Cylindrical Elephants & Spherical Cows

Nowadays political discourse, whether online or in mainstream, evokes sadness tinged with a feeling of Sisyphean futility of it all. Earlier when one fancied oneself young the feeling that this evoked was of rage.

Political commentators when not perpetually chasing the breaking news in a manner reminiscent of street mongrels,  remind one of the parable of blind men and elephant, with discourse focussed on specific issues.

Now there is something to said about this approach, focusing on a small specific part and studying reducing the complexity of problem, divide and conquer in technical lingo.

Problem though is that human condition does not yield to convenient, clean division, on the contrary it is messy, one part running into other. The result, all the well constructed theorems and model assuming the isolation and independence of  parts are ruined by the intrusion of totality.

So may be going piecemeal is not correct, may be our reasoning should be anchored on first principles. A tempting thought no doubt, and one which many do succumb to. Unfortunately this too is deceptive, a dialectical siren song for those chasing intellectual certainty, and the results as predictable, intellectual wreck on treacherous shoals of reality.

Every scientific query proceeds within the framework of assumptions. Assumptions simplify problem domain and make working on problem earlier. This is useful as long as care is taken that simplification do not filter anything essential. This is next to impossible in study of social affairs.

First principles are dangerous precisely because they cloak incompleteness of assumption in intellectual certitude. Hence spherical cows.

So what is the solution. Short answer, there aren't any. Longer answer, it is not possible to completely eliminate the complexity, it is possible however to mitigate it somewhat, by not focussing exclusive on one domain, by making it a habit of stepping back and taking it all in.

Unless we understand elephant's nature we can't hope to tame it.

SHOW DONT TELL

(Originally posted on CRI)

Much of my original posting on CRI has been in way of criticism without offering any positive alternative or solution, one  reason for this, as the cliché goes, criticism is easy, other is my own political views are still work in progress (As Oscar Wilde said, “I am not young enough to know everything”).

That said I will like to qualify my humble appeal in which I objected to pretending that right exists in India, in any meaningful way. I will like to note following criteria to admit existence of right.

1. Define right in a broad but coherent way.  (And again no, you can not just import definition of American Right)

2. Identify the set of philosophical/policy positions in Indian context which can be classified as right.

3. Locate in politics a serious faction or movement which identifies with said position. Or,

4. Identify a serious strand among contemporary Indian discourse which can be identified with said position.

5. Note emphasis on “serious”, by which I mean not twitter, or blog, or any other part of web.

HUMBLE APPEAL

(Originally posted on CRI)

Not that anybody is going to listen to me but still…

Please, for love of God, stop pretending/deluding yourself that we have some intellectually coherent “right” in India. I know why you are doing that, you have a ready-made template of political categorization in American politics, it is so much easier to just import it and build an edifice of superficial punditry to satisfy that irresistible urge for self affirmation.

However just because it is easier doesn’t mean its correct, it is useless, scratch that it is worse than useless in that it is misleading, it is obfuscating instead of clarifying.

If you have to do it, do it the right way.

And remember the only difference between drunkard and a pundit is whereas drunkard looks for the keys under the lamps, a pundit insists that keys should have been misplaced under the lamps in the first place.

YOU SANCTIMONIOUS TURKEY!*

(Originally posted on CRI)

Note: Usually I refrain from posting as this will drag down the quality of CRI especially since theinfamous Julio-Claudian supporter joined it   but this time …. well I cant control you are  forewarned!

Yes Sherna Gandhy, there is nothing demeaning about calling Uma Bharati  “Sexy Sanyasin”, or publishing innuendos about Bhanvari Devi.

Neither is there anything demeaning about some horny octogenarian  doing a winsome foursomein Raj bhavan.

But heavens forfend that Narenda Modi call someone ,  who got 50 crores in suspicious circumstances while being a minister’s, you know, girlfriend, “a 50 crore girlfriend”, that ma’am is inexusable.

After all as herstory tells us reality is just a conspiracy by patriarchy to bind womyn.

PS You forgot to add “chaiwallah”

* Reference here

MOMENT OF GLOATING

(Originally posted on CRI)

Well, a very warm evening to all the enlightened readers of CRI. Now I have been keeping horribly busy for quite some time, but work must make way for important things, which is gloating on the interwebs.

So without further ado, first item,
By now most of you must be aware that Indian economy resembles Titanic (in its “Hello there Mr Iceberg, how do you do” phase and not “Kate Winslet fooling around with a younger looking De Caprio” phase).

If you are aware of that, you must also be aware of the dire predictions of experts that future of Indian economy has eerily similarity with what happened to Titanic after its rendezvous with Mr Iceberg.

Curiously though, most of the same experts were more or less exuberant in not so distant past. Even after there were signs of distress, these same wizard of dismal science were more interested in embellishment and obfuscation to actually ring the bells.

You know who predicted (or rather guessed) it, this guy, six years back.

All right I know most of you might have guessed, but I think a man is entitled to a moment of happiness before he meets the cold water of reality, and all he has a curiously unbalance Victorian wardrobe to hang on to

Moving on, while writing on Baba Ramdev, I wrote this,

“So what will happen, when Baba Ramdev does win elections? Well as Edmund Burke said a wise man learns from the past, and as it turns out we have seen this movie before.”

As it turns out I was more right than I could have guessed,

“If black money is recovered then this money will benefit all poor people. Whatever Baba Ramdev has suggested is good”, said Mr Pawar

I guess all that now remains is for ghost of Haji Mastan to appear from his grave and join Team Anna. (Ref here)

Over and out.

APHORISM: FREEDOM

(Originally posted on CRI)

1.  First step towards being free is to realize you are enslaved.
2. Freedom is like zero gravity. Both can only be simulated in this world, and never truly achieved.

QUOTES: BREAD AND CIRCUS DEMOCRACY

(Originally posted at CRI)

“A perfect democracy, a ‘warm body’ democracy in which every adult may vote and all votes count equally has no internal feedback for self correction. It depends solely on the wisdom and self-restraint of citizens…which is opposed by the folly and lack of self-restraint of other citizens. What is supposed to happen in a democracy is that each sovereign citizen will always vote in the public interest for the safety and welfare of all. But what does happen is that he votes his own self-interest as he sees it…which for the majority translates as ‘Bread and Circuses’

“Bread and Circuses is the cancer of democracy, the fatal disease for which there is no cure. Democracy often works beautifully at first. But once a state extends the franchise to every warm body, be he producer or parasite, that day marks the beginning of the end of the state. For when the plebs discover that they can vote themselves bread and circuses without limit and that the productive members of the body politic cannot stop them, they will do so, until the state bleeds to death, or in its weakened condition the state succumbs to an invader–the barbarians enter Rome.”

To Sail Beyond the Sunset