On National Character

Nations, like individuals, have such a thing as a character, and the world is home to several types of national characters; there are instances where the difference in national character is drastic, almost antithetical, but in other instances, the difference in national character is relatively minor. How is a nation’s character formed—is it linked to the history of its civilization, the race and religion of its dominant population, its geographical features, its intellectual and scientific achievements, its political and economic system, its art and culture? Does national character determine a nation’s culture, politics, and economy, or is it the other way round? Can a nation’s character be transformed or subverted, or does it last till the nation is in existence?

A Paradox of Human Nature

It’s a paradox of human nature that the youngsters who have an easy and prosperous upbringing, on becoming adults, turn their face to immoralism, nihilism, and apocalyptic cults, while those who are born without sufficient resources and, from their early years, have to work hard to get their daily bread, on attaining adulthood, turn their full-face to good life, morality, and the idea of human progress through intellectualism, good culture, liberty, and innovation.

Philosophy and Play; Individualism and Collectivism

A community will not have good philosophy until it has good sports—the Ancient Greeks were the world’s first philosophers and they were the world’s first people to play (the first Olympic Games was organized in Ancient Greece and is traditionally dated to 776 BC). A community will not have individualism, until it has strong collectivist institutions—the Ancient Greeks were the first to philosophize on individualism, and they were the first to train their soldiers (hoplites) to parade with full disciple, wear common uniform which included metal body armor, and fight shoulder to shoulder in a strict military formation (phalanx).

Liberals and The Great Dumbing Down

If people learn to think for themselves, the surest prop of liberal political power gets demolished; this is why the control of the mainstream media, academia, and entertainment industry is of critical importance to the liberals—in the last hundred years, they have been using these three sectors to ensure that people become incapable of critical thinking, especially on politics and culture. In countries with powerful liberal political movements, the  population gets dumbed down through the years, and there eventually comes a stage where most people become so dumb that they cannot notice that they and those around them have been dumbed down, and that their culture is in the hands of yahoos.

On Faith

The knowledge that we get through the faculties of reason or intellect is partial—this knowledge will tell us about the material aspects (how much, from what, from where, when, and how), but it will not tell us about the values (moral or immoral; sublime or corporeal; artistic or vulgar; certain or doubtful). We cannot have full understanding of existence through the use of reason or intellect; we have to look at another resource to fulfill our need for understanding the values, and that resource is faith. Faith is not opinion; it’s not the conclusions that we reach by rigorous application of reason or intellect—it’s something different, something quite unique.

The Duel Between Physics and Biology

At a cosmic level there is a conflict between physics (matter) and biology (life)—physics, as we understand it, says that the universe had a beginning (Big Bang) and it will come to an end when all its energy gets exhausted (Big Crunch). But biology wants to know that if the universe, with all life in it, will one day end, then why did life evolve? The question is: Should the considerations of physics be allowed to override the interests of biology? Physics (matter) is concerned with only the mathematical and scientific outcome, but biology (life) wants to transcend the mathematical and scientific in the hope of existing forever.

Do I Read The Newspaper?

Someone asked me: “Do you even read the newspaper?”
My answer: “No, I only look at it.”

The USA Versus China

If there is a serious military confrontation between the USA and China, the USA will ultimately win, but in a generally peaceful or “cold” confrontation between the two nations, China has a clear advantage. In the last thirty years, China has made several inroads into American society; they control a chunk of American art, movies, academia, media, big business, and politics—in a “cold” confrontation, the Americans will not be united, as they will be in a serious military confrontation, and so they will be fighting not only the China that exists outside their borders but also the pro-China elements who hold commanding positions in their own society.

Liberalism and the Dream of Utopia

To the liberals, reality is disheartening and frightening, and they find a refuge in a utopia. The intellectuals among the liberals know that the utopia is unattainable, but since they believe in the political dogma that it’s better to reign in hell than serve in heaven, they keep egging their followers to crush the past and the present, and, if necessary, create a hell while questing for the heaven or utopian future. Will the hand of truth at any time reduce the myth of liberal utopianism to the putrid mass that it deserves to be? That is not likely because the power of the liberals over their followers, the brainwashed democratic rabble, is overpowering—moreover, too many politicians, intellectuals, and businessmen have been milking liberalism to make financial gain; they will never allow the dream of utopia to die.

The Experience of the Sacred

Religion is not about god; it’s about the experience of the sacred, which is the driver of intellectualism and morality. When the atheists deny religion, they are suppressing and desecrating the sacred—this makes them alienated from the intellectual and moral roots of their society. The communities in which atheism takes root are unintellectual and immoral.

