Sunday, September 10, 2006
Belief
Need for belief and certainity is a big impediment to finding truth. It is the opposite of search for knowledge.
Monday, September 04, 2006
Totally harmless
The best we can do for this world is become totally harmless. And there are two reliable ways for achieving this. First is Sleep. Practice of Abstract mathematics comes a close second.
Friday, August 18, 2006
Lost Tribes of "Somewhere Else"
I remember hearing the word gypsy in early childhood and associating it with vagrant tribe of nomads. Gypsies inhabited almost whole of Europe and earned their livelihood by dancing and hawking and selling medicinal herbs. They would usually be poor and live in town suburbs, spending their entire lives in thier cart caravans. They were also commonly thought to be be unscrupulous and associated with the with thievery and general delinquency, and also with magical healing and fortune-telling. Though less often mentioned than the Jews, the gypsies had to suffer equally great persecution during Hitler’s third Reich. Many thousands died in gas chambers in concentration camps spread across europe during the war years. They were also many references of the tribe in the literature of 18th and 19th century. One almost heroic remembrance of gypsies was the character of Esmeralda in Victor Hugo’s Hunchback of Notre Dame. It is the story of beautiful and innocent gypsy girl who dances in the streets of Paris and with whom ultimately all major characters falls in love. The consequences, however, prove to be disastrous for everyone, including Esmeralda herself.
Gypsy is a word derived from Egyptian. These people were nomads who first started entering Europe during the Middle Ages (circa 1500) and were thought of by the Europeans to be have come from Egypt. The word Egyptians degenerated into Gypsies with the passage of time as the tribes spread far and wide into every corner of Europe. However they failed to get fully assimilated into the local populace due to their different cultural and religious habits, not to mention their physical distinctness. They were generally thought to have come from Egypt, and in time they too came to believe it.
Whatever the exact details, today most Gypsies are spread all over the world and they identify themselves as Romani's or Roma's. The history of gypsies is surely one of the most facinating accounts of intercontinental migration by entire tribe known to have occured in modern times. It is perhaps only comparable with the similar migration of Turkish people during middle ages starting from Central Asia, all across Asia, to form the modern day Turkey. That will perhaps be another good story...
Gypsy is a word derived from Egyptian. These people were nomads who first started entering Europe during the Middle Ages (circa 1500) and were thought of by the Europeans to be have come from Egypt. The word Egyptians degenerated into Gypsies with the passage of time as the tribes spread far and wide into every corner of Europe. However they failed to get fully assimilated into the local populace due to their different cultural and religious habits, not to mention their physical distinctness. They were generally thought to have come from Egypt, and in time they too came to believe it.
In the twentieth century, when their language was first analyzed, it came to light that it structurally akin to languages of Northern India like Hindi and Punjabi. A more rigourous analysis proved beyond doubt that the language was very closely related to languages of north India and was derived from those. Further the language also contained words from many other languages like Turkish, Persian, Armenian, Greek and even Polish and German. These languages indicate the general route taken by the Gypsy people during their long journey from India to Europe. When did these people start leaving India and why? Well the answers to these questions is not very clear. But it is generally accepted that these people started leaving India during 1000-1200 AD. It is said that either all of these people started leaving India in one great horde or they left India in many smaller batches. But the general route taken seems to be the same. They seem to have traveled from north india through upper-indus valley into Kashmir, Afghanistan, Iran, Armenia, Turkey and thence into europe. What about the cause of such a huge exodus. The answer to why is still more difficult. Two theories that been propounded. One is that they were a nomadic people (some of which are still found in western india) of itenerant musicians and metalworkers which for some unknown reason started a slow but sustained migration to the west. On the way the adopted the languages and customs of the people they interacted with, even adopting the dominant religions of places they emigrated to. The other commonly proposed theory is that they were warrior tribes, who were involved in resistance during Ghaznavid invasion of India. It is well know that 12th century was a time of great turmoil in the Indian subcontinent. This was primary due to mutiple invasions of Mahmud of Ghazni (in Afghanistan) and the slow but fatal capitulation of Hindu Shahi Dynasty during this period. People would often flee their villages en-masse before the invading army. And thousands of warriors and civilians are known to have been enslaved and taken to Afghanistan during this time.
Whatever the exact details, today most Gypsies are spread all over the world and they identify themselves as Romani's or Roma's. The history of gypsies is surely one of the most facinating accounts of intercontinental migration by entire tribe known to have occured in modern times. It is perhaps only comparable with the similar migration of Turkish people during middle ages starting from Central Asia, all across Asia, to form the modern day Turkey. That will perhaps be another good story...
Tuesday, July 04, 2006
Some thoughts on Types of Art
"A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep."
