The Closing of the Western Mind, or How the West Was Brainwashed

Fascinating insight into how and why the brainwashing system works in the West and the mechanisms which it uses, and how and why the individual Western man becomes a victim of this Lie Machine. What the author is saying, more or less, is that the entire structure of Western society is built and maintained on a vast system of complex and continuous lies. In short, in the West, truth and even reality itself are rather illusory at best and outright delusional at worst. Yet we carry on nonetheless. After all, there’s that big sale coming up on Friday!

Joaquin Flores is one Hell of a writer. This essay is a bit hard to understand (and even was for me for a paragraph or so), but it’s not that bad, and if I can understand it, I figure you probably can too, right? After all, you’re all beyond highbrow, no?

Stagecraft, Simulacrum, Holograph

by Joaquin Flores

From this we view that our discussion forwardly centers around the Russian use of synthetic reality, while different than the West’s version as descried through consumerism and the entertainment industrial complex, is generally also based upon the sciences of cognition and social psychology.

Beyond that which we ourselves can experience through the five senses, there are several layers of cognition required for the human mind to assign an order, reason, understanding of an event or phenomenon which we come to understand through presented accounts.

When we rely on presented accounts, and without a simultaneously running cognitive process which filters all presented information with the aim of understanding the simulacrum itself, we become ensnared in the simulacrum by its planners. This phenomenon partly explains why those reporting and analyzing the Novorossiyan initiative have been unable to read this script.

The larger synthetic bubble which encapsulates not only the minds of the people and its leaders, but the functioning of the entire modern Western civilizational project, is itself liberalism. It has both a premodern, modern, and postmodern form. But in speaking of liberalism we do not mean the theory, but the reality as internalized through the cognitive processes of its subjects. It is an entire schema, with its own Weltanschauung.

Liberalism’s view of epistemic matters is greatly lacking and involves a process of double-think. On the one hand it suffers from a naive skepticism with regard to both epistemic and ontological matters, and tends towards a Popperian ‘critical rationalist’ view of the sciences and cognition. Yet it is neither critical nor rational, but rather reasonable. Reasonableness is an emotional state like anger or infatuation, and like anger or infatuation is blinding in that it clouds judgment.

Like anger feeling like ‘righteousness’, or infatuation feeling like ‘genuine need’, reasonableness feels like ‘being rational’. The blinding nature of reasonableness is that it lulls the subject into believing that their thoughts and subsequent actions have been blessed by the gods of rationality. Much of the British Empire after the Enlightenment was justified by the sense of ‘reasonableness’ held by its leaders and supporters.

On the other hand it largely takes for granted the wrong view that the synthetic bubble surrounding their manufactured environment is entirely natural. The Western simulacrum is based upon liberalism, but to use such a word is not entirely descriptive by itself. More to the point, like much of democratic theory, it is based somewhat on giving individuals various doses of narcissistic supply, flattering them by telling them that all what they see is theirs and that all what they have is real. It informs them that they, without putting tremendous work or directing their skepticism in the right direction, are already equipped to understand the world as presented.

Rather, the liberal individual is encouraged to direct his skepticism at those who are skeptical of the entire schema, and those real skeptics are called ‘cynics’. But the world as presented to them is a manufactured holographic program which the ruling class has built (and inherited) using all spheres of media, education, ideology, ‘common sense’, and so-called civil society. Thus the totalitarian myth of pluralism proceeds from that cognitive error, and can only understand itself through its own language – which is no way to understand something thoroughly, at all.

Once ensnared in the spectacle of the simulacrum, the observer experiences a number of realizations, thoughts, and conclusions which were generally partly arranged by the planner. They are experienced on every level as their own thoughts and conclusions, and they cannot distinguishing between ‘why’ they think and ‘how’ they think something is.

In Freudian terms, while far from perfect, we can understand that in the liberal mind the superego and the id have fused into one, or perhaps it is the id parading as the superego; it is a base rooted animalistic desire to sit upon the pedestal as moral judge and jury. Actually being right may be an objective or intersubjective matter, but wanting to be right is a base instinct likely rooted in human evolution and animalistic hierarchy.

In the process of waking from a dream, we often hear a sound which is being produced from our non-dream reality, but in the dream it is coming from some source in the dream story. Strangely upon waking we realize that this sound has just started to happen – a car horn, garbage truck, alarm clock, telephone. But in the dream this sound originated farther back in the story, minutes or hours before within the dreamer’s experience of time. It is also a different sound, and as all sounds are hallucinations on some level, is interpreted as another sound. The real phone ringing in the dream is a bird or a song or words from a person, etc.

What we understand from this is that the cognitive process exists in time, but does not give us a real sense of linear time. The experience of linear time in cognition is not the same as the actual external world of sequential cause and effect. Rather the cognitive process in real time can assign to the consciousness an atemporal or anachronistic experience. Our experience of sequence and the actual sequence are not united nor unilaterally determined. Also revealed are that it is our minds that do the hearing, not our ears.

The dream experience of sounds, sights, and time is much more like our waking cognitive experience. We see and hear things we expect to see and hear, even to the point of misjudging or mischaracterizing the actual things we are seeing and hearing. And so we can extrapolate from this that cognitive processes and our even our very sense of self both mirrors and is ensnared within the entire schema of the subject’s society.

Therefore, in understanding the holographic reality, we can see the ‘Ukraine vs. Novorossiya’ phenomenon as something simultaneously real and yet at the same time projected over. It is a reality, a dream, and a holographic projection all at once. The way we remember events and their significance, and the actual order and meaning they had when they occurred are not the same.

Many people are intelligent and suspect that something is wrong with the false narrative of Novorossiyan events being projected through news and information sources, and others take it further and understand somewhere deep inside that something is wrong with the entire Western materialist and consumerist paradigm.

When intelligent people receive obviously wrong information, they underestimate the ability of others to understand that it is obviously wrong information. Thus the official, though obviously wrong, view becomes assigned in their mind’s cabinet as not only the official view, but probably also what ‘everyone else’ thinks, and as su ch – as social beings – becomes the ‘polite view’. It is also the reasonable view, or at least in politely examining the official view they would like to remain in the reasonable emotive state.

Thus much of the liberal simulacrum is held together by good people not wanting to offend, and thoughtful people wanting to be rational. Among others, reasonableness is the emotive state used in liberalism to justify hierarchies – the more reasonable, the higher the status. So it is produced together:

  1. reasonableness-as-morality
  2. conformity
  3. submission

The simulacrum however projects over those three productions the following emotional states:

  1. rationalism
  2. individualism
  3. freedom

The Russian planners and thinkers who work in this realm of cognitive science have been working closely to inform Putin and is advisers. They understand the above set of complex relations between actual reality, thinking, and projected reality, and understand the way the Western liberal mind functions, and how it interacts with the news cycle. Most of these experts were of adult age when the USSR still existed, and Soviet society, while ultimately destroyed by liberalism, was not a liberal society. It’s entire schema was different, and produced a different – though still modern – Weltanschauung.

These factors help to us understand why these men and women do so well what they do. They now live in a variation of the simulacrum of the liberal form of modernity, forcibly imposed onto the former Soviet Union, but they did not come of age in it. Because of the pre-90’s experiences of today’s leadership, among them are the living memories of a different society that had a different schema. Thus not only are they aware that another schema is possible in the abstract, they actually originate from one that was different and have that real life experience.

