Critique of Morality

What should I say of this word that has become the two dots of every line that is sketched, skeleton of every edifice that is ever made? As deep as I can gaze into the abyss of my childhood, I recall only moral teachings- clear distinction between right and wrong, without reason, without consequences, without question. But since the time I have started observing these moral values I see only vagueness, which results more in conflicts rather than mending them. Let me caution you that being immoral does not mean inhuman to me, as some would interpret it to. Inhuman is not the only negation of morality. I feel morality as the greatest hurdle, the disease which we should get rid off to think rationally.

Reason of why morality is so dangerous is that it gives you an illusion of right. A phantasmagoria that you are on the path of virtue and verily you can achieve ends on the current path. In truth, you are driven by the instinct of pity or righteousness with no idea whatsoever of what this would result in. Even the basic understanding of the problem is masked by this morality.

Let us see some very basic problems and the way morality seeks to tackle them. What is more important than hunger and poverty? The “good morality” ascribes poverty to the fate of different men. And the men of better fate should toil to remove poverty by various means. It assumes that one day there would be enough charitable persons, enough hard working persons who will ultimately end the reign of poverty. So in order to achieve its end what “morality” teaches is charity. Charity here is not only donation, it includes the feeling of men. A totally flawed view of origin and solution!

Poverty is not the child of Fate. If we look a little deeper, the origin of poverty is weakness. Weakness, that has its origin not in the era we live but when man was struggling to survive. The same weakness propagated all those years with the help of law. Man with stronger will and physique snatched whatever he felt like snatching. Then he made laws to protect whatever he has acquired. So weak became poor and strong became rich. As the time passed by, weak was made aware by those strong breed that -“Look you have your fate. You can’t escape it. What is better for you is to live like that or strive to become strong.”That is why we see the solution to poverty is to become rich. Religion played an important part in inscribing those words on the minds of everyone. Earth does not give or take anything from anyone the day one is born. So “morality” remembers what was taught to it later by the one who discovered “morality”. Solution by morality is charity. Do not mistake me but how can a thing be solved by charity when its origin is injustice. The way I feel – Every able bodied man is capable of feeding himself and leading a poverty free life if he is not restricted by useless laws such inheritance, predetermined possession and other similar laws. Laws, that have no basis but have the backing of religious teachings.

Another issue – discrimination on the basis of caste. I take this because in India it is prevalent even now. “Morality” by the way of religion again teaches that some men are born so and so and their work is decided by God. Branding humans by birth. While old “morality” done the task of defining humans, let’s see how the new “morality” aims to solve them. The new “morality” seeks refuge again in charity. We should give reservations so that one mythical day would arrive when everyone is not discriminated. They completely turn blind-eye to the origin of problem which is in fact dogmatic beliefs and seek to establish a new harmony between what had been believed and what is followed. Similar is the treatment of women. The problem lies in old morality and they find solution giving them special status through means of reservation. Morality of charity, I am sick of it.

There are numerous such issues whose solution is always sought by absurd morality. Maybe I will extend them in my future posts.

How should a man behave? Another great issue of morality. A man who avoid certain food, wears allowed clothes, speaks like a tamed parrot and abstain from woman other than allowed by law(religious or not) is a moral man, a good man. I cannot understand how these came as parameters of morality. Food is characteristic of region or taste. Clothes are too. The other two moral values are really out of my reach. I cannot understand how they make a good man. All these moral values had only aroused conflicts. Conflicts between poles of morality.

I see the reason of Marx being misunderstood as the same “morality”. These moral men never understand the cause and effect relationship. They see themselves as greatest moralists, replacing one morality with another when one has become old enough to be replaced.

The sickness of morality is everywhere, whether or not they conform to reality. Things you learn, in your education books, at your job, the way you react and even the way you are cremated.

