So far so good...

Heard about the guy who fell off a skyscraper? On his way down past each floor, he kept saying to reassure himself: So far so good…so far so good…so far so good. How you fall doesn’t matter. It’s how you land!

These lines from ‘La Haine’ pretty accurately describe the scenario of environmental disaster where man in his denial keeps asserting—so far so good…so far so good. The fall is pleasurable but for how long? How far? Where will he land? These are not bothering his conscience right now. Every now and then he needs some anaesthetic –in every epoch he needs new anaesthetic—to keep him distracted and distanced from the senselessness of his existence. He invented religion to keep himself busy with some meaningfulness and now his religion is consumption; a consumer of his own life as if he had to earn his own life back from mortgagee. I can hardly find a difference between those blatant priests of ancient religions who determined patterns of human life and the “corporate priests” of our time. They both produce a tamed, predictable, harmless, bootless and believing individual; ready to believe anything for the greater good, for magnificent future, for phantasmagoria of unimaginable, in fact a subject of ludicrousness. A little unbiased view can tell you what horrendous individuals these corporations produce although there is no decline in the amount of collective bovine pride that is boasted off.

By the time we begin to comprehend our environment, our existence and our objective, we are already entangled in the chains of consumerism. We are neck-deep in its water and it becomes our governing instinct in every endeavour. Each solution to a subtle problem is a new product, new base of consumers and new set of producers. This is the reason we see passive solutions to environmental crisis. Consumerism as a solution to consumerism! New consumerism to old consumerism! Use efficient light bulbs, plant a few trees—especially to break some record, recycle your paper, switch off lights for one hour on Earth’s day, recycle some more paper and fix your tap if it is leaking as if those were the causes of the climatic catastrophe. By all these “potent” methods of conservation, we can actually defeat the monster. The rape of nature is compensated by arranging a marriage: marriage to the raper. These useless methods will lead us nowhere but in the labyrinth of “so far so good”. What we need is a radical change of thought of how we evaluate our position with respect to our surroundings.

Two main reasons, as I see it, of why environmental crisis has reached a stage as dangerous as of now are wage slavery and private property. I would caution not to misinterpret private property with personal property. Every man and woman has the right to enjoy whatever he/she earns of his labour, i.e. personal property. And it is no better than stealing to reap where someone else has sowed i.e. private property. Private property is a product of social labour which, due to the laws of ownership, assigns products of labour to the one who owns means of production. Personal property is something you produce by your own labour. Now back to our discussion. The reason why we are facing such difficulties in handling of Nature is the borrowing of concept of ownership while transiting from Feudal ages to Capitalism. You see, when we bring individual ownership of lands, machines or any other means of production by the pretext of inheritance or capital, we are actually making the sense of having more privileged than any other intellectual sense. Now the one who owns has greater power in terms of laws than the one who really produces. Having sense master over all other senses!  It is this sense which led to the slavery by feudal lords and it is the same sense, with a little modification and a human face, which leads to wage slavery. To make this game seem fair, even a wage slave can climb up the ladders of slavery and become the one who can have wage slaves himself. This seems as something providing equality. You can be a wage slave today and you can have yourself many some other day contrary to those times where once a slave, always a slave. It makes people to compete to be either one who serves or the one who make others serve. In the process, few names change—sometimes swapping occurs and it is life.