The New Terra Incognita

The planet earth is fast becoming terra incognita, if it has not already become so—in name of battling the pandemic, vast stretches of the planet have barricaded themselves against the truth; only the politically connected voices are likely to be heard.

Defeatism: The New Western Ideology

The dominant ideology of the western countries in the twenty-first century is defeatism, pure and simple. The people who vanquished Nazism in the 1940s, and the Soviet Union in 1991, are now so enfeebled and unintellectual that they readily surrender their life, property, and culture to any threat, real or imagined, which suddenly pops up and utters “boo”: global warming, climate change, global pandemic, systemic racism, sexism, misogyny, rising China, radical islam, North Korea, and even plastic straws and cups. They no longer have the will to promote free markets and democracy or be the world's superpower, especially when the immediate task of exorcising the demons of history seems so formidable.

On Imperialism

Imperialism is an immutable civilizational force. If history reveals anything, it reveals that every great civilization has a passion for conquest and domination; it’s driven to make cultural, intellectual, religious, and militaristic efforts to conquer and dominate all the communities that it discovers. In the last seven thousand years, the communities in most parts of the world have been targeted by imperialistic civilizational forces at different points of time; only those communities have escaped the clutches of imperialism that were existing in total isolation, in a remote island, in the middle of a desert, or in a valley surrounded by high mountains.

A Bit Of Machiavellian Wisdom

Machiavelli says in The Prince that whoever becomes the cause of another becoming powerful, ensures his own ruin—from this bit of Machiavellian wisdom I infer that if a community sacrifices its intellectual, political, and financial achievements to raise the standards of a backward community, then it will, at some point of time, itself become backward.

Who is in Belly of the Trojan Horse?

The irony is that today the defenders of capitalism and good culture are within the belly of the Trojan Horse, while the socialists and nihilists are in control of the fortress.

On Wars

Wars are destructive but cannot be avoided, and when nations go to war, there is every justification for using the most effective methods of waging and ending the war—if conventional weapons are not effective, then atomic weapons can be used to break the enemy nation’s spirit and force it to surrender. There is nothing unique about the devastation caused by atomic weapons. The Rwandan genocide is a case in point—between 7 April and 15 July 1994, the Hutu and Tutsi tribes in Rwanda butchered an estimated 500,000 to 1,000,000 people using stones, sticks, knives, spears, and fire. The death toll in the Rwandan genocide, conducted with Stone Age and Bronze Age weapons, is greater than the death toll from the use of atomic weapons in Japan in 1945. I have no patience for the views of peaceniks.

The Conservative Way Versus The Liberal Way

The conservatives are preoccupied with traditions and morals, and their preachers are traditionalists first and humanists next. Their insistent preaching is directed towards building of character; they exhort their youth to strive to be as good as their ancestors. The liberals, on the other hand, are preoccupied with proving that the norms of traditions and morality are anti-freedom, and their preachers are alienated individualists first and nihilists next. Their insistent preaching is directed towards creating individuals who are alienated and nihilistic, and seek total freedom from the bondage of traditions and morality.

The World is Being Re-Barbarized

Whose fault is it that the world is what it is? We began in the age of Enlightenment and worked without intermission for two centuries to create what? A bunch of fascistic democracies which are re-barbarizing the people!

A Good Nation is a River and Not a Pond

If a nation wants its history to keep flowing like a river, it must endeavor to raise itself to a higher level of culture, politics, economic progress, and technological excellence every fifty years; otherwise the nation’s river will stop flowing—the river will transform into a pond whose surface is covered with green algae and on whose banks there exist the “human scum” who have lost their intellect, enterprise, and sense of culture and morality, and who subsist by feeding on the pond’s rotten algae and fish and on the weeds growing on the land.

Human Nature and Morality

Morality should never entail a rebellion against human nature. Nothing that is impossible to human beings can be moral; it can, on the other hand, be immoral. All moral exhortations, which are against human nature, should be outrightly rejected.

Rise of the King Cobra

Between 2008 and 2016, the liberals became drunk with hubris and started feeling that they were invincible—they were convinced by their cronies in the mainstream media that the conservatives and nationalists were a spent force, and that the liberal political agenda would be unstoppable in the next fifty years. But in late 2016, politics took an unexpected turn, and since then the liberals have been watching with outrage and horror the spectacle of a new kind of conservatism and nationalism rearing itself up, like a King Cobra spreading its hood and hissing.

Who is the Greatest Philosopher?

