Why They Hate Narendra Modi

A brief post this

Oldtimer's post on Modi-baiters has reminded me of a point I have been meaning to make since quite sometime, the visceral hatred for Narendra Modi. This hatred, I used to think was analogous to two minute hate, in this scenario NaMo is to lib-sec establishment, what Emmanuel Goldstein was to the party in 1984.
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However lately I have revised my opinion. While it is not clear whether Emmanuel Goldstein exists (indeed in 1984 it is strongly hinted at the end that he is fictitious), however it is clear within the novel that even he exists he and his organization are an ineffectual resistance against party, either in physical terms or in propaganda, we know this because Winston Smith, the protagonist,  never indicates any presence of Goldstein beyond two minute hate. From this, I think it is safe to conclude that only purpose Goldstein was mentioned at all by Party was to divert and release desperation and anger of public at their wretchedness.

Now in part, lib-sec est does invoke NaMo to consolidate Muslims against Hindus, however there is a crucial difference. Unlike Goldstein, NaMo is a formidable opponent. He has captured the imagination of aspirational middle class against craven venality of a cruel yet buffoonish establishment. He holds the promise, however feeble, of upending cozy consensus of Delhi Durbar, of the false consensus forced upon India by a self loathing and incestuous intelligentsia.

And this is why they hate NaMo because they are afraid that he can't be bought, and that he can snatch the one thing they covet most, the power to maipulate the will.

Social Media Sucks!

 Mea Culpa, Mea Maxima Culpa 
Let's get the easy part out, social media has at best limited electoral influence. To be specific twitter has no influence, Facebook has some, Blogs ? ha ha good one. That said, if people are banking on social media for electoral deliverance, Boy, they are for rude surprise!

Social Media can at best play marginal, complementary role. It can't even dream of supplanting traditional political campaigning including voter outreach. But oh, traditional is so boring, let's talk about shiny new things instead.

This misconception about electoral relevance does point to a more serious problem though. That of misunderstanding the role and potential of social media in Indian context. People simply do not understand how to best leverage social media, this is why their participation is at best tactical, at worst  self referential. 

Therefore most of contemporary social media interactions can best be summarized as chasing the news cycle.

Cycle starts with a scandal/outrage/foot in mouth statement, the worthies devour the topic du jour like ravenous wolves, superficial commentary shreds it, until there is a new one, and the cycle continues.

This ceaseless and frankly tedious process obscures other possibilities such as in short term social media can be used to co-ordinate, in medium term it can be used to organize and in long term it can be used for dissemination, thus providing a stable and distributed platform for body politics.

But where confounding narcissism masquerades as profundity, possibility is the first casualty.

Pratap Bhanu Mehta & Art Of (Forced) Equivalence

I confess, I am pretty pissed off at collective orgasm of Internet Hindus over the overrated Pratap Bhanu Mehta's "While we were silent" piece. Here is what galls me, when PBM uses the hackneyed "We were silent" phrase, he doesn't really mean "I", which he should be doing.

I am not saying PBM has never criticized the disaster that is UPA before, he has done ample of time. What I am saying is, even though the article he wrote now might score high on literary scale, an article titled "Holy shit! this government is a disaster! EJECT! EJECT! EJECT!" published, let's say, eight years ago, while scoring considerably lower on the scale, would have been immeasurably more useful because then it might have helped in averted our present "decade of decline" (which threatens to become "decade of darkness").

And please don't say PBM couldn't have foreseen. Its one thing for paid dullards in Indian media, who copy every frickin' trend in US, to say this, but PBM is a smart fellow, he could and should have foreseen this, especially considering that many in blogosphere (incl yours truly).

It is not my contention that those in blogosphere were particularly smart, rather it is that it didn't require particular keen sense of foresight to predict this, considering Sonia Gandhi and her minions were shouting from rooftops, that was the platform on which they fought 2004 elections, that was what they promised and that was what they delivered. Sure they used latest socialist jargon and that could fool the dullards in media, but surely PBM is a smart fellow, he could have cut through the verbiage and seen the reality.

Ofcourse I think he did see the reality, and as I said at the starting he has criticized UPA ample times. However almost all of his articles can be boiled down to either of the two themes.

1. Congress is bad, "lekin saala akhha system hi kaharab hai".
2. Congress is bad, but BJP is worse.

Of course he took far more sentences to say this, and used fancy vocab and sentence construction, but the gist, was always this.