Now one may ask what has wage slavery has to do with environmental crisis? It has to do a lot although we cannot suspect it because our stomach depends on it. And why our stomach is slave to wage? Because ownership of resources is decided by inheritance or capital and not by those who work on it. In fact we have developed quite sophisticated means of credit-debt system so that even if one is not benefitted by the fortunes of his predecessors, he can use the system to step up another web of wage slavery to amass huge wealth and then continue the pattern which has been followed since, seemingly, eternity. Who will suspect it as we are doing such a noble deed of providing jobs? Jobs for what? Jobs to consume and continue the worthless cycle of mindless consumption! Jobs to outrage the modesty of nature every single time we discover useless luxury to entertain ourselves with. It is not that I oppose materialistic view of life. It is not that I support an ascetic lifestyle of some sage in India who would go hungry to please God. It is not that I practise self-denial, self-destruction, perishing for some imaginary cause: I am no priest, I am no sage but one should do labour for what he wants. If you feel that your desire cannot be satisfied with what you have and it is too hard for you to take tough morsels of life as they come to you then go and work with your own bare hands for the item of luxury which fascinates you. Why do billions of people need to work as wage slaves for your fantasy, for your luxury? Why do billions of people need to think the way corporations, advertisements want them to think? That’s where the problem lays—Bovine mentality of people, herd instinct, millions mind thinking alike just like religion wanted them to. I am sure that atheism too is heading towards same bovine instinct. It will be disastrous if that happens. Man loses his contemplating power in herd and acquires the mind and idea of crowd. You see, if I make an item of luxury by my own hands, I have the full right to enjoy it and it produces no problem. Problem starts when people are dragged into the arena of mass production through wage slavery. It is not hard to imagine what deep dent billions of similar demands controlled through mass media produce on the face of Earth. Why same demands? Due to conditioning of human mind to consume, because of wage slavery to meet that false induced desire, because wage slaves working unaware of the catastrophe their slavery will warrant, because a tag of I own it. Why I own it? My parents left it for me, because I have capital from my wage slavery to buy the work of another wage slave whose wage is discriminated as his labour is physical and inferior compared to my intellectual labour and because I can measure that his labour requires less tiring of muscles and nerves than my own. Perhaps laughable assumptions and conclusions of history!

All these can be dealt with recycle of paper and turning off lights! People trained to consume without reason would obviously say so. People who value ”sense of having” more than the “sense of labour” would obviously say so. Biological inheritance transformed into property inheritance. All these laws framed, no matter they may seem trivial, by religious texts. Without the tag of ownership, one cannot have wage slavery. Without wage slavery there cannot be such ruthless exploitation of nature. In the name of fighting climatic battle we are plunged into another cyclone of consumption and this time with no guilt. In the words of Slavoj Žižek:

“This readiness to assume the guilt for the threats to our environment is deceptively reassuring: We like to be guilty since, if we are guilty, it all depends on us. We pull the strings of the catastrophe, so we can also save ourselves simply by changing our lives. What is really hard for us (at least in the West) to accept is that we are reduced to the role of a passive observer who sits and watches what our fate will be. To avoid this impotence, we engage in frantic, obsessive activities. We recycle old paper, we buy organic food, we install long-lasting light bulbs—whatever—just so we can be sure that we are doing something. We make our individual contribution like the soccer fan who supports his team in front of a TV screen at home, shouting and jumping from his seat, in the belief that this will somehow influence the game's outcome.” 

The Linguistic Farce

My mind is crocheting some of the most bizarre thoughts these days, however I need to be dry enough to soak them, I need more time to grasp and make a thorough structure out of them. These thoughts, I think, are quite radical and out of my domain too in current cognition. So any attempt to handle them unripe would only yield and taste sour to me and maybe bitter to whomsoever it may serve as a meal. Therefore, I will not play with it. Instead I will bite some more out of my earlier fruit—the fruit of language; this fruit taste sweet.

A few days ago I was contemplating of results had language—a fully formed one—been a gift of God. Though a sign language would not make much difference yet I choose a language with words and human ability to spoken language as a prerequisite to attack the beliefs of Abrahamic religions. You may refer to earlier ideas in my post – ‘Language and complexity of Universe’. I find this post a continuation of my earlier one. Here we will explore the treasure-trove of the strange events which language subjects us to.

Let us step into our cave—a cave of knowledge, rather speculative knowledge. Abrahamic religions, in fact all sorts of major religions never find themselves easy to shed light on how actually language was first learned by humans. Subsequently to fill up pits in their logic they dig up the soil of God and make it even—a leveled ground for humanity to walk on. However in the event of such cover up there is always a possibility of sinking due to heavy load of knowledge. Let us explore different possibilities.