If I stand in front of the magic mirror and say, “Mirror, mirror on the wall, who's the greatest philosopher of them all?” The magic mirror will certainly reply: “Plato, but not Plato, alas! Aristotle, but not Aristotle, alas! Immanuel Kant, but not Immanuel Kant, alas!” Every great philosopher is a universe by himself, and it is impossible to decide which universe is the best.

The Failure of the Liberal and Neoconservative Agenda

The management of the post-Soviet Union world (world after 1991) by the liberals and neoconservatives is a story of human stupidity—a tale full of utopian dreams of “end of history” and the rise of “a global utopia of liberty and free markets,” but in essence signifying nothing; a pathetic tale of bombastic claims pitted against ineluctable facts. The cause of liberty and free markets becomes a mockery, if the price paid is the destruction of those who are expected to thrive under a capitalist system—but that is exactly what the neoconservatives and the liberals have been doing since 1991; they have been chasing liberty and free markets around the globe and causing mindless destruction in several nations. The election of Trump in 2016 must be seen as a reaction to the failure of the neoconservative and liberal agendas.

Newton’s Third Law and the Mind

Newton’s third law of motion is applicable to man’s mind as well—every political action provokes an equal and opposite emotional reaction in our mind.

A Philosophical Explanation of Capitalism is not Possible

A philosophical view of capitalist society cannot be developed; the moment we try to develop a philosophical explanation for the five pillars of capitalism—reason, liberty, free markets, rule of law, and history—the five pillars slip out of our grasp. Capitalism, being an outcome of political action, all aspects of it cannot be explained in the language of abstract philosophy.

Why I Didn’t Watch the Movie Joker?

In Agatha Christie’s novel A Murder Is Announced, a character says, "I didn't want to kill her. I didn't want to kill anybody — I had to…” (The character, to be fair, is not expressing Christie’s political viewpoints, but attempting to defend herself.) After the 1960s, the neoliberal left has developed the ideological position that most criminals are a victim of the injustices which are intrinsic to capitalist society; they assert that capitalism is so unfair that it breeds alienation and resentment and forces people to become monstrous killers. Like Christie’s character, the liberals say, “They didn’t want to kill anybody—they had to…” and they preach sympathy for the psychology of those who go on a killing spree. Recently, I saw, or tried to see, the movie Joker—I could not watch it after the first 10 minutes; I found it boring. The movie, it seems (I can’t be sure, having seen only a slice of it), is a defense of the psychopath Arthur Fleck (the Joker)—it portrays Fleck as a sort of anti-hero, who is forced to become a psychopathic killer after being bullied and harassed for his financial, health-related, and psychological problems. The Joker is a sick movie which seeks to justify Arthur Fleck’s antisocial character and brutal crimes.

Jean Valjean Versus Javert

In Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables, the cop Javert has the protagonist Jean Valjean trapped in a narrow street from which the only way of escaping is by climbing two perpendicular walls of great height. Jean Valjean is with the child Cosette but he manages to escape with her by the virtue of the massive strength of his arms and legs—carrying her on his shoulders, he climbs over the two perpendicular walls and climbs down from the other side leaving Javert dumbfounded. But today’s man does not possess the strength and courage of Jean Valjean; if he is trapped by a leftist mob in a narrow street, he will look for a ladder, which will never arrive.

On Whiners & Snarlers

The man who whines knows how to snarl; today’s whiner is tomorrow’s snarler who will readily join violent mobs and indulge in looting, arson, and other kinds of disorderly behavior to force society to grant him the respect, wealth, and power that he does not deserve. Whining is not a sign of intelligence or virtue—it’s a prelude to snarling and political vices.

Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained

The nationalist movement qua agitation is in the dumps. For those who favor a capitalistic democracy, the downfall of nationalism signals “Paradise Lost.” Nationalism, democracy, and capitalism have marched together since the Industrial Revolution. But the young generation has been coaxed by the “Leftist Serpent” to eat the “Forbidden Fruit” of anarchism and nihilism—they have been transformed into “Useful Idiots” who will happily rip apart the social system, based on nationalism, democracy, and capitalism, in which they have some possibility of leading a good life. The "Leftist Serpent” has mustered a great army, but they cannot win; they will fail for the same reasons for which communism failed to conquer the world in the twentieth century—the communists could not deliver the utopia that they had promised and this forced their best intellects to flee from the communist movement. The army of the contemporary left too will start melting away in the next ten years when the anarchistic and nihilistic utopia fails to materialize.