Whatever little I have learned till know from History, from contemporary practices, from my own imagination, for I know nothing of future, solutions to problems or in fact which seem to us as solutions can be found only if we stop categorizing things as Good and evil. Giving definite corners to good and evil lead only to clashes. These clashes in the mean time redefine good and evil, for they never exist, they only change corners and set the stage for another clash. What we need is to think beyond Good and Evil, beyond morality, towards cause and effect.    

Unjust Justice

“Justice” is a term that should be scrapped from the human invented dictionary. Literally, no matter how much impartial it may sound to our hearing senses, when analysed with a piercing, critical and impartial eye it is the most partial thing which is ever devised by humans. Yes! justice is partial. It is not concrete in itself.

Unjust Justice

Is justice something divine which befalls living creatures as intended by God? I say so because essence of God is justice. Or is justice that we all expect to be delivered in the form of hell or heaven? Or is justice a manifestation of God’s will expressed through the actions of highly intellectual individuals? Or is justice the autocratic “Nature” which seems to be independent of good and evil? Does justice depend on place, climate or nation? Does justice depend on time, epoch or era? Is justice the level of gratification achieved by a sufferer or is justice the level of discomfort experienced by a criminal? Or is it a perfect blend of the previous two?

Whatever may be justice but it is certain that none of the above accounts for the impartiality of justice. Rather they make it a phenomenon dependent on various factors, factors which in themselves are not concrete and certain. Each of them has evolved as the human mind wanders through the abyss of thoughts. Dichotomy between good and evil has led man to discover justice. Good and evil keep on changing with epochs and with magnitudes of land and hence justice.

Now if God’s will is justice then who is going to fix it. God himself has never told of any specific justice. If religion is justice then do I need to remind you that it has large variety, each of the one claiming to be right in the most profound sense.

Sticking to righteousness and seeking hell and heaven is most comical of all forms of justice. One thinks that abstaining from what is bad can surely leave him on the bed with roses of some mythical world. Keep your eyes closed, your hands bound, your mouth stitched, your legs tied and think of God and you will be in heaven. All good and evil to be decided after we have passed this torment of Earth. Well, then it is foolish to take revenge when it is certain to be delivered. It is useless to stand against oppression because you know you are right and will have your place reserved. And if you decide here, on this foul smelling earth, who is wrong and who is right then what is the point in delivering justice twice. Is it right to punish for a crime twice? Maybe if the one of them is not enough. Which one is not enough? Both because if one would have been enough the other one would not have existed.

Justice through elected men is solely dependent on those men, men who have eaten the same food, breathed the same air, lived in the environment as we have, are as susceptible as we are to vices, lust and greed. Can their inclination to impartiality remain all throughout their life or even same at a particular time among the crowd of the similar ones who deliver justice?  

Nature and justice are terms which should not be related even in the remotest of sense. Nature is a dictatorship. Follow it or perish. Nature does not discriminate between good and evil. In case of famine a priest suffers as much as a murderer. Earthquake shakes equally the house of a rich as it would of a poor, without caring who will suffer how much, without estimating how much is enough. So to say that nature is a means of justice is nothing but foolishly naïve.

No particular moment in history or time can claim that justice in its full grandeur walked on its soil because justice itself has changed over the time.

Different nations have different law, each one claiming to be just. While one punishes for a thing, the other treats it normal or one punishes harsher the other with mildness. So which one is true justice? Justice that is appropriate to its crime, appropriate in extent, appropriate in the level of soothingness it induces in the sufferer and the extent of guilt it provides for the criminal. In fact soothingness and guilt are different for each one of us. So either the law must change for each individual to provide the perfect, divine blend of justice or it must admit that justice is partial. And if justice is partial then it is better that we wipe off this word from the dictionary of humanity because such a thing can never be delivered.       

