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

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.