The New Age of Anti-Capitalism

A new age of anti-capitalism has dawned; this time the nations are not discarding capitalism because they want to adopt socialism or communism but because they want to be free from the bondage of culture, constitution, and economics—they see every past and present value, the book of constitution, and the rules of economics as an instrument of oppression and want to live free in a nihilistic and anarchistic utopia. The liberal elite, who control the mainstream media, the digital industry, and the academic industry, are playing a major role in making a case for the utopia of nihilism and anarchism—their propaganda has ensured that the public opinion is firmly set against all forms of democracy and capitalism, and working in favor of razing all values and rules.

Americans in 1991 Versus Americans in 2020

Americans in 1991 (after the fall of the Soviet Union): all nations will now accept the free market democratic system; history has come to an end—there will be no world historical conflicts in the future. Americans in 2020: free markets is racist; democracy is misogynist; there are 74 genders; truth is anti-minority rights; fossil fuels are evil; climate change will kill half of humanity, the other half will be killed by the virus pandemic; if you won’t support the lockdown and mask culture, you are a psychopath; Gone With The Wind is liked by racist-sexist dunderheads; cancel history, cancel classics. What a difference thirty years makes in a nation’s outlook?

Rejection of Aristotelian Biology in 2020

In his commentary on health and diseases, Aristotle follows his bent as a biologist and looks at how the body of the healthy members of any species works. He notes that the creatures which fail to match the health standards of the healthy members of their species are unhealthy or diseased. Since the time of Aristotle, the field of medicine has followed his methodology of using the health indices of the healthy men and women as the optimal standard for all human beings. But in 2020, the medical establishments in most nations have engineered a biological inversion; in the ongoing virus pandemic, they are using the health indices of the few unhealthy men and women to develop criteria which are applicable to everyone—this has led to an economic and political distress which might destroy more lives than the pandemic.

The Barbarians Who Disregard History

History is not a fairytale; it’s not a love story. It’s the story of the achievements and the failures of our ancestors; of the terrors and cataclysms as well as the genius and grandeur; of the cruelties, persecutions, and wars as well as the achievements in philosophy, science, literature, engineering, art, and politics. History enables us to learn lessons from the past; it tells us who we are, what our proper place is in the universe. Those who despise history and try to obliterate it from public domain are the barbarians whose rise in politics means the end of a civilization.

Green Shoots Versus Oak Trees

People look at the few green shoots in the cornfields and think that a new civilization is arising, but a civilization is not created by the weak and ephemeral green shoots—it’s created by the giant battle-hardened oak trees which carry the scars of the centuries. The political movements of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries (neoliberalism, existentialism, libertarianism, neoconservatism, antifa) are the green shoots, which are here today, gone tomorrow, but the traditions and movements which have come down to us from the Ancient and Middle Ages are the giant oak trees which will keep supporting us for centuries in the future.

Unemployment and Revolutions

Unemployment has nothing to do with revolutionary activities for the simple reason that most people join the revolutionary movements when they are young school or college students (the average age of the revolutionaries is between fourteen and twenty years); they come from well-to-do middle class homes, and many belong to the wealthy class. So there is no problem of livelihood for these revolutionaries. Those who face problems of livelihood have no time for revolutionary activities—they are busy looking for jobs or the means to start a small business.

From Where Does Power Grow?

For the communists, power grows out of the barrel of a gun; for the Antifa, power grows out of the butt of a gun—after being knocked down by the gun’s recoil, the weedy-wispy Antifa activists will surmise that the gun’s butt is the source of its power.

The Questions of Philosophy are Unanswerable

Philosophy has sustained itself for more than two thousand years by trying to find the answers to the fundamental questions raised by Socrates and Plato—on the nature of reality, man’s place in the universe, the relation between mind and matter, the ways of leading a moral life and creating a perfect society—but till now none of these questions have been convincingly answered and there is little likelihood of them ever being convincingly answered. This can mean two things—one, the questions raised by Socrates and Plato are invalid and must be rejected; two, philosophy is an endless quest to find answers to questions that are fundamentally unanswerable.

On Political Competence of the Conservatives

A competent politician will address the concerns of his supporters first and then declare a war on his rivals, while an incompetent politician will declare a war on his rivals before addressing the concerns of his supporters. In our times, the conservatives are proving to be the competent politicians, while the liberals are making too many blunders. In the next two years, it seems, the conservatives will win the elections in most democratic countries.

Rereading Gone With The Wind

Rereading Margaret Mitchell’s Gone With The Wind: Thank you, liberals—for creating a hoopla and reminding me that more than two decades have passed since I read this great book, and that it’s time for me to reread it.