-Saul Bellow
I am sure that many a people have already spend countless hours in discussing and writing about a commonly agreed upon definition of aesthetics and its classification. I certainly can't have any pretentions of coming up with anything novel or more exact or more comprehensive than what is already known. Reams and reams of philosphical literature is dedicated to concept of beauty and its relation to art. Many great philosphers starting right from Emmanuel Kant uptill Benedetto Croce in the previous century have come up with novel ways of defining the concept of what constitutes art and what is its relation to beauty. Much of it expressed by means of almost huge mounts of logical analysis and is usually very complex.( Though complexity is no gaurentee of correctness, as in many cases the complexity of the logical thesis is sometimes an indicater to an error in the basic premises). My own objectives are more modest as I want to avoid all this complexity and still come up with a simple enough definition of art and its types, which is satisfactory to my intution and compatible with my daily life and which may help me in better appreciating my own like and deslikes regarding it. It would also help me in explaining those like and deslikes to my friends and kin and provide a context for comparisons. To avoid all the mountains of logic and definitions which are usually resorted to in defining aesthetics, I will let go all objectivity in relation to quality of art. I would also consider the concept of beauty to be purely subjective and deny any universality in its appeal. This would ofcourse make the job quite easy, which is exactly my original goal. In the term "art", I would include the classes of cinema, literature and painting. Though, while making my definition, I am limiting myself to those few categories only, I am sure that those definitions would also make sense for most other fields which are commonly held to come under the purview of the the term "art".
Now let us move to the definition.
Art is an artificially constructed stimulus whose only goal is to affect our state of mind.
Not much information here, and unfortunately I couldn't come up with any better definition. But then, the definition of Art itself is not my primary goal. The commonly held beliefs and associations with real life instances would suffice to define the term for me. What I am more interested in defining is a generic classification which would apply to all categories of art equally and would additionaly provide some psychological insight into its effect. The primarily classes which come to my mind are those listed below.
1) Reflective Art
2) Escapist Art
3) Intellect based Art
I define Reflective Art as the art which act as a reflection of the society or an individual. In the psychological context the primarily object of study is the mind. This may be collective mind, as in behavior of the society or it may be solitary mind as in the mental habits or feeling or prejudices of an individual. Sometimes instead of the mind the thing reflected may be purely physical as in a landscape painting or literary description. But even this purely physical reflection is linked to the quality of perception of the artist and is ultimately indicative of the artists mind. It still tells us something about ourselves. Like a mirror it makes us aware of something which we may already know partially or unconcisously. Many times the artist may choose the reflection to be purely non-judgemental, e.g. a comedy or tragedy or an impressionist painting. Other times it may be more judgemental and take a form such as satire.
Escapist Art is the second primary class. It purpose is not to make us aware of that which we are or what we already know to some extent. Instead here the primary purpose is to create new mind content or reinforce the existing content. Here the author may create new notions in the mind of the reader and helps him escape his own reality. Sometimes the existing stereotypes of the reader may be use and enhanced for the use of the artist. Notice the difference with the reflective art. Reflective art may also use the existing prejudices of the reader, but only to make him aware of them. On the other hand escapist art would usually enhance the readers stereotypes taking them as a fact rather then pointing to those. Genres like Science Fiction or Fantasy may be taken to be forms of Escapist Art. In fact almost all of the Hollywood and Bombay Cinema is also form of escapist art.
Both the above types have their uses depending on the need or state of mind of the person viewing at a given time. Escapist art lets us escape our everyday existence, by making make use of our imagination and escaping into newly created worlds. Reflective art help in understanding our true being and being more aware of it.
Intellectual art can be considered the third kind of art. It is very rare I am not sure if this can be rightly considered a form of art. Here the artist or producer relies entirely on stimulating our intellects rather than our feelings. Since art is most of the times directed towards feelings or sensation, without the intervention of logic, this form may be very different from other two categories. Here everyday existence is neither studied nor are new worlds created. Most of the times some intellectual problems are put forth which helps to get the involvement of the logical faculty of the reader . Another much simpler way of delineating intellectual art from the other two forms is that it is the only form liked by Colonels.
-Saul Bellow
I am sure that many a people have already spend countless hours in discussing and writing about a commonly agreed upon definition of aesthetics and its classification. I certainly can't have any pretentions of coming up with anything novel or more exact or more comprehensive than what is already known. Reams and reams of philosphical literature is dedicated to concept of beauty and its relation to art. Many great philosphers starting right from Emmanuel Kant uptill Benedetto Croce in the previous century have come up with novel ways of defining the concept of what constitutes art and what is its relation to beauty. Much of it expressed by means of almost huge mounts of logical analysis and is usually very complex.( Though complexity is no gaurentee of correctness, as in many cases the complexity of the logical thesis is sometimes an indicater to an error in the basic premises). My own objectives are more modest as I want to avoid all this complexity and still come up with a simple enough definition of art and its types, which is satisfactory to my intution and compatible with my daily life and which may help me in better appreciating my own like and deslikes regarding it. It would also help me in explaining those like and deslikes to my friends and kin and provide a context for comparisons. To avoid all the mountains of logic and definitions which are usually resorted to in defining aesthetics, I will let go all objectivity in relation to quality of art. I would also consider the concept of beauty to be purely subjective and deny any universality in its appeal. This would ofcourse make the job quite easy, which is exactly my original goal. In the term "art", I would include the classes of cinema, literature and painting. Though, while making my definition, I am limiting myself to those few categories only, I am sure that those definitions would also make sense for most other fields which are commonly held to come under the purview of the the term "art".
Now let us move to the definition.
Art is an artificially constructed stimulus whose only goal is to affect our state of mind.
