One's personality is both a composition and reflection, but if I have to choose one of them, I will choose reflection as the "self" is more important to me than "me". One's composition may change, walking across the cultural landscapes and climbing the social ladder but one's self is tied to one's reflections. The fun part is that reflections are not bound to "Time-Space" barriers ( it is not time-space) and respective mental constructs, which have grown so thick over ages, that they had reduced the image of humans to Sisyphus, rolling different sizes of boulders on hills of different heights.… As the name of this Blog indicates, knols are my perspectives on topics of interests, sweet/bitter experiences or just doodling :)

Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Does Democracy leads to freedom?

We see democracy as a goal of freedom movements but the question is, "does democracy itself leads to freedom?"... that is a very important question as we see.... democracy is also used to oppress the minorities. In countries, where there are multiple cultural groups living and have a core majority cultural identity, naturally core cultural majority dominates other cultural minorities unless there are mechanisms which allow the self-rule of cultural minorities so they do not feel threatened or discriminated against both by state and the fellow citizen (and that would really unfortunate if it is happen by law, by zeal of religious or patriotism duty). I think, it is not going to happen unless we do not redefine the very basics of the democracy and that is the definition of people....

People were always the source of the power and legitimacy and it is why every ruler and form of the government link themselves to people. Some link it by name of God, others by their historical noble bloodline, ethnicity, cultural superiority, patriotism,.... and unfortunately by name people themselves. Democracy is often defined as the government of the people on the people by the people. But who is the people? No one has defined the people and it is taken by default as majority.... So it is why we find in some democracies..... that in one case it is the majority who rule over minority and in other minority aristocrates rule over majority. People, though the source of the power but is not a crowd of the identical men and women. People is a diversified crowd. By just a simple walk across a city you can observe the diversity of people.

People are divided by religion, culture, language, education, life standards, professions, etc and all these make them biased in their judgments. As people are the source of the power, so their divisions are the source of the discriminations and oppression. It is why defining democracy as, "the government of the people by the people on the people is not enough.

We need to redefine people so not let one group of people oppress another group. By a quick glance across globe we find many examples of tyrrany of the majority over minority under democracy and also the centralization of the power and economy under the name of democracy in the hands of powerful elites. Recently, some voices are raised for decentralization of the power and economy. It is a good approach for empowering the small communities and minorities and to shield them against the tyranny of the majority. But it is only possible if minorities rights are recognized and allow minorities to rule on themselves within country's jurisdiction and exercise freely. To be free in educating their children, running their businesses, settling their disputes and securing their community.

I ask all those who really stands for human rights to use their pens and voices for the minorities who are oppressed by majority. Still I urge for more discussion and rethinking about the democracy so we could come up with a form of a government that really suits the todays globalized world and secure the human rights of all.

I wrote it in 2009 as a review of Artur Landerzon Barrera Garcia's knol (But what's democracy?)..with a small changes I republish it because of importance of the question and topic...

Monday, November 28, 2011

Higher imagination paradox

“Imagination is more important than knowledge” said Einstein. It is the source of inspiration for some teachers which understand how the minds respond to the learning projects and designs but most can’t realize it as they persists that, knowledge is more important for them than imaginations of their students. It is these two opposite approaches that create the paradox. Certainly the knowledge that are the result of the works of established scholars through centuries are more worthy than the unreliable imaginations of the students that most are rediscovering what already have been discovered but still there are students undiscovered who will become established scholars who will change both the nature of knowledge and the course of the knowledge seeking.

A child becomes interested in compass when equipped with conventional knowledge become uneasy with the established knowledge of the established scholars. He interwoven the time and space in mesh work and opened the door for other imaginations. People inspired by these imaginations started imagining about the time travel in a then imaginative looking space. Time travel paradoxes rose. Black holes, black matters rose in face of the old universe and universe start expanding. All these imaginations were shaping the nature and course of knowledge.

Inspired from the imaginations of Einstein another child imagined another amazing possibility. He imagined of possibility of explaining all processes of nature in one inch long equation. He attached himself to radical imagination that nature is composed of strings so the string theory entered into physics which have surprised both physicists and scholars attached with other disciplines.

