The World is Being Re-Barbarized

Whose fault is it that the world is what it is? We began in the Classical Age and worked without intermission for more than two millennia to create what? A number of fascistic democracies which are re-barbarizing the people.

A Good Nation is a River and Not a Pond

If a nation wants its history to keep flowing like a river, it must endeavor to raise itself to a higher level of culture, politics, economic progress, and technological excellence every fifty years. If the nation cannot manage that then its river will stop flowing. Its river will transform into a pond whose surface is covered with green algae and on whose banks there exist the “human scum” who have lost their intellect, enterprise, and sense of culture and morality, and who subsist by feeding on the pond’s rotten algae and fish and on the weeds growing on the land.

Human Nature and Morality

Morality should never entail a rebellion against human nature. Nothing that is impossible to human beings can be moral; it can, however, be immoral. All moral exhortations, which are against human nature, should be rejected.

Who is the Greatest Philosopher?

If I stand in front of the magic mirror and say, “Mirror, mirror on the wall, who's the greatest philosopher of them all?” The magic mirror will certainly reply: “Plato, but not Plato, alas! Aristotle, but not Aristotle, alas! Immanuel Kant, but not Immanuel Kant, alas!” Every great philosopher is a universe by himself, and it is impossible to decide which universe is the best.

Newton’s Third Law and Man's Mind

Newton’s third law of motion is applicable to man’s mind: Every tyrannical political action provokes an equal and opposite emotional reaction in our mind.

Why I Didn’t Watch the Movie Joker?

In Agatha Christie’s novel A Murder Is Announced, a character says, "I didn't want to kill her. I didn't want to kill anybody — I had to…” (The character is not expressing Christie’s political viewpoints, but attempting to defend herself.) After the 1960s, the neoliberal left has developed the ideological position that most criminals are a victim of the injustices and prejudices which are inherent in modern society. 

Like Christie’s character, the liberals say, “They didn’t want to kill anybody—they had to…” and they preach sympathy for the psychology of those who go on a killing spree. Recently, I saw the movie Joker, in which the protagonist, a man called Arthur Fleck (the Joker), is forced to become a psychopathic killer after being bullied and harassed for his financial, health-related, and psychological problems. 

I didn’t like the movie. The blatant way in which the movie tries to justify Arthur Fleck’s antisocial character and brutal crimes is enough to put me off.

Jean Valjean Versus Javert

In Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables, the cop Javert has the protagonist Jean Valjean trapped in a narrow street from which the only way of escaping is by climbing two perpendicular walls of great height. Jean Valjean is with Cosette (his foster child) but he manages to escape with her by the virtue of the massive strength of his arms and legs. Carrying her on his shoulders, he climbs over the two perpendicular walls and climbs down from the other side leaving Javert dumbfounded. But today’s man does not possess the strength and courage of Jean Valjean. If he is trapped by enemies in a narrow street, he will look for a ladder, which will never arrive.

On Whiners & Snarlers

The man who whines knows how to snarl. Today’s whiner is tomorrow’s snarler who will readily join violent mobs and indulge in looting, arson, and other kinds of disorderly behavior to force society to grant him the respect, wealth, and power that he does not deserve. Whining is not a sign of intelligence or virtue. It is a prelude to snarling and political vices.

The New Age of Anti-Capitalism

A new age of anti-capitalism has dawned. This time the nations are not discarding capitalism because they want to adopt socialism or communism but because they want to be free from the bondage of culture, constitution, and economics. They see every past and present value, the book of constitution, and the rules of economics as an instrument of oppression and want to live free in a nihilistic and anarchistic utopia. The liberal elite, who control the mainstream media, the digital industry, and the academic industry, are playing a major role in making a case for the utopia of nihilism and anarchism. Their propaganda has turned public opinion against all forms of democracy and capitalism.

Americans in 1991 Versus Americans in 2020

Americans in 1991 (after the fall of the Soviet Union): all nations will now accept the free market democratic system; history has come to an end; there will be no world historical conflicts in the future. Americans in 2020: free markets is racist; democracy is misogynist; there are 74 genders; truth is anti-minority rights; fossil fuels are evil; climate change will kill half of humanity, the other half will be killed by the virus pandemic; if you won’t support the lockdown and mask culture, you are a psychopath; Gone With The Wind is liked by racist-sexist dunderheads; cancel history, cancel classics. What a difference thirty years makes in a nation’s outlook?

Rejection of Aristotelian Biology in 2020

In his commentary on health and diseases, Aristotle follows his bent as a biologist and looks at how the body of the healthy members of any species works. He notes that the creatures which fail to match the standards of the healthy members of their species are unhealthy or diseased. Since the time of Aristotle, the field of medicine has accepted the health indices of the healthy men and women as the optimal standard for all human beings. But in 2020, the medical establishments in most nations have engineered a biological inversion. In the ongoing virus pandemic, they are using the health indices of the few unhealthy men and women to develop criteria which are applicable to everyone.

