Ecce Homo

Behold, there goes the biggest enemy of mankind, the one who has sworn the oath of unceasing vendetta against what goes for sound constitution in nature, the breeder of disease and discontent.

What! You can't see that dreaded monster, then take my eyes! Ah, now you see the face of eternal villain, the one who said that "meek shall inherit the earth", who lied that "kingdom of god" is for poor.

Because when he said that he was elevating weakness on pedestal, it was he who consecrated poverty as virtue and atrophied the natural vigour just as Medusa turns everyone to stone with her gaze. He, the opposite of man, weak in mind and body, begotten of void, seeks to remake man in his own image, resentful of form.

That furious yet rank contraption wishes void for man, for he resents man for his ability to create, to bestow purpose, where there was none. It is he who mixes poison in the cup of elixir. Frightful of purpose, he invents nihilism. Shrewd and cunning like all scavengers are, he embellishes the abyss with siren song of love, but it is death, not love, not life that he gives away.The most devastating evil revealed as craving for nothingness.

And it is for you, the warrior, the Arya, to slay this mlechha. Blaspheme against this cult of victim hood, repudiate this creed of emasculation, reject vehemently all satanic verses worshipping poverty as human ideal. Rediscover that power that you posses, that creates civilizations, the will to bring forth form from formless. Eliminate this opiate from the blood, which castrates the virility and saps the human spirit in name of kindness to unfortunate.
Deny moral superiority to wasted and enervated.

Understand this, "meek shall never inherit the earth", the earth is a playground for the strong, earth embraces resolve. It is beholden of vigour, of striving, of potent, of action and of thought. You don't have to knock at the gates of heaven, it is here in your clenched fist, joyously confronting the storms, vanquishing ogres, subjugating underworlds.

That which strangles you is mere web of self-doubt, your freedom is merely a matter of shrugging the web off.
Bask in the sun of human pride and proclaim with head held high

"I do, therefore I exist" .

My contribution to civilization

Yes, yes everyone and his nephew knows that marriages boost economy, so does act of fornication or little toddlers shitting in diapers or teenagers getting pimples, but please! how can anyone talk of trifles like economics when world is faced with such a threatening situation? Unless you have been living under a stone or are a vile free market fundamentalist, by now you must have realized the dire consequences of global warming.
And yet what is being done, nothing my dear fellows ! Even as retired politicians and born again Hollywood actors are heroically trying to save the planet by hopping continents on private jets, we are ignoring the biggest culprit, flatulence ! Yes, friends, farts (human and bovine) contribute one tenth* towards green house gas emission, and hence are to be blamed for polar bears forgetting swimming (and getting stranded on breaking Antarctic ice sheets). Desperate situation calls for desperate measures, and therefore I propose that a "fart tax" be levied and the revenue thus generated be used to subsidize research on Eco-friendly gastronomical innovations . The tax will be both on individuals as well as Hindu joint family, family gatherings being a major source of global warming. It is only by these "out of the box" solutions that we can counter this menace and make planet a better place for children (human and ursine)

I have nothing to say......

(But that is no excuse for not ranting)

Hey bhagwaan ! Why does the world grudge my vacation ? Here I am, hoping to enjoy my time by watching path breaking cinema such as this *, it is then that some dumb journalist (I know it is redundant) decides to switch to pontiff mode and delivers what is only know as "common man rhetoric". Have a taste of this triteness (via the great Signalman). Listen baldy, I understand you have to earn your living, since I have no moral objection to lying or making fool of fools, I heartily approve of the vocation you have chosen. But why do you decide to go all Sagarika Ghose, and invite my wrath, the best blogger** India ever had.

Anyway screw the baldy, what I can not put up with is this line

"The voter now sets much greater store by the quality of governance"

1. Voter does nothing of the sort.
2. Further voter is incapable of doing any such thing, because voter is incurably stupid and hopelessly naive.
3. What voter can do is internalize received wisdom and what is the more common case, received folly. Ideology bordering on theology, embraced in form of vacuous slogans is the hallmark of democracy.
4. Common man is null, cipher, zero, shunya. The thing with zero is, whatever operations you perform on it, add,multiply, it remains zero. Delusion in singular is not insight in plural.
5. What voter wants is free lunches, hence socialism (and KBC)
6. Zeroes are not content to live on scrapings of non-zeroes, they want to be non-zeroes, only being zero they attempt to accomplish this by strangling the non-zeroes. In the valley of ignorant, mediocre is the king.

In conclusion, I can only say "death to common"

* Jokes apart, it is a good movie, watch it. (Especially VNS)
** I think, the only reason I am not recognized as the best must be due to some evil conspiracy by the signalman. Neo, where are thou !

Reads....

(A)
Finished the second part of (in)famous trilogy by V. S. Naipaul. It is not hard to comprehend why the book evoked vehement response.
Although, the book as far the scholarship goes is not the most accurate (understandably, with Vidia dismissing even legitimate griecvances of nationalists with distortion of history as denial).
However the book is right on the mark where it matters, that is the problem with Indic civilization.
V S comments (astutely, for someone who was not born here) the fundamental malice of
India is the  fact that she is bereft of ideas. 
Instead of original thinking, Indians borrow ideas wholesale from the outside, centuries of subjugation have turned us into intellectual parasite. In fact the things have come to such a pass that the very idea of civilization has withered away.
This sucking on west's udders, import without application will explain the earlier tryst with socialism, and present flirting with libertarianism (I predict that in coming decade our intellectual class will be overwhemingly libertarian), and I have no doubt that results will be only slightly better than the former, that too 
in medium run, long run will be same saga of decay.
Civilization do not prosper, neither do nations become great because the labour (skilled or unskilled) is cheap. Human destiny is founded upon ideas, and as someone who is reaping the benefit of labour of countless thinkers over countless millenia, we, the modern man have obligation, nay it is the morality crucial for all ages to replenish the fount of intellect.