 

We, as a result of our observation, can safely conclude that language is not an inborn quality; the ability to learn language can be inborn. Language need to be learned through conscious effort. What about Adam and Eve? What about those ‘lucky in the most unlucky sense’ human souls? What language they knew? Different Abrahamic religions claim, according to their beliefs, a language of their choice. They are adamant that man was fully aware of his being when he landed on earth and not just being but much more than that—much more in the sense of Language. You see, when we assume language as a divine gift we need to simultaneously assert that man need to know some words, symbol representations, meaning of the words as a prerequisite and how to ramble those words in order to make sense out of it. Let us be generous and assume even that for the sake of doing justice to our Generosity.

What does our generous deed reap? Or seed of our generosity got spoiled? We discover that we have “a father” even before the act of one becoming a father, just because of language. We have one knowing, both Adam and Eve, about “mother” even before existence of first mother is witnessed. We have testimonials of one knowing of son, brother, sister, daughter even before the event of actually having witnessed such an event gladly. All sorts of definitions of relationships existing before the actual occurrence for the very first time! Nomenclature of undiscovered elements—absurdity of epic proportions! Even Absurdity would jump out of shock and ask—‘Am I really absurd? I haven’t been defined yet, not experienced yet!’ You see the “Linguistic Farce” does not stop just at individual relationships. It goes onto every single dimension of life. Pre-history would be ashamed of itself. Now even before the first rose is seen by Adam, he knows of it. Senses are being betrayed and the act of defining is mocked. A square is fully formed in Adam’s and Eve’s mind just to laugh at those who observed and discovered a square, rather invented it. A surface is “round”, “flat” even before it is defined to be round or flat; a “wheel” is lurking in some corner of Adam’s mind only to be ignored till the time is ripe; a “freedom” brings joy even before one has been enslaved; “good” before first good deed or first defined good deed; “sin” before first sin. But wait sin was there! Yes the sin of forbidden fruit! What am I saying! Are fairy tales told without language? “Existence” before definition of existence! “Man” before knowledge of man; “Knowledge” before knowledge; “God” before God.

With this immense gift at his disposal and the ability to put will in the form of words in some finite sequence of words, you can imagine how he defied the act of doing, experiencing, sensing to the pinnacle of idiocy. Senses stoop to Brain and ask—‘Are we any use to you, my lord?’ The act of observing and defining is now secondary to the act of knowing—you know even before you saw, even before you touched, even before you felt, even before you smelt, heard, tasted and comprehended. I am sure you understood the drama we played here. You can guess now who created whom.  

Language and Complexity of Universe

Haven’t we heard the shout of complex to give up our claims of atheism? I mean complexity of universe, living species and all that has been observed. They, in their attempts to not unburden their weights of belief which has afflicted them since the time way beyond their reach, have chosen a new pretext. A reason of complexity in universe, that you may get to hear somewhere- “Science has brought us closer to God”. And also that science has revealed the complexity of creation of God. With their jaws dropped in amazement, unable to deny, enjoying the beauty, intricate details. Now they have a new reason, a new beginning, and a belief that will get stronger in the same extent we discover. This new reason, which has separated itself from traditional theism and shaped in a division called ‘Deism’. Man, to whom all knowledge comes from senses, material exposures, has suddenly found this exposure too complex to handle. The impression of previous belief is so much deep that the mind now refuses to return to its default shape. When the earlier concepts, of eternal reward, punishments, predetermination, miracles, etc. didn’t work to man’s skeptical, ever evolving school of thoughts, he suddenly jumped to dump them and replace the earlier hypothesis with a new one. Now he sees complexity everywhere. He finds himself as a means to explore the universe, designed to be explored. The sole purpose of creating this immense, intricate universe is the study of it by humans. I must say whether the universe is amazing or not, whether it is complex, designed or such benevolent terms, language is definitely mischievous. What man may find in his own discovery i.e. language is nothing in comparison to what he finds elsewhere.