Why would someone as smart as PBM do this. Surely it must have been clear to him, that as flawed as BJP was, in matters of sound policy and in matter of respecting the institutions, it was (and is) far better than Congress.

Let me postulate this, like all liberals PBM is basically a cultural warrior, his overriding concern is the cultural war over soul or rather idea of India. Sure he wraps this in noble sounding rhetoric of apolitical liberalism, don't let it fool you though, this is anything but apolitical.

PBM is a participant in this war, even if he doesn't explicitly realizes this.Sure he may point to the lumpen elements (and there are many) within the fold of cultural nationalism. but he is more than willing to turn a blind eye towards similar element within lib-sec fold. What is more he has no problem being congenial with our intelligentsia which practices intellectual La Cosa Nostra. In contrast you can bet he feels revulsion associating with, even interacting with, any member of nationalist fold, irrespective of the fact how exemplary that member is.

Mr Pratap Bhanu Mehta, you can play or you can referee, you can't do both.

Our Modern Crisis: Death Of Superman

Concluding part to series. Previous posts here and here

The gist of previous posts was

1. As far as man is concerned, evolution transforms from a purely biological phenomena to one transcending social, technological and spiritual dimensions.

2. This evolution, transcendent, tends to cleave a man as  projections on various planes, biological, social, technological and spiritual, more often than not at tension with each other.

3. Proper aim of philosophy, science, religion any system of knowledge created by human endeavour should be to harmonize the multifaceted nature of evolution. This in turn implies the aim should  to keep man's projections in harmony, to project a "becoming" man. Only that much can be expected, anything more should be left up to evolution

The end of our runaway evolutions is at some unknown point in future. when the synthesis of man's projections is complete, and they unite to create a transformed man. All the concepts are preparatory stage for this glorious transformation when out of becoming man, Superman emerges . Even the gods as mighty as they are but intermediate staging something staggering

This idea, of a transformed man, was first proposed by Nietzsche in form of Ubermensch (lit. overman). However, Nietzsche, his vision restricted by receding lights of Christianity and blinding supernova of biological evolution. Consequently, Ubermensch became a material counterpoint to Jesus Christ, a spiritual balm offered by Christianity for material affliction. As a result Ubermensch became a prisoner of biology, condemned to chase sensual pleasures, even if that was not intended by Nietzsche.

It was Guru Aurobindo Ghosh who perhaps realized this fundamental concept underlying observable reality in life divine with emergence of supramental being. In doing so, he was synthesizing concept from ancient Hindu thought with Theory of Evolution. This is Superman.

I believe ancients were sub-consciously aware of evolution and Superman. The way they accommodated this awareness into their world view differed from civilization to civilization. Greeks realized this accommodation of evolution in politics, in philosophy and in natural sciences by eudaimonia, but they missed the spiritual, hence missing Superman.

Hindus, in my biased view, had keenest grasp of the evolution and Superman. They accommodated their view by infusing earthly with spiritual and spiritual with earthly. As a consequence the line between faith and world so stark in west, is blurry at best in India.

The Jews had their God but instead of pointing man to Superman, this "insecure, jealous God" imprisoned the man in a prison of covenants and laws, circumscribing his evolution in philosophy, natural science or spirituality. Christianity compromised between Greeks and Jews. Its God reached to man, holding promise for man to flourish philosophically and spiritually. Yet even Christian God was derived from Jewish God  and remained insecure and aware of its incompleteness, in the end Christianity inverted the vision of evolution and Superman, and replaced man as starting point to Superman, with man as end result of fall of man, evolution with original sin, and Superman himself with grace.  It was a rebellion, not of Adam against God, but of Christian God against Superman!

But as inverted as Christian world view was, even though it rebelled against evolution and Superman, it still had the saving grace of a vision of man beyond his biological self, it held a promise, however confounded,  of man's elevation.

Superman survived.

And then renaissance happened.

Like Christianity, it inherited from Greeks as well as Jews (as did it from Christianity itself), however it attempted a different approach at reconciling. It retained that Jewish framework of Laws, but killed the God, it retained Greek science but excluded eudaimonia.

The end result was even more devastating than Christianity. For renaissance man, devoid of promise of evolution,  science, philosophy became end in itself and not the means, their pursuit meant for intellectual pleasure and not evolution. Devoid of God or any means to connect to spiritual self, renaissance man turned inwards, and made himself the end, and instead of evolution there was degeneration, instead of flourishing, there was withering, and instead of Superman. man became Last man

And this is how Superman died.