RECALCITRANCE: A novel on the events of 1857

I couldn’t have asked for more apt hour to write about “Recalcitrance” when there is already one going across India. “Oppressed” and “meek” rising from their dreamless slumber. This recalcitrance is not restricted to only one country but is fast disseminating to the whole world.  Spare me as I am not going to talk about the current revolt anymore. Instead, I will concentrate on the one that happened 154 years ago.

“Recalcitrance: A novel on the events of 1857” written by Mr. Anurag Kumar of Lucknow is a significant composition which bring to our sight how the revolution would have been among the masses, the commoners. It will be better if I first say something about the background in which the novel is setup. The novel specifically deals with a city called Lucknow, located in India. India was in the midst of First War of Independence, 1857. The struggle which initially started with the mutiny of soldiers refusing to bite cartridges, spread to the masses like a wild fire. Everyone was devoted to stop the Britishers from defiling their religion and culture. Lucknow played an extremely crucial role in this war. I think this much background is enough to enjoy the novel, revealing more will do injustice to the writer. The novel contains a lot of characters representing different sections and religions of the society who were united by the common cause. Some of them are saints and intellectuals who contribute with their sermons and wisdom, others by the rebellious spirit of youthfulness and remaining play the part with actions driven by their conscience. Thus we see a wonderful representation of all the factions of the society. Recalcitrance’s content is spread across thirty-two chapters with a glossary at the end to assist the usage of Hindi words in the novel.

Residency before siege

Although it was difficult to find a central character but “Chote Bhaiya” gets mentioned most of the time. I lead to this conclusion because he is the only one whose family, love and friends are described in a comprehensive way. The novel has its basis in the siege of Residency and the relief attempts by the Britishers. Along with the historical part we also get an insight of the lives of commoners, their sacrifices and their vacillations. The love life of Chote Bhaiya gives zest to the one who reads. One is also fascinated by the character of Farheen. Some other important characters are Tek Chand, Karim Kahn and Narenderlal. For more I recommend you read the novel.

Another thing which is not so important but I liked it for some reason, maybe because we were slave for nearly 200 years, is the usage of British version of English. Leaving a few instances you will find most of the words following British standards. I was tired of American words used in every article or other compositions and found it quite refreshing.

Although I want to talk more about the novel but that would reveal more than required. Recalcitrance is an extremely effective novel bringing out to the light the significance of Lucknow city in the revolt about which very few are aware of. Even the natives don’t know it. So if you have a taste for history and simultaneously want to enjoy a novel I recommend you read it.

Residency now...in Lucknow

In the end I would to thanks Mr. Anurag Kumar, who go by the username”@anuragkumarlko” on Twitter  and which is the only way I know  him, for providing the soft copy of the novel to me. Enjoy the “Recalcitrance” because that’s where the future and present lies.   

Futility of War

"It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets."This assertion by Voltaire summarizes an essential trait of war. The trait is "kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets".

You can look for a war or more precisely identify a war by this quality. That is, in a war, it is definite that there is a massacre and that to justified to the society by some potent means. Now to prove it to you I will not involve in circumlocution of words, rather I will spill out facts and leave it to you to make further judgements.

Let us look at the casualties in the World War I. There were 16.5 million reported deaths.21 million were wounded. Out of the total deaths, 9.7 million were military deaths and 6.8 million were civilians. The Entento powers (Allied forces) had 5.7 million deaths. On the other hand Central Powers (Axis) had 4 million death counts. We can conclude, regardless of the result both sides suffered heavy losses. We got what we were looking for. The first one being "killing in large numbers" and the other "to the sound of trumpets". That is "a massacre" and justification to that massacre. If it was not justified, World War II would not have happened.

Moving on to World War II the total civilian death count was between 40 to 52 million. A significant part of it is attributed to famines and war related diseases. Military deaths ranged between 22 to 25 million. USSR alone had 26.6 million deaths.80 % of Soviet males born in 1923 didn't survive World War II. Jews holocaust deaths ranged between 4.8 million to 5.8 million. What can be safely concluded from the above facts is that those who suffered most included ordinary people, who were neither a part nor would have desired to be a part of the war.