Now we move to the more specific content of our discussion, that is, the complexity of universe. When we brand a thing as complex, using the precious words which we found, does that really mean it is complex? Complexity, which we find so much awe-inspiring, is actually a function of our own discovery and workings of our mind. Our discovery! Language! For a certain thing to be labeled as complex, we are in need of three building blocks. One is language with a word “complex” defined in it, so that we say- “Yes that entity is complex”. Another major requirement is of predefined set of things to which we can associate the word complex- to all that we learned and found difficult to grasp.  And the final ingredient required is learning of new things on the base of what we have already learned and marked it to be complex with an invisible flag of our memory. In all we have discussed till now we found that complexity is not absolute but a function of our own mind and way of thinking, which is in turn a function of our social interaction, the way society responds to external environment. There is no such thing as absolute complexity. A man, never seen a car, not even others drive would certainly find it complex if it is asked of him to race. Is that complex? Again you got to refer to all the points above. Complex arises out of what you know and what you find new. Unable to assimilate your own facultative limitations, your own process of comprehending environment; one is bound to arrive at the conclusion of complex, mysterious.

In these schemes of things I find a silent sinner which is hardly a matter of concern for many. That sinner is surprisingly language.  It gives a feeling of absoluteness. A deep seated content: soothing, absolute and firm. No need to ramble in search of creator, complexity of universe. You can pursue it for the sake of pursuing, for amusement but to know if there is really a designer you need to find from where originates the language. There is no more to be done if you can remove this veil. Of every idea which we hold for granted there is a gloomy, mysterious past which has very successfully disassociated itself from the idea, leaving the idea alone to survive on its own and impressing upon our mind -“certain absoluteness”. This “Absoluteness” is a child of language. Constant usage of ideas through language makes them certain and firm. Idea is severed from its body and we conceive certainty. Not willing to know what was the past. I see some scientist, philosophers, and almost all theologians so sure of these building blocks of languages that they rarely feel the need to find on what grounds the seeds were sowed. What Sun they faced! What Water they soaked! And the most important of all- Who served those ideas as a meal for all! Definitely humans are not willing to assimilate unless they are forced.

Language is the most important builder in any line of thought. When you say something of rose, you know nothing of it but talk in terms of metaphors. You describe its colour, shape, peculiar characteristics but you know nothing of absolute rose. And all those individual components come from your senses and another set of predefined constructs which are themselves slaves of language. Even science which boasts of it as “unbiased” and “factual” is heavily dependent on language. Let us take the example of zero- an extraordinary discovery of mankind. Measurements, equations and whatever you can think of is adorned with a zero either evident or hidden. What is "zero"? Zero is only a concept to represent nothingness. Not absolute in itself. Where can you find "zero"? Nowhere! What can we say of "Zero"? Nothing! It is only a concept. It can only be defined in relativistic terms. It cannot be observed but only represents a situation and that situation is itself unknown and is only assumed for some calculation. You can differentiate one, two, three quantities of anything but can you differentiate between zero quantity of different things. Can you differentiate between a zero arrived from adding two equal and oppositely signed numbers (negative numbers are again hypothetical) and a zero obtained from absence of counting? It has no existence except on paper. Can anyone find a zero for me? I am not judgemental here but questioning absoluteness. A few days ago I was confronted with the absoluteness of Pi, of being an eternal truth. Pi is the ratio of circle’s circumference to its diameter. Perhaps one should know the meaning of eternal when one talks of it. He wouldn’t have said it had he known that a perfect circle is to be found nowhere in nature. Its existence is only for humans and will end with humans. And yes of course the measurement of circumference to diameter ratio will not be approximated by rational numbers such as 22/7, 355/113, etc. if there was no zero, which as I have pointed out earlier is a mere concept on paper. Sometimes I think that humanity chokes on its own inventions, perplexed to the extent of divinity. People should base their thinking on materialism. I hear a common slogan now a days- “Science is our savior”. No doubt it has made us a totally distinguished species but life cannot be lived on pure science. There are things about which I wouldn’t even care to know to live my life. For as long you will be fascinated by the others, you will think of yourself as inferior, unable to assert to yourself with a “Yes to life”, unable to walk and think on your own, needing a stick to walk, to tell you what is right and what is wrong. Life is spontaneous and it is best if it is lived like that.

