The Overman’s Enslavement

Man’s debt towards fellow human beings is a profitable enterprise for those with Nietzschean Last Man mentality, who become collectors of the debt and join the ruling class, but for most people, who exist in the twilight between the Last Man and the Overman, the debt is an instrument of enslavement and torture. The Last Man, who possesses the master mentality, is fit to rule and extort, while the Overman, who owns the slave mentality, is always the toiler and the payer.

On Over-Civilization

Civilization is a good thing, but over-civilization is a sign that people are no longer conscious of their history and culture, and that a clique of erudite-barbarians has taken charge and is directing civilization towards an unknown future.

The Truth Never Prevails On Its Own

Truth prevails in the end. But when will the end which will witness the enshrinement of the truth come? No one can tell. The expression, “Truth prevails in the end,” is a mindless anodyne, a fatalistic banality. It symbolizes the unfulfilled hopes of a defeated people. If it is a lie that prevails today, then people have two alternatives: either submit to the lie, or fight to expose it. Tomorrow it will be too late. A lie that is not exposed today becomes the established point of view tomorrow. With every passing day, the lie gathers more strength, more corruption, more immorality, and one day it has enough power to crush all those who won’t submit to it. The truth never prevails on its on, only when people are willing to fight for it.

Apocalypse: The Timeless Instrument of Power

An apocalypse is a method of attaining power. When political movements fail to attain support by conventional methods, they use apocalyptic theories to frighten the people into submission. Almost all civilizations, in the past two thousand five hundred years, have invoked the vision of an apocalypse to keep their population frightened and in control. When you hear modern intellectuals and politicians thundering from their pulpits (TV studios) that an apocalypse is imminent—that the apocalypse will rip your life apart, that your world is coming to an end, that they are the only ones who can save you and your world but only if submit to their will—then you should become aware that a new version of the brutal ancient game of power is now being played.

The Distortion and Corruption of Values

The world is dying because every civilizational value is being used to breed its antithetical disvalue: capitalism is being used to breed fascism; democracy to breed mob rule; reason to breed unreason; science to breed adherence to sociological paradigms; liberty to breed a culture of manipulation and dominance; innovation and enterprise to breed conformism in the marketplace; industry to breed massive military machines; digital technologies to breed systems to spy on the people; mainstream media to breed tools of propaganda and indoctrination; academia to breed a conformist population; philosophy to breed a class of erudite barbarians; healthcare to breed an outcome that is worse than the disease.

Kuhn’s Theory of “Bandwagon Effects” in Science

The extreme measures that many “expert” scientists and doctors are advocating for dealing with the coronavirus problem makes me remember the “bandwagon effect” that Thomas Kuhn has described in his 1962 book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Kuhn says that the view of the scientific community is strongly influenced by a bandwagon effect. The scientists are not open-minded. They do not base their views on evidence. They do not conduct proper experiments. Instead of being objective, they tend to view the world in terms of the prevailing paradigm (by “paradigm” Kuhn means an overwhelming consensus on what a scientific view ought to be). Over a period of time, the paradigm leads to the accumulation of anomalies, which the scientists address by allowing gradual divergences—this process leads to paradigm breakdown and the rise of a new paradigm. The work of scientists, according to Kuhn, is not fully rational. It is a sociological enterprise.

The Soviet Union and The USA

Communism was the great destroyer of liberty in the twentieth century, but after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, the interest in communism, as an ideology of world dominance, was finished and the mission for destroying liberty was picked up by a spate of movements which were developed by the intellectuals and politicians based in the nation that straddles the globe caparisoned as the knight of liberty and capitalism: the USA. The list of American liberty killing movements since the 1990s include: global warming, climate change, war on terror, war on drugs, and currently, the war on a virus. In the twenty-first century, the USA has become an alter ego of its former foe, the Soviet Union.

The Celebrity Who Believes in Apocalypse

Why do the celebrities propagate apocalyptic theories like Ice Age, Global Warming, Climate Change, Global Pandemic? The typical celebrity preacher of an apocalyptic theory is a man who at achieves great worldly success, but fails to understand why he is successful. He tries to convince himself that his success is genuine, and when he fails to convince himself, he blames the people whose support has made him what he is. Then he pines for their downfall and annihilation. The idea of an apocalypse becomes a psychological need for him, because an apocalypse, in which all will die, is his revenge against those who have inflicted on him the ignominy of a false success.