On Fascism

Fascism is an ideology which tries to acquire political power through movements which claim to be fighting fascism. When the fascists become convinced that they are fighting fascism, their moral fury and political energy reaches the apogee, and they work like devil’s minions to achieve their political goals—hell hath no fury like the fascists who are fighting fascism.

The Periodic Law of Major Civilizations

The passion to innovate, discover, and create and make cultural progress, or indulge in an orgy of insanity, destruction, depravity, and nihilism comes and goes cyclically in all major civilizations—their history follows a “periodic law.” The major civilizations are currently in the phase of insanity, destruction, depravity, and nihilism—they are self-destructing by squandering their resources on battling unreal threats while ignoring the real threats.

A Benefit of Wisdom

A man of wisdom has the merit at least of being able to laugh at the fools and rogues in politics and media, whom a man lacking in wisdom might be so weak as to hate.

On Optimism, Utopianism, & Perfectionism

Optimism in individuals, utopianism in political movements, and perfectionism in philosophical movements is a sign of ignorance and dumbness.

On Nations & Historical Trends

No nation can resist a historical trend; if time has come for it to pass out of history, then it will.

2020: The Year of the Post-Truth

The mind-numbing speed and draconian irrationality with which major democratic nations have decimated their economy and culture in the first five months of 2020, and forced millions of innocent people to commit professional harakiri and forgo their life’s ambitions, is a sign that the world has entered the post-truth age of politics. Facts and truth no longer have the power to influence the government’s policies; the political debate is now a play of clever arguments (often specious) and emotional melodrama. The public opinion, driven by the mainstream media, is blind and its fickleness is terrifying to watch—the biggest concerns that humanity faces, according to the mainstream media, are: climate change, global pandemic, gender, racism, sexism, misogyny, and minority rights. Seeking facts and truth is a proof of irrational behavior; rationality in the post-truth age entails being in awe of the clever arguments and emotional melodrama of the politicians in power, the intellectuals and experts in TV, and the mobs in the streets.

The Western and Asian Minds in 2020

Seven problems plague the Western mind in the year 2020: climate change, global pandemic, gender, racism, sexism, minority rights, and multiculturalism. These seven problems are not founded on the evidence gathered through a scientific methodology but on the theories of the philosophers and activists belonging to the Frankfurt School, the postmodernist movement, the libertarian and anarchistic movements, and the neoliberal and neoconservative movements. For a century, the Asian mind has blindly followed the Western mind, and most Asian nations accept that the seven problems are real and need to be dealt with swiftly. Today the entire world is engaged in fighting the seven mythical problems invented by philosophers and activists—the year 2020 will go down in history as the year of peak insanity.

Why National Standards Decline?

People imitate their intellectual and political leaders; when the intellectuals and politicians are immoral, ignorant, tyrannical, and cowardly, a decline in the nation’s moral, intellectual, and political intellectual standards is certain.

Presaging the Disasters

By the time a nation diagnoses the disasters it faces, in most cases, it's already past the stage at which they can be expunged. A good standard of living cannot be maintained without the capacity to foresee the coming disasters and making preparations to protect society. From the knowledge of the past (history and traditions), people gain an insight into the experiences of their ancestors, and they develop the talent for assessing the present for signs of future disasters. But when the times are good, the new generation becomes attracted to liberalism and nihilism, which thrive by weakening the sense of history and traditions—their capacity to study the past, conduct an assessment of the present, and presage the future gets atrophied. A nation of liberal and nihilistic people cannot fend off the smallest disaster.

Moralist Versus Nihilist

The distinction between a moralist and a nihilist: the moralist is concerned about his people only (himself, his family, his friends, and if he is politically aware, his community and nation); the nihilist, on the other hand, is a globalist, he is concerned about all of humankind (a man who is concerned about all human beings, is concerned about no one, not even himself).

Inferior Life Versus Superior Life

In a conservative country, when two types of life, one inferior and one superior, come in contact, the inferior life tries to improve its own standards so that it might emulate the superior life. In a liberal country, however, the opposite happens—the superior life degrades itself, gives up its high standards, and tries to emulate the inferior life.

The Conservative Mind: From 1991 to Today

From the year 1991 (the fall of the Soviet Union) to 2000, the conservatives were overconfident and unquestioningly complacent; from 2001 to 2009, they were rebellious, bellicose, and utopian; from 2010 to 2016, they were filled with facile pessimism and political disorientation; from 2017 till today, their mood has oscillated between euphoric despair and melancholic hope.

