Irrational behaviour happens due to social and emotional biases. People are very much less rational than is commonly thought and it may be attributed to obedience, conformity and peer pressure.
Its often that North Indian come to Chennai and criticize every cultural and social norm. West European or American traveling to India and disdaining from poverty, chaos and dust. A religious and deeply conservative person being shocked by the open culture of Las Vegas.
Why does all these three events happen?
This happen because all want the whole world in their own image – this is their identity, to which all alterities must – they so wish – yield. Even they migrate to different culture, the idealism and self glorification of their ancestors comes with the baggage. These culturally uprooted persons in a economic stable society can afford to and became source of more intolerant ideologies. They supports back to the roots with a very closed realm of their identity and remain unaware of the dynamic changes back home.
Let us take example of Pakistan. Proliferation of extremist thought and jihadi groups started in 80's Pakistan and there was emergence of the middle class supporting military rule in the favour of economic stability. Zia was celebrated as one of their own in 80's by similar Pakistani group that today blames him for all wrong deeds. These are prime example of irrational behaviour where initial conditioning has retarded the curiosity and questioning nature of the human being. Hence, irrationality appears when a person refuses to move to another set of beliefs even the proper reason is given in the first place. Static system of beliefs lead us to the path of irrational behaviour.
People behave ethically all the time without relying on myths and religion. The comfort that religion brings to an individual comes at a terrible price. Probably the majority of wars in our history have been fought over religion. Ahmediya sect killings is clear example of ethnic cleaning in the name of religious (Islamic) purity. Human life sanity is clearly violated for an old school of thought.
Let us take example of U.S.A. Tea Party baggers genuinely don’t see the contradiction in their opposition to welfare state with taking state aid with one hand and jacking off angry pseudo-libertarian mobs with the other, much in the same way that some Wall Street people genuinely can’t see the problem with their company, say, taking $13 billion in bonuses in the same year that they accepted $13 billion in state bailouts. You wave a pitchfork at them with little post-its of the relevant figures taped to the ends, and ask them to confess – and they can’t, because they literally don’t see your point.
Patriotism is also such a irrational belief system. In words of Emma Goldman: We Americans claim to be a peace-loving people. We hate bloodshed; we are opposed to violence. Yet we go into spasms of joy over the possibility of projecting dynamite bombs from flying machines upon helpless citizens. We are ready to hang, electrocute, or lynch anyone, who, from economic necessity, will risk his own life in the attempt upon that of some industrial magnate. Yet our hearts swell with pride at the thought that America is becoming the most powerful nation on earth, and that she will eventually plant her iron foot on the necks of all other nations. Such is the logic of patriotism.
Hubris, ignorance and apathy among the privileged are a potently destructive mix and a sure recipe for disaster. A society or nation degrades in civility once a set of beliefs are not evolved with the time. Even people have developed an acute consciousness of their own pain but their senses have become dulled to the suffering of those others who does not share their belief system. Irrationality is born out of such static system of beliefs where no reasoning has been applied to challenge ongoing traditions.
I am ending my search on the blind faith here only. When people are free to choose what type of discussions they want to have, they often gravitate toward an equilibrium that is easy to maintain but one that no one really enjoys or benefits from. Hence, it is hard to argue in the case of blind faith . While breaking the taboo has two effects. First, there is the domino effect, which applies to other taboos. Then – and even more importantly – a complete way of thinking has finally been pushed aside. And we evolve as more humane and rational.
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Love
OSHO talks about the fundamental human falacy on Love with great clarity. “You are Love” , sais OSHO. “The basic fallacy that you are carrying within you is that you always loved somebody. This is one of the most significant things about all human beings; their love is always for somebody, it is addressed – and the moment you address your love, you destroy it. It is as if you are saying, “I will breathe only for you — and when you are not there, then how can I breathe?”
