Our Leaders are Mad but we Actualize their Madness

….life in the state of nature is "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short" 

Thomas Hobbes noted the above in his Leviathan. For according to Hobbes;

“NATURE hath made men so equal in the faculties of body and mind as that, though there be found one man sometimes manifestly stronger in body or of quicker mind than another, yet when all is reckoned together the difference between man and man is not so considerable as that one man can thereupon claim to himself any benefit to which another may not pretend as well as he. For as to the strength of body, the weakest has strength enough to kill the strongest, either by secret machination or by confederacy with others that are in the same danger with himself.”

According to Hobbes, we are equal in our ability to attain our ends which more often than not compete with other’s ends. This brings forth a dangerous competition, keen on elimination for self preservation. This is life in a state of nature. Where there is no central authority or any form of governance. Everything is in chaos.

According to Hobbes the panacea to this is a government with a strong central authority. Everyone is supposed to cede his rights to the central authority. This has the effect of bringing sanity to the populace. This they must do for protection. Any abuses by the authority should not be questioned by the populace for it is their own creation.

That’s Hobbes. Despite some of his debatable dispositions in his political philosophy, he touched a very irksome subject of the human nature; how humans can afford things necessary for a commodious living. He probably identified the problem but failed to give a perfect remedy.

Why are men and women turning against each other today even when we have very structured systems of governance? Could it be that majority of citizens feel that they don’t take part in creating the government and therefore feel obligated to topple it ala the Arab Spring?

My thinking is that, we kill each other because we don’t think. We are rational animals. We possess the power of reasoning. Every day, our leaders advertise their war tenders. We then place bids for the same. We all qualify and get awarded. Then, we start doing business with them. We kill. We maim. We loot. Not for us but for them. Then we resume back to our normal lives. The politicos become richer and powerful as we became poorer, powerless and maneuverable. The cycle continues unrelentingly.

We don’t rationalize. Politicians use the power of emotions to make us sympathize with them. Powerful reasoning definitely alienates emotional tendencies. Where there is logical reasoning, the fallacy of appealing to the populace’s emotion is entirely eclipsed. They know this. They debilitate our inherent reasoning capability in us by predisposing us to environments allergic to logical reasoning. They choose what goes to the media. They also dictate what is dispensed in our learning institutions. They control the flow of knowledge.

We are therefore made to believe that we know. Against that foundation, there is nothing we can do. We are helpless and hapless. We become civil servants, of course lower cadre, join the military and the police force and swear to blindly perform the entire sovereign’s work, dirty or clean. We call this duty to the state. Even when killing innocent people in South Sudan and Syria, it is duty to the state.  Killing for one’s religion. Killing for one’s political ideology. Is this ok?

Probably, I did not come out clearly. On this, it is not possible. As humans, we can do better. We can change the world to a better one. We can embrace one another despite our religions, political ideologies, race or class we can fair better. To achieve this, we need to stage a putsch against our etiolated system of reasoning, one ingrained into us by the establishment. We need to wear different lens. We need to retrace our true knowledge. We need to reason logically. It is a huge undertaking but trust yourself on this!

Should We Really 'Canonize' or Believe our politicians?

When French Philosopher, Auguste Comte, the father of Sociology coined the term altruism, he set the stage for much debate as to whether "true" altruism is possible. I will simply define altruism by giving its antithesis; Selfishness or technically, psychological egoism. You become or your actions are defined as altruistic if in performing them, you don’t expect to get anything in return. Altruism or selflessness is the principle or practice of concern for the welfare of the society.

Do you think, in relation to our politics and the key players therein, it is possible to single out an individual who we can describe as altruistic? That, in seeking to assume political power, it is purely for the good of the citizens and not a scintilla of his or her intentions is or can practically be linked to personal gratification. That, this individual will spend sleepless nights scheming how to outfox rivals and spend a great deal of personal fortune in order to win an elective post. That, the victory is predicated upon not his or her own benefits but only for the good of the citizens. Is there such a man or woman?

Ponder this difficulty. When I perform an altruistic task, I am happy about. Does this happiness constitute personal benefits. Could I have embarked on a selfless endeavor in order to to sit back in satisfaction and the the attendant benefits after the completion of such an altruistic task. Well, the theory of psychological egoism  suggests that no act of sharing, helping or sacrificing can be described as truly altruistic, as the actor may receive an intrinsic  reward in the form of personal gratification. The validity of this argument depends on whether intrinsic rewards qualify as "benefits." For instance, if you help someone, chances are you will get praised for that without prompting the praise. That is an intrinsic benefit.