Not much information here, and unfortunately I couldn't come up with any better definition. But then, the definition of Art itself is not my primary goal. The commonly held beliefs and associations with real life instances would suffice to define the term for me. What I am more interested in defining is a generic classification which would apply to all categories of art equally and would additionaly provide some psychological insight into its effect. The primarily classes which come to my mind are those listed below.
1) Reflective Art
2) Escapist Art
3) Intellect based Art
I define Reflective Art as the art which act as a reflection of the society or an individual. In the psychological context the primarily object of study is the mind. This may be collective mind, as in behavior of the society or it may be solitary mind as in the mental habits or feeling or prejudices of an individual. Sometimes instead of the mind the thing reflected may be purely physical as in a landscape painting or literary description. But even this purely physical reflection is linked to the quality of perception of the artist and is ultimately indicative of the artists mind. It still tells us something about ourselves. Like a mirror it makes us aware of something which we may already know partially or unconcisously. Many times the artist may choose the reflection to be purely non-judgemental, e.g. a comedy or tragedy or an impressionist painting. Other times it may be more judgemental and take a form such as satire.
Escapist Art is the second primary class. It purpose is not to make us aware of that which we are or what we already know to some extent. Instead here the primary purpose is to create new mind content or reinforce the existing content. Here the author may create new notions in the mind of the reader and helps him escape his own reality. Sometimes the existing stereotypes of the reader may be use and enhanced for the use of the artist. Notice the difference with the reflective art. Reflective art may also use the existing prejudices of the reader, but only to make him aware of them. On the other hand escapist art would usually enhance the readers stereotypes taking them as a fact rather then pointing to those. Genres like Science Fiction or Fantasy may be taken to be forms of Escapist Art. In fact almost all of the Hollywood and Bombay Cinema is also form of escapist art.
Both the above types have their uses depending on the need or state of mind of the person viewing at a given time. Escapist art lets us escape our everyday existence, by making make use of our imagination and escaping into newly created worlds. Reflective art help in understanding our true being and being more aware of it.
Intellectual art can be considered the third kind of art. It is very rare I am not sure if this can be rightly considered a form of art. Here the artist or producer relies entirely on stimulating our intellects rather than our feelings. Since art is most of the times directed towards feelings or sensation, without the intervention of logic, this form may be very different from other two categories. Here everyday existence is neither studied nor are new worlds created. Most of the times some intellectual problems are put forth which helps to get the involvement of the logical faculty of the reader . Another much simpler way of delineating intellectual art from the other two forms is that it is the only form liked by Colonels.
Visit to my childhood Home (Manali and Dharamshala)
Visited my childhood home at Manali last week. Manali lies in Kullu Valley, sandwitched amidst the tall snow-covered Himalayas. I hold the himalayan region to be my favourite among all places I have visted. You will see why in the photographs.
View from front of my former home
View from the backyard
Flanked by my parents at Solang Nala. This place is a popular skiing resort for most part of the winter. These days hand-gliding enthusiasts take over during summer.
My Sister with another one of those things she finds to be cuuute...
Colonel would ofcourse not approve of my choice of the mountains and valleys shown above, since they would hardly agree with his idea of beautiful geometric shapes and topologies.
View from front of my former home
View from the backyard
Flanked by my parents at Solang Nala. This place is a popular skiing resort for most part of the winter. These days hand-gliding enthusiasts take over during summer.
My Sister with another one of those things she finds to be cuuute...
Colonel would ofcourse not approve of my choice of the mountains and valleys shown above, since they would hardly agree with his idea of beautiful geometric shapes and topologies.
Saturday, July 01, 2006
J Krishnamurti and Humor
J Krishnamurti was one of the greatest philosphers and spiritual teachers of the past century. I can't call him a great thinker, because that may go against the basic grain of his teaching. And though the word philospher is also not accurate as well, it is vague enough to prevent any misunderstanding. Throughout his life he held talks and discussions around the world in which he would put forth his ideas and reflections. Many times people would seek him out and hold one to one discussions with him. Among his greatest admires and friends are included people like Aldous Huxley and David Bohm. You can always find him to be highly logical, atleast for things that can be discussed with logic. As Ludwig Wittgenstien wrote in his Tractatus-Logico Philosphicus "What we can't speak about we must pass over in silence". And he did pass over the many a things in silence. But for the rest he was known to be brutally honest and would not spare anyone with half lies. Not many people were able to appreciate his honestly, let alone understand him. Though always extremely polite, he was sometimes not able to fully appreciate the concerns and sensibilities of ordinary people. Or maybe he chose not to. Hence many a times these talks, when viewed from our everyday life point of view, talk an almost humourous joke-like quality. Here, I plan to make a collection of some of those instances :-
1) I am reminded of a story a friend of mine told me. One day he listened to a conversation between Krishnamurti and a man who did not want to be enlisted as a soldier and sent to Vietnam. He did not want to kill people. After explaining all this Krishnamurti interrupted him and said, "Yes sir, I understand all this. But what is your problem?" Again the man, being an American, explained that he probably would be sent back to the States as a conscientious objector and he might be put in jail. "Yes sir," said Krishnamurti, "but what is your problem?" "Well," said the man, "the judges may not accept my arguments and then I will have to desert because this is a filthy war!" Once again, Krishnamurti said, "Yes sir, I know, but what is your problem?" Whereupon the man said, "Listen, they might shoot me, as a deserter!" "Yes," Krishnamurti said, "they probably will, but what is your problem?"