Russia is still a combination of premodern and modern society, with the technologies and foreign memetic influences of Western postmodernism often projected over it. Russia, in a manner similar to that described by H. Marcuse in One Dimensional Man, (or Pan-Arabists like Michel Aflaq) has it is disposal the possibility of diverging from the modernist Western course and either returning to or creating for itself an entirely separate civilizational direction and course sui generis. This would also have the effect of promoting global diversity and multipolarity.

Now that we have explored some of the theories of cognition which help to understand the simulacrum, we can present a general overview of the specific tactics which the Russian leadership are presently employing in order to manage the perception and actual experience of reality.

"The Taoist Influence on Japanese Martial Arts," by Dota

New essay from Dota. Very nice!

The Taoist Influence on Japanese Martial Arts

By Dota

The Japanese Samurai Miyamoto Musashi acknowledged a number of influences on Japanese thought, chief among which were Confucianism and Buddhism. Yet not once does he directly mention the Old Master whose philosophy is so entrenched in the martial arts that the Samurai once pursued with inexhaustible zeal. Yet despite this seeming negligence, Mushashi’s epic martial arts treatise, “A Book of 5 Rings“, is laden with Taoist ideas and analogies. Indeed the very nature of the Japanese martial arts has been shaped and molded by Taoist thinking. In the interest of brevity one can sum up Taoist thought as being primarily concerned with conforming to nature by finding “the way.” According to the very first verse of the Tao te Ching (the poem attributed to Lao Tzu): “The Tao (way) that can be described is not the real Tao.” Indeed, Lao Tzu devoted considerable energy into conveying the indescribable nature of the way. One could not describe the way, one merely walked it or one didn’t. Could one verbally instruct another on how to ride a bicycle? One either knew how to or didn’t. Philosopher Arthur Danto astutely observed that the Taoists had a deep mistrust of prepositional knowledge, or what one would refer to as the discursive intellect. Taoism isn’t concerned with the knowledge of the scholar, but rather, with what we would refer to as “intuitive knowledge.” Those that knew the way were able to execute the perfect brush stroke or carve a pumpkin with exceptional ability. To further illustrate this point, Chuang Tzu narrates the story of the old wheel maker. The latter approached a King and told him that reading his book was a waste of time. He explained to the King that true knowledge couldn’t be expressed in words but could only be grasped. He illustrated this point by describing his own trade as thus:

The other secret of my trade has to do with the roundness of the wheel. If I chisel away at the wheel too quickly, I may be able to complete the work in a short time, but the wheel won’t be perfectly round. Even though it may look quite acceptable upon casual inspection, in actual usage it will cause excessive shaking of the carriage…In order to create the best wheels possible in a timely manner, I must chisel at just the right speed – not too fast and not too slow. This speed is also guided by a feeling, which again can only be acquired through many years of experience.

He then concluded his lesson with the following observation:

Your Majesty, the ancient sages possessed the feelings that were at the heart of their mastery. Using words, they could set down the mechanics of their mastery in the form of books, but just as it is impossible for me to pass on my experience to anyone else, it is equally impossible for them to transmit their essence of wisdom to you. Their feelings died when they passed away. The only things they left behind were their words. This is why I said Your Majesty was reading the leftovers of a dead man.

Karate is taught via instruction and perfected through rigorous practice. Form, movement, and balance can be learned by executing a sequence of gestures and movements known as Kata. The master guides the student to the way but the student is tasked with walking on it and not deviating from it. In the first Karate Kid film Mr Miyagi scoffs at Daniel Larusso’s attempt to “learn Karate from book.” Musashi similarly stated in his treatise that “Language does not extend to explaining the Way in detail, but it can be grasped intuitively,” (Water Book). But what is the difference between those men that follow the way and those that don’t? Those that follow the way properly are able to execute actions with minimal effort. But while effort is minimized the outcome of their actions is maximized. This is known as the principle of WuWei (literally non doing). WuWei is also often understood as carefully calibrated action. Consider for example, a perfectly executed Karate shoulder throw. By using a lunging opponents force against him, one can disable an opponent with a shoulder throw; a move that would ordinarily require considerable effort to execute. Actions become effortless for those that know the way. Musashi’s duels typically lasted only a few seconds. Consider his duel with Kojiro for example. He charged at his opponent and provoked Kojiro into making the first attack. Musashi effortlessly dodged the attack and decisively struck his opponent on the head killing him in a single blow. Musashi almost echoes Lao Tzu when he urges martial artists to be like water which is gentle yet destructive. It is the principle of WuWei that gives the Japanese martial arts their characteristic finesse that many have come to admire. The ancient masters would be repulsed by the drawn out UFC slug fests and would dismiss these fighters as not truly knowing the way. The Japanese word for way is michi, which literally refers to a path through the Cosmos. The Way has no destination, and simply finding the way is an end in itself. Since Taoism is primarily concerned with each pursuing his own way, it stands to reason that every one of us is (potentially) a wanderer. The wanderer is also a common motif in Taoist art – he who walks a path without apparent destination. I must point out that many of Japan’s cherished heroes were wanderers too, such as Musashi and Yagyu Jubei. Both of these individuals refused to hang up their swords and become artisans during the largely peaceful Tokugawa Period of Japanese history. They wandered the countryside (the Samurai had no restrictions on travel) and dueled several opponents that crossed their paths. Musashi is said to have won 80 duels during his lifetime. So entrenched is the image of the wandering martial artist that it has left its imprint on contemporary Japanese pop culture as well. The characters Ryu and Akuma of the Street Fighter franchise are wanderers pursuing the way of the martial artist. In a statement saturated with Taoist overtones Akuma proclaims: “For some, it is the path, not the goal,” (Street Fighter Alpha 1). Ultimately, while the spirit of the Japanese martial arts is obviously Japanese, their character is clearly Chinese.

From Civil Rights to Modern Antiracism, a Moral Inversion

Found on the web:

After the chicken’s chicks were all killed at eaten by the fox, a liberal chicken then said to the surviving chicken “Ya know, not all foxes are like that.”

Nice. Increasingly, modern antiracism is simply becoming absurd, stupid, dangerous, belligerently abusive and pro-suicidal. Thinking back to our salad days in the Civil Rights Movement, I remember how things were so much different back then. We Whites were fighting for good people! Good, fine, upstanding Black people, of which there were plenty at the time and even now. Was James Meredith a dirtball? Of course not? Was Rosa Parks a slimebag? You kidding? Were the Little Rock a bunch of scumbuckets? Huh? If you think of yourself as a good person, it feels good to be fighting for the rights of other good people. And it is painful to see good people being so mistreated merely because of who their parents were. It’s so wrong it hurts. This was the essence of the moral impetus behind the Civil Rights Movement. We won most of our battles, and here it is, 50 years on, and anti-racism is so far away from the Civil Rights Movement that it seems like it’s on another planet altogether. Now the antiracist movement does nothing but support criminals. All of the modern antiracist heroes have been criminals, often pretty bad ones. Most of them are dead and in the ground now, which is really where they belong if you ask me. It’s hard to feel good about supporting a bunch of scumbuckets. It’s hard to feel sorry for them, even if they are getting their rights violated. And typically, the people who aggressed on the Black criminals were the victims in one way or another of the crooks, or they were law enforcement or school officials trying to arrest or discipline the crooks. The ultimate hero of the antiracist movement is none other than OJ Simpson, a narcissistic sociopath who decapitated his girlfriend with a meat cleaver before he sliced her boyfriend to blood-spattered bits. Many of the antiracist cause celebres have involved Black criminals who get shot by cops, sometimes under dubious circumstances. One thing you will notice that everywhere Black folks move in the world, this racist phenomenon called police brutality rears up its head. There is  this mysterious phenomenon whereby cops all over the world want to fuck over and kill Black people for racist reasons and only racist reasons. Here is what happens:

  • Lots of Blacks moved to a country, often a Western country.
  • Over a period of time, they start to commit lots of crime, particularly violent crime, including homicide. They also start joining gangs and dealing a lot of dope.
  • This goes on for a while, and the police start arresting a lot of the Black criminals, for good reason.
  • The Black community starts to hate cops for “taking so many of our good men away.” Police are seen as a hostile because they are doing their job, which is to arrest Black criminals.
  • Sooner or later, a Black criminal is shot dead or badly beaten under possibly dubious circumstances. There is nothing necessarily racist about this. Most Western police departments have wildly stringent anti-discrimination policies and are far more PC than your average workplace. Police commissioners are tired of getting sued for this stuff so they are taking pre-emptive action.
  • What happens is once Black people start committing tons of crime and getting arrested all the time, sooner or later there is going to be a questionable shooting. It’s the law of averages. If Whites committed crime at Black rates, there would be a lot of dubious police shootings of White people. Dubious shootings are part and parcel of a group that commits lots of crime.
  • Blacks start rioting because one of their criminals got shot dead or beat up badly by police, which is a pretty bad reason to tear down a city if you ask me.
  • Antiracist movements begin to take up the “antiracist” cause of police brutality, an issue that usually has little to do with race.

These antiracist movements spend almost all of their time defending the absolute worst of Black society, the scum of the Earth. These are their heroes. If you are on the Left, you are supposed to support the lionization of these sociopaths. If you point out what scumbags they are, you are accused or racism yourself. You see how far we have come? Pointing out that the Black criminal cause celebre du jour who may have been victimized is actually a piece of dirt is racism! It’s racism for good people to call criminals what they are! That’s pretty breathtaking. It goes far beyond that. All criticism of mass dysfunction in Black America, typically in the more ghetto areas, is slammed as racism. Good people are called racists for complaining about bad people acting bad! Wow! That takes my breath away. If you try to counter an anti-White myth such as that Whites are more likely to be child molesters or serial killers by pointing out that actually Blacks have higher rates of both serial killing and child molesting, you are a racist! Whoa! It’s racist to pore through crime statistics to try to catch people telling racist lies about crime rates of various races! It’s racist to point out that Group X commits way more of Crime Z than Group Y. Pointing out the obvious is racist. Telling the truth is racist. Hard and fast statistical truths are racist. Apparently, The Truth itself is racist. The only way not to be a racist in this modern era is to be a liar! This idiotic movement extends to the rest of the world. Much of the 3rd World is very screwed up. A lot of it is non-White. Pointing out how lame, dysfunctional, and pathological these failed states and cultures are is racist. Damn! Good people criticizing bad people overseas for acting bad is racist. People from decent cultures criticizing sick cultures for being stupid and evil is racist. Pointing out that Country X is swarming with crooks, liars, cheaters, frauds and thieves, not to mention violent crooks, is racist. Telling people to avoid these shitholes is racist. In fact, we are ordered to travel to these shitholes just to prove how antiracist we area. In this sense, modern anti-racism is pro-suicidal. They want good people to go to places were lots of terrible people who act awful and stay there a while (presumably until they get victimized, which won’t be long) just to prove their antiracist mettle. If you say, “I don’t see why I should risk my life and limb to associate with this group just because a few of them are good people,” you are racist. Modern antiracism does nothing but defend bad people. All of its heroes are criminals, often very bad criminals. These are the leading lights of the movement. It is racist for good people to criticize the bad behavior of these criminal heroes. The only cultures it defends are non-White 3rd World cultures where a large percentage of the people act terrible, where states are failed, where cultures are toxic when they are not flat out wicked. Yes, to modern antiracism, the worst, most dysfunctional, corrupt, amoral and idiotic cultures of all are actually the best ones of them. These are the “heroic cultures” of modern antiracism. Modern antiracism fetes barbaric cultures above all else. Cultures are crappy because they are full of crappy people – who behave in lousy ways and think in even worse ways. There is no such thing as a crappy culture full of good people. Good people make good cultures. Lousy people make lousy cultures. The bottom line is that antiracism criticizes good people for attacking the behavior of bad people. It’s racist for good people to defend themselves against bad people – I assume we are supposed to let them kill us to prove earn our antiracist stripes in the afterlife. Anti-racism attacks people from good, competent, successful cultures for attacking lousy, incompetent and failed cultures. Once again, it punishes the good for attacking the bad. I could go on here, but I think I will stop. You get the idea. All I have to say is that this is a complete inversion of the moral principles I signed up for in the Civil Rights Movement. We were the good guys fighting for the good people against the bad people. Now it’s the other way around. Let me off this bus please, Rosa.

Robert Stark Interviews Matt Forney on Bowden & Sade

Here. Topics include:

  • Jonathan Bowden’s Mad
  • The theme of teenage angst and alienation with modern society
  • Jonathan Bowden’s Sade
  • How the Marquis de Sade symbolizes the dark side of the Enlightenment
  • Sade’s honest nihilism versus the politically correct moralistic degeneracy of modern liberal society
  • How human nature becomes animalistic once it is stripped of morality
  • How Bowden labeled Andrea Dworkin a female de Sade
  • Parallels between Dworkin, Sade, and Elliot Rodger’s manifesto
  • Camille Paglia as a dissident feminist

Should prove to be pretty interesting. I am a friend of Matt’s from back when he was running his In Mala Fide blog. Should be interesting to hear his take on the Marquis de Sade.

HIV

Everybody knows that pestilences have a way of recurring in the world; yet somehow we find it hard to believe in ones that crash down on our heads from a blue sky. There have been as many plagues as wars in history; yet always plagues and wars take people equally by surprise. ― Albert Camus, The Plague

Modern Philosophy

Philosophy has never made a lot of sense to me, and modern philosophy makes even less sense. For instance:

How to Resolve Doxastic Disagreement”, Synthese 191, 2359-81, 2014

by Anna-Maria Asunta Eder

How should an agent revise her epistemic state in the light of doxastic disagreement? The problems associated with answering this question arise under the assumption that an agent’s epistemic state is best represented by her degree of belief function alone. We argue that for modeling cases of doxastic disagreement an agent’s epistemic state is best represented by her confirmation commitments and the evidence available to her. Finally, we argue that given this position it is possible to provide an adequate answer to the question of how to rationally revise one’s epistemic state in the light of disagreement.

Does anyone have the faintest idea of what these people are talking about?

We Are Always Alone

Before we even become human, we spend our first nine months in the womb transforming ourselves from a fetus and potential human into a human being. It’s not like we stop being alone after that.

