The Sands Of Time

Nothing is more human than our desire to interpret our shared humanity by telling stories about ourselves to one another. Some of these are stories with characters in whom we see something of ourselves, stories which sometimes give shape and structure to our experiences by telling us who we are (if that question can be answered), where we have come from (if that is a meaningful notion), where we are headed towards (if at all anywhere), and what we should hope for (if for anything). This does not mean, of course, that we are always fully conscious of the stories that are being enacted in and through our existence (for example, many Westerners may have only a vague notion of precisely what 'capitalism' is, many Hindus but a faint idea of what 'Hinduism' refers to, and so on); and sometimes, given the fact that we stand at the moving intersection of a number of stories, it may not be possible to exhaustively specify the stories that we find ourselves criss-crossed by (for example, a person could accept certain elements from Marxism, be a practising Christian who goes for Yoga sessions over the weekend). We could say that we are mobile nodes in a gigantic network of stories, and this places us in an ambivalent position with respect to the other nodes. Nothing is more facile than to claim one's love for general Humanity, and nothing more difficult than to eradicate one's hatred for specific human beings, especially the ones who are closer to us.

Why Trinity's Women Have Horse-Sense

Dear Trinity BAs,

For women interested in a football kickabout, there will be a get-together of women's footy players tomorrow on Trinity Backs from 2pm. No studs are allowed on the Backs. Just turn up if you want to go.

President,

Trinity BA Society

The Mother's Dilemma

This dilemma first sprang upon me sometime around 1990 when the Indian army cracked down on a 'terrorist' (I shall not here enter into a protracted debate over 'Who is a terrorist?') organisation in my home-state Assam (in the northeastern-most part of India, think of Assam tea); later, of course, I realised that it is quite universalisable. Let me, however, carry on using some local details.

A general of the Indian army with a group of elite forces has raided the house of a terrorist who is known to be planning a series of bomb-attacks on the capital of Assam within the next few weeks, a blitz which lead to the deaths of at least hundreds of citizens. However, on entering the terrorist's den, they find that the bird, along with others of the same feather, has flown the nest. But not quite, because his wife and his young son are still sleeping there peacefully. Now the general ties up his wife to one chair and his son to another, and threatens her that unless she reveals to him where her husband is absconding, he shall slowly start chopping off one finger after another from her son's hands. I squirm when I visualise the double-bind that the wife finds herself in : she is in a no-win situation, for she shall lose something either way. As for the general himself, he will forfeit something of his humanity if he actually chops of the boy's fingers, but most probably also his job if he fails to nab the terrorist who will then blow to bits hundreds of people a few days later.

Care and Respect : The Fuzzy Line

Our social existence involves us in a series of painstaking and yet joyful processes of learning how to tread on the sensitive dividing line between our care for other people and our respect for them. On the one hand, we learn to gradually develop and structure our ability to imaginatively participate in the lived experiences of others, especially by honing our sensitivities to their experiences of happiness, suffering, despair, hope, freedom, creativity, and wonder. On the other hand, however, in the midst of such empathetic encounters we should not become oblivious to the fact that other people are genuinely autonomous beings who may sometimes wish to be just 'left alone'. Consequently, our communal exchanges discipline us, sometimes painfully, to learn to discern the fine line between our care for other people around us and our respect for their individual liberty and their moral autonomy.

A Consistent Question

If you want to 'see' that a certain system of rules, axioms, organisations, beliefs, and practices is consistent, you will need to stand outside this sytem, either physically or metaphorically (that is, in your imagination). Right? Now if you want to 'see' that you are rational, you would therefore need to be irrational or non-rational now and then, so that these occasional bursts of irrationality or non-rationality would be the exception that would prove the rule. Right? Or left?

Suppose you read a report from NASA this afternoon in the New York Times which states that the Earth will be hit by a gigantic meteor in late August 2006 which will decimate Humanity all over the globe. How will this report change your current life-style (if at all)?

