goods and services.
Apparently this separation of economic theorizing and political application of the economic theory to a peoples is a relatively recent phenomenon; and it does not seem to be a workable arrangement.
A polity is a more complicated system than a system of rational agents or even boundedly rational agents. It is a system of agents whose utility functions are defined by the culture, the religion, the moral codes of the area. This implies that the economic theory that is applicable to one area, might not be applicable to other areas, and to leave the mantle to the political theorists to "force" economic theories onto inapplicable peoples is going to lead to failure.
To be fair, a lot of free market theorists have addressed this fact by avering that that free markets and a laissez faire system is applicable to all peoples. There are many flaws in their analyses, and I'll just touch upon two of them.
Adam Smith, the father of the free market system, was basically a moral philosopher; the field of "economics" did not exist in its current form then; who wrote "The theory of moral sentiments" before his seminal work of "The Wealth of nations". He did not view self-interest as mere acquisitive selfishness, but as something that "betters one condition" both morally and materially, and assumed, as a precondition for a society of liberty, a peoples with an "inner check" of an "impartial spectator" (conscience) and for whom approbation from others is an end on its own.
Later Classical Liberal economic theorists tried to get around this by trying to show how approbation from others is required for self-interested material prosperity, but this is manifestly not true, and many, including Amartya Sen, show the problem with this line of reasoning. In addition, this leaves one open to attack from the anti-laissez faire theorists who aver that the laissez faire system is not morally sound, and this finds resonance with a majority of peoples who still have a instinctual need to accord importance to this "approbation from others".
The thing is that Adam Smith lived in a time when societal moral codes were strong, and "soft" constraints therein took care of the "checks" on the laissez faire system.
But if economic theorists now refuse to adapt the laissez faire system to the existing moral code situation, they shall not curry favor with a peoples who still have very real moral instincts that make them uncomfortable with this. Relying on political theorists to wave a magic rationality wand at the peoples is not going to work.
The second problem is that an economic theory, if it is to be politically feasible, should accord special focus to the utility functions and moral codes of the elite, whosoever they are, in a society. In certain cases, the only option is for a political revolution to overthrow the elite for an economic theory to be applicable to a society. This was the case, for example, with the many communist revolutions. But this is not always feasible, and the economic theory should not follow the intellectually cowardful path of assuming the political theorists "will take care of" the elite.
With respect to India, I feel it is a rich area for political and economic theorists to get together to formulate a cogent theory that is actually applicable to the Indian peoples instead of lazily hoping to apply wholesale theories that originated in a different culture with different moral codes.
To be fair though, I believe the enormous middle class in India, is ripe for a laissez faire-ish society, but that there is a interregnum that is required that this middle class is incapable of either providing or sustaining. Factoring in the elites makes it an even more difficult problem. A big apple to chew for the many laissez-faire theorists who feel the problem lies sorely in the political domain. Read more »