“We are all alone, born alone, die alone, and — in spite of True Romance magazines — we shall all someday look back on our lives and see that, in spite of our company, we were alone the whole way. I do not say lonely — at least, not all the time — but essentially, and finally, alone. This is what makes your self-respect so important, and I don’t see how you can respect yourself if you must look in the hearts and minds of others for your happiness.” Hunter S. Thompson, The Proud Highway: Saga of a Desperate Southern Gentleman, 1955-1967

Americans seem to have some bizarre prejudice against being alone. Sometimes I would go to movies alone and a lot of people acted like that was really weird. I have moved to whole new cities all alone, just me and myself, and after I arrive in the new city, most people act like it is really weird that I up and moved to a new city all by myself with no girlfriend or wife or kids or whatever. I often used to go hiking alone. Unfortunately, I had to tell some people that I was going hiking and where and they always acted like obviously I was going to have a really horrible time. “Have a good time!” they would order me, saying it as if they really did not expect me to have a good time at all. If you don’t think I am going to have a good time, then why tell me to have one? If you think I am going to have a bad time, why not say, “Have a bad time!”? It would make more sense, right? Once I drove to Yosemite National Park alone on a vacation. I met some people, including a woman, almost immediately. I was over at her campsite late that night, but unfortunately there was another guy with her. As I was walking to meet that girl at that party I met some idiotic young working class men, and I told them when asked that I had come up to the park alone. They acted like that was extremely weird and obviously I was a pretty weird person for doing that. Once I took a week-long vacation all alone. I drove for 15 hours to my destination near Lake Tahoe on the first day out of my head on LSD the whole time. Good times! I spent the whole week alone and really it was pretty much just fine. The people who saw me off once again thought that I was going to have an utterly miserable time. I mean, if you are going alone, you’re obviously going to be miserable, right? Once I lived in an apartment with a roommate while I went to college. He tended to take off in the summer so I would have the place to myself a lot. With nothing better to do, I would sit around and smoke dope and read lots of books, especially novels. There didn’t seem to be much else to do. I was lonely a lot, but the weed and books were ok company. There were people over now and again. The beautiful girl next door thought this was extremely bizarre, and once I heard her whispering to her boyfriend, “He stays in his apartment alone all the time smoking pot and reading books! He’s so bizarre!” Her boyfriend started laughing like, “What’s the matter with that, and soon he was knocking on the door asking for some bong hits. After he met me, he thought I was pretty normal. It seems to be definitely not ok to eat dinner alone in a restaurant. I am not sure if breakfast or lunch is ok either. Although around here, the local Mexicans could care less and think it is totally cool if you are eating alone at any hour of the day as long as you just ordered some of their food. Where I live right now, it is considered to be extremely bizarre to live alone. My neighbors are Hispanics, a social people who do not believe in such things. The rest are poor Blacks, and they don’t seem to believe in it either. There are also a few working class poor Whites who don’t believe in living alone either. The few divorced women around here all live with their kids. In general, poor people think living alone is extremely bizarre and if you are doing that and you are a man, you are obviously a psycho, a maniac, a predator, a child molester or a dangerous person. I think poor people just don’t have the resources to live alone, and that’s why they think it is weird. Once people, especially White people, get some money, they often opt to live alone. It seems that living alone is seen as a luxury that can only be afforded if one has some money. Just about the only thing that is acceptable to do alone is to drive to school, work, or a friend’s house. I suppose you can go to a bar or a nightclub alone, although a bar is probably easier. You can go to a party alone because there are going to be others there. You can always shop alone, and it’s ok to be alone at a library. I think an example of a very healthy person would be someone who can live alone and be alone for very long periods of time (totally ok with being alone) but on the other hand, as they are not Aspies or schizoids or true loners, given the opportunity, they can live with other people for a while, either going to visit them and staying at their place or having visitors come visit you and stay at your place. When you are visiting or being visited, really you are almost never alone. The visitor or host is always right nearby. This is the opposite of being alone. This is like being in the company of others 24-7. They can travel alone or with someone else. If you can be equally comfortable with yourself and also with sharing social space with one or more humans too, you sound like a pretty well-rounded person to me. I think people who can’t stand to be alone are sort of weird, but maybe they are just extroverts. A lot of them just seem like dependent babies. On the other hand, I do not think it is all that healthy to want to be alone all or nearly all the time and dislike having other humans sharing your social space. I realize there are true loners and schizoids who are like this, but it doesn’t quite sound normal as the default for a human is a capacity and desire for sociability.

Humans Are Perverse

Only part of us is sane; only part of us loves pleasure and the longer day of happiness, wants to live to our nineties and die in peace, in a house that we built, that shall shelter those who come after us. The other half of us is nearly mad. It prefers the disagreeable to the agreeable, loves pain and its darker night despair, and wants to die in a catastrophe that will set back life to its beginnings and leave nothing of our house save its blackened foundations. Our bright nature fights in us with this yeasty darkness, and neither part is commonly quite victorious, for we are divided against ourselves and will not let either part be destroyed. Rebecca West, Black Lamb and Grey Falcon (1941)

So we all have a bit of Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in us, and to be human is to have a dark side. The universe is bipolar, and both visions are correct, even at the same time as we learn in Zen. The world is either a good place where the possibility of decency and success combined exists, as in soaring goodness of Shakespeare’s best characters, or it is consists of a blackened existence, as in a Ben Jonson play where near every character is a scoundrel with a depraved heart  and the the few good men are ineffectual and impotent and as in Dostoevsky, evil always triumphs and good falls down in the gutters to defeat. Bottom line: the human heart is both divided and perverse. P.S. That Rebecca West book is not only one of the finest novels of the 20th Century, but it is also one of the greatest works in English-language literature. And it’s only 1,181 pages long!

What Is the Definition of Time?

Most places mentioned in old poetry can never be exactly located. Mountains crumble through time, landslides change the river’s course, floods wash out roads, hardly anything remains where it was for long. Thus faced with this monument of nearly a thousand years, I felt such a powerful link with the past, so connected at the heart with men of old, I forgot the aches and pains of the journey, and, in gratitude for such a traveler’s blessing, wept for joy. Matsuo Bashō, The Narrow Road to the Deep North (Oku no Hosomichi)

Well, there is one definition for you. By the way, the Japanese work above, written around Shakespeare’s time in the late 1600’s, is one of the greatest books ever written by anyone anywhere in the last 500 years.

The Tragicomedy of Life

Life is a tragedy to those who feel and a comedy to those who think. Moliere

Unfortunately particularly appropriate after the Elliot Rodger mass shooting. Tell the truth, that is why I don’t feel a whole lot anymore. I simply don’t want the pain. I know it’s there, all the time really, but I just don’t want to feel it anymore. Had enough of that for 20 lifetimes. So I think and laugh a lot instead. I’m kind of a robot, but I’m a chuckling, pensive robot, so I guess it’s all good. Any thoughts?

"The Suppression of Will in Islam and Hinduism," by Dota

Dota just sent me this piece and asked me if I wanted to run it. It is very nice! Enjoy, this one will really make you put on your thinking cap.