Done with that, I now want to explore what makes me think language is human invented. Human existence dates much back to the appearance of written languages. Sign languages being discovered as the earlier form of communication, cave paintings and all. There is nothing concrete providing a hint that first human knew to read and write. And it is impossible without syntax of language to have full- fledged spoken language, possible only if you have someone before yourself speaking that language, like we have our parents. One may say that God must have spoken to us the language but then it is virtually impossible to form language syntax from merely spoken language. Even if we assume that God gave us both syntax and spoken language when he first created us, it is impossible that such an able human wouldn’t communicate his thoughts through writing. Certainly these thoughts must reflect themselves in the first appearance of written communication that is documented. But there are none. There are only fantasy stories, aiming in the dark. It is strange to observe that with such vast amount of knowledge in the form of language, knowing words of things which were not even discovered in those times Adam and Eve chose not to express their thoughts. I mean when there is thought process communicated through writing and spoken language it is reflected in the offspring. But they chose to draw cave paintings of sun, animals, etc. How come a single language speaking community starting with the fantasy of Abrahamic religions branched into so many languages? Just like I speak English today and the next day I am fluent in Arabic. Well, all that is speculation, the truth being that evolution line of homo species proves that language was not present since the time we first appeared. It is only a recent phenomenon compared to the vast scale of human existence. Without language everything is a response to stimuli and with it all seems absolute and concrete. Man was too joyful not to accept that this spectacular phenomenon was not watched by anyone divine. Although he feared unknown, nature but concrete God came with language definitions and it will always be a concept, perhaps seeming complex concept. 

Theism, its take on Femininity and Poverty

Theism is a belief that there is an omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient creature, creating all of us so that He, Himself, is out of nothingness and shaped us so that He can keep our ashes as trophies of His creation for no audience, admirer of His. It goes on to explain that He designs and determines every moment and on the day of resurrection He will punish or reward for what was already preordained by Him. And of course it makes perfect sense.

With this definition of theism in mind, we will now see how religious faith has taken up femininity, poverty and what was the real cause behind the torment of womanhood and poor? Although I am unsure whether religion has anything in the origin of poverty, I am confident that it helped to sustain and establish poverty as something which is self-evident. And faith did it with a tool called Fate. Similarly, feminine roles were also made concrete by religion. At first, a superficial glance will say that poverty and condition of womanhood has nothing to relate, but surprisingly they have. That common thing is “weakness”. What is your take on why poverty first raised its head? Weakness of an individual to protect what he claimed was his. Saying in a different manner- power of another individual to snatch and stamp a title of his own name. Weakness can be mental or physical. And there you see a striking similarity between poverty and condition of women. Don’t compare it with contemporary times. I am diving into the origin. What could have caused the predetermination of fate in various societies about the figure called woman? Definitely weakness of women! Now you see it clearly, the origin of both highly mystified things, poverty and plight of women. Often they are intermixed with fate and religious dogmas, all culminating in a mysterious being called God. Nobody needs to feel outraged if I call him/her weak because my purpose is not to brand humans of contemporary times as weak or strong, but to show them how things could have been when they were shaping themselves up.