The Barbarians Who Disregard History

History is not a fairytale. It’s not a love story either. History the story of the achievements and the failures of our ancestors; of the terrors and cataclysms as well as the genius and grandeur; of the cruelties, persecutions, and wars as well as the achievements in philosophy, science, literature, engineering, art, and politics. History enables us to learn lessons from the past; it tells us who we are, what our proper place is in the universe. Those who despise history, those who try to distort or obliterate history, are the barbarians. Their rise in politics means the end of a civilization.

Green Shoots Versus Oak Trees

People look at the few green shoots in the cornfields and think that a new civilization is arising, but a civilization is not created by the weak and ephemeral green shoots—it’s created by the giant battle-hardened oak trees which carry the scars of the centuries. The political movements of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries (liberalism, communism, capitalism, neoliberalism, libertarianism, neoconservatism) are the green shoots, which are here today, gone tomorrow. The traditions and movements which have come down to us from the Ancient and Middle Ages are the giant oak trees which will keep supporting us for centuries in the future.

Unemployment and Revolutions

Unemployment has nothing to do with revolutionary activities. Most people join the revolutionary movements when they are young school or college students (the average age of the revolutionaries is between fourteen and twenty years). They come from well-to-do middle class homes, and many belong to the wealthy class. So there is no problem of livelihood for these revolutionaries. Those who face problems of livelihood have no time for revolutionary activities—they are busy looking for jobs or the means to start a small business.

From Where Does Power Grow?

For the communists, power grows out of the barrel of a gun; for the Antifa, power grows out of the butt of a gun. After being knocked down by the gun’s recoil, the weedy-wispy Antifa activists will surmise that the gun’s butt is the source of its power.

The Questions of Philosophy are Unanswerable

Philosophy has sustained itself for more than two thousand years by trying to find the answers to the fundamental questions raised by Socrates and Plato—on the nature of reality, man’s place in the universe, the relation between mind and matter, the ways of leading a moral life and creating a perfect society. But till now these questions have not been convincingly answered. There is little likelihood of them ever being convincingly answered. This can mean two things—one, the questions raised by Socrates and Plato are invalid and must be rejected; two, philosophy is an endless quest to find answers to questions that are fundamentally unanswerable.

Rereading Gone With The Wind

Rereading Margaret Mitchell’s Gone With The Wind: Thank you, liberals—for creating a hoopla and reminding me that more than two decades have passed since I read this great book, and that it’s time for me to reread it.

On Fascism

Fascism is an ideology which tries to acquire political power through movements which claim to be fighting fascism. When the fascists become convinced that they are fighting fascism, their moral fury and political energy reaches the apogee, and they work like devil’s minions to achieve their political goals—hell hath no fury like the fascists who are fighting fascism.

The Periodic Law of Major Civilizations

The passion to innovate, discover, and create and make cultural progress, or indulge in an orgy of insanity, destruction, depravity, and nihilism comes and goes cyclically in all major civilizations—their history follows a “periodic law.” The major civilizations are currently in the phase of insanity, destruction, depravity, and nihilism. They are self-destructing by squandering their resources on battling unreal threats while ignoring the real threats.

On Optimism, Utopianism, & Perfectionism

Optimism in individuals, utopianism in political movements, and perfectionism in philosophical movements is a sign of ignorance and naivety.

2020: The Year of the Post-Truth

The draconian irrationality with which the democratic nations have decimated their own economy and culture in the first five months of 2020, and destroyed the freedoms and livelihood of millions of their own citizens, is a sign that the world has entered the post-truth age. 

The public opinion, driven by the mainstream media which is a handmaiden of the political establishment, is blind and its fickleness is terrifying to watch. The biggest concerns that humanity faces, according to the mainstream media and the government’s spokespersons, are: climate change, global pandemic, gender, racism, sexism, misogyny, and minority rights. The media and the government are no longer concerned with facts and truth—they propagate lies to keep the public in a constant state of fear. If the people are afraid, they can be easily controlled.

Seeking facts and truth is proof of irrational behavior. Rationality in the post-truth age entails being in awe of the specious arguments and emotional melodrama of the politicians, the intellectuals, the experts, and the mobs in the streets.

The Western and Asian Minds in 2020

Seven problems plague the Western mind in the year 2020: climate change, global pandemic, gender, racism, sexism, minority rights, and multiculturalism. These seven problems have not been identified through evidence gathered by using a scientific methodology but on the theories of the philosophers and activists belonging to the Frankfurt School, the postmodernist movement, the libertarian and anarchist movements, and the neoliberal and neoconservative movements. For a century, the Asian mind has blindly followed the Western mind, and most Asian nations have come to accept that these seven problems are real and need to be dealt with swiftly. Thus, the world is now engaged in fighting the seven mythical problems—the year 2020 will go down in history as the year of peak insanity.