The Suppression of Will in Islam and Hinduism

by Dota

I’ve often wondered why Islam was able to make spectacular gains in India whereas Christian missionaries have often struggled to attract converts. One possible explanation might be that Islam has maintained a longer presence in India, spanning over a thousand years which saw the rise and fall of various Muslim dynasties. European Christian presence in contrast has been sporadic and short lived. Yet I feel that another explanation must suffice, one that accounts for the contouring of the Islamic faith along the Hindu psyche. This necessarily leads us to the conclusion that both of these religions possess certain attributes in common, as we shall see. I’ve written about Hindu ethics in detail over the last three years and I maintain that the most salient characteristic of Hinduism is it’s suppression of the human will. Hindu ethics preclude intention and hence ignore the rational agency of an intelligent being. For further reading, please read the article here. As Arthur Danto pointed out in the 70s, the ancient Hindu philosophers never saw the difference between knowledge and its application; a fundamental flaw in Indian epistemology. Plato believed that morality was predicated on the knowledge of the good. In other words, people behaved morally when they possessed an understanding of moral behavior. Likewise they behaved badly when they were ignorant of morality. Yet the crucial question which the ancient Hindus failed to ask is this: Why do people behave unethically when they possess sufficient knowledge of moral injunctions? In response to this question Western philosophy developed what we refer to today as “the will.” To paraphrase Danto, the will is the applicative mechanism that bridges the discrepancy between knowledge of the good and action. What does this mean? Perhaps an illustration is in order. Suppose you are driving through a residential zone with a speed limit of 40 kph. You see the speed limit sign yet roll through the neighborhood at 80 kph. You have seen the sign and are aware of the speed limit (knowledge of the good) yet you willfully choose to ignore it. You have exercised your rational autonomy to act in a fashion contrary to what you know is good. Liberation in Hindu philosophy is described by the Upanishads as a union with Brahman (the ultimate reality) where the only sensation one experiences is no sensation; a passive bliss. The Upanishads use the analogy of a drop returning to the ocean symbolizing the ultimate surrender of the will and one’s own identity. Islam’s relationship with free will is rather complicated. Despite Muslim apologists claims to the contrary, the Islamic religion is mired with contradictions (which is normal for any religion) chief among which is the simultaneous endorsement of both free will and predestination. The Catholic Church in contrast has always adopted the free will position despite agonizing over the philosophical dilemma of Judas’s betrayal: that if Judas was merely doing God’s will by fulfilling the prophecy where Christ would be crucified and mankind redeemed, how then is he blameworthy? Nevertheless the Church’s position was clear: Mankind possessed freewill. Unlike Hinduism, Islamic theology addresses individuals who possess knowledge of the good yet choose not to act on it. Unlike Hinduism, Islamic ethics account for an individual’s intent that binds the agent to his course of action, regardless of the outcome. This is illustrated in the following Hadith: Two men are engaged in a duel where one slays the other. Which one goes to hell? Muhammad’s companions stated that the victorious man would burn in hell since he had committed murder. Muhammad then corrected them by stating that BOTH men would burn in hell, for the slain man INTENDED to commit murder, he was just unsuccessful in his aim. During the Abbasid dynasty of the 8th century, a school of Muslim Arab philosophers called the Mutazilites gained the Caliph’s favor. These philosophers were smitten by Greek philosophy and held steadfastly in favor of free will. The school declined after the death of Abdul Jabbar, one of its major proponents, according to Wikipedia. The Asherite movement eventually replaced the Mutazilites and advocated the philosophy of occasionalism; that man would be judged solely on the basis of intention as his actions had no power to alter the world since only God possessed that power. But the ultimate case for predestination is made by the classical sources of Islam, the Quran and hadith (Muhammad’s sayings) and hence mainstream Islam gravitates towards that position in most cases. Islam has a suppressing effect on the will in other more direct ways. The word Islam literally means “surrender.” But to whom? To the will of God. What is God’s will? That man live life a certain way, and Islamic tradition dictates how a man should and shouldn’t eat, how he must have sex, what he may and may not wear, how he must bathe, how he must walk etc… Of the three Abrahamic religions Islam is possibly the most intrusive, perhaps even more so than Judaism, but I digress. While Islam may not be as ritualistic as Hinduism, it’s long list of orthopraxic practices that govern even the most mundane motions of daily life serve as an effective substitute for the Hindu convert. The Indian’s life precludes will. Traditionally, his caste determines his occupation and his choice of spouse. When he hits puberty he receives his twice born status if he belongs to the top three Aryan castes. His parents find him a spouse and he dutifully reproduces. The Indian’s life is planned out for him before he is an embryo. The weight of the community crushes the individual’s agency. I recall my mother would often remark that we were lucky to practice a religion like Islam which kept us away from alcohol and hedonism. What she failed to realize is that one doesn’t need Islam to keep away from vice, but merely sheer human will.

The Hell with Quiet Desperation

Carpe diem!

One hour of life, crowded to the full with glorious action, and filled with noble risks, is worth whole years of those mean observances of paltry decorum, in which men steal through existence, like sluggish waters through a marsh, without either honour or observation. – Sir Walter Scott

“And then I can die happy.” That is one of my favorite saying. Not that I want to die now, but considering how I have lived my life, nothing much could happen between now and death in the next 30 years, and I could still die happy. That’s how fun my past was. Of course I want the present and future to be just as fun, but it doesn’t have to be. If I never have sex again, I can still die happy. I’ve had my fun. PS Do you any of you like Scott? It is fashionable to hate him as some sort of a hack, but I am reading some of his poetry now (he wrote book-length poems) and I must say, it is pretty awesome. In recent years, Scott has come somewhat back into favor as the academy has found some grounds for appreciating him. About time.

Ariel Castro Is Dead

The famous man who kidnapped three teenage girls and imprisoned, raped and tortured them in his home for 10 years killed himself in jail yesterday by hanging himself in his cell, apparently with his jail-issued bedsheet, comes with every cell. He was on suicide watch, but they only come by once every 30 minutes. He had also been getting many threats from other inmates. Inmates have a curious system of morals. One thing is “pick on someone your own size” as long as you are going to be picking on people at all, which is after all what criminals do. If you are going to rob or kill someone, rob or kill a grown man, one who can fight back against you. Inmates who victimize women and especially children are held in very low esteem, especially those who rape and kill women and children. It is considered pussy and chickenshit to prey on women and children, who are considered by inmates to be relatively helpless. Even sex offenders have a hierarchy, believe it or not. Voyeurs and exhibitions are on top, and child molesters, rapists and guys like Castro are lower than whale shit, and that’s at the bottom of the ocean! I heard Castro got himself into some deep sheet in jail, but he hung in there as long as he could. As much of a scumbag this guy was, I do have a tiny mite of respect for him. I mean come on. How many of you guys have ever had a 4-way with three chicks? This guy did every single day! Impressive. I don’t think I ever had a 4-way with three females. This one time I was doing with this woman and her two dogs kept barking and jumping up on the bed, but that doesn’t count, does it? Well, that’ll be enough Castro jokes for now…

Underneath an Angry Man

Next time you see an angry man*, think of this: Underneath an angry man is an ocean, a bottomless well, of the deepest pain, far deeper than your mind can ever comprehend. The surface rage is only the reflection of the sun’s light on the upturned face of that sadness that knows neither a beginning nor and end, yet goes on forever apace. *Not sure if this is true of all angry men, but I think it is true for a lot of them.

Alt Left: India As a Poisonous Culture; Indians As Poisoned People

A good, decent, Indian Hindu woman named Sittingonthefence writes:

An advance warning.. this is going to be a long comment: I am a Hindu Indian, and I felt a sting every time people are chided on this blog for being Hindus. However, I landed on this blog because I am frustrated and wanted to see what people out there think about India.

I was brought up to be an honest, hardworking girl. My parents taught me all the right things, lying and cheating is bad, work hard for what you want, everybody should be treated with respect, etc. Needless to say I grew up feeling like a misfit. Actually, my family was a misfit even among our relatives.

I was brought up to believe that a Hindu is a person who lives by his Dharma and lives a morally pure life, and this is what I try to live by.

I think the main problem with Hinduism is that it confuses ritualism and superstition with religion and God. Everywhere around me I see people having different values for themselves and others. Nobody respects other peoples time and space (be it on road…where people keep driving deeper into gridlocks, or in personal relations…where elders decide whom their children marry or what they study etc.)

My sister is married to an American (whom she met in Singapore while working there), is settled abroad and barely has any Indian friends. She is not in touch with any relatives except us (her immediate family). Me and my husband were also in the US, where I did a Masters in Social Work, and this urge to work for the betterment of my country took me over. Hence, we came back last year.

However, I am already frustrated…how do you help people who do not want to be helped or even understand and accept the deep-rooted issues in this country.

I have also met some amazing people here…Many of them are born Hindus, and all of them are either spiritual (not ritualistic) or agnostic.