On The New Trojan Horse

Here’s my prediction: The word “coronavirus” will become emblazoned in mankind’s collective memory. The coming generations will never forget this word because it will become associated with the fall of the world order which was established in the twentieth century. Philosophers and historians will state in their books that coronavirus entered the advanced nations like a “Trojan Horse,” enticing their governments to take draconian steps to counter it, but instead of stopping the virus, these steps led to a fatal decline in their culture, economy, and military strength. With the fall of the advanced nations, the existing world order was finished and the quest began for a new order. The game of the new Trojan Horse has already been played and now it cannot be reversed or unplayed.

The Wars of Twenty-first Century

“There will be wars, as there never have been wars on earth,” says Nietzsche in Will to Power. This statement is not a hyperbole. It is Nietzsche’s prediction that the wars of the twentieth century would be different from the earlier wars. The wars of the eighteenth and nineteenth century were motivated by dynastic and national concerns, whereas the wars of the twentieth century would be immense—why? According to Nietzsche, the twentieth century wars would be a clash of ideologies. Mankind is now in the third decade of the twenty-first century. What kind of wars are the nations waging now or are likely to wage in the future? The age of ideology ended with the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, and the wars since then have been over control of territory and resources. This trend will continue and going forward. The new wars will be limited in scope, and will lead to a world order which has multiple power centers. The days of the superpowers are over; we are now in a multipolar world.

Extinction of the Neo-Dinosaur: Modern Man

The modern man finds himself at a midpoint between a lunatic asylum and a zombie apocalypse. His way of life is on verge of being destroyed in an ignominious and pathetic manner. Nature bestowed on the dinosaurs the dignity of having the opportunity to become extinct from the impact of a meteor which turned the earth into a fireball for a thousand years. Modern man, the neo-dinosaur is going down with the whimper of a flu virus. Now men face two stark choices: either they can become a lunatic and live in the asylum alongside the stark raving mad, or they can turn into a zombie and join the rampaging cannibalistic hordes. What will your choice be?

Don Quixote—The Last Knight

The modern man is helpless. He is tired of living. He is fed up with change. His mind is filled with dark apocalyptic thoughts. He feels such contempt and disgust for his fellow human beings that he takes social distancing as a virtue. Don Quixote is not like the modern man. He still has some life in him. He still loves humanity. Attired in his rusty armor, astride his wretched old horse, Don Quixote is setting out with Sancho Panza, who is on his donkey. They are the world’s last knights, humanity’s last hope. They will defy lockdowns and fight for our civil liberties.

The Never-ending Fear of the Virus

If you keep people locked in their homes till the virus goes away, then the virus will never go away. It will become a chronic problem. A year or two years from today, we will still be fearing a catastrophic attack from some form of the virus. In such a climate of fear and uncertainty, the economic woes will keep multiplying. A point will be reached when the economic black hole becomes so massive that it will swallow many nations.

A View from “A Canticle for Leibowitz”

When a civilization is on its last legs, it becomes devoted to minimizing suffering and maximizing security for its people. In his novel A Canticle for Leibowitz, Walter M. Miller Jr. provides an insight into the apocalyptic consequences of the quest for mitigation of suffering and maximization of security. Here’s a quote from the novel: “To minimize suffering and to maximize security were natural and proper ends of society and Caesar. But then they became the only ends, somehow, and the only basis of law—a perversion. Inevitably, then, in seeking only them, we found only their opposites: maximum suffering and minimum security."

The Apartheid Between India and Reality

There exists a cartesian apartheid between India and reality. Having convinced themselves that they are incapable of dealing with reality on their own, the Indians have entrusted the world’s only superpower, the USA, to serve as the broker between them and reality. But by using a superpower to cut a deal with reality, the Indians have lost control over their own economy and culture. They are now the blind and dumb followers of the USA, which is likely to decline and fall in near future. But most Indians do not realize that the USA is failing. They continue to follow it like a faithful dog.

Socialism and the Seven Dwarfs

The political movements in the last hundred years are modeled after the Grimm fairy tale, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Socialism has won the pole position of Snow White while all other political movements have been relegated to the lowly position of dwarfs.