2) Friedrich Grohe was a middle-aged German industrialist who got interested in Krishnamurti after reading one of his books. After retiring from his business, he approached Krishnamurti asking him to allow seting up a Krishnamurti school in Switzerland. Krishnamurti dissuaded him from such a step since it was very difficult to get teachers. When krishnamurti asked him whether he was married, he replied no, he was divorced. On which Krishnamurti grabbed his hand and said "very good".
3) ...
1) I am reminded of a story a friend of mine told me. One day he listened to a conversation between Krishnamurti and a man who did not want to be enlisted as a soldier and sent to Vietnam. He did not want to kill people. After explaining all this Krishnamurti interrupted him and said, "Yes sir, I understand all this. But what is your problem?" Again the man, being an American, explained that he probably would be sent back to the States as a conscientious objector and he might be put in jail. "Yes sir," said Krishnamurti, "but what is your problem?" "Well," said the man, "the judges may not accept my arguments and then I will have to desert because this is a filthy war!" Once again, Krishnamurti said, "Yes sir, I know, but what is your problem?" Whereupon the man said, "Listen, they might shoot me, as a deserter!" "Yes," Krishnamurti said, "they probably will, but what is your problem?"
2) Friedrich Grohe was a middle-aged German industrialist who got interested in Krishnamurti after reading one of his books. After retiring from his business, he approached Krishnamurti asking him to allow seting up a Krishnamurti school in Switzerland. Krishnamurti dissuaded him from such a step since it was very difficult to get teachers. When krishnamurti asked him whether he was married, he replied no, he was divorced. On which Krishnamurti grabbed his hand and said "very good".
3) ...
Kung-Fu, Tea and Zen
Bodhidharma was a Buddhist monk, credited with bringing Zen-Buddhism to China. Zen Buddhism is a school of Mahayana Buddhism popular in China and Japan. Derived from the word “dhyan” which means meditation in Sanskrit, it was later transliterated to “Chan” in china and “Zen” in Japan. Bodhidharma is considered the first Zen patriarch in China and 28th Patriarch of Indian Buddhism. He was born around 440 AD at Kanchi, in south India, in the royal family of Pallava dynasty. As the prince and heir to the throne, he was expected to follow his father’s footsteps and become the king. However, in his youth he encountered Buddha’s teachings and decided to renounce the kingdom and devote his life to their study. His father objected, but he offered to change his mind only if his father could save him from death. Having no way out, his father obliged. He studied Buddhism under his teacher prajnatara, who was 27th patriarch and a woman. In due time Prajnatara asked him to go to China and spread the teachings there, since Buddhism had started to die out there, and the Chinese emperor had asked the Indian Sangha to send an enlightened master.After a long and particularly arduous journey across both land and sea, he reached south China by ship in 475. Upon his arrival in Guangzhou and thence to the capital Nanjing, Emperor Wu-Ti, who had done much for revival and spread of Buddhism in china, asked for an audience with him. The meeting is most remarkable for the dialogue that ensued between them. Emperor Wu started by asking him “what merit have I incurred by his building many Buddhist temples and monasteries, translating scripture and supporting countless monks and nuns”. Bodhidharma replied “none whatsoever”. The Emperor was taken aback but persisted with his next question. He asked “What is the essence of Buddhism”. The reply was, “Vast emptiness and no essence”. This made the emperor angry and now losing all patience he asked, “Just who do you think you are”. “I don’t know”, Bodhidharma replied.Having been unable to impress the Emperor much, bodhidharma left the palace and crossing the Yangtzu River moved north to reach the Shaolin monastery (yes the same one of Bruce Lee films) in Ho Lan province. The monks initially refused him admission and he spent nine years meditating in a nearby cave. Later when the monastery admitted him, he noticed that years of sedentary lifestyle of copying scrolls had made the monks physically weak. He devised a regimen of martial arts from the synthesis of Indian forms like kalaprayat and Chinese fighting style of five animals, and taught these to the monks. These from later evolved in modern martial arts, which are known today by names of kung fu and tai chi chuan. Even today, Shaolin monastery is visited by students from all over the world and is considered as one of the foremost school for martial arts. Another apocryphal story attributes him with bringing tea to China. It is said that one day he got so upset at falling asleep while meditating and cut his eyelids in anger. Tea bushes sprung up from where the eyelashes fell. Even this story may have a certain symbolism, since the monks in ancient times did use tea many times for helping in wakefulness, a use that we make of tea even to this day.During his lifetime, he was able to make only four disciples. Among the four, his first disciple, Hui Ke, who cut of his hand to show his determination, before being taken by bodhidharma as a disciple, became his successor. Another strange legend is associated with his death. It is said that after a couple of years of his death, a government official reported seeing him in the Himalayas with a staff and from which hung a single sandal, and he told the official that he was on his way back to India. When this story reached Shaolin monastery, the monks decided to open his tomb. Inside they found only a single sandal.