A Nightmarish Evening

I have had a horrible evening today. I went out early in the afternoon to buy a gift for my niece who is turning 16 today, and just for once I thought I would buy some girly stuff for her. I asked the lady at the counter where I could find that sort of thingy, and I was taken to one end of the store. She gave me a beautifully wrapped box and commended the product to me : 'This is the latest in girly stuff'. And on top of it was written : 'Because you have earned it'. Yes, I had the dough with me, and I had earned it too. So I bought it.

I came home with it and started opening it. Some bits of styrofoam came out. And more. And more. Until I reached the bottom. There was nothing in the box but styrofoam. Except. Except a piece of paper which said : 'Because you have just bought it'.

A Typical Day In The Life Of Two Western Intellectuals

When the Transparent Ironist was in India in 2003, a friend of his had asked him what it was like to live as an Intellectual. (Which reminded him of an old pop song, 'Living Like A Movie-Star, Do You Really Know What They Are?') He gave his friend the following typical sample of an erudite conversation between two western Intellectuals to give him an 'idea' of how such Intellectuals carry on with their charmed existence.

Jacques : Did you receive my text?

Josephine: Sure I did!

Jacques : So it is true?

Josephine : Yes, it is. I have de/constructed our baby.

Jacques : I see.

Josephine : You see? Is that all you can do, you shameless pig? You have nothing to say?

Jacques : Well, I could speak something. But then there is always this gap, this emptiness, and this chasm between what I say and what I intend to say. I can never communicate any stable meaning to you through my words. I am forever trapped inside my words and I cannot go beyond them. And there is nobody to rescue me from the prison-house of my language. How sad my life is! Boo-hoo!

Josephine : I see.

Jacques : You see? Is that all you can do, you cryptic siren? You have nothing to write?

Josephine : Well, I could write something. But then all my texts are nothing but a free play of my words, and I must keep on deferring myself. I am as trapped inside my thoughts as you are inside your words.

Jacques : So you always knew that you were absent even in your presence?

Josephine : Well, I always sensed that this was just an endless chain of metaphors. But I was just hoping that you would keep up the appearances.

Jacques : And what have you realised now?

Josephine : That I was never your wife in the first place!

Jacques : Ah! Touche! Bravo! Bravo! For a paradox like that I could have married you a thousand times over! Shall we play this game again?

Josephine : Of course.

Jacques : Hold on, let me get some more Nescafe.

Josephine : Yes, you do that, and I need to answer that call from Harvard in the meantime.

Why The Government Never Wins

The reason why They, the government, can never win, come what may, is because We, the governed, think of Them as our big brother who is perched far away on some celestial pedestal perpetually doling out favours to us. Therefore, irrespective of what they may do or what they may not do, We shall never be satisfied.

(A) Suppose We think that They are not doing enough for health-care, libraries, civic amenities, public safety, and internal transport. We shall then accuse them of not delivering the goods.

(B) Suppose in response to our repeated complaints They suddenly wake up from their political slumber and start making slow progess in this direction. We shall still continue to accuse them, however, and this time of indifferentism.

(C) Suppose, finally, that They do go into full drive and really begin to take an active interest in our social welfare so that the streets become cleaner, less meaner, well-policed, brightly-lit and safe. However, we shall accuse them again, and this time of patronising us and intruding into our privacy.

This, in short, is why They can never win, no matter how hard they try. It is not that They do not make an attempt : We simply do not want Them to win, for We like to have a convenient scape-goat at hand for all our troubles, and what better candidate for it than Them?

Man, The Belligerent Animal

Why cannot Man learn from the past and live together in peace with his brothers without erupting into the lethal violence of a cataclysmic war every now and then? Should not Man make use of his reason and discuss thorny matters with his opponents in a context of persuasive rationality by sitting down at a table before beating on the war drum? (Now read the footnote at the end of this post.) There are some elementary reasons related to the lack of socio-economic essentials and socio-cultural privileges that are suffered by one group of men that leads them to wage war over another. For example, if 500 men do not get enough to eat and are surrounded by 10,000 who gorge themselves every night, it is highly probable that the former will be antagonised against the latter, and will launch into some sort of warfare sooner or later.

More generally, however, Men go to war against one another because there are two states of socio-political existence that they cannot endure : one is that of Too Much Difference (TMD) and the other is that of Too Much Similarity (TMS).