Why National Standards Decline?

People imitate their intellectual and political leaders. When the intellectuals and politicians are immoral, ignorant, tyrannical, and cowardly, then a decline in the nation’s moral, intellectual, and political intellectual standards is certain.

Moralist Versus Nihilist

The distinction between a moralist and a nihilist: the moralist is concerned about his people only (himself, his family, his friends, and if he is politically aware, his community and nation), whereas the nihilist is a globalist, he is concerned about all of humankind. A man who is concerned about all human beings, is concerned about no one, not even himself. He can never be a moralist.

The Conservative Mind: From 1991 to Today

From the year 1991 (the fall of the Soviet Union) to 2000, the conservatives were overconfident and complacent. From 2001 to 2009, they were rebellious, bellicose, and utopian. From 2010 to 2016, they were filled with facile pessimism and political disorientation. From 2017 till today, their mood has oscillated between euphoric despair and melancholic hope.

The Politics of Hate

In a community, the tendency to hate is like a drug habit. Once adopted, the hate cannot be shaken off—their politics, for as long as the community remains united, is motivated by the hatred of others. They do not introspect. They never think of doing anything to improve themselves. They spend their life blaming others for their woes. The communities, which get addicted to hate, generally vote for the liberal political parties.

The Contradictions of Practical Politics

The more well-intentioned the people, the more prone they become to utter drivel; the more saintly the political leader, the more prone he is to committing monstrous acts.

What Paves the Path to a Good Society?

The path to hell is paved with good intentions, but what about the path to heaven or a good society—how is that paved? The answer is that the path to a good society is not paved with mere intentions—it’s paved with real deeds of rational, moral, and intelligent people.

Quarks and Finnegan’s Wake

In the 1960s, physicists trying to explore the microscopic depths of matter discovered that protons and neutrons are not fundamental particles—each is made out of three elementary particles. Physicist Murray Gell-Mann decided to call the three elementary particles “quarks,” a name that he got from a line in a whimsical poem in James Joyce’s Finnegan’s Wake:

Three quarks for Muster Mark!

Sure he has not got much of a bark

And sure any he has it’s all beside the mark.

Gell-Mann thought that the line by Joyce was appropriate because the elementary particles came in sets of three to create protons and neutrons. There are six types of quarks: up, down, strange, charm, top, and bottom.

History Never Forgives

Those who are the students of history know that history never forgives. Every political action, or lack of action, is judged by history. History will not forgive the intellectual, political, and financial establishments of the year 2020. They will be harshly judged and exposed as the mediocre and evil minds who, like Emperor Nero, were playing the flute of self-glorification while their draconian polices were destroying their nation. They will be held responsible for bringing humanity to the brink of a new dark age.

The Cassandra in Me

In the last two months, I have thought and written like a Cassandra who gives warnings about the cataclysms which will strike mankind.

The Fragility of Nations

A nation is a fragile thing. It is hard to build and easy to destroy. When the intellectuals, politicians, and technocrats misuse their political power—by mandating new ways of living, and imposing new restrictions or lockdowns—they are asking for trouble. They have no way of knowing how much stress their nation can take before its moral and political structure starts to break apart. Using government’s power to transform peoples’ way of life for managing some imagined or real crisis can easily backfire. It can lead to a decline in cultural standards and economy. If things to out of hand, overuse of government’s power can lead to a revolution or a civil war.

The Legend’s Journey: From Hero to Monster

A man who becomes a legend might appear like a hero from one angle and a monster from another to the people who know him only from the outside. No view of him is incredible. The legend that I have in my mind is Bill Gates. Whether you see Gates as a hero or a monster will depend on your angle. Till about two decades ago, he was seen as a hero because of his contributions in popularizing digital technologies, but ever since he became a full-time philanthropist and healthcare activist, his reputation has taken a beating. His Twitter and Instagram accounts are full of hateful comments from people who are suspicious of his political and social agenda. Most people see him as a monster. But I think Gates, like all legends, is hardly bothered about other peoples opinions. He is obsessed with his own agenda.

The Invention of “Cyberspace”

The term “cyberspace” was coined by the science fiction writer William Gibson in his 1982 short story, “Burning Chrome.” He used the term to refer to the "mass consensual hallucination" in computer networks. In his 1984 novel Neuromancer, he refined his view of “cyberspace,” and used the term to describe a “matrix,” or a realm of total-immersion virtual reality, created from a worldwide network of billions of computers. Today cyberspace stands for a worldwide network of interconnected digital machines. The “cyberspace” is a virtual space, a borderless digital world, in which we enter to access information, accomplish all kinds of tasks, and indulge in mass consensual hallucinations (one of the key attractions of the social media platforms is their ability to provide a variety of hallucinations to their users). With so many people and groups leaving a digital footprints, the cyberspace offers a target rich environment for service providers, spies, and hackers.