I was believing in idealism and true single love (that is non existential in nature) but both were like day dreaming for an impractical guy. I was waking up each day on the wrong side of bed and think about my failures in personal life. Pain's rooted deep but it passes on surface, after all. It's passing now but an ounce of love was rooted deep in soft corner. I was searching for the true love who can stand by me. Then, I read Osho's discourse on love.
I love, because my love is not dependent on the object of love. My love is dependent on my state of being. So whether the other person changes, becomes different, friend turns into a foe, does not matter, because my love was never dependent on the other person. My love is my state of being. I simply love.
If you cannot love yourself, you don't know even the taste of love or what love means.
Love yourself, so that all your loving sources become open, all blocks are removed. And if you can love yourself -- with all your frailties, with all your weaknesses, with all your errors -- you can love anybody in the world. You will have tremendous compassion and understanding, because you commit the same mistakes; the same are your errors, the same are your frailties.
If you love deeply, by and by you will become aware that your love is becoming more and more meditative. A subtle quality of silence is entering in you. Thoughts are disappearing, gaps appearing -- silences. You are touching your own depth. Love makes you meditative if it is on the right lines. Meditation makes you loving if it is on the right lines.
And if you relate, and don't reduce it to a relationship, then the other will become a mirror to you. Exploring him, unawares you will be exploring yourself too. Getting deeper into the other, knowing his feelings, his thoughts, his deeper stirrings, you will be knowing your own deeper stirrings too. Lovers become mirrors to each other, and then love becomes a meditation. Relationship is ugly, relating is beautiful.
These lines have calmed me down. I am not a right man for a struggle with the reality as it flows out of control. Life is so weird and absurd. I don't know about the future and have only vague idea of my past. Now, I don't even want to know future or remember past. I was trying get over with any form of the love in order to be free. I am living the moment. I am becoming an escapist whose mantra is ‘turn-on, tune-in and move-out’to next venture or zone of curiosity.
I was believing in idealism and true single love (that is non existential in nature) but both were like day dreaming for an impractical guy. I was waking up each day on the wrong side of bed and think about my failures in personal life. Pain's rooted deep but it passes on surface, after all. It's passing now but an ounce of love was rooted deep in soft corner. I was searching for the true love who can stand by me. Then, I read Osho's discourse on love.
I love, because my love is not dependent on the object of love. My love is dependent on my state of being. So whether the other person changes, becomes different, friend turns into a foe, does not matter, because my love was never dependent on the other person. My love is my state of being. I simply love.
If you cannot love yourself, you don't know even the taste of love or what love means.
Love yourself, so that all your loving sources become open, all blocks are removed. And if you can love yourself -- with all your frailties, with all your weaknesses, with all your errors -- you can love anybody in the world. You will have tremendous compassion and understanding, because you commit the same mistakes; the same are your errors, the same are your frailties.
If you love deeply, by and by you will become aware that your love is becoming more and more meditative. A subtle quality of silence is entering in you. Thoughts are disappearing, gaps appearing -- silences. You are touching your own depth. Love makes you meditative if it is on the right lines. Meditation makes you loving if it is on the right lines.
And if you relate, and don't reduce it to a relationship, then the other will become a mirror to you. Exploring him, unawares you will be exploring yourself too. Getting deeper into the other, knowing his feelings, his thoughts, his deeper stirrings, you will be knowing your own deeper stirrings too. Lovers become mirrors to each other, and then love becomes a meditation. Relationship is ugly, relating is beautiful.
These lines have calmed me down. I am not a right man for a struggle with the reality as it flows out of control. Life is so weird and absurd. I don't know about the future and have only vague idea of my past. Now, I don't even want to know future or remember past. I was trying get over with any form of the love in order to be free. I am living the moment. I am becoming an escapist whose mantra is ‘turn-on, tune-in and move-out’to next venture or zone of curiosity.
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Bill Maher on Larry King Live
Bill Maher realistically criticise what is wrong with the U.S.A. !