(B)

Currently reading Mother. This novel by Maxim Gorky became the clarion call for socialist revolution resulting ultimately in Bolshevic revolution.
This makes one wonder Gorky was appropriated by Communists, Nietzche by Nazi, Premchand by so called Dalit activists and Iqbal by pro-Pakistan elements. The only conclusion is that literature and politics do not go together.

Odds, Ends

This blogger is back in Lucknow, which is the reason that you, the gullible uninitiated are deprived of my profundity, do not fret, I will be back.

I hope you had a horrible Holi, I also hope that your kids used such wonderful substances as urine,dung,tar and chemical from battery to grievously injure your neighbours. What is the use of Holi, if you can not take revenge for petty jealousy or just malice.

The biggest advantage of family gathering is that one is assured of propagation of malice through mutual swapping and invention of fertile and envious imagination. In fact there is a strong case that society was intended as a medium for growth and sustenance of all that is base and loathsome. Without society life will be a sordid tale of regular kindness, the very definition of eternal damnation.

Requiem for republic - A modest proposal

Previous Posts [1], [2]

Related Posts [1], [2]

Resolution

To summarize I wished to make following point,

Political institutions matter because they strengthen co-operation and channelize conflict.

However here we are confronted by a difficulty.Combining premises of previous posts while creating institutions are beneficial for society, to individual acting on "instinct" of self interest the return (to him) doesn't justify the cost incurred.

This essentially calls for a collective effort, but there arises another dilemma, even the collective effort requires minimal level of co-operation.

Indian society is almost antithesis of "near equals", and therefore the task to create institutions suited for Indian reality requires much higher level of co-operation and effort. It is here that a political philosophy which guides the decision takers, informs the opinion makers and thus defines the contours of debate is required.

This is where that Indians have failed, while (at the pleasure of being called Hindu jingoist), India displays considerable cultural harmony, we sorely lack guiding principle for our politics. Unfortunately this ignorance is firmly anchored in the Indian psyche. Our founding fathers, while no doubt selfless in the love for nation, nevertheless underestimated the herculean task of creating political institution for nation, instead for the most part relying either on the colonial machinery or British model both unsuitable for independent India.

The above deficiency explains the extent of misgoverning in post independence India. In absence of sound political foundations nation is plagued with "a million tyrannies".

It is possible to guide India out of this quagmire. However for that to happen Indians need to work on guiding principle.

Which means recognizing that Indians constitute a political entity and our destiny is profoundly affected by the institutions we build, which depend on the objectives we want to attain from these institutions.

It is on this criteria that evolution and evaluation of structures institutions which will be most suitable for life, liberty and pursuit of happiness should happen.

This in nutshell is republicanism. Perhaps we should pay more attention to 26th January.

PS Selfishness is instinct, self interest is "rationalizing" of instinct, enlightened self-interest is a selfishness with a flashlight. Rationalizing in this manner is perfectly all right as past time and amusement, however it is a folly of highest order if one mistakes it for 42

Requiem for republic - Co-operative games

Previous post

Related Posts [1], [2]

*Digression continues*

Dynamics behind social (and political) institutions.

Before trying to answer the inability of Indians to evolve effective institutions, the question arises in what conditions specific institutions evolve or to rephrase what are conditions neccessary for institutions to be effective.

Essentially insitutution are required to enforce co-operative behaviour. Broadly speaking the ineractions in nature can be divided in two categories conflict and co-operation, here I must clarify that only those interactions which take place in context of ownership for resources are considered.

Co-operation is not neccessarily the obvious type of interaction. It is absurd to think of co-operation where there is a huge disparity between the powers of actors, typical example being of predator and prey (Lion and deer, or eagle and lamb), here it is the conflict which predominates.

However things get interesting when the power of the actors (or competitors) is similar, typically the case between members of same species, this results in formation of society with hierchial structure, thus averting any conflict and resulting damage.
There exists a secondary advantage, co-operation facilitates division of labour.

In animals this advantage is limited (hunting, watch-keeping, protecting young etc) , however in case of humans the benefit (increase in efficiency, skill and knowledge) has been tremendous in evolution of the species resulting in predominance, for all practical purposes overshadowing the former advantage.

However co-operation and competition are "opposing" tendencies, and it is impossible to eliminate selfish instinct. Therefore in order to maximize co-operation, selfishness has to be managed.

This is the basis behind existence of institutions. The instinct of co-operation and survival ensures that some kind of institutions will form. However all social (or political) institutions are not equivalent in their effects. As a first approximation, in order to maximize the benefits of institutions, coercion should be minimal.

Further, specifics of political institutions are very much determined by power dynamics of society. The most optimum (and hypothetical) case is a society of equals (or near equals) in ownership of power as well as resources.

Any imbalance will entail suitable modification in structure.