When some Men realise that there are people at their frontiers who are very different from them in social habits and behaviour, cultural practices, economic dealings, and religious customs, this knowledge of radical difference fills them with a deep anxiety, and fuelled by this insecurity of TMD they are propelled to initiate a campaign of war against their neighbours. This is done so as to obliterate the perceived differences and bring their defeated ('uncivilised') opponents and themselves under the more stable ('civilised') canopy of beliefs and practices that will be, it is claimed, immediately transparent and recognisable to everyone. This is why Men will expend so much effort in ensuring that there is nobody in their midst who bears any resemblance, physiologically or culturally, to the foreigners across the boundaries, and if any such people do exist will demand of them that they make an explicit denial of any supposed connections with their hated outsiders.

This does not mean, however, that with the annihilation of all differences, significant or niggling, Men can thereafter live together in a condition of Arcadian peace, for the removal of distinguishing marks only seizes Men with a new sort of anxiety, this time that of TMS. Men simply cannot live together in a state where they find themselves too similar to one another, and indeed so tiresome and insipid this drab homogeneity becomes for them that they will rather stir up some trouble with one another than linger on with their monotonous existence. In this manner, one thing, as we say, will lead to another, and before we are aware of it, some Men will have come together to form an alliance against the others in their own midst, and the conditions will then be ripe for the outbreak of another conflagration of war. In other words, even when there are no genuine irreconciliable differences among themselves, Men will ingenuously invent them (or excavate them from the forgotten past) with the belief that they are doing this in order to spice up their lives for Saturday evening gossip, not realising that there is a slippery slope that may drag them down from their desire for a bit of weekend jousting to their justification for a full-scale war.

(Footnote : I write here specifically about Men, and whether or not this analysis applies to Women is for you to say.)

The Subtle Tricks We Play (On One Another)

(A) There is not a mother on earth who is bold enough to inform her daughter about the nasty habits of men. Blinded by her desire to have grand-children, a mother will hide any truth.

(B) 'Suffering will make you strong' is an often-heard dictum. Curiously enough, however, we rarely apply this dictum to ourselves, and are all too ready to throw it at others, especially at others whom we do not want to see happy.

(C) The new skeptics like to congratulate themselves on having discovered the truth that love is blind. As a matter of fact, however, it is they who are blind for they do not perceive that it is love that truly enables a person to see.

The Historical Roots of Pop Music

Whenever I listen to pop music, I get this feeling of deva ju, this uncanny suspicion that I have heard something of that sort somewhere else, though in a somewhat different form. Read, for example, these lyrics from a contemporary song by Britney Spears : You were my summer breeze, my winter sun, my springtime soul, my autumn touch of gold. Yeah. And you were my sky, my rain, the earth in which my love goes strong. The smile of my heart and the breath of my soul.

Now read this : I come to my garden, my sister, my bride, I gather my myrrh with my spice, I eat my honeycomb with my honey, I drink my wine with my milk. Eat, O friends, and drink: drink deeply, O lovers! I slept, but my heart was awake. Hark! my beloved is knocking.' Open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, my perfect one; for my head is wet with dew, my locks with the drops of the night.' I had put off my garment, how could I put it on? I had bathed my feet, how could I soil them? My beloved put his hand to the latch, and my heart was thrilled within me.

And now read this : You were with me, but I was not with you. You called, you shouted, and you broke through my deafness. You breathed your fragrance on me; I drew in breath and now I pant for you. I have tasted you, now I hunger and thirst for more. You touched me, and I burn for your peace.

Can you guess when these lines were written?

Why Relativity Is Not Relativism

This is one of my favourite paradoxes : Albert Einstein's theory of relativity is more absolute than Newton's gravitational model or Ptolemy's celestial mechanics.

Why I Am A Wise Guy

Some women are wise. (Perhaps.)
I am otherwise.

International Dog's Day

Tomorrow April 5, 2005 is International Dog's Day, a day on which billions of dog-lovers all over the world will get together, both physically and internetically, to share their experiences of co-inhabiting a world with that most delightful creature, the Dog (a.k.a. Koochie-Koo, Gool-Sehr, and Pina-Noona). In order to mark this special occasion, the Transparent Ironist has coined three aphorisms.