The People Are Sick!" - Part 1 of 3
The People Are Sick!" - Part 2 of 3
The People Are Sick!" - Part 3 of 3
The People Are Sick!" - Part 1 of 3
The People Are Sick!" - Part 2 of 3
The People Are Sick!" - Part 3 of 3
Changing Times
A Day Trip to My Alma Mater : One of the best memoir and evaluation done by alumni on IIT system.
The Disadvantages of an Elite Education : Our best universities have forgotten that the reason they exist is to make minds, not careers. - By William Deresiewicz
what do *you* want to do?! -- Author points correctly that forget science, everyone should be prioritizing their activities and asking themselves - is this *really* something *I* want to do?!
Amusing Ourselves To Death : PBH: Huxley Vs. Orwell: Infinite Distractions Or Government Oppression?
My Wishlist of Reading : Yayaver on Flipkart
Reality is both good and bad depending on our view. Torture, suicide and terrorism are the three blind mice of our era with no one knowing clearly which of them is leading us astray. And all of them are born out of religion. They have played a major role in the grisly battle between terror and retribution. Similarly, prostitution is only product of repressed sexuality and marriage without love.
What happens in the initiative of an individual to change society ? First people will ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they feel insulted and fight you, then you win.
Graveyard is a place is full of people who thought that the world can’t do without them. But the world goes on with new ideas and lives. It will go without me also. The black sheep was waiting for turning into suddenly the dark horse. The ambition disappeared and with that black sheep will remain true to its natural form.
Fierce critical interrogation is sometimes the only practice that can pierce the wall of denial consumers of images construct so as not to face that the real world of image-making is political - that politics of domination inform the way the vast majority of images we consume are constructed and marketed.
The Disadvantages of an Elite Education : Our best universities have forgotten that the reason they exist is to make minds, not careers. - By William Deresiewicz
what do *you* want to do?! -- Author points correctly that forget science, everyone should be prioritizing their activities and asking themselves - is this *really* something *I* want to do?!
Amusing Ourselves To Death : PBH: Huxley Vs. Orwell: Infinite Distractions Or Government Oppression?
My Wishlist of Reading : Yayaver on Flipkart
Reality is both good and bad depending on our view. Torture, suicide and terrorism are the three blind mice of our era with no one knowing clearly which of them is leading us astray. And all of them are born out of religion. They have played a major role in the grisly battle between terror and retribution. Similarly, prostitution is only product of repressed sexuality and marriage without love.
What happens in the initiative of an individual to change society ? First people will ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they feel insulted and fight you, then you win.
Graveyard is a place is full of people who thought that the world can’t do without them. But the world goes on with new ideas and lives. It will go without me also. The black sheep was waiting for turning into suddenly the dark horse. The ambition disappeared and with that black sheep will remain true to its natural form.
Fierce critical interrogation is sometimes the only practice that can pierce the wall of denial consumers of images construct so as not to face that the real world of image-making is political - that politics of domination inform the way the vast majority of images we consume are constructed and marketed.
Communism, Revolution and State
The Communists say that there are the only two means of establishing communism. The first is violence. Nothing short of it will suffice to break up the existing system. The other is dictatorship of the proletariat. I quote here an old premise of political theory: for a state to be functional and effective, it must retain a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence. I am in love with opinions of Emma Goldman on the goals, ends, means and values attached with the revolution. I am reproducing her views with the help of wikiquote.
What is Cause of revolution?
I did not believe that a Cause which stood for a beautiful ideal, for anarchism, for release and freedom from convention and prejudice, should demand the denial of life and joy. I insisted that our Cause could not expect me to become a nun and that the movement would not be turned into a cloister. If it meant that, I did not want it. "I want freedom, the right to self-expression, everybody's right to beautiful, radiant things." Anarchism meant that to me, and I would live it in spite of the whole world — prisons, persecution, everything. Yes, even in spite of the condemnation of my own closest comrades I would live my beautiful ideal.