And even though I so impressed by bodhidharma, I know what Colonel would say on reading this piece. "If only he were credited for inventing tomato soup instead of tea ....."
And even though I so impressed by bodhidharma, I know what Colonel would say on reading this piece. "If only he were credited for inventing tomato soup instead of tea ....."
Wednesday, May 31, 2006
No Nation
What is the nation? What are its foundations? What is the source of huge surges of patriotism I see from time to time on the TV, in the movies, in books and even myself? What makes people happy to see a compatriot win laurels at world stage, whether it is sciences or economics or even music? And what makes my company distribute sweets when a particular cricket team wins.
The psychological foundations are quite easy to analyze. The needs addressed are primarily twofold: identity and simplification. The first, identity, is the need to define oneself. As Huntington says “people do not live by reason alone. They cannot calculate and act rationally in pursuit of their self interest until they define the self.” One way the individual provides a more concrete definition to the self, is by identifying himself with the nation. But whenever we say that "this is me", "that is not me” also follows. So we divide everything in our experience into two: us and them. The same need which makes me divide everybody into: nerd and not nerd, men and women, middle class and not middle class, my country and theirs. Us and them. That is the magic spell. Cast it and everything divides into two. And like the magician who brings rabbits out of his hat, you too have a magical identity to display. That the reality of the identity is as genuine as that of the rabbits is another matter. And though we may have created a name for ourselves, but unknowingly the “other” is also created.
The second purpose, simplicity, is a more general trick of our mind. We, being finitely intelligent beings, with ambitions to understand more than our mind can assimilate, continuously simplify the world around us. Hence generalization and categorization helps maintain our sanity. Makes life more tractable to our logic. The way to do this is to categorize everything around us and assign labels to the categories. Take the case of human relations. We keep meeting new people all the time. To simplify the task of continuously trying to understand them, we might assign one-time labels. From then on one can remember the person from the particular set of labels without needing to remember each peculiarity of the person. Now we don't need to observe or remember the peculiarities of all people we meet. Instead we just need to remember the labels we have assigned them. And each label will automatically bring forth the attached bundle of thoughts, feeling and emotions along, making the job of dealing with the world that much easier and automated. Same is the case with nationalities. Easier to remember that a person is an American and hence informal and forthright, or a Japanese and probably diplomatic and disciplined, rather than trying to see the specifics, even as we still know that not all American are like cowboys, nor are all Japanese samurai warriors. All this simplification may add to a certain convenience in our dealing with the world. But danger arises when we forget that the simplification was just a tool providing us with an erroneous approximation to reality. I personally feel that, although we might differ greatly outwardly, but as everywhere else, appearances are deceptive here as well. The individual, whether he belongs to India or China, Denmark or Africa, is still the same. He still suffers from the same greed, jealousy, egotism and cowardice. And in spite of these the same selfless nobility shines forth from time to time. Not that I am denying the existence of culture. Culture is present, not only in outward form of appearance and behavior of individuals, but also in to an extent in the superficial thought habits. But at a more fundamental level, the psychological construction of people hardly differs across races and continents, much less across nations. The diverse values may differ in emphasis across cultures, but they are still essentially unchanged.
What about the reality of nation in itself, that is, outside the mind. Whether we look at it geographically or socially or culturally, the nations appear to be just a perpetually changing result of historical accidents. Slightly different throws of the historical dice might have resulted in quite a different world map, but it still wouldn't have changed the scenario too much, either for better or worse. The people of different nations would still get bloodthirsty for each other from time to time, because of real or imagined threats. Still at war, or threatening it, as in the present. Jingoism is a necessary distraction, both for politicians and people, and shapes or sizes of countries do not matter that much.
So is the extant and nature of a nation a result of circumstances derived by its geography? If so, you may have expected the nations to have well defined natural barriers, which would somehow imitate the thick black lines on the map, as we see it. We know however, that it is certainly not the case. In fact, most of the times, both the people and geography are usually very similar immediately across border of most nations. The climate and landscapes change slowly with distance and this holds on the borders too. In fact the change is so slight and gradual, that it is usually very different to ascribe any boundaries. Same is the case with culture. Switzerland lies in the midst of the Alpine range, which extend to both the north and south of it. The northern part of Switzerland is mostly German speaking, and southern parts speak French. Yet if you ask, all of them would be proud Swiss. It only takes a line drawn on the map to make you German or Swiss or Austrian. Is culture then the determining factor? Though we may want to perceive (and sometimes impose) it differently, cultural variation is a continuous function of distances and it holds as much within the boundaries of a nation as without. People of Pakistani Punjab are quite similar to Indian Punjabis and north sri-lankans have much in common with the Indian Tamil folk. And this is no exception. Rather the rule.