We put a lot of examples that first looked radical and not matching with established sets of knowledge but later on changed the course of thinking and perception of reality. The important point is the way we looking to knowledge and the way it constructed. The constructivism philosophy that we have based on our learning methods are designed and aimed to involve students in ways the knowledge is constructed and hence to produce new generations of students that construct new sets of knowledge and hence sustain the course of progress of knowledge and societies in which we live in.

My personal experience both as student and teacher fits with higher imagination paradox. When teachers value too much the conventional and established knowledge the students lose confidence in their imaginations. They felt difficulty both in understanding as well establishing their own personal point of view on the issues. On contrary, when teachers value the imaginations of the students and encourage them to challenge the established knowledge as well construct their own solutions to present problems of the world then the student gain confidence and start thinking seriously the problems. Once the problems become the personal problems of students by inclusions of their imaginations they will take personally as part of their long life processes.

Student’s imaginations may be higher not only than his teachers but also than the established knowledge of the time. The imagination of this particular student has to cope with established knowledge and their representatives to make his place in the world of knowledge but it is problematic for teachers. How to value the imaginations of students against established knowledge as well as how measure the value of the imaginations.

The scientific mechanism is the best measure and tests for the corrections of imaginations but they can’t work in identifying the valuable imaginations. Every radical and totally new imagination requires creating tools for its workability and proving. It is the core problem that the teachers have to understand once they encounter the higher imaginative students. The teachers have to help students in developing their own tools for their radical imaginations. A theoretical physicist will need new sets of mathematics as his tools to prove and shape his imaginations into a theory in which nature could be explained better than existing theories.

A student in humanities will require a strong knowledge of the structure of society both in present world as well as their developments through history. They have to know the key problems and coming problems so they could develop their own tools for imaginative engineering of societies and by comparing their engineered and designed solutions to the structures of the existing problems.

Conclusion:

There are two very important points that teachers have to note while they help students to construct their own knowledge.

1- Value the student’s imaginations that they become confident in challenging established knowledge.

2- Once a student with signs of higher imaginations is discovered, it is the responsibility of his teachers to help him build the tools for making his imaginations, reality.

Century of humanities

In the start of the 20th century there were several social and economical systems which were replacing the empires and feudal systems. The enthusiasms of nation states and revolutions were on the verge of testing. The communism, socialism, capitalism and democracy were the dominant political and economical systems were quickly adopting by nation states. It was the first times that nations were rivaling each other by their political and economic systems. All the political and economical systems that were going to be practiced were not the inventions of the 20th century itself but were based on centuries old philosophies or inspired from older civilizations. Both communism and democracy have been practiced in ancient Greek and Inca civilizations. The philosophies have developed before the 20th century. Both rival economic systems were using the scientific and technological inventions and discoveries to prove the success of their approaches in managing societies. The science and technology are the producing forces and the political and economical systems are the managing forces. The science and technology expand a society and the political and economic systems evolve a society. If the political and economic systems were misused or they failed to manage the progress and expansions that result from scientific and technological advancements then the benefits of these expansions will concentrate in hands of few and most of the society will only struggle to survive.

In the last quarter of the 20th century, the Chinese communism has seen a partial shift towards capitalism. The controlled transitions of the communist China were breaking both capitalist and communist principles. Similarly, the Soviet Union collapsed and the Russian Federation adopted capitalism. End of 20th century were evident of the victory of capitalism and democracy. The USA with capitalist and democratic characteristics rose as a single power of the world. It was thought that democracy and capitalism is the ultimate political and economical systems that world has reached to. The situation is comparable to Newtonian or classical physics. The classical physicist thought that they are equipped with natural philosophy that can explain every natural processes and forces but the quantum mechanics come out surprise to physicist and introduced an endless natural phenomenon that were unexplained. The natural phenomenon that explained created a parallel world to classical physics. Now theoretical physicists working for both exposures and creations of the amazes that quantum mechanics will create.