Moore’s Refutation of Idealism

In his essay, “The Refutation of Idealism,” G. E. Moore notes that the claim esse is percipi is essential to the idealist view of the world. 

He does not attack the idealist notion that reality is spiritual (or to be is to be perceived)—instead, he shows that the arguments that the idealists use to support the claim esse is percipi lead to a contradiction and hence are flawed. He comes to the conclusion that idealism violates the law of non-contradiction. 

Moore’s essay is not a defense of realism—the positions of both the realist and the idealist can be challenged by two central claims of skepticism: first, it is possible for appearances to differ from reality; second, the veridical experiences can be indistinguishable from the non-veridical experiences.

The Monsters of Pseudoscience

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein has been outdone by the monstrous conceptions of science (“pseudoscience”): ice age; global warming; climate change; ozone layer depletion; acid rain; hackers precipitating a global nuclear war; artificial intelligence capturing human brains, turning people into zombified slaves; tyrannical supercomputer leading an army of killer cyborgs; and the newest in the long list of apocalyptic monsters is the virus. Science is supposed to be the fountainhead of inventions and discoveries, but when science gets corrupted by intellectuals and politicians, there is a rise of pseudoscience which is the ultimate producer of fictional monsters.

Awareness and Language

Is anyone aware that he was ever sensorily aware of anything for which he does not have the words to describe? The answer to this question is: such awareness is not possible. A man cannot be aware of being aware in the past of seeing, hearing, feeling, thinking, or imagining anything which he cannot describe to himself in words. Man’s capacity for being aware of past awarenesses, or his capacity to consciously recollect the past experiences, is dependent on his ability to use language. A creature without language will not possess the ability of being aware of past sensory awarenesses.

In Defense of Naive Realism

Naive realism is a strange name for a philosophical position. This name creates the impression that the position is innocent, infantile, and ignorant. What else can the word "naive" mean? When someone new to philosophy encounters the term “naive realism,” he might become disenchanted. Why should he waste time on a philosophical position which is naive? But naive realism is not naive; it’s a sophisticated, and probably the most interesting position in philosophy of mind. It holds that the world of physical objects exists irrespective of whether or not anyone is observing them and that our senses present us a view of the world as it is. Every realist theory of perception makes use of the tenets of naive realism. In my opinion, direct realism is a better, more honest, name for this position.

William Faulkner’s 1288-Word Sentence

William Faulkner was a master of long sentences; his longest sentence, in his novel Absalom, Absalom!, is a 1288-word marathon:

"Just exactly like Father if Father had known as much about it the night before I went out there as he did the day after I came back thinking Mad impotent old man who realized at last that there must be some limit even to the capabilities of a demon for doing harm, who must have seen his situation as that of the show girl, the pony, who realizes that the principal tune she prances to comes not from horn and fiddle and drum but from a clock and calendar, must have seen himself as the old wornout cannon which realizes that it can deliver just one more fierce shot and crumble to dust in its own furious blast and recoil, who looked about upon the scene which was still within his scope and compass and saw son gone, vanished, more insuperable to him now than if the son were dead since now (if the son still lived) his name would be different and those to call him by it strangers and whatever dragon’s outcropping of Sutpen blood the son might sow on the body of whatever strange woman would therefore carry on the tradition, accomplish the hereditary evil and harm under another name and upon and among people who will never have heard the right one; daughter doomed to spinsterhood who had chosen spinsterhood already before there was anyone named Charles Bon since the aunt who came to succor her in bereavement and sorrow found neither but instead that calm absolutely impenetrable face between a homespun dress and sunbonnet seen before a closed door and again in a cloudy swirl of chickens while Jones was building the coffin and which she wore during the next year while the aunt lived there and the three women wove their own garments and raised their own food and cut the wood they cooked it with (excusing what help they had from Jones who lived with his granddaughter in the abandoned fishing camp with its collapsing roof and rotting porch against which the rusty scythe which Sutpen was to lend him, make him borrow to cut away the weeds from the door-and at last forced him to use though not to cut weeds, at least not vegetable weeds -would lean for two years) and wore still after the aunt’s indignation had swept her back to town to live on stolen garden truck and out o f anonymous baskets left on her front steps at night, the three of them, the two daughters negro and white and the aunt twelve miles away watching from her distance as the two daughters watched from theirs the old demon, the ancient varicose and despairing Faustus fling his final main now with the Creditor’s hand already on his shoulder, running his little country store now for his bread and meat, haggling tediously over nickels and dimes with rapacious and poverty-stricken whites and negroes, who at one time could have galloped for ten miles in any direction without crossing his own boundary, using out of his meagre stock the cheap ribbons and beads and the stale violently-colored candy with which even an old man can seduce a fifteen-year-old country girl, to ruin the granddaughter o f his partner, this Jones-this gangling malaria-ridden white man whom he had given permission fourteen years ago to squat in the abandoned fishing camp with the year-old grandchild-Jones, partner porter and clerk who at the demon’s command removed with his own hand (and maybe delivered too) from the showcase the candy beads and ribbons, measured the very cloth from which Judith (who had not been bereaved and did not mourn) helped the granddaughter to fashion a dress to walk past the lounging men in, the side-looking and the tongues, until her increasing belly taught her embarrassment-or perhaps fear;-Jones who before ’61 had not even been allowed to approach the front of the house and who during the next four years got no nearer than the kitchen door and that only when he brought the game and fish and vegetables on which the seducer-to-be’s wife and daughter (and Clytie too, the one remaining servant, negro, the one who would forbid him to pass the kitchen door with what he brought) depended on to keep life in them, but who now entered the house itself on the (quite frequent now) afternoons when the demon would suddenly curse the store empty of customers and lock the door and repair to the rear and in the same tone in which he used to address his orderly or even his house servants when he had them (and in which he doubtless ordered Jones to fetch from the showcase the ribbons and beads and candy) direct Jones to fetch the jug, the two of them (and Jones even sitting now who in the old days, the old dead Sunday afternoons of monotonous peace which they spent beneath the scuppernong arbor in the back yard, the demon lying in the hammock while Jones squatted against a post, rising from time to time to pour for the demon from the demijohn and the bucket of spring water which he had fetched from the spring more than a mile away then squatting again, chortling and chuckling and saying `Sho, Mister Tawm’ each time the demon paused)-the two of them drinking turn and turn about from the jug and the demon not lying down now nor even sitting but reaching after the third or second drink that old man’s state of impotent and furious undefeat in which he would rise, swaying and plunging and shouting for his horse and pistols to ride single-handed into Washington and shoot Lincoln (a year or so too late here) and Sherman both, shouting, ‘Kill them! Shoot them down like the dogs they are!’ and Jones: ‘Sho, Kernel; sho now’ and catching him as he fell and commandeering the first passing wagon to take him to the house and carry him up the front steps and through the paintless formal door beneath its fanlight imported pane by pane from Europe which Judith held open for him to enter with no change, no alteration in that calm frozen face which she had worn for four years now, and on up the stairs and into the bedroom and put him to bed like a baby and then lie down himself on the floor beside the bed though not to sleep since before dawn the man on the bed would stir and groan and Jones would say, ‘flyer I am, Kernel. Hit’s all right. They ain't whupped us yit, air they?’ this Jones who after the demon rode away with the regiment when the granddaughter was only eight years old would tell people that he ‘was lookin after Major’s place and niggers’ even before they had time to ask him why he was not with the troops and perhaps in time came to believe the lie himself, who was among the first to greet the demon when he returned, to meet him at the gate and say, ‘Well, Kernel, they kilt us but they ain't whupped us yit, air they?’ who even worked, labored, sweat at the demon’s behest during that first furious period while the demon believed he could restore by sheer indomitable willing the Sutpen’s Hundred which he remembered and had lost, labored with no hope of pay or reward who must have seen long before the demon did (or would admit it) that the task was hopeless-blind Jones who apparently saw still in that furious lecherous wreck the old fine figure of the man who once galloped on the black thoroughbred about that domain two boundaries of which the eye could not see from any point."

Travails of the Hiding Man

Man has fled from civilization. He is hiding, crouching in fear, writing his last will and testament, dedicating his life, whatever is left of it, to nothingness, to nihilism. What does he really want?—safety, which he will never achieve because his civilization has mutated into the leviathan, a far more ferocious, hungry, and merciless predator than the thing from which he has fled.

No More Butterflies

You can’t find butterflies. Because of the pandemic and lockdown, the butterflies have discarded their wings. They have transformed into caterpillars and retreated into the pupa.