The answer to the source of patriotic emotion, the love of country and flag is still unanswered. Nations worldwide do not seem to have any other justification to be called a unit, except for being brought together by the sheer force of historical circumstances. And kept that way by highly centralized governments and armies of the nation-state, whose form is itself an accident of history. Seeing this, we can now explore the reason for existence of the nation state. The nation-state has its seeds in the dependence of modern societies on institutions for their survival. Civilization brings forth the need for people to associate for mutual collaboration and comfort. So we have schools and courts and armies and so on. The nation can be considered as one of the institutions brought forth for such an endeavor. What make it unique is it’s scale, and consequently the power that it holds. Not that there are no other institutions on a similar scale. There are international bodies like UN, which resolve political issues for all the nation of the world, multi-national companies that employ hundreds of thousands of employees and span scores of countries, social work organization etc. However these institutions, unlike nations, have a their scope of activity limited to one sphere of our life. Either entirely commercial, or social, or political. They have very limited power to control our lives, much less our characters and beliefs. This, however, is not a limitation for nations. The immense power the nations can control helps them direct much of our lives. And among other things, this power is used to making us love them in turn. The nation-state controls the educational institutions, the media and most other sources of information to some extant. This is even true in highly democratic countries. And they can, and do, use those institutions to repeatedly fill us with the facts about our uniqueness or superiority. And feeling good about ourselves comes easily to everybody. Again the same need for identity coming into play. Even the private media, the newspapers, the filmmakers (let us not forget the song writers from where we started) join in this avalanche of self-praise. Starting from childhood textbooks, right though our growing years and our mature life, we hardly get a chance to think otherwise. So much of our patriotism is just a form of inculcated automatism.
It must however be admitted that nations are still a good arrangement (even if an entirely artificial and arbitrary one) for taking care of the individual’s need from the society. The question arises; are they the best possible arrangement. Is the possibility of a world-state a better alternative? Is it even feasible? As for the purpose of providing physical and economic security and helping collaborative enterprise, it seems very likely, that the world-state can do a better job of providing these. What about satisfaction of psychological needs? Remember the “Us and Them” need. If there are no them, it becomes increasingly difficult to define us. The need for identity fails to be fulfilled. I am not too sure of the world-state on this front. But living in India, I would wager that people could find easy solutions for this problem. The “us and them” works at many levels, and if it fails at the nation level it can be invented at a more localized level. Does this mean more internal strife? Maybe yes. But it surely won’t be any worse than the wars and armies we have to maintain at present. Lots of police yes. But we won’t need a army. What do you think??
And what should be the name of such a world state. I know that everyone would have his/her own suggestion for the name, but I am sure that Colonel would heartily agree with the name I am going to put forward here: "Germarael"
The psychological foundations are quite easy to analyze. The needs addressed are primarily twofold: identity and simplification. The first, identity, is the need to define oneself. As Huntington says “people do not live by reason alone. They cannot calculate and act rationally in pursuit of their self interest until they define the self.” One way the individual provides a more concrete definition to the self, is by identifying himself with the nation. But whenever we say that "this is me", "that is not me” also follows. So we divide everything in our experience into two: us and them. The same need which makes me divide everybody into: nerd and not nerd, men and women, middle class and not middle class, my country and theirs. Us and them. That is the magic spell. Cast it and everything divides into two. And like the magician who brings rabbits out of his hat, you too have a magical identity to display. That the reality of the identity is as genuine as that of the rabbits is another matter. And though we may have created a name for ourselves, but unknowingly the “other” is also created.
The second purpose, simplicity, is a more general trick of our mind. We, being finitely intelligent beings, with ambitions to understand more than our mind can assimilate, continuously simplify the world around us. Hence generalization and categorization helps maintain our sanity. Makes life more tractable to our logic. The way to do this is to categorize everything around us and assign labels to the categories. Take the case of human relations. We keep meeting new people all the time. To simplify the task of continuously trying to understand them, we might assign one-time labels. From then on one can remember the person from the particular set of labels without needing to remember each peculiarity of the person. Now we don't need to observe or remember the peculiarities of all people we meet. Instead we just need to remember the labels we have assigned them. And each label will automatically bring forth the attached bundle of thoughts, feeling and emotions along, making the job of dealing with the world that much easier and automated. Same is the case with nationalities. Easier to remember that a person is an American and hence informal and forthright, or a Japanese and probably diplomatic and disciplined, rather than trying to see the specifics, even as we still know that not all American are like cowboys, nor are all Japanese samurai warriors. All this simplification may add to a certain convenience in our dealing with the world. But danger arises when we forget that the simplification was just a tool providing us with an erroneous approximation to reality. I personally feel that, although we might differ greatly outwardly, but as everywhere else, appearances are deceptive here as well. The individual, whether he belongs to India or China, Denmark or Africa, is still the same. He still suffers from the same greed, jealousy, egotism and cowardice. And in spite of these the same selfless nobility shines forth from time to time. Not that I am denying the existence of culture. Culture is present, not only in outward form of appearance and behavior of individuals, but also in to an extent in the superficial thought habits. But at a more fundamental level, the psychological construction of people hardly differs across races and continents, much less across nations. The diverse values may differ in emphasis across cultures, but they are still essentially unchanged.
What about the reality of nation in itself, that is, outside the mind. Whether we look at it geographically or socially or culturally, the nations appear to be just a perpetually changing result of historical accidents. Slightly different throws of the historical dice might have resulted in quite a different world map, but it still wouldn't have changed the scenario too much, either for better or worse. The people of different nations would still get bloodthirsty for each other from time to time, because of real or imagined threats. Still at war, or threatening it, as in the present. Jingoism is a necessary distraction, both for politicians and people, and shapes or sizes of countries do not matter that much.