However, I have to add that maybe religion is not the only culprit because I have seen corrupt, selfish and unreasonable people of all religions, castes and genders.

I want to delve deeper to figure out why? Is it because of insecurity (due to centuries of foreign rule), is it because of a corrupt upper class with absolute power (I am guilty of being born one)? Could it be a distorted interpretation of Hinduism? Could it be the genes (but i know many amazing people born out of the same gene pool)? I do not know the answer…however I do know that I don’t want my daughter to feel like a misfit growing up.

Welcome to the blog. You are a good Indian Hindu. Apparently there are a few.

India and Indians are sick and messed up because their culture is sick. It is like a poison that poisons everything coming out of it. Most Indians get culture-poisoned, so they are damaged people, poisoned and damaged by their culture. They could get rid of it, but that would mean renouncing just about everything they were brought up with. Few people are prepared to do that.

Indians are not really bad people. Most of them are good people who have simply been poisoned by a sick and perverse culture. So they are damaged people. They can be cured, but most of them don’t want to get better. I work as a therapist, and if people don’t want to get better, they won’t. Indians don’t want to get better because they don’t think anything is wrong.

Plus being an amoral, parasitic, opportunistic, somewhat sociopathic human is very profitable in a way. Sociopaths often clean up in life. Morals get in the way of getting all the money and stuff you need in life. The person mostly likely to clean up in life is the most selfish, opportunistic, parasitic and rather sociopathic person, as they are not encumbered by morals in getting what they want.

Maternity as a Basic Human Right

Hizzle writes:

Republicans like to say “If you can’t feed ‘em, don’t breed ‘em.”

I do not agree with “If you can’t feed em, don’t breed ’em.” I believe that every woman has a right to have a kid or two, except maybe if they are retarded, have a psychotic illness or are in prison. There are Black women in the ghettos in their 20’s who have no man in sight but are starting to get the urge to have a kid. Some of them just go out and have a kid with Tyrone or Demont or whoever, knowing that he won’t support her. Basically none of the men in this environment are going to marry or support their kids, so it’s have a kid with a deadbeat or have no kids. These women are going to try to raise kids on their own, and that’s ok. My Mom doesn’t think these women have a right to have kids, but I disagree here. She said, “Well, you know, having kids is not as great as it’s cracked up to be.” People have the right to one or two kids, no more than that. You’re poor, so you can’t have kids! You’re not married, so you can’t have kids! Well, screw that. You can have a kid or two even if you are not married or even if you are poor. It is a basic human right.

Mass Floods in India Bring Out the True Character of Indian Hindus

Mass floods have hit northern India. I don’t know a lot about what happened, but many homes were washed away and apparently a number of people have died. In addition, quite a few people are without food and shelter. Here India Land of Rapes, one of our finest commenters, lays out the real deal on Indian morality, or the lack of it as such. Only in a crisis can the real character of people and society can be understood. When the earthquake and tsunami hit Japan, the people who survived stood in queue and took whatever their government gave them to eat and remained disciplined and organized without any violent incidents. The true culture of Hinduism is getting exposed in the recent Himalayan floods. Politicians rushing to save their own kith and kin. Traders selling food for 200 This is a true opportunistic culture folks. You wonder why India, despite all its fake spirituality, is such a shithole? It is because everything in India is a lie. You have to lie, stab each other and be a hypocrite to survive in that filthy place. Everyone in that nation is a crook; to be honest you have to be a worst crook and hypocrite to survive in India. Read the great story of Hindu morality. All the idiot trolls who spend their time spamming this blog and bullshitting their nonsense about glorious Hinduism, read the fucking comments on that article. This is a reminder to all those who believe in Hindu spiritual nonsense. Spirituality is for sale in India. It has always been up for sale, and morality is the last thing you will find in these people. Don’t let their fake smiles, cries and obedience fool you. As long as you have something they need, they will respect you. The moment you end up with nothing, these people stab you and move on to next host without any guilt or shame. Hindu culture at its best for you. It’s far worse than the USA in many ways. That’s why to most hypocrite Hindus, the USA is paradise. No wonder USA is turning into a shithole like India. Once Hindus entered US Companies and started their nepotistic work ethic, the entire business culture became corrupt. One wonders if there is a pattern here.

What's Logical Is Not Always True

Fascinating article about philosophy, logic and psychology. Consider the following: All psychological scientists conduct or conducted empirical research. William James conducted empirical research. Therefore, William James was a psychological scientist. All of the statements above are true. William James was indeed a psychological scientist. But the statement is not logical. It’s not a logical proof. It’s not a valid argument. You haven’t proved your case with your hypothesis or argument. Sure, James was a psychologist, but the fact that he did empirical work is not what proves he’s a psychologist. Lots of other folks did empirical work too. Einstein did, and he wasn’t a psychologist. He was a physicist.

Yes or No?

At the end, what is the answer on the tip of your tongue, yes or no?

“And Yes I said Yes I said yes.”

At the end of a great book, a day, a night or the closing hours of the bar, what could possibly be your answer? At the end of this, that or whatever, it’s always Last Call, and the answer must always be yes. There’s no other way to go out but by shouting the affirmative to all and any who will listen. The human spirit demands this. PS I didn’t write that, but I wish I did.

Men and Women, Love and Sex

Men give love to get sex. Women give sex to get love. Author: The smartest woman I know (my own mother). It’s a bit trite, but there’s a lot of truth to it, no? We bash the older generation as primitives, but the more I talk to them, the more they seem to understand the realities of race and gender that so many of us in the “progressive and liberated” generations that followed have obfuscated with censorious PC confusion, denial and nonsense straight into well meaning falsehood. Each generation creates its own set of ideological revolutionaries. Some of this is sheer rebellion, but a lot of it is just the spirit of the dialectic. Time honored wisdom is tossed out as old wives’ tales, and the New Science rewrites all laws and calls it progress. By the time we reach middle age, we realize with chagrin that the old fuddy-duddies were right more often than wrong. And on the cusp of that painful admission, we finally understand the nature of wisdom, as old and basic as man himself. The American Indians revere their elders (elderly). All over the world and all down through time, cultures have taught us that wisdom lies with the eldest generation, the living stores of wisdom. Since when in our ultra-technological, fission-busting, speed of sound breaking, just in time, up to the minute, metrosexual neon world village did that oldest of human maxims cease to be true?

"Hindu Ethics and the West," by Dota

An excellent essay by Dota on Hindu ethics and how they are incomprehensible to the Westerner.