Let us look at it objectively. I am assuming the much prevalent belief of Abrahamic religions that Adam and Eve were the initial beings on Earth. Nothing religious that I want to say. Societies let us say, sprang from them. So in a  society which was not that much sophisticated enough to have complex institutions, aims and goals, concrete laws, well defined possessions and their only focus was to survive, what can be the deciding factor at that time? I guess you don’t need to think that much. It can be only power- physical as well as mental. What decided all further things? It was power. Power that started individually became complex day by day with institutionalization. But even today the conclusions of its origin (i.e. power) are standing like any unshakable rock. To sustain those conclusions you look onto an imaginary being- originator of fate. This fate stops us from discovering what is hiding in the darkness of caves.  It is not at all coincidence that both woman and poor were treated in the most gruesome of ways by societies and that too on common grounds. They have one thing behind them- weakness. To support it you can always imagine why God has always been related to a dominant male figure- a king. More than anything else power is important. And that’s why God is powerful. Everything that is weak or was weak in the past originated in punishment of God- meaning punishment of powerful. Already determined fate supporting almost everything in society! Fear of powerful, omnipotent led to a poor and a hapless womanhood.        

My dear GDP

Gross domestic Product (GDP) is a woman whom all oligarchic noble souls around the world thought to have understood in the most profound sense. But has there been anyone who can claim to have fully understood woman? These souls would gaze for hours, days, even years at this creation of awe-inspiring mystique and come out claiming to be triumphant but these claims are soon shrouded in another veil of mystery.

GDP of a nation is the market value of all final products and services produced in a specified amount of time. I will not engross in all sorts of formulas and different methods to evaluate since I am concerned with abstract belief of GDP as a measure of welfare. Well the generally held idea is – GDP serves as a measure of economic growth which subsequently could be assumed to be a measure of number of jobs, living conditions, health and all other. As GDP increases, the number of products and services consumed increases and to produce those products and services, human resource increases, consequently welfare of nation. This is what is believed.

Let us see some other views of GDP which I think are left out and will never be in common discourse or mass media. Before proceeding, we take account of three things – one is population increase, second is blind use of technology to increase profit i.e. to reduce the input cost for a product and third one I would disclose later. In fact I would discuss the last one primarily and then relate to the above two. You see, when we say the total number of products and services consumed, we do not take into consideration whether all products and services are equally distributed among all of a nation. Irrespective of high numbers, GDP can present strange figures. For example, let us consider a hypothetical condition where there are 100 persons in a closed boundary at a specific time. If these persons consume equally all products and services, say 1000 such entities, than the GDP calculated on this account would be same as when 20 people consume 80% of all entities and 80 people consume 20% of all entities. Or in simple words if 100 consume equally 1000 entities  and we say GDP comes out to be X, on the other hand, if 20 consumes 800 entities and 80 consumes 200 entities and we conclude GDP to  be Y, then by current standards, both are equally benefitted states and welfare of all citizens is counted to be same. Let us say the first case of equal distribution has GDP X and second case has Y, where number of consumed entities are now not the same as before but population is same, and X < Y then naturally second nation is the one with more welfare and more better standard of living. You can see a perfect example in a state of India where GDP of that state is in two digits, and is kind of most industrial and developed state, but its people and specifically children have undernourishment and malnutrition level comparable to that of Ethiopia. Let me make it clear that I have no intention of favouring equal distribution of all goods manufactured in a state to its people by the State. It is no better than what is currently in practice. This example is just to reflect the flaw of measuring things. I favour that we all should share the means of production, that is abolition of private property, and products of the labour should be distributed in the proportion one has done labour. Because if you assume that state should control the means of production and provide the redistribution or equal distribution of all products then it will again result in few controlling all things besides inappropriate distribution of products of labour. When there is state, there is no freedom. Now we can relate the first two causes as I discussed before and I will repeat what I have just said with those two causes.