Psychological egoism posits that, humans are always motivated by self-interest, even in what seem to be acts of altruism. It claims that, when people choose to help others, they do so ultimately because of the personal benefits that they themselves expect to obtain, directly or indirectly, from doing so. We have widely acclaimed global heroes and heroines reputed to have done monumental selfless deeds to humanity. Is there a chance that, behind the public veil of selflessness, lies greedy, cunning and selfish mortals who ably discern legend-making opportunities and takes them before anyone does. It could also be the case that the good born out of their actions is a pure accident that actually surprises even the doer of that action. Do you see sense in this?

One would argue that, the best way to judge the actions of our politicians is to first establish the intentions of their actions and plans. Is it possible? Or do we just vote them into power and wait to see what good comes out of their leadership. Or should we judge them for their past deeds which we have ‘established’ could have been accidental. As humans, we have something any other member of the animal kingdom lacks. The power of ratiocination, which is simply defined as methodical and logical reasoning. We must clearly be able to define terms. What is ‘good’, what constitutes a ‘hero or heroine’. Clear definations will give us a clear understanding of ethical matters. To effectively do this, we must be able to reason and rationalise. We must be driven by reason and not emotions which completely clouds the former. Probably when we do this, in future, the next big global weapon shall be rational arguments. Rationalization from its philosophical sense has never and will never fail humanity!

HOW ABOUT TYRANNY?

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”  (C.S. Lewis)

When Socrates Met Phaedrus: Eros in Philosophy

Crazy Hot

Let me set the scene. It’s hot. It’s really hot. It’s the middle of the Greek summer. Socrates is in Athens where he bumps into an acquaintance called Phaedrus. They say hi. They begin to talk.

Phaedrus is a little excited. He has just heard what he thinks is an amazing speech on love — eros — by the orator Lysias. For the ancient Greeks, eros denoted both sexual pleasure and was the name of a god. That is, love has both physical and metaphysical aspects.

Socrates persuades Phaedrus to read him the speech (he has a copy hidden under his cloak). After a long morning listening to speeches, Phaedrus is eager to stretch his legs and Socrates agrees to accompany him on a stroll out of the city. What is remarkable is that this is only time in all the Platonic dialogues that Socrates leaves the city of Athens. He is no nature boy. Trees have nothing to teach him.

Indeed, the climate influences this dialogue more than any other text by Plato that I know. Such is the heat of eros described by Sappho,

Sweat pours down me, I shake
all over, I go pale as green 
grass. I’m that close to being dead

Like I said, it’s hot.

The two men walk some distance along the Illisos River. They are both barefoot and walk in the water. Sweat pours down their faces. They decide to sit down by the banks of the river in the shade of a broad-leaved plane tree — in Greek, a platanos. A Plato-tree. It is hardly mere accident that the shade that provides the shelter for the dialogue is broad-shouldered Plato — from platus, meaning broad— the tree in which cicadas sing.

Socrates tells a story about the cicadas. Because they were so enthused by the Muses, cicadas sing constantly, stopping for neither food nor drink until they die. If cicadas are inspired by the Muses, Socrates suggests, then philosophers should be inspired by cicadas. The difference between philosophers and cicadas is that the former don’t sing so beautifully or so constantly … although they do get to live a little longer.

Read the article in the New York Times

Questions for Free-Market Moralists

In 1971 John Rawls published “A Theory of Justice,” the most significant articulation and defense of political liberalism of the 20th century. Rawls proposed that the structure of a just society was the one that a group of rational actors would come up with if they were operating behind a “veil of ignorance” — that is, provided they had no prior knowledge what their gender, age, wealth, talents, ethnicity and education would be in the imagined society. Since no one would know in advance where in society they would end up, rational agents would select a society in which everyone was guaranteed basic rights, including equality of opportunity. Since genuine (rather than “on paper”) equality of opportunity requires substantial access to resources — shelter, medical care, education — Rawls’s rational actors would also make their society a redistributive one, ensuring a decent standard of life for everyone.

In 1974, Robert Nozick countered with “Anarchy, State, and Utopia.” He argued that a just society was simply one that resulted from an unfettered free market — and that the only legitimate function of the state was to ensure the workings of the free market by enforcing contracts and protecting citizens against violence, theft and fraud. (The seemingly redistributive policy of making people pay for such a “night watchman” state, Nozick argued, was in fact non-redistributive, since such a state would arise naturally through free bargaining.) If one person — Nozick uses the example of Wilt Chamberlain, the great basketball player — is able to produce a good or service that is in high demand, and others freely pay him for that good or service, then he deserves to get rich. And, once rich, he doesn’t owe anyone anything, since his wealth was accumulated through voluntary exchange in return for the goods and services he produced. Any attempt to “redistribute” his wealth, so long as it is earned through free market exchange, is, Nozick says, “forced labor.”

For more read the article in the New York Times