So is the extant and nature of a nation a result of circumstances derived by its geography? If so, you may have expected the nations to have well defined natural barriers, which would somehow imitate the thick black lines on the map, as we see it. We know however, that it is certainly not the case. In fact, most of the times, both the people and geography are usually very similar immediately across border of most nations. The climate and landscapes change slowly with distance and this holds on the borders too. In fact the change is so slight and gradual, that it is usually very different to ascribe any boundaries. Same is the case with culture. Switzerland lies in the midst of the Alpine range, which extend to both the north and south of it. The northern part of Switzerland is mostly German speaking, and southern parts speak French. Yet if you ask, all of them would be proud Swiss. It only takes a line drawn on the map to make you German or Swiss or Austrian. Is culture then the determining factor? Though we may want to perceive (and sometimes impose) it differently, cultural variation is a continuous function of distances and it holds as much within the boundaries of a nation as without. People of Pakistani Punjab are quite similar to Indian Punjabis and north sri-lankans have much in common with the Indian Tamil folk. And this is no exception. Rather the rule.
The answer to the source of patriotic emotion, the love of country and flag is still unanswered. Nations worldwide do not seem to have any other justification to be called a unit, except for being brought together by the sheer force of historical circumstances. And kept that way by highly centralized governments and armies of the nation-state, whose form is itself an accident of history. Seeing this, we can now explore the reason for existence of the nation state. The nation-state has its seeds in the dependence of modern societies on institutions for their survival. Civilization brings forth the need for people to associate for mutual collaboration and comfort. So we have schools and courts and armies and so on. The nation can be considered as one of the institutions brought forth for such an endeavor. What make it unique is it’s scale, and consequently the power that it holds. Not that there are no other institutions on a similar scale. There are international bodies like UN, which resolve political issues for all the nation of the world, multi-national companies that employ hundreds of thousands of employees and span scores of countries, social work organization etc. However these institutions, unlike nations, have a their scope of activity limited to one sphere of our life. Either entirely commercial, or social, or political. They have very limited power to control our lives, much less our characters and beliefs. This, however, is not a limitation for nations. The immense power the nations can control helps them direct much of our lives. And among other things, this power is used to making us love them in turn. The nation-state controls the educational institutions, the media and most other sources of information to some extant. This is even true in highly democratic countries. And they can, and do, use those institutions to repeatedly fill us with the facts about our uniqueness or superiority. And feeling good about ourselves comes easily to everybody. Again the same need for identity coming into play. Even the private media, the newspapers, the filmmakers (let us not forget the song writers from where we started) join in this avalanche of self-praise. Starting from childhood textbooks, right though our growing years and our mature life, we hardly get a chance to think otherwise. So much of our patriotism is just a form of inculcated automatism.
It must however be admitted that nations are still a good arrangement (even if an entirely artificial and arbitrary one) for taking care of the individual’s need from the society. The question arises; are they the best possible arrangement. Is the possibility of a world-state a better alternative? Is it even feasible? As for the purpose of providing physical and economic security and helping collaborative enterprise, it seems very likely, that the world-state can do a better job of providing these. What about satisfaction of psychological needs? Remember the “Us and Them” need. If there are no them, it becomes increasingly difficult to define us. The need for identity fails to be fulfilled. I am not too sure of the world-state on this front. But living in India, I would wager that people could find easy solutions for this problem. The “us and them” works at many levels, and if it fails at the nation level it can be invented at a more localized level. Does this mean more internal strife? Maybe yes. But it surely won’t be any worse than the wars and armies we have to maintain at present. Lots of police yes. But we won’t need a army. What do you think??
And what should be the name of such a world state. I know that everyone would have his/her own suggestion for the name, but I am sure that Colonel would heartily agree with the name I am going to put forward here: "Germarael"
Wednesday, April 05, 2006
Political History of Iran & Present Nuclear Crisis
For large parts of the short history of human civilization, Iran has been at the centre stage of international power struggles. Not withstanding its current status, Iran (or rather Persia as it has been called for most part of history) has many times been one of the major nation-states involved in the struggle for world supremacy. Persia's rise to power started with Cyrus the Great (a popular name even to this day among the Parsees of India), who through process of conquest and assimilation found the Achaemenid Empire. He and his successors spread the power of Persia through the middle east, north africa and southern Europe. At its height, the empire stretched from the northern border of India and Afghanistan right upto Libya to the south east and included parts of Greece and Bulgaria to the north. Though Persian expeditions for conquests of Greece failed multiple times, in even in their heyday the Greeks were no match for the Persian Military and Political power. In fact Greeks was never a great military power until the coming of Alexander the Great (who technically was not a Greek but a Macedonian). After the conquests by Alexander , the Persian empire was destroyed and they come under the hegemony of Hellenes. Many centuries later, the Persians would again rise to power during the period of Sassanian Dynasty. Once again they would compete with newer counterpart of Greeks, the Eastern Roman Empire, centered at Constantinople, (modern day Istambul, Turkey) for the control of middle east and north Africa. This dynasty would ended with last of its kings being vanquished during the Islamic conquest of Persia, during the early days of Arab expansion. Though local dynasties again gained power and started a processes of de-arabisation during the 15th century, Persia never again rose to similar international prominence.