The Politics of Hate

In a community, the inclination to hate is like a drug habit; once adopted, the hate cannot be shaken off—their politics, for as long as the community remains united, is motivated by the hatred of others; they do not introspect, they never think of doing anything to improve themselves, and they spend their entire life blaming others for their woes. The communities, which get addicted to hate, generally vote for the liberal political parties.

The Contradictions of Practical Politics

The more well-intentioned the people, the more prone they become to utter drivel; the more saintly the political leader, the more prone he is to committing monstrous acts.

The Visible and the Invisible Side of the Masses

Like the moon, the masses have two sides, one side is visible and bright while the other side is invisible and dark. The visible side of the masses yearns for a society in which all human beings can pursue their rational ambitions and live a good life, but the invisible side has on it the predilections created by false values, in which feelings of irrationalism, jealousy, and hatred are inbuilt. The contest between the visible and the invisible side of the masses determines the course of a nation’s politics. The liberals are good at appealing to the invisible side of the masses, while the conservatives are good at appealing to the visible side.

What Paves the Path to a Good Society?

The path to hell is paved with good intentions, but what about the path to heaven or a good society—how is that paved? The answer is that the path to a good society is not paved with mere intentions—it’s paved with the real deeds of rational, moral, and intelligent people.

Quarks and Finnegan’s Wake

In the 1960s, physicists trying to explore the microscopic depths of matter discovered that protons and neutrons are not fundamental particles—each is made out of three elementary particles. Physicist Murray Gell-Mann decided to call the three elementary particles “quarks,” a name that he got from a line in a whimsical poem in James Joyce’s Finnegan’s Wake:

Three quarks for Muster Mark!

Sure he has not got much of a bark

And sure any he has it’s all beside the mark.

Gell-Mann thought that the line by Joyce was appropriate because the elementary particles came in sets of three to create protons and neutrons. There are six types of quarks: up, down, strange, charm, top, and bottom.

History Never Forgives

Those who are the students of history know that history never forgives; every political action, or lack of action, is recorded and judged by history. History will not forgive the intellectual, political, and financial establishments of the year 2020—they will be harshly judged and exposed as the mediocre minds who, like Emperor Nero, played the flute of self-glorification and “saving lives” while their draconian polices were burning their communities to the ground; they will be held responsible for making decadence universal and bringing humanity to the brink of a new dark age.

The End of the Modern Atlantis

It’s the fate of every Atlantis to become extinct, leaving behind fossilized traces of the knowledge that its people acquired; the institutions, infrastructure, and technological marvels that they created; the religious, cultural, and moral ideas on which they founded their community. That the Atlantis of modernity, which is the climax of a process of civilization which began more than two thousand years ago, will become extinct is certain, but what we don’t know is how the extinction will happen. The intellectual, political, and financial establishment in most nations is torn between the liberal faction, which is decomposing, and the conservative faction, which is fossilized. The environment is ripe for nemesis to strike. Whether nemesis will strike through slow decay or a sudden revolution or cataclysm, we will know in the next ten years.

The Cassandra in Me

I have, in the last two months, thought and written like a Cassandra who gives warnings about the cataclysms which will strike mankind.

The Fragility of Nations

A nation is a fragile thing; it’s hard to build and easy to destroy. When the intellectuals, politicians, and technocrats use their political power to change too many things—by mandating new ways of living, and imposing new restrictions or lockdowns—they are asking for trouble; they have no way of knowing how much stress their nation can take before its moral and political structure starts to break apart. Using government’s power to impose changes and manage some imagined or real crisis can easily backfire—it can lead to a precipitous decline in national culture, and create the setting for a revolution.

The Legend’s Journey: From Hero to Monster

A man who becomes a legend might appear like a hero from one angle and a monster from another to the people who know him only from the outside. No view of him is incredible. The legend that I have in my mind is Bill Gates—whether you see him as a hero or a monster depends on your angle. Till about two decades ago, he was seen as a hero because of his contributions in popularizing digital technologies, but ever since he became a full-time philanthropist and healthcare activist, his reputation has taken a severe beating. His Twitter and Instagram accounts are full of hateful comments from people who are suspicious of his political and social agenda, and see him as a monster. But I think Gates, like all legends, is rarely interested in what people happen to think; his one and only obsession is his own agenda.

Being Waterboarded By The Newspaper

Reading a newspaper is like being waterboarded. In the morning, when I sit down to read the newspaper, I warn myself that every story that I read will be of events that are dumb, vile, senseless, and disastrous for society. I don’t expect to find a single good news in the newspaper—a newspaper cannot contain any good news because the world is being run by despicable creatures who have no commonsense, no social sense, no economic sense, no moral sense, and no vision for the future. By lowering my expectations, I am able to keep my irritation in control during the five to seven minutes that I generally spend with the newspaper.