If I can't dance, it's not my revolution!
If I can't dance, I don't want your revolution!
If I can't dance, I don't want to be part of your revolution.
A revolution without dancing is not a revolution worth having.
If there won't be dancing at the revolution, I'm not coming.
Do the end justifies all means ?
There is no greater fallacy than the belief that aims and purposes are one thing, while methods and tactics are another, This conception is a potent menace to social regeneration. All human experience teaches that methods and means cannot be separated from the ultimate aim. The means employed become, through individual habit and social practice, part and parcel of the final purpose; they influence it, modify it, and presently the aims and means become identical.
This perversion of the ethical values soon crystallized into the all-dominating slogan of the Communist Party: THE END JUSTIFIES ALL MEANS. Similarly in the past the Inquisition and the Jesuits adopted this motto and subordinated to it all morality. It avenged itself upon the Jesuits as it did upon the Russian Revolution. In the wake of this slogan followed lying, deceit, hypocrisy and treachery, murder, open and secret. It should be of utmost interest to students of social psychology that two movements as widely separated in time and ideas as Jesuitism and Bolshevism reached exactly similar results in the evolution of the principle that the end justifies all means. The historic parallel, almost entirely ignored so far, contains a most important lesson for all coming revolutions and for the whole future of mankind.
The great and inspiring aims of the Revolution became so clouded with and obscured by the methods used by the ruling political power that it was hard to distinguish what was temporary means and what final purpose. Psychologically and socially the means necessarily influence and alter the aims. The whole history of man is continuous proof of the maxim that to divest one's methods of ethical concepts means to sink into the depths of utter demoralization. In that lies the real tragedy of the Bolshevik philosophy as applied to the Russian Revolution. May this lesson not be in vain.
No revolution can ever succeed as a factor of liberation unless the MEANS used to further it be identical in spirit and tendency with the PURPOSES to be achieved. Revolution is the negation of the existing, a violent protest against man's inhumanity to man with all the thousand and one slaveries it involves. It is the destroyer of dominant values upon which a complex system of injustice, oppression, and wrong has been built up by ignorance and brutality. It is the herald of NEW VALUES, ushering in a transformation of the basic relations of man to man, and of man to society.
Its first ethical precept is the identity of means used and aims sought. The ultimate end of all revolutionary social change is to establish the sanctity of human life, the dignity of man, the right of every human being to liberty and wellbeing. Unless this be the essential aim of revolution, violent social changes would have no justification. For external social alterations can be, and have been, accomplished by the normal processes of evolution. Revolution, on the contrary, signifies not mere external change, but internal, basic, fundamental change. That internal change of concepts and ideas, permeating ever-larger social strata, finally culminates in the violent upheaval known as revolution.
The period of the actual revolution, the so-called transitory stage, must be the introduction, the prelude to the new social conditions. It is the threshold to the NEW LIFE, the new HOUSE OF MAN AND HUMANITY. As such it must be of the spirit of the new life, harmonious with the construction of the new edifice.
To-day is the parent of to-morrow. The present casts its shadow far into the future. That is the law of life, individual and social. Revolution that divests itself of ethical values thereby lays the foundation of injustice, deceit, and oppression for the future society. The means used to prepare the future become its cornerstone.
It cannot be sufficiently emphasized that revolution is in vain unless inspired by its ultimate ideal. Revolutionary methods must be in tune with revolutionary aims. The means used to further the revolution must harmonize with its purposes. In short, the ethical values which the revolution is to establish in the new society must be initiated with the revolutionary activities of the so-called transitional period. The latter can serve as a real and dependable bridge to the better life only if built of the same material as the life to be achieved.
Nothing would prove more disastrous to our ideas, we contended, than to neglect the effect of the internal upon the external, of the psychological motives and needs upon existing institutions.
Please also read through B R Ambedkar's essay on Karl Marx and Mahatma Buddha.
What is Cause of revolution?