Coming back to the present, the seeds of nuclear crisis in Iran can be traced back to the first discovery of Oil in Iran by the British in 1908. The discovery held would hold both fortune and misfortune in store for Iran. Earlier also, Iran had been the centre of Great game being played between Great Britain and Russia for the control of entire Central Asia. But after the discovery of Oil and consequent economic implications, the stakes would get doubled. Through a process of alternation between royal coups and re-establishment of democracy, western powers (especially Great Britain and USA) would again get opprotunities for intervention in Iran for the control of trade (essentially oil-wealth). However , things did come to a head when the democratically elected Prime-minister of Iran, Mohammad Mossadegh, was removed by the CIA, for trying to nationalize the oil facilities in Iran. After this deposition of the Prime Minister, a deal was struck with the returned Shah, for allowing GB and USA to control most of the stake in Iran's Oil Industry. This state of affiars continued till the Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1979, which established a Theocratic Republic which functions with a unique mix of representative elected by clerics and those elected directly by people ( Although Islamic clerics don't directly govern in Iran, they still they excercise enormous control over the elected parliament and executive which essentially makes it into a theocracy). Whatever the merits (or demerits) of this form of government, one thing is clear, the United States and its historic involvement in Iran is has a great deal of responsibility for the Islamic Revolution and the present enmity between the Iranian government and the worlds most powerful nation. It is not realistic to expect that we can keep on getting away by in fooling a whole nation of people for the sake of our petty advantages. Counter-reactions (many voilent) are to be expected, sooner or later. And that is what we almost always get. A truth which can be emperically verified by analysing even the history of past century.
A few days back I was listening to President Bush giving a Press conference about the American "war on terror" in Iraq. Not much intelligent talk is usually expected of these press conference, which are generally an excercise in Gobbelian Propaganda. But I was struck by the Presedent talking about the need of spreading democracy world over and how it leads to states which are friendly with the United States. An example of Japan after the world war II was given. I found both the reasoning and the example very incongrous, but it made me wonder what president Bush might have said about the nature of interventions of United States in Iran in past couple of decades. I hope that some day, through a relook at history, political strategists over the world would understand the shortcomings of the following the policy of short-term national interests and try to find a more enlightened path for managing international affiars.
Coming back to the present, the seeds of nuclear crisis in Iran can be traced back to the first discovery of Oil in Iran by the British in 1908. The discovery held would hold both fortune and misfortune in store for Iran. Earlier also, Iran had been the centre of Great game being played between Great Britain and Russia for the control of entire Central Asia. But after the discovery of Oil and consequent economic implications, the stakes would get doubled. Through a process of alternation between royal coups and re-establishment of democracy, western powers (especially Great Britain and USA) would again get opprotunities for intervention in Iran for the control of trade (essentially oil-wealth). However , things did come to a head when the democratically elected Prime-minister of Iran, Mohammad Mossadegh, was removed by the CIA, for trying to nationalize the oil facilities in Iran. After this deposition of the Prime Minister, a deal was struck with the returned Shah, for allowing GB and USA to control most of the stake in Iran's Oil Industry. This state of affiars continued till the Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1979, which established a Theocratic Republic which functions with a unique mix of representative elected by clerics and those elected directly by people ( Although Islamic clerics don't directly govern in Iran, they still they excercise enormous control over the elected parliament and executive which essentially makes it into a theocracy). Whatever the merits (or demerits) of this form of government, one thing is clear, the United States and its historic involvement in Iran is has a great deal of responsibility for the Islamic Revolution and the present enmity between the Iranian government and the worlds most powerful nation. It is not realistic to expect that we can keep on getting away by in fooling a whole nation of people for the sake of our petty advantages. Counter-reactions (many voilent) are to be expected, sooner or later. And that is what we almost always get. A truth which can be emperically verified by analysing even the history of past century.
A few days back I was listening to President Bush giving a Press conference about the American "war on terror" in Iraq. Not much intelligent talk is usually expected of these press conference, which are generally an excercise in Gobbelian Propaganda. But I was struck by the Presedent talking about the need of spreading democracy world over and how it leads to states which are friendly with the United States. An example of Japan after the world war II was given. I found both the reasoning and the example very incongrous, but it made me wonder what president Bush might have said about the nature of interventions of United States in Iran in past couple of decades. I hope that some day, through a relook at history, political strategists over the world would understand the shortcomings of the following the policy of short-term national interests and try to find a more enlightened path for managing international affiars.
Saturday, April 01, 2006
First Post
Thought of wasting some of my new found time in writing a blog. So what can I possibly write about?? As the great British philospher would say, nothing is more worthy of consideration than the the problem of "Life, Universe and Everthing"....
Since I started writing this blog on suggestion of the Colonel, I would dedicate the blog to him. I am sure that he won't be able to appreciate the usefullness of the output I plan to produce. But then, unlike me, he usually doesn't classify typing practice as a useful activity ...
Since I started writing this blog on suggestion of the Colonel, I would dedicate the blog to him. I am sure that he won't be able to appreciate the usefullness of the output I plan to produce. But then, unlike me, he usually doesn't classify typing practice as a useful activity ...
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