On The Liberal Psychopathology

The liberal intellectuals, politicians, and activists have the ability to reason and use their intelligence, but they have no feelings and absolutely no sense of morality—such a mentality makes them like psychopaths.

The Invention of “Cyberspace”

The term “cyberspace” was coined by the science fiction writer William Gibson in his 1982 short story, “Burning Chrome”—he used the term to refer to the "mass consensual hallucination" in computer networks. But in his 1984 novel Neuromancer, he refined his view of “cyberspace,” and used the term to describe a sort of “matrix,” or a realm of total-immersion virtual reality, created from a worldwide network of billions of computers. Today cyberspace has come to stand for everything related to interconnected computers and the Internet. We use the term “cyberspace” to refer to the virtual space, a mostly borderless digital utopia, in which we enter to access information, accomplish all kinds of tasks, and indulge in mass consensual hallucinations (one of the key attractions of the social media platforms is their ability to provide a variety of hallucinations to their users). With billions people and groups leaving a digital footprint, the cyberspace offers a target rich environment for service providers, spies, and hackers.

Experts Versus Authority Figures

Progress in science happens through the efforts of experts; when authority figures gain control, there is fall in scientific standards. The experts are by nature skeptics, in the sense that they tend to doubt their scientific theory until they can gather sufficient evidence by conducting rigorous experiments—when new evidence goes counter to their theory, they change their mind and try to come up with a new theory. The authority figures work by suppressing real science—they fake experiments, deny evidence, stifle doubts, and propagate bogus scientific theories which support their personal and political agenda. Experts in the field of science should be treated with skepticism, because if they are deified as authority figures, they acquire immense power over society and it becomes impossible to get them to give up the power.

Heidegger, Schapiro, and Derrida on Van Gogh’s Painting

Heidegger meditates on three works of art in his essay, “The Origin of the Work of Art”; one of these works of art is Van Gogh’s painting Old Shoes With Laces—he asserts that the shoes belong to a peasant woman. But the art critic Meyer Schapiro rejects Heidegger’s analysis of the painting; he is certain that the shoes belong to a city dweller, possibly to Van Gogh himself. Schapiro accuses Heidegger of injecting his own philosophical and cultural biases (possibly related to Nazism) into his analysis of Van Gogh’s painting. In his essay, “Restitution of the truth in pointing,” Derrida deconstructs Heidegger’s and Schapiro’s analysis—he points out that neither analysis is free of bias: Heidegger looks at Van Gogh’s painting from a rustic and traditional perspective, while Schapiro looks at it from an urban liberal perspective. Derrida notes that both Heidegger and Schapiro assume that the shoes are a pair and that there is a wearer, but the painting’s title does not mention a pair, and if the shoes are not a pair, there is no question of there being a wearer (like an old peasant woman, as surmised by Heidegger; and a city dweller, as surmised by Schapiro). According to Derrida, the shoes in the painting are phallically pointed to create the feeling of hollowness, which is obviously a depiction of feminine sexuality.

Three Levels of Ethics

A fully rational, fully objective, and fully integrated system of ethics is not possible for human beings. We lead our life at three levels, and each of these levels inspires our overall system of ethics—the three levels are: the level of the individual, the level of the society, and the level of the traditions. The system of ethics that we practice at the level of the individual inspires us to be selfish, discard every constraint, and be free to pursue our desires and choices. But all individuals, howsoever independent minded they might be, are part of society, and they must pay attention to the system of ethics that operates at the social level. The social ethicists argue that what is good for the individual is good for the collective—they note that a man’s life revolves around collectives such as family, friend and professional circles, city, state, and nation, and they preach that a man must avoid causing harm to his collectives. The third level of ethics, the ethics of tradition, is founded on ideological thinking: a religious person will believe in the idea that the body is a vessel for carrying the soul which is godlike or part of god, and we have the ethical responsibility of not doing anything that might pollute and degrade our soul, but an atheist will find his ideological ethics from resources such as marxism, libertarianism, existentialism, and liberalism.

On Forgetting The World

You might forget the world and the world might forget you, but most of us lack the power to totally abandon society—therefore, forgetting the world must not absolve you from the responsibility of fighting to improve the standards of your society.

On Bans, Prohibitions, and Lockdowns

Bans, prohibitions, and lockdowns work only on those who are moral and have respect for the law. If you ban the moral and law abiding people from venturing out to make a living, attend to their basic needs, socialize, and find avenues for entertainment, then you will one day find that your streets have been taken-over by the criminals, rioters, and looters. Nature does not allow any space to remain vacant forever—the areas in which the good people are banned from going will eventually become the happy hunting ground for the bad people.