I did not believe that a Cause which stood for a beautiful ideal, for anarchism, for release and freedom from convention and prejudice, should demand the denial of life and joy. I insisted that our Cause could not expect me to become a nun and that the movement would not be turned into a cloister. If it meant that, I did not want it. "I want freedom, the right to self-expression, everybody's right to beautiful, radiant things." Anarchism meant that to me, and I would live it in spite of the whole world — prisons, persecution, everything. Yes, even in spite of the condemnation of my own closest comrades I would live my beautiful ideal.
If I can't dance, it's not my revolution!
If I can't dance, I don't want your revolution!
If I can't dance, I don't want to be part of your revolution.
A revolution without dancing is not a revolution worth having.
If there won't be dancing at the revolution, I'm not coming.
Do the end justifies all means ?
There is no greater fallacy than the belief that aims and purposes are one thing, while methods and tactics are another, This conception is a potent menace to social regeneration. All human experience teaches that methods and means cannot be separated from the ultimate aim. The means employed become, through individual habit and social practice, part and parcel of the final purpose; they influence it, modify it, and presently the aims and means become identical.
This perversion of the ethical values soon crystallized into the all-dominating slogan of the Communist Party: THE END JUSTIFIES ALL MEANS. Similarly in the past the Inquisition and the Jesuits adopted this motto and subordinated to it all morality. It avenged itself upon the Jesuits as it did upon the Russian Revolution. In the wake of this slogan followed lying, deceit, hypocrisy and treachery, murder, open and secret. It should be of utmost interest to students of social psychology that two movements as widely separated in time and ideas as Jesuitism and Bolshevism reached exactly similar results in the evolution of the principle that the end justifies all means. The historic parallel, almost entirely ignored so far, contains a most important lesson for all coming revolutions and for the whole future of mankind.
No revolution can ever succeed as a factor of liberation unless the MEANS used to further it be identical in spirit and tendency with the PURPOSES to be achieved. Revolution is the negation of the existing, a violent protest against man's inhumanity to man with all the thousand and one slaveries it involves. It is the destroyer of dominant values upon which a complex system of injustice, oppression, and wrong has been built up by ignorance and brutality. It is the herald of NEW VALUES, ushering in a transformation of the basic relations of man to man, and of man to society.
Its first ethical precept is the identity of means used and aims sought. The ultimate end of all revolutionary social change is to establish the sanctity of human life, the dignity of man, the right of every human being to liberty and wellbeing. Unless this be the essential aim of revolution, violent social changes would have no justification. For external social alterations can be, and have been, accomplished by the normal processes of evolution. Revolution, on the contrary, signifies not mere external change, but internal, basic, fundamental change. That internal change of concepts and ideas, permeating ever-larger social strata, finally culminates in the violent upheaval known as revolution.
The period of the actual revolution, the so-called transitory stage, must be the introduction, the prelude to the new social conditions. It is the threshold to the NEW LIFE, the new HOUSE OF MAN AND HUMANITY. As such it must be of the spirit of the new life, harmonious with the construction of the new edifice.
To-day is the parent of to-morrow. The present casts its shadow far into the future. That is the law of life, individual and social. Revolution that divests itself of ethical values thereby lays the foundation of injustice, deceit, and oppression for the future society. The means used to prepare the future become its cornerstone.
It cannot be sufficiently emphasized that revolution is in vain unless inspired by its ultimate ideal. Revolutionary methods must be in tune with revolutionary aims. The means used to further the revolution must harmonize with its purposes. In short, the ethical values which the revolution is to establish in the new society must be initiated with the revolutionary activities of the so-called transitional period. The latter can serve as a real and dependable bridge to the better life only if built of the same material as the life to be achieved.
Nothing would prove more disastrous to our ideas, we contended, than to neglect the effect of the internal upon the external, of the psychological motives and needs upon existing institutions.
Please also read through B R Ambedkar's essay on Karl Marx and Mahatma Buddha.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)