Capitalism and democracy had a triumph start at the start of both new century and millennium. But just eight years after the start of new century and new millennium the world had different realization. The financial markets were collapsing one after another. The corporations and markets were coping were their survival. The people start to rethink about alternate currencies or the hard assets to save their earning and deposits to be not robbed by market players. The governments all over the world interfered with markets and started pouring public money to save private companies and financial markets. It was first time the world have seen the collapse of capitalism. To save capitalism the socialists acts become essential. I know that a working system can continue working by making continuous injections but they fail to fulfill the basic purpose and that is evolution of society and providing the benefits of the scientific and technological advancements to the all parts of society. Similarly the people would simply name it a temporary recession to cover the failure of a system and similarly indicate the functioning of systems and by objective examples prove to people that it is the sole and ultimate system that we have no choice but to live with and live in.

On other hand the world saw rise of new forces. The China, Russia, India and Muslim world are the rising forces of the new century. The old power is struggling to maintain its power by show of power, so we have seen the war in Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon and Palestine and threats to Iran. The Balkanization of Asia is also another factor that struggles are included. The triumph of democracy faded when the democracy brought Hamas in power in the Palestine and the Iranian revolutions continued democratically to resist the domination efforts. The globalization both in terms of the more informed, empowered people and the growing role of people in global economics are threats to world domination and controlled governance both through socialists and capitalists democracies.

Just like post modernism where the distinctions between values and realities have no meaning. It is the individuals who make random values and meaning for themselves, the world politics changed its course from ideal divisions to interest based divisions. Now it has no meaning what you are and what are doing but it is more important than how much you can benefit me whether my benefits costing heavy losses to world or not. It seems that ideologies are dying and the people have no way except letting themselves to the flow of time.

Some people say that in previous century we were so busy in scientific and technological as well as in political and economical rivalries that we couldn’t afford to realize our achievements and their uses but were competing with each other. Now this century is the century of realization. I endorse this approach because we have ended with a lot of problems as well as resources but without any method to manage them. It is the management of societies that the core problem of the 21st century as well as new millennium. The world needs not to repair the old systems but to create whole sets of new systems both in politics and economics that match the true nature of globalization. The present globalization is a mess that the people of the world are trapped in and have to live in. This will lead to new philosophies as well as new set of political and economical sciences. It is why I am saying that the present century is the century of humanities because from education, family system to political and economical systems all will be redefined.

Change

Change the world at no cost

The strongest force of attraction is believed to be in blackholes but to men's spirit, the blackhole is the perception of "Change". Despite of its attraction, change is looks very big. Or perhaps we are thinking of them as big. May be we have become habitual of thinking change as changing the world or changing a system. We do not have to blame ourselves for it because in an age of global connectivity, it is normal to think globally. Actually it is more desirable and sometimes necessary to think globally. However in race for thinking global we forget or avoid things that affect our daily lives. It looks like an old sermon to start with that, we all observe changes in nature by changing of days and nights, changes of seasons but truly we dont think of them as change. We look at them as a routin process that were existed and will exist. The real change, we think is changes that human brings and that is visible and inescapable in effect.

Though it is the collective changes that affect globally but our individual acts count. We all are part of the global community. As of 2009, the world population was estimated to be 6 billion (6,000,000,000) people and it is expected that in 2012 this population grow to be 7 billion. An addition of 1 billion people just in 3 to 4 years is unbelievable. It is a not a simple addition of 1 billion people to population but increase in exploitation of natural resources, land use and more pressure on social services that is not already enough and also intensifying the conflicts among rival groups who are struggling for use of resources.

I know that an individual cannot stop increasing population. Even the governments have difficulty in controlling population because a lot of issues related to population control is controversial. Family planning, abortion and types of marriages (e.g, polygamy) is highly sensitive issues among across cultures and religions. However, there are ways that we can make things better and letting opportunities reach to more people. It doesn't take anything from us but instead enrich our lives and also shows our generosity to coming generations.
How we can contribute. It is just small adjustments to our behaviors or behavioral changes that can change the world. Let's go back to world population. We have to see it in two ways, One way to look at it is, 1 out of 6,000,000,000 is too small that is almost equal Nil. The second way is, if 6000, 6000,000 or 6000,000,000 decides to do very small things, they can have great impacts.

Let's make some simple calculations.

1. It is estimated that as of 2007 there was 6,000,000 cars. If half of the people that have cars decide to not use