Hindu Ethics and the West

By Dota

Dedication: This essay is dedicated to all the valiant peoples of European ancestry who stand against the modern currents of our time in defense of Western Civilization. You are not alone. Before we jump right into the thick of things, I’d like to explicitly state that I am not an expert in Hinduism or Philosophy. I have no doubt that after reading this essay some of you are going to challenge the arguments presented here, and I encourage you to do so. Some of you might have questions, and I might not have answers to them all. I do however encourage all of you to research this fascinating subject and formulate your own opinions. The purpose of this essay is to introduce you to the basics of Hindu ethical thought in light of Arthur Danto’s argument of why they are not compatible with Western ethics. This essay will first introduce the reader to Danto’s argument followed by an application of Hindu ethics in the context of certain stories from the Mahabharat and Ramayan; stories I grew up reading in Hindi class as a child. I will then attempt to draw a comparison between western morality and Dharma. The scope of this essay is purely introductory and despite the mind-boggling diversity of the Hindu tradition, I will try and focus on mainstream Hindu practices and beliefs. In his monumental book Mysticism and Morality (1972), Arthur Coleman Danto argues that the Indian ethical systems present within the Hindu and Buddhist traditions are not accessible to most Westerners. I would like to confess that I have not personally read Mysticism and Morality since I have not been able to find a copy of the book in Saskatoon. It is available in the University Library which I unfortunately have no access to. For the purpose of this essay, we shall focus exclusively on the Hindu tradition and leave Buddhism out.  An excellent breakdown of the contents of this book can be accessed at Ralf Dumain’s blog here. Danto’s major overarching argument is that the factual beliefs upon which Hindu ethics are constructed are not accessible to westerners, and hence the ethical systems themselves are of little value in the west. What are some of these factual beliefs? Many Hindu apologists will attempt to render Hinduism immune to critique by insisting that Hinduism has no doctrines or central creed. That Hindu beliefs cannot be homogenized. However said apologists will also do everything in their power to link any Indian influences on outside cultures to the great monolithic Hinduism. I refer to this tactic as the shape-shifting apology. Thus Hinduism is rendered a monolith or a phantom depending on the apologist’s agenda. However as Meera Nanda points out, Hinduism certainly possesses beliefs that are core and non negotiable (caste, Karma, Dharma) which we shall examine. In Hindu tradition, one’s caste is a function of one’s Karma, which in turn is a function of one’s Dharma. If a person’s karma (actions) fulfills his dharma (obligations/duties), he is rewarded in the next life and may find himself born in a higher caste. Let us assume that a Brahmin sins by committing murder and is reincarnated as a Dalit in his next life. He is barred from accessing the village well and is forcefully segregated with a host of untouchability laws. On the face of it, it seems that justice has been served. However all of this depends on the existence of the interlocking forces of Karma and Dharma. To my knowledge, the Hindu texts do not attempt to prove their existence, but simply assume that their existence is a fact. If one were to encounter a Dalit enduring social oppression, would it be moral to assist him/her? If Karma exists, then the answer is no, as that Dalit is reaping what was sowed in a previous lifetime. If Karma does not exist, then ignoring the plight of a suffering soul would be rightly regarded as callous indifference in Western ethical thought. Danto points out:

“…that if the factual beliefs of India to which I refer are false, there is very little point in Indian philosophy, and very little room for serious application of Indian moral beliefs. . .” (21)

In the context of caste, Ralph Dumain summarizes Danto’s position as thus:

 “Danto argues, as did Max Weber, that the caste system of Hinduism resists universality, as members of different castes are regarded as members of different species. This leads to a peculiar kind of toleration, just as we tolerate animals because they can’t be like us. Hindus will tolerate the actions of others so long as their behavior is defined as licit for their caste. Therefore, the morality operant in this scenario stands or falls on the presupposed factual beliefs about caste.” (34-5)“

When one studies the Mahabharat, one is immediately struck by two things: The enormous literary value of this monumental epic and the shocking conduct of the amoral trickster god Krishna. In his paper Maximizing Dharma: Krsna’s Consequentialism in the Mahabharata, Joseph Dowd points out:

“For example, consider Krsna’s treatment of Bhisma, a warrior for the Kauravas. Bhisma knows that Sikhandi, a warrior for the Pandavas, was a woman in his previous life. Krsna tells the Pandavas to set Sikhandi on Bhisma. Bhisma refuses to fight Sikhandi, who deals Bhisma a mortal wound. Another example concerns Karna, another warrior for the Kauravas. When Arjuna fights Karna, Karna’s chariot wheel gets stuck. Karna asks Arjuna to let him get his chariot unstuck before continuing with the battle. But Krsna reminds Arjuna of Karna’s misdeeds and tells him to kill Karna immediately. During a mace fight between Bhima and Duryodhana, Krsna tells Bhima to violate the warrior code by using a low blow.”

Joseph Dowd argues that Dharma (now referring to the Cosmic order) needs to be maintained and can only be done so if the Pandava faction triumphs over the evil Kaurava faction in the war. Krishna himself justifies his shocking actions as thus:

“Ye could never have slain them in battle by fighting fairly! King Duryodhana also could never be slain in a fair encounter! The same is the case with all those mighty car-warriors headed by [Bhisma]! From desire of doing good to you, I repeatedly applied my powers of illusion and caused them to be slain by diverse means in battle. If I had not adopted such deceitful ways in battle, victory would never have been yours […] You should not take it to heart that this foe of yours hath been slain deceitfully.”

Let us once again apply Arthur Danto’s principle in determining the moral validity of Krishna’s actions. It would seem that the morality of Krishna’s actions rest heavily on the existence of Dharma. If Dharma exists, and if its existence is threatened, then agents must do everything in their power to prevent this catastrophe. It would seem that Krishna’s actions would then be moral. However if Dharma does not exist, Krishna’s actions are clearly opportunistic. Let us now examine another feature of Hindu morality: The lack of intent. Ralph again explains Danto’s point of view:

“The infamous story of Arjuna is the key, the sophistical argument that Arjuna fight and kill with detachment. (88) One must perform one’s actions according to one’s calling, to be true to it without extraneous motivation. (91) This attitude is enabled by the detachment of self from body, so that one does not identify with the necessary actions of one’s body. Danto finds this to be bone-chilling, Nietzschean and inhuman. The factual beliefs postulated are radically at odds with morality. (94-5) Danto ponders possible points of comparison of this notion of detachment with Kant, but insists that morality has no meaning without systems of rules. (96) Intention is decisive; it ties the agent to the action. The Gita robs actions of their moral qualities by detaching them from their agents. (98) This has some resemblance to Nietzsche’s position. (99)”

A look at the Ramayan story of Shravan Kumar should illustrate this point clearly. I had read this story in Hindi class when I was in grade 5 and the chapter was aptly named: आज्ञाकारी पुत्र (The Obedient Son). The protagonist Shravan Kumar embarks upon a pilgrimage with his blind aged parents who are unable to make the journey alone. En route they grow weary from thirst and request a drink of water from their son. Shravan wanders over to a nearby stream and begins to draw water. Unfortunately, King Dashratha (Ram’s father) happens to be hunting nearby, mistakes Shravan for a deer, and fires. A wounded Shravan requests that the horrified king complete Sharavan’s task and bring water to the blind parents. The king complies but is recognized by the blind parents as an impostor; whereupon the king sadly confesses his accidental misdeed. Distraught beyond measure, the parents curse the king that he too would die a lonely death pining for his son. The parents then perish. The curse comes to pass as the king lies on his deathbed longing for his son who is in exile. Thus the king is punished for his action (karma) without his intention even being considered. The moral maxim of letting the punishment fit the crime cannot be applied if intention is divorced from action. In Western morality, intention is a key variable and the Bible confirms this in numerous places:

“Then the Lord said to Joshua: “Tell the Israelites to designate the cities of refuge, as I instructed you through Moses, so that anyone who kills a person accidentally and unintentionally may flee there and find protection from the avenger of blood.” Joshua 20:1-3

In the sermon on the mount, Jesus adds an additional dimension of intent when proclaiming:

“But I say to you, That whoever looks on a woman to lust after her has committed adultery with her already in his heart.” Matthew 5:28

Also consider the following story from the Mahabharat which is included in Dowd’s paper:

“In one passage, the Pandavas trick Drona, a warrior for the Kauravas, into thinking that his son Asvatthaman is dead. At Krsna’s suggestion, they kill an elephant named Asvatthaman and then tell Drona, “Aswatthaman hath been slain” (Ganguli, 1883-1896a). As a result, Drona withdraws from the war to grieve. Now, whether or not the Pandavas had killed the elephant, the outcome would have been the same: Drona would have been tricked into thinking that Asvatthaman was dead. However, truthfulness is a supreme norm in Hindu thought (Buitenen, 1975, p. 177; Goldman, 1997, p. 189; Khan, 1965, p. 204). By killing the elephant, the Pandavas ensure that they are technically speaking the truth when they say, “Aswatthaman hath been slain.”

