Deluded and Dysfunctional

So a gruesome, horrible beyond imagination, rape/murder happens, which arguably could have been prevented, culprits are apprehended and verdict pronounced.

You know what is this? The bare minimum requirement of functional government in a normal society (look it up under Law & Order).

Yet media and deluded middle class is celebrating as if it was a momentous achievement for India! This sorry state of affairs is a direct fallout of dysfunctional government, itself a result of cargo cult that passes for democracy in India

A Conservative Paradox

To be more precise the paradox is that of conservativism  in a democratic polity.

Now conservatism has no single definition, depending on the specific society it also differs,  the quote by Tolstoy about unhappy families* applies to conservatism also. However, broadly speaking conservatism tends to emphasize importance and conservation of existing traditions, customs and institutions, considering this to be key to a life well lived. In short it is democracy of dead.

So what is the paradox, democracy by its very nature is susceptible to mob rule or tyranny by demagogues,  there can be checks and balances in form of republican form of government but ultimately political power, like any form of power is corrosive. It corrodes the moral grain of those entrusted with stewardship of democracy, it corrodes the political institutions, until the checks and balances give way. The ultimate bulwark against this corrosion is an informed public, whose awareness about politics goes beyond palace intrigues, not only zealously tracking the conduct of political officials and the debates on policy but also finer nuances pertaining to political philosophy.

The above sounds nice, and you might be thinking where is the problem. Well, it is this.

Since conservatism is concerned with the society as a whole, it seeks a balance between the various (often competing for power) social institutions, among which state is but one. The engagement described above is nice in theory, but human nature being what it is, the engagement can turn into obsession fairly quickly, this obsession creates imbalance in favour of state. State monopolizes, in order, the discourse, the narrative and finally even the perspective. This monopoly causes gradual decay of all the institutions, with the exception of state, which progressively sucks up more and more power. This social upheaval, needless to say, is diametrically opposite to what conservatism holds to be prerequisite for good life.

 So what is the resolution of this paradox? Unfortunately there isn't any, pertaining as it is to fundamental nature of democracy and human nature itself. However it is possible to mitigate this somewhat.
One by cultivating general scepticism of the state and another by cultivating a  broader sense of civic virtue which strengthens all the institutions and not just state.

* Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.

(Hindu) Life Under Secularism

In 1984, George Orwell described life under totalitarianism in following words ,

"If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - forever.

For me, that's the most vivid and most terrifying descriptor of Hindu future under Secularism. Beneath its mind stultifying platitudes, it is totalitarian in nature. Lib-sec establishment has a single aim, which it pursues ruthlessly and relentlessly. It aims for nothing less than obliteration of Hindu conscious, and for this, it will keep stomping on any and all markers of Hindu life, our history, our tradition, our faith and philosophy, until Hindu identity is pulverized and reverted to a primordial state out of which a new man can be created.

And they will not stop

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.