(A) After God created Adam, God realised that God could do much better than that. So God created the Dog as Adam's constant companion to remind Adam how imperfect a being he was.

(B) Never trust a woman who does not adore dogs. Never trust a man who does not trust a woman who does not adore dogs. Never trust a reader who thinks that this aphorism is pure dogshit.

(C) Many men who groan that they are living a dog's life have not the faintest clue what they are talking about. For one, no dog would ever bark orders to another dog. For another, I have never heard a dog complain that his life is a bitch. Finally, no self-respecting dog would bark up the wrong tree.

When Left Meets Right

One of the first ironists in the history of Europe was the Greek Heraclitus (535 - 475 BC), known as the 'obscure philosopher', who declared, 'The way down-wards is also the way up-wards', which I would update, hopefully less obscurely, as, 'The way left-wards is also the way right-wards'. This is my way of saying that the people who slide towards the extreme (socio-political) Left tend to behave very much like those who are in the extreme (socio-political) Right.

To understand how that happens, consider the following moves. (1) To begin with, you are in the Left, that is, you oppose the dominant culture as being hierarchical, dogmatic, rigidly orthodox, and elitist. (2) You have a number of like-minded friends who have views similar to those of yours, and all of you collectively form the counter-culture. (3) Soon enough, however, you begin to feel that this counter-culture itself has become the new orthodoxy or a disguised form of overarching authority, and you feel that you can be truly Leftist only if you reject this counter-culture of your friends too and break away from it. (4) Consequently, you believe that the Individual (that is, you yourself) should exercise the maximum amount of personal autonomy without any restraint from any communitarian authority, whether this is your friends, your society, or your government. (5) And this is precisely what somebody who is in the extreme Right believes.

Thus, people who become extreme Leftists are indistinguishable (in external behaviour, if not in intention) from those who are extreme Rightists.

The Culture Of Pretence

A friend of yours has invited you on a tour to an Art gallery in London tomorrow, and since you have nothing better to do, you agree to her proposal. You heroically wake up at 7:30, take the 8:05 train from Cambridge to London's King Cross, and after a harrowing fifteen minutes in the Underground, you are finally there. You take the polished elevator and reach the third floor where you follow the instructions and enter the gallery soon after.

What strikes you immediately is the expansive barrenness of the brightly-lit room : there are no pictures or paintings on the walls painted green and orange, and there are no sculptures or statues at the sides either. And then your friend points out to you three small red stones laid down haphazardly at the far end of the room. Now what you must not do is to exclaim, 'Is that supposed to be Art?', for not only will this uncivilized holler massively infuriate your discerning friend but it will also place her in a highly embarassing situation with all those civilized people around her.

Instead, try to grasp the fact that we are all living inside the cocoon of a Culture of Pretence, and when you are able to do so, you will also be able to consume with perfect equanimity what is being peddled in front of you as Art. Firstly, the Artist pretends that she is on a serious mission to propagate a subversive message through her Art; secondly, the Art-critics pretend to take this revelation of hers seriously; thirdly, the Art-gallery manager who buys and promotes her Art pretends to listen to the opinions of these Art-critics seriously. It does not stop there, for the Japanese businessman who buys her Art pretends to have become an Art-connoisseur overnight, and pretends, in addition, to have developed an acutely discriminating sense of what Art is; moreover, the Art-reporters for the national newspapers pretend to have comprehended the refined choice of these Art-connoisseurs.

However. However, let us say that you do not quite accept my freely given advice with your best interests at my heart, and actually commit the most reprehensible crime of declaring that what you see strewn in front of you is clearly not Art. In that case, you must be prepared to face an unceasing avalanche of exasperated interjections from indignant Art-lovers who will immediately accuse you of being totalitarian, repressive, hegemonic, and normalizing. Once again, however, be not ruffled in the least by their expletives : they are simply trying their best to pretend to be arguing seriously, and you should return them the compliment by pretending to listen to them seriously.