Needed mediawatchers (First Update)

Inspired by Dosabandit's idea

First Update: 3 ways to start a wiki
Help: Start A New Wiki (Wikia)

"Who watches the watchmen" originally dealt with question of accountability of political class. At present media is supposed to answer this question, in theory at least, it was supposed to be the watchdog.

However media with its ideological bias, guild mentality, venality, corporate interests and ties to establishment has rather than solving, exacerbated the problem. Last decade and half provides ample evidence of this.

It is therefore my proposal that concerned netizens should track and publish any act of shenanigans by media. It should be possible to accomplish this by a wiki.Media can't be allowed to get away with its acts of omission and commission.

Our Modern Crisis: Ancient Discontent (Updated)

Previous post might have given the impression that we moderns have stumbled on the crisis on our own. Nothing could be farther from the truth. The genesis of modern crisis is ancient, rooted in the human nature itself.

The human nature, transcending evolution, always becoming, ever dynamic, is also the scene of a struggle. A struggle between its projections.

The biological man is in existential confrontation with social man who in turn is challenged by technical man who is a rebel against the spiritual  man. It is not in power to man to stop or end this confrontation. This confrontation will resolve only when ever unfolding evolutions draws to its unknown conclusion.

Update: In simple words, this means there is always a tension between an individual and society, society and technical progress, technical progress and spiritual faith.

So if the man can't bring the confrontation to its end, what can he do? The overarching aim of philosophy, politics, science, any body of knowledge as conceived by humans should be to  try to mitigate the frequent destruction unleashed by evolution even as it carries human to next stages of his transformation. 

Our Modern Crisis: Background

Ecce Homo

We are missing it. Beyond the incessant chatter of media traditional as well as social, beyond even the rarefied atmosphere of policy debates, there lurks a crisis. I doubt if many are aware about it, much less attempted to grasp its seriousness.

Our modern crisis is about true nature of man. Western politics is sharply divided into Conservatives and Liberals. Yet despite their often bitter partisan rancour, they have fundamentally same view about nature of man. To both, man is an atom, isolated entity imprisoned in his biological form, completely defined by personal virtues and vices, by his intellect and desires. Whether he is triumphant or defeated, he stands alone.
Man is atrophied, static. Man is a mere "being".

Let me humbly suggest that this conception of man is flawed. Man in fact is dynamic, he has progressed from biological evolution itself to higher forms of evolution. Man is "becoming".

It is true that man has a biological form, but that's not his limit. He projects onto higher planes. He is a nexus in social network. He is a shard of global data. He is a wisp of reason. Finally man is the very part of cosmic concious.

What a magnificent creature man is!

Alas how he has been sundered by simple minds 

On cults and soft totalitarianism

A short post this

Cults: I am sure anthropologists and the guys who do comparative religion studies have some rigorous definition for cults which no one outside the fields can understand. With the disclaimer let me offer my alternative (?) definition.Cult is any group adhering to a set of belief, who for all practical purposes, refuse to validate or falsify the said beliefs. Even as they insist their beliefs conform to reality or (nowadays) science, they steadfastly resist intrusion of reality. If somehow reality does successfully make a breach, the response is to burrow themselves even more under the certitude of dogma.

Soft totalitarianism: Instead of redefining totalitarianism I will like to shift the focus, totalitarianism refers to a polity where state controls every socio-politico-cultural institution, thus controlling every aspect of social and individual life. While there have been totalitarian regime in the past (Stalin, Mao, Hitler) and exist in the present (North Korea, Saudi Arabia), text book totalitarian regimes are the exception and not the rule. Instead we have a more subtle and hence also more invidious (because it gets ignored)  soft totalitarianism. I define soft totalitarianism as the political situation where while in theory both individuals and social institution have freedom as well as rights, and where state doesn't control all aspects of life, there does exist a intellectual monopoly over key social institutions including academia and public discourse such that dissent beyond a certain point is ruthlessly delegitimized and the person who dare to cross the boundary of shibboleth is hounded mercilessly, career destroyed, his right to civil discourse revoked, humiliated, and finally excommunicated.

Zeroth Law

Consider this post as addendum to previous one, while I don't think much of first principles, I do defer to what I modestly like to refer as Gaurav's zeroth law. It is simply this, in my opinion in order for any social theory to be taken seriously it must be non nihilistic. That is to say, assuming human nature to be what it is, society ordered on the basis of that particular social theory must not annihilate itself and must survive and thrive