Corporations boast of themselves as the greatest employer, as if, if they were not there whole earth would have starved to death. Well they control most of the means of production with weird laws and certainly we are doomed if these laws hold. With these laws in place, they call others to work on their means to produce and they proclaim it to be employment. Grandness of scale hides the stupidity of endeavour. I mean things are given values with no labour behind them but obviously a tag of title with the name of owner. An individual holds immense land area, does no labour on it, but yet the title gives him the privilege to enjoy the fruits of other's labour. While who works on it, due to lack of means of production, although he produces the real value, is not given the share of value which he produces, but only a meagre part, the rest contributes to the surplus value earned by owner. So did you get what is the real flaw in the laws we make? But this is almost ignored all together as if title is only measure of all that is genuine. Do titles exist in reality? It is human made to protect what was once acquired with force, not by our generation, but by some of our powerful ancestors. And this gives an insight into the birth of inheritance whose biological implementation was made a law in the material world, of course drawing analogy, which humans are so good at. Very peculiar type of categorization! Okay! Let’s get further.

With this systematic machinery in place they now seek to focus on profit or surplus value. Profit by any means! Their strategy is to develop new technologies, inventions claimed as miracles to help humankind, which could increase their profit in two ways. Let me make it clear that I am not against technology. I am only discussing how and why of capitalist's motive of discovering new technologies. In fact technology is the only tool by which humans can tackle Nature. One way is making an individual produce more value than it is paid back to him. In simple words, he now does the work which was done previously by more number of individuals but is paid little or no more than before. You can check the statistics for that. Now those capitalist would use that surplus profit, a major part to hoard and a necessary part to develop technology which would further decrease the workforce in comparison to proportion of population rise and increase the profit for further future endeavour. And yes how can I forget the tiny humanistic veil which they wear by doing the charity! So in a way they do two contradictory things. He, on one hand, wants the tremendous amount of products and services to be utilized in the market whereas on the other he does not provide that much of capital for the consumers to keep the cycle of consumption-production going. Ultimately he is marred by overproduction, with the problem of plenty, with profits declining, stagnation being the final result but his dearness for hoarding does not cease. If it cease how will he be called successful? How will he differentiate himself from the herd? How will he do charity which he assumes will magically solve all problems one day and secure his place in the eyes of God? How will he show his moral conscience in the midst of careful plundering by law? How can he challenge his own formula, a hard earned and firmly established, to eternal success?

In this seemingly glorious turmoil, the basic rule of making profit is further enhanced by branding one type of labour as inferior. I mean to say that one doing a physical labour of 16-18 hours a day is assumed to have spent no energy in making a useful combination of his nerves and muscles, whereas a company executive working the same number of hours is an extremely hard working individual. Consequently he get paid enormous, exorbitant sums of money based on his intellectual work whereas physical labour is rejected outright as of inferior quality as if it does not sucks energy of humans. You see, this also contributes to the greatness of few. I accept that intellectual level of an individual adds to his completeness but verily it does not mean labour can be weighed differently on the basis of its type. Both intellectual and physical labours involve complex work of nerves and muscles and therefore I firmly believe that means of production should be shared by all whereas products of labour should be distributed in proportion to an individual's labour. That is what Communism is and none of the silly beliefs you get to hear from half educated individuals, guessing souls and living in the imagination of their own and calling Communism as idealism.

Though I would like to write more but it has already passed my limits. So I would conclude my discourse with few observations of desperate efforts which are made to increase that highly respected figure called GDP. Oh I can see a message in my cell phone urging me to answer the capital of India. Two options for my convenience!

1. New Delhi

2. New York

And it gives me a grand chance to win 2 ounces of gold. What should I do? Should I try my luck, my fate? That same merciful fate of which I talked in my post "My revelation not by God but by myself- Part 2". Same fate which arises out of the truth of God and the latter has its origin in error as I proved in that post. But what will happen if I apply my intellect in answering that question which regularly pops up on my cell phone screen? Nothing but I will consume a service which contributes to GDP, a measure of welfare. Oh I am doing welfare of so many! Don't stop me! Whatever resources I use to do this welfare is less. See how beautifully we do welfare by consuming products which are deliberately made of substandard quality so that they die well before their natural life to keep up the GDP figure. How much benevolent we become when we throw a reusable and working product to do the welfare of others by the way of GDP. Really, how much intelligent we are when we buy things we don't need to nourish GDP. And I can see those so called leaders, working relentlessly, day and night, just for our benefit, to raise those GDP figures, for our well being. Truly speaking, it brings tears to my eyes hearing of their sacrifices. How shall I repay them? This question strikes me constantly and each time with renewed vigour.              