Criminals and Victims

We strive for justice and morality, but a just and moral way of life is impossible to us. From ancient times to the modern age, the life of a human being has been nothing more than a frantic striving to be the criminal and not the victim. A vast majority of the people (I would say 99.99% of them) end up as the victims—there is no way of remedying the situation because the victims are mired in ignorance, cowardice, and malice, and are incapable of confronting the criminals.

The Conservative Alice And The Cheshire Cat

The conservative movements become relevant by their own concept of mos maiorum. But in the last thirty years, the leftists, with some help from the novus homo conservatives, have destroyed the concept of mos maiorum, leaving the traditional conservatives with no political plank to stand on. The conservative movements appear incapable of fighting the left—they don’t know in what direction they ought to go. In the person of Alice, a traditional conservative appears to be demanding an answer from destiny, or the Cheshire Cat:

“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?”
“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat.
“I don’t much care where—” said Alice.
“Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” said the Cat.
“—so long as I get somewhere,” Alice added as an explanation.
“Oh, you’re sure to do that,” said the Cat, “if you only walk long enough.”

On Digital Supremacism

The digital revolution has spawned a new form of supremacism: Digital Supremacism. Like racial supremacism and religious supremacism, digital supremacism too is a product of indigestion of history and politics. The digital supremacists have a blind faith in their digital businesses—they believe that their businesses are more moral, efficient, useful, and environment friendly than every other business in the world. They are convinced that problems of humankind cannot be solved until the entire economy transcends the real world and enters into the domain of the digital world, the domain of the Internet and Information Technology.

Derrida: Speech Versus Writing

In his On Grammatology, Derrida shows that there is a binary opposition between speech and writing—with speech being central and natural, and writing being marginal and unnatural. People have been writing for thousands of years, but the tradition of thought from ancient times to modernity favors speech, or the spoken word, over writing. The “logos,” which the ancients regarded as the hidden principle in the universe, is a voice or a word—it’s a sort of super-word or a god. When we speak, the sounds that we create are closer to the super-word or god, but our writing is marked by an absence, the absence of the godly sound. Derrida’s target is Saussure’s linguistics. Saussure has asserted that his linguistics is free of the viewpoints related to god, but Derrida tries to show that Saussure privileges speech because he accepts the pre-scientific assumption that speech is closer to the inner meaning, or the logos, and the super-word and god.

On Change

Only a fool will bet against change, because nothing can take place without change; even if the aim is to maintain status quo in society, you need to keep changing some things.

Conservatives & Liberals: Action & Inaction

The wrongdoer in politics is often the entity that has left something undone, not always the one that has done something. The liberals commit a wrong by doing something, while the conservatives commit a wrong by leaving something undone. Thus the liberals are the people of political action, while the conservatives are the people of political inaction; this gives the liberals an advantage in the politics. But the conservatives were not always the people of political inaction—they became a passive force after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, when they became convinced that in the destruction the Soviet regime, they had played their world historical role, and that from now on there would not be any challenge to their worldview. The conservatives didn’t realize that the challenge would come from the liberals who, in the post-Soviet world, would find new ways of keeping leftism alive and attacking the conservatives.

Nozick and Libertarianism

Robert Nozick was not a libertarian; he never said that he was. In the Preface to his 1974 book Anarchy, State, and Utopia he seems lukewarm about libertarianism; he writes: “With reluctance, I found myself becoming convinced of (as they are now often called) libertarian views, due to various considerations and arguments.” He bases his arguments on the claims about rights (mainly property rights), but his treatment of rights is weak, because he starts with a situation in which people are living in a so-called “state of nature,” which is a mythical concept; in his later work, he admits that he has developed some doubts about earlier view on rights. One of his intentions in writing the book was to refute the libertarian thinker Murray Rothbard, but Nozick never took his argument with the libertarians forward—after the publication of Anarchy, State, and Utopia, he dissociated himself from the book and didn’t respond to the criticisms of it, and much of the work that he did after 1974 is unrelated to libertarianism. But the book became immensely influential in libertarian circles, mainly because Nozick was a professor of philosophy at Harvard. I find the “Utopia” section of the book, in which Nozick describes how a minimal state and property rights can lead to the development of a society in which disputes can be resolved without conflict, particularly unbelievable—why does he assume that such a system will be acceptable to everyone? Nozick’s “Utopia” is too utopian.