The wrath of war didn’t spare the innocent. Neither did it distinguish the culprit. One would say, like a typical American, that World War II was a "good war" since it aimed at ending the atrocities under Third Reich. But to confront them I would like to put forward some more facts and these facts themselves speak about the atrocities of the Allies. It is not possible to bring out every single incidence in such a small briefing. Civilian air raid deaths that happened in Germany were around 5,43000 much higher than that in Britain, which were 60,400. Between 1939 and 1945 Allies dropped 3.4 million tons of bombs which averaged out to be 27,700 tons of bombs a month. Apart from the destruction caused by arsenals, a war is generally characterized by rapes, looting and destruction of enemy properties.

Late in the World War II, Yugoslavia's communist partisans complained about rapes and looting committed by the Soviet Army while traversing their country. Milovan Djilas later recalled Joseph Stalin's response,

"Does Djilas, who is himself a writer, not know what human suffering and the human heart are? Can't he understand it if a soldier who has crossed thousands of kilometers through blood and fire and death has fun with a woman or takes some trifle?" The total resources wasted in the World War II could have provided for every single need on the planet. Since September 2001 terrorism has killed 4300 civilians whereas the war on terror has killed more than 2 million civilians. Each year U.S. spends more on war and destruction than the entire planet spends on health care .Even the remotest of reason could not be found to justify these wars.

                                                                                                Modern wars have been bloodier than their medieval counterparts because weapon’s technology had made it too sophisticated to be controllable by Homo sapiens. Although the wars in medieval and earlier times were definitely heinous, modern wars are more destructive due to the nexus between corporations and the poles involved in a war. Big corporations disguise the brutality of their deeds in the name of professionalism. I would like to put before you the rearmament drive by Hitler which has the backing of many well to do American firms. Ford's German branch plant has posted heavy losses in early 1930's, however, with the help of Hitler's rearmament drive, the Ford-Werke's annual profits rose spectacularly from 63,000 Reichmarks in 1935 to 1,287,800 Reichmarks in 1939. When Americans landed in Normandy in 1944 and captured their first German trucks, they discovered that these vehicles were powered by engines produced by American firms such as Ford and General Motors. Many firms who were struggling with the Great Depression were made to boom by the Hitler's rearmament program. While the workers in the factories were reduced to a little more than serfs, corporations and war materials were booming with new energy. Futility of the defaced word "Professionalism " is justified by a statement by the Chairman of General Motors in 1939.On the eve of war, Alfred P. Sloan, defended doing business under Third Reich on the pretext of profit. German subsidiary of IBM, Dehomag , provided the Nazis with punched-card readers.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     In nutshell, there are numerous instances where the war, bootless and illogical, is supplemented by equally futile and illogical business.

                                        Now after citing facts, let us have a look at how a war is waged and its outcome. A general question would be how come so many, at the same time, can feel in favour of a war. It is possible to fool a few, undoubtedly, but how learned scholars, big politicians, billions of ordinary people can feel in the same way. The answer to this is simple. It is the government which controls the major sources of communication. So for those who feel ignorance is bliss, I must say the number is sufficiently high, do not hesitate to believe what their government has already prepared for them in the name of patriotism. Remember when I quoted Voltaire-"to the sound of trumpets"-“the sound of trumpets” is nothing but the dissemination of a feeling of false patriotism. Those who fall prey to patriotism and nationalism include both ordinary citizens and soldiers.

                   Outcome of war is always annihilation, annihilation of the purpose for which it is fought, annihilation of thing which was supposed to be untouched by the war. Usually, the later is more common. You can see all this in the wars of 20^th century and 21^st century. The cause, for which war was supposed to be fought, deserted itself from those who were fighting it. What remained was the madness and desire to kill, to destroy, devour. A war can only sow a seed for another war because “like gives birth to like”.