Mass-media and Consumerism

It may not be apparent to a naked eye but the genesis of an idea or a topic of a discourse can always be traced back to its source. And if the source is present for a considerable amount of time then its genuineness is generally considered to be beyond doubt, originator of truth, giver of truth, source of facts. In simple words this is what mass media is! A source of information for masses, to make them know, to get their consent and at the same time instigating them to act in a desired way, organized way or peeling one more layer we can say- not exactly organized way but as organizations want them too.

If one desires to know the truth of any action, one must search for its economic process, a process which is subliminal to majority, even non-existent for many but directly or indirectly serves as a basic condition for any action in a capitalist society. No matter how many layers of relations you create, at the base there is only one relation- producers and consumers, not a radical dichotomy but a blur one where each one can behave the other way. This cycle of consumption and production makes the wheel of this economy to move which otherwise would stagnate. So you need a steady, reliable and doubtless medium to keep the need for consumption alive. And at all cost. And here is the hero of capitalist economy- Mass media, whose role is to convince, instigate and make the masses feel that things cannot be done in a better way than it is done currently and there are some extraordinary ones to think on their behalf what is good in general.

To have an understanding of how this destructively creative genius works to serve as a master propagandist for all that you consume, believe or regard as truth, you need to know how your mind works. Humans are made to desire and desire is made for them. But since the day they are born they are not sure of their desires. In fact they desire from the infused desire, not a desire to satisfy their need, to live as they like, not their own desire, not their own need but one induced in them, giving them a feeling of their own desire. What does this induced desire do? It solves two purposes, at least temporarily. One is the fulfillment of false desires, other is the moving of the wheel as I said above. But desire is a strange thing. At least false desire is very strange. To make this economy crawl somehow, at the expense of all other things- personal relations, health, health of earth, natural resources, you need a rhythmic, one having a definite pattern kind of false desire. This is the major work of mass media. As I said before, the basis is always producer and consumer. Every other relation is just a mask to promote the bottom layer, in fact to make it creep.

Keep shopping to save yourself

You see, right from your birth, an instinct develops in you to possess more and more, irrespective of utility. You are no longer bothered by use but by title. Where does this come from? Is it your real nature? No! Not at all! Your real nature is to desire utility and not possession. Where does the possession come from? Yes! You can trace the genesis of the idea? What does it lead to? It leads to mass media- your God of all knowledge. It leads to television, radio, newspapers, etc. or in an indirect way to people who themselves are influenced by this fetish medium. Unshaped mind watching hundreds of commercials a day, these strange false desires constantly thrust upon him, ultimately he accepts them as reality. Here you get your definite pattern of desire to sustain the economy, growth. A growth which no body has seen but in decay of Earth and ourselves being reduced to wage-labourers and consumers just living to produce and consume as if the world ends on consumption and production and there is no taste in it. You see a national hero urging you to buy a two wheeler to express your pride and love for your nation. How inspiring! I will just show my love right now! Do I need to talk about the bottom layer of this producer-consumer web? Next I can see God telling me to buy a pizza. Oh how can I disobey God! You do not love if you do not gift. How shameless you are! My favourite player wears that undergarment, why shouldn’t I? You don’t have an iphone then forget girls! You don’t remember to gift your mother on Mother’s Day, what type of son are you? Oh you travel by public transport and not by cars, your status does not match ours! No branded clothes mean you are unable to dress properly. And how many should I mention!

A peculiar type of imaginative categorization on the basis of commodity and consumer is the root of this staggering economy. Even the most basic of relationships have at its bottom- purchase and selling support. All this just a careful plan to somehow maintain a false, imaginative, disastrous and cancerous growth!    

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.