Heidegger, Schapiro, and Derrida on Van Gogh’s Painting

In his essay, “The Origin of the Work of Art,” Heidegger meditates on three works of art. One of these works of art is Van Gogh’s painting Old Shoes With Laces. According to Heidegger, the shoes in Van Gogh’s painting belong to a peasant woman. But the art critic Meyer Schapiro rejects Heidegger’s analysis of the painting. He argues that the shoes belong to a city dweller, possibly to Van Gogh himself. Schapiro concludes that Heidegger is injecting his own philosophical and cultural biases (possibly related to Nazism) into his analysis of Van Gogh’s painting. 

Derrida has tried to deconstruct Heidegger’s and Schapiro’s analysis of Van Gogh’s painting in his essay, “Restitution of the truth in pointing.” He says that neither analysis is free of bias: Heidegger is looking at Van Gogh’s painting from a rustic and traditional perspective, while Schapiro is looking at it from an urban liberal perspective. Derrida says that both Heidegger and Schapiro assume that the shoes are a pair and that there is a wearer, but the painting’s title does not mention a pair, and if the shoes are not a pair, there is no question of there being a wearer (like an old peasant woman, as surmised by Heidegger; and a city dweller, as surmised by Schapiro). 

According to Derrida, the shoes in the painting are phallically pointed to create the feeling of hollowness, which is a depiction of feminine sexuality.

Three Levels of Morality

A fully rational, objective, and integrated system of morality is not possible for human beings. We lead our life at three levels. Each of level has an impact on the system of morality that we accept. The three levels are: the level of the individual, the level of the society, and the level of the traditions. The system of morality that we practice at the level of the individual inspires us to be selfish, and discard every constraint in pursuing our desires. But all individuals, howsoever independent minded they might be, are part of society, and they must pay attention to the system of morality that operates at the social level. The social moralists argue that what is good for the individual is good for the collective—they note that a man’s life revolves around collectives such as family, friend and professional circles, city, state, and nation, and they preach that a man must avoid causing harm to his collectives. The third level of morality, the morality of traditions, is founded on ideological thinking. A religious person will believe in the idea that the body is a vessel for carrying the soul which is godlike or part of god, and he will argue that we have the moral responsibility to not do anything that might pollute and degrade our soul. But an atheist will reject religious sense of morality—he will prefer to find his moral ideas in resources such as marxism, libertarianism, existentialism, and liberalism.

On Forgetting The World

You might forget the world and the world might forget you, but most of us lack the power to totally abandon society. Therefore, the notion of forgetting the world does not absolve us from the responsibility of fighting to improve the standards of our society.

On Bans, Prohibitions, and Lockdowns

Bans, prohibitions, and lockdowns work only on those who are moral and have respect for the law. If you ban the moral and law-abiding people from venturing out to make a living, attend to their basic needs, socialize, and find avenues for entertainment, then you will surrender your cities and towns to the criminals, rioters, and looters. Nature does not allow any space to remain vacant forever—the areas in which the moral and law-abiding people are banned from going will eventually become the happy hunting ground for the immoral and lawless.

Criminals and Victims

People strive for justice and morality, but a just and moral way of life is impossible. From ancient times to the modern age, the life of a human being has been nothing more than a frantic striving to be the criminal and not the victim. A vast majority of the people (I would say 99.99% of humanity) end up as the victims—there is no way of remedying the situation because the victims are mired in ignorance, cowardice, and malice. Their ignorance and vices make them incapable of confronting the criminals.

The Conservative Alice And The Cheshire Cat

The traditional conservatives are inspired by their conception of mos maiorum. But in the last thirty years, the leftists, with some help from the novus homo conservatives, have managed to discredit the conception of mos maiorum. With  mos maiorum no longer being the inspiring force, the traditional conservatives have become confused and disoriented. They no longer possess the spirit to fight the left. They don’t know in what direction they ought to go. In the person of Alice, a traditional conservative appears to be demanding an answer from destiny, or the Cheshire Cat:

“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?”
“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat.
“I don’t much care where—” said Alice.
“Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” said the Cat.
“—so long as I get somewhere,” Alice added as an explanation.
“Oh, you’re sure to do that,” said the Cat, “if you only walk long enough.”

On Digital Supremacism

The digital revolution has spawned a new form of supremacism: Digital Supremacism. Like racial supremacism and religious supremacism, digital supremacism is a product of indigestion of history and politics. The digital supremacists have a blind faith in their digital businesses. They believe that their businesses are more moral, efficient, useful, and environment friendly than every other business in the world. They are convinced that problems of humankind cannot be solved until the entire economy transcends the real world and enters into the domain of the digital world, which to them is the ultimate heaven.