On Nietzsche’s View of Redeemer

Solitude is not a flight from reality. It is a flight from the banal ways of looking at reality. It is a method of discovering an original view of the world. In his Genealogy of Morals, Nietzsche talks about the redeemer, who is filled with love and contempt, who gives up his solitude to redeem humanity. Here’s a line from Nietzsche’s text: “This man of the future will redeem us, not just from the ideal held up till now, but also from those things which had to arise from it, from the great nausea, the will to nothingness, from nihilism, that stroke of midday and of great decision that makes the will free again, which gives earth its purpose and man his hope again, this Antichrist and anti-nihilist, this conqueror of God and of nothingness—he must come one day…”

The Weaklings Versus the Powerful

The weaklings want one thing—to be powerful one day. All the thinking that they do for devising strategies for attaining power catalyzes an improvement in the quality of their brain and they become more intelligent. But the powerful, who have cornered a surfeit of power, are devoted to self-preservation and pleasure; they don’t indulge in deep thinking and over a period of time their brain becomes dull. A stage is reached when the weaklings can outthink the powerful and then they usurp power, but the rise of the weaklings marks the beginning of a fresh cycle—yesterday’s powerful is today’s weakling; it is now his turn to realize the importance of power.

On the Religiousness of Solitude

The idea that you can save yourself from a virus by living in solitude is the outcome of a debased sense of religiosity which lingers in the atheistic minds. The atheists have turned the religious belief that one can save oneself from sin by praying in solitude on its head and are now preaching that one can save oneself from virus by watching Netflix in solitude.

What will Dostoevsky’s Raskolnikov do in a pandemic?

In Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment, Raskolnikov, an impoverished ex-student in Saint Petersburg, decides to murder a pawnbroker and steal her money. He rationalizes that the pawnbroker deserves to die because she is cruel and unscrupulous, and that she would die of natural causes sooner or later because she is already quite old. He is convinced that the money that he steals will enable  him to help those who, unlike the pawnbroker are moral and honest, and in the eyes of god deserve the money.

Is it right to kill one cruel and unscrupulous person to give better chances to several moral and honest people? Whose interests have a primacy—that of one individual or that of many?—that of one million or that of 100 million? Such questions are appearing in my mind because of the havoc that the pandemic has caused in the lives of millions of people in several nations. Lives can be destroyed by all sorts of reasons: psychological problems, starvation, all kinds of preexisting health conditions, accidents, crime, scarcity of essential commodities, and much else. Which problem should we address first?

What will Dostoevsky’s Raskolnikov do in a pandemic? Which people will he try to save; which will he sacrifice?

The Consequences of Liberalism

When the liberal politicians acquire total power in a nation they give rise to evil enemies: statists, mafia, oligarchs, terrorists, and lobbyists. But why? Because the liberals are weak, immoral, and lacking in the will to use political power for implementing justice. They say “yes” to evil and “no” to life. They encourage evil enemies, grant them the opportunities for accumulating wealth and power, and attack the productive folks by branding such activities dangerous: industry, farming, constructing, driving, flying, using plastic products and electricity, and now even stepping out of the house. The insight from the liberal crystal ball is clear, all these activities have bad consequences and must be forbidden.

Dinosaurs and Civilizations

Nature bestows its tolerance on the feeble and meek creatures but shows no mercy to the burly dinosaurs. Whatever becomes a dinosaur is made extinct—this law of nature applies to the civilizations as well. When a civilization has reached the stage of peak development, it’s like a dinosaur, a creature that does not have any further evolutionary potential and is devoted solely to feeding and protecting itself, and this is when nature’s infinite sword falls on the civilization’s neck, making it extinct in one swift stroke. The end of potential for further evolution and progress marks the end of a civilization.

Nietzsche on Napoleon

Nietzsche describes Napoleon as a synthesis of Unmensch (the brute) and Übermensch (the overman). Here’s the line from Nietzsche’s On the Genealogy of Morals: “Like a last signpost to the other path, Napoleon appeared as a man more unique and late-born for his times than ever a man had been before, and in him, the problem of the noble ideal itself was made flesh – just think what a problem that is: Napoleon, this synthesis of Unmensch and Übermensch…”

American Elections and the Global Mayhem

The livelihood and peace of mind of no human being is safe till the 2020 American elections are over. The global pandemic is not the worst that can happen this year. An array of insane events can smite mankind: the alien empires in the far side of the Milky Way galaxy might launch a devastating attack; Zeus might hit us with his thunderbolts; Hades might release the Kraken from the underworld; Thor might send his hammer flying in our direction; there might be a worldwide zombie outbreak; Godzilla might arise, Predator might arrive. Be safe till November 8, 2020—after that things might stabilize.