From a Hindu perspective, the actions of the Pandavas are moral, however from a western point of view, this still amounts to lying as the intent was to deceive.

Morals Versus Dharma

In his brilliant and succinct article Anatomy of an Indian, Aakar Patel states:

“Is Shri Ram’s murder of Vali and his treatment of Sita moral? Is Shri Krishna’s advice to Arjun on Karna moral? Is his action on Jayadrath moral? Is Acharya Drona’s behavior with Eklavya moral? Our texts say: “Yes.” They are right according to dharma (if the question is asked in an Indian language). But they are wrong morally. Dharma is opportunistic, while morals are not.”

Lets expand upon this point with the Ramayan story of Ram’s murder of Vali. At the behest of Vali’s younger brother Sugriva, Ram agrees to murder the latter’s older brother Vali, who has threatened the younger brother’s life. Ram executes a ruse where Sugriva issues a challenge to Vali, whereupon Vali accepts and emerges forward to participate in the duel. Ram ambushes Vali from behind and kills him with an arrow. A dying Vali questions Ram’s morality, and the latter responds that Vali failed in his obligation of forgiving his younger brother’s past transgressions. This was evil, and Ram was tasked with eradicating evil. Clearly Vali did violate his dharma as an older brother by not making amends with Sugriva, and the significance of brotherly duties are clearly illustrated in the Mahabharat story of Arjun’s wow and Yuddistira. So dharma was satisfied, but what about morality? Indeed, from a western point of view this murder was indeed cowardly and immoral; and what further compounds Ram’s duplicity is that he had committed this deed in exchange for Sugriva’s troops which were needed for the siege of Lanka. Dharma is concerned with duty and not morality where the emphasis is on fulfilling obligations or risking misfortune. Dharma is radically at odds with Western morality.

Conclusion

The purpose of this essay was not to prove the inherent superiority of the western moral system over the Indian one, but to alert Westerners of the folly of imitating a foreign set of beliefs without understanding them. Western morality is a highly developed and universal code which is adaptable, humane and has evolved beyond the Bible from which it originates. Upon it the modern world stands, and it cannot be replaced by any code of the Orient. For the purpose of fair discourse I would also like to recommend Hindu Ethics: A Philosophical Study by Roy Perret, who challenges many of Danto’s interpretations and his central argument.

Lousy Life or Happy Death? Which to Choose?

Jake writes:

Now about the Dravidians and my Nazi like comments, I know it sounds extreme to say they should be dead. I was arguing with Steve about this but given that through centuries of social and biological engineering through this “Indian” culture, some of these people are socially excluded from a lot of spheres in life and don’t have the ability to compete with other groups when in terms of creating and having a “happy life”. They face exclusion from every society they go to and the only way they can leverage society towards them is to breed in massive numbers or resort to aggregate behavior where the host society is affected to be focused towards them. So really their entire life is a battle and involves eternal misery/suffering. Don’t you really think it would have been wise if they didn’t exist and instead went to history along with every other group that was absorbed/destroyed through wars, migrations and conquests?

I will always take existence over nonexistence and life over death. Even a very miserable life is preferable to death, but then I am not suicidal. I have experienced quite a bit of what others would call total misery, and I even learned to like it or at least live with it. OCD in a way is Hell on Earth, and we just learn to live with it. There are some people who have looked at my life and said, “How can he not be depressed? Look at his life?” But at the time I was not depressed at all. In fact I was quite happy. Even a crappy life has some value to me. I am not one who expects life to be wonderful and an endless bowl of cherries. To exist at all in at least a halfway decent life is good enough and trumps death and nullification of all in every sense.

The Ultimate Uselessness of “Freedom” under Capitalist Democracy

Look. At some point, the concept of “freedom” is complete bullshit.

Are you “free” to reinstate feudalism? No, you are not. If you try it, we will kill you.

Are you “free” to set up some Nazi-like fascism? No, you are not. If you try to do it, we are going to kill you.

Are you “free” to perpetuate an evil system like caste? No, you are not.

Are you “free” to reinstate segregation and legal racial discrimination? You must certainly are not. If you try to do it, we are going to kill you.

Are you going to set up your White state and throw all the non-Whites out? Try it and we will have to kill you.

None of these are any kind of freedoms at all. These are the sort of things that people rave about when they talk about “freedom.” These are the glories of democracy. I am not saying that democracy per se is bad, but whenever some idiot starts raving about freedom, think about this. Freedom isn’t necessarily great.

Capitalism offers people the freedom to starve, the freedom to sicken and die, and the freedom to lose your home and end up homeless on the streets, where you will sicken, starve and die.

In return for these glorious freedoms, I have the right to march off to a polling booth. I can print up a useless sign and wave it around. I can write useless rants on the Internet. None of these expressive freedoms will do anything to mitigate the real deadly and mortal freedoms above. In return for my useless expressive freedoms, I have the freedom to have the system end my life. Expressive freedoms don’t negate or render useless mortal freedoms. On the contrary, mortal freedoms render expressive freedoms preposterous.

In return for the right to sicken, be shelterless, starve and die, I get the right to wave a sign around. Why would I trade the former for the latter? If you offered to pull my sign-waving rights for the right to food, shelter and a doctor, I might just take you up.

I’m not arguing for gulags and bullets in the head. I’m giving you something to think about the next time some moron starts shouting “freedom” at you.

Do you see what a joke it is when capitalists start ranting about “freedom?” Do you really think that the master and the serf are independent agents confronting each other and making “contracts” on an equal footing, each “free” to make this or that decision about what to do or what not to do? This is what the capitalists want you to believe. Do you really believe that?

Two Hypothetical Questions Regarding Bigfoot

From the comments. What would you do?

OK, so you are in the woods, minding your own business, when suddenly you are kidnapped by a small group of Sasquai (Bigfoots) a la the Ostman story (let’s just say, suspending any disbelief you may have.) My question is:

1. If you have a chance to escape, do you take it, or do you stay with them and learn all you can about them, try to learn their language, if they have one, etc.?

2. They indicate that they want you mate with a Bigfoot of the opposite sex, so do you oblige them, or decline? Let’s assume that you are with them long enough to believe they are a type of human, like a hybrid of an ancient line of robust hominins and modern humans, so they aren’t apes, per se, though they are living in a very primitive manner and they may not have the entire cognitive range of modern humans.

If you decide to mate, then why? Are you afraid of saying no, or is it impolite to turn down such a generous offer from your hosts? Or perhaps you are interested in doing it for science? Could you possibly be attracted to an 8 foot tall, 800 pound hairy humanoid?

It will be interesting to see how question 2 is answered by both women and men.

Discuss. 🙂

Unfortunately, the bitches, I mean the women, are all up in arms that this question was even asked. They say that no woman would ever have a choice about whether to have sex or not with the male Bigfoot, therefore we are asking them whether or not they would enjoy getting raped by a Bigfoot, or by anyone for that matter. It’s quite possible that the woman would have no choice in the matter indeed, therefore, this question should probably be asked of women only.

I had no idea, in my male centered way of thinking, that I was asking women if they would enjoy being raped or not. The thought simply never occurred to me.

Check out Bigfoot Forums for the hottest Bigfoot discussions.

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