On Opening a Locked Economy

The government has the power to lockdown the economy, but not to open it. The businessmen, farmers, investors, professionals, and workers are the movers of the economy—they possess the power to keep an economy open by participating in voluntary economic activity. When the world governments rescind their lockdown orders, they will discover that the movers of the economy are unwilling to wholeheartedly participate in the marketplace because they have become distrustful, demoralized, and risk-averse. The lockdowns could extend far beyond the government mandated period. There could be four to five years of tepid economic activity.

Capitalism's Tamed Man

Capitalism created unprecedented prosperity, but this prosperity had an unexpected consequence: it tamed man. The tamed man had no passion for original thinking and adventure. He wanted to be put on a leash and fed regularly. He wanted to fulfill his every need, every whim, every fancy by the click of the computer mouse and the tap of the mobile app.

The Terrible Solitude

The terrible solitude of the man who still believes in liberty, who still uses his own brain to find the difference between a lie and the truth, and who still doesn't need the experts, on the payroll of the nanny-state, to tell him what to think and how to live.

Nietzsche’s Top Fifteen Thinkers

Nietzsche was a well-read man. He had done an extensive study of several thinkers, from the ancients Homer, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Thucydides, and Plato, to the moderns Martin Luther, Descartes, Spinoza, Kant, and Emerson, and his contemporaries Schopenhauer and Mill. A part of Nietzsche’s private library, which has been preserved, contains several books with his annotations. Though influenced by several thinkers, he didn’t see himself as anyone’s protege. Here’s a list of fifteen thinkers whom Nietzsche loved as well as hated (in order of importance to him):

1. Richard Wagner
2. Socrates
3. Arthur Schopenhauer
4. Immanuel Kant
5. Zarathustra (Zoroaster)
6. Benedict Spinoza
7. Ralph Waldo Emerson
8. Martin Luther
9. Sophocles
10. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
11. Plato
12. Euripides
13. John Stuart Mill
14. Descartes
15. St. Paul

Why did GE Moore disappear from history?

Ray Monk's article on the rise and fall of GE Moore: “He was the most revered philosopher of his era. So why did GE Moore disappear from history?”

On the Meaning of Evil

In Solzhenitsyn’s Cancer Ward, a character went to the zoo and found an empty cage with a notice saying that the monkey that used to live in this cage was blinded by an evil man who threw tobacco in its eyes. The character was shocked because in communist ideology that he had been taught, the word “evil” was always used to describe the agents of American imperialism who plotted against the Soviet Union. It was unbelievable that an evil man would do something as immoral and meaninglessly cruel as throwing tobacco into a monkey’s eyes.

On Nietzsche’s Last Man

“What does not destroy me, makes me stronger.”— Nietzsche's aphorism is irrelevant in our time because becoming stronger is not a priority for the modern man. A concrete realization of the idea of “the last man,” which Nietzsche introduces in Thus Spoke Zarathustra, the modern man is a complacent, unthinking, and effete bourgeois. He is a perfectly happy couch potato. He aspires to be pampered and protected. He takes no risks and has no passion to grapple with life’s problems. He stands at the end of the continual cycle of regeneration.

On Man’s Dignity

The dignity of man consists in his liberty to choose the lifestyle that he needs to follow for safeguarding his health—if he is being coerced by another entity to take any kind of measures to protect himself from contracting a disease, then he does not have any dignity, because a man without the responsibility for preserving his own body is incapable of respecting himself and others.

Where Are The Conservatives?

The irony is that the global lockdown has been imposed when the major democracies are under conservative rule: the USA, the UK, Japan, India, Brazil, and a few others. I wonder what the conservative reaction would be if the lockdown was imposed when these democracies were under liberal control—I can imagine the conservatives criticizing the liberals in TV interviews and newspaper articles, accusing them of grossly overreacting to a mere flu virus, decrying the lockdown orders, leading protest marches on the streets, and doing all they can to drive into the mind of the voters that they stand with the common folks whose right to make a living has been taken away. There is, I suppose, some truth in the saying that the conservatives act like conservatives only when they are out of power.

On Self-Destructive Barbarians

A barbarian is a man lacking in a sense of history. If a flawed sense of history is being taught in the universities, the students (the new generation) well get indoctrinated into thinking and acting like barbarians. Perhaps a large number of barbarians have already been created by the universities and unleashed into the world—that is why we are witnessing a barbarian-like response to a flu virus. If a fly sits on a barbarian’s head, he might use a stone to hit the fly and while doing so he will crack his skull. But this is how the democratic nations are trying to deal with the flu virus. In the name of fighting the flu virus, they have caused an extensive longterm damage to their economy and culture. The democracies of the world are acting like barbarians.

The Modern Man’s War On Dark Forces

The modern man has lost his fear of the demons, witches, and ghosts, but he is terrified of the cataclysmic dark forces which conspire to steal his happiness, his life, his prospect of attaining salvation, and unleash an apocalypse which will bring his civilization to an end. The better his material condition becomes, the more weak and helpless the modern man feels. He no longer pines for liberty, justice, free markets, better infrastructure—having always had these things, he takes them for granted. He wants to devote his resources to saving the world from the next cataclysm. In the last seventy years, the advanced nations have squandered trillions of dollars in fighting the dark forces which are a figment of their own imagination—Worldwide Famine, Ice Age, the Y2K Bug, Global Warming, Hole in the Ozone Layer, Acid Rain—and in the last one month we have been furiously battling a new dark force: a mere flu virus.

The Revolution of The Virus

The event which, above all others, shaped the history of the twentieth century transpired in the century’s second decade: Russia’s Bolshevik Revolution. In the twenty-first century too, the second decade is ending on an eventful note—a pandemic has brought the world economy to a standstill for a period of, what may eventually turn out to be, several months, and it’s bound to have massive political consequences, especially in the advanced democracies. Perhaps, the global political response to the pandemic will turn out to be the outstanding characteristic of this century—one that will merit a lot of explanation and analysis, and will be labeled by the historians as: the Coronavirus Revolution.

Nietzsche—On Living Dangerously

Nietzsche on the ideal of living dangerously: “For believe me, the secret for harvesting from existence the greatest fruitfulness and the greatest enjoyment is to live dangerously!  Build your cities on the slope of Vesuvius!  Send your ships into unexplored seas!  Live in war with your equals and with yourselves!  Be robbers and spoilers, you knowing ones, as long as you cannot be rulers and possessors!  The time will soon pass when you can be satisfied to live like timorous deer concealed in the forests.  Knowledge will finally stretch out her hand for that which belongs to her: she means to rule and possess, and you with her!” But modern man has lost the passion for "living dangerously"—a mere flu virus now enjoys the power to put the world under total lockdown.

On God and Rationality

When atheists say that belief in god is irrational, they are making an irrational statement. 

Between 2300 and 3500 years ago, human beings developed the notion that god is the prime mover or the ultimate creator of the universe. To this day, this notion of god continues to motivate the theistic mind. But if god is the ultimate creator, then he is the creator of all the laws of the universe—this means that whatever god does is rational; he can, if he desires, rewrite all the laws of science and mathematics and these new laws would automatically become the new rational and the structure of the universe would transform so that everything accords with the new laws. 

If god is the fountainhead of rationality, then how can the belief in god be irrational? The notion that a belief in god is irrational makes no sense.

Three Reasons for Becoming a Philosopher

There are three reasons which can motivate a man to become a philosopher: first is curiosity, second is faith, and third is doubt.

Brutus: The Nemesis of the Virus

Like Julius Caesar, more than two millennia ago, the coronavirus has crossed the Rubicon and attained total domination of the world. With the political system being mired in inefficiency and corruption, and people being demoralized and confused, it seems there is no one left to tackle the coronavirus. But all hope is not lost, because Brutus and his band of idealistic revolutionaries are there to pick up arms and slay the virus that has put mankind in a state of house arrest. When they strike at the coronavirus with their swords, Brutus will say, “Sic semper tyrannis!" and the words that coronavirus will utter before dying will be, “Et tu, Brute?” Brutus will once again be the tyrant’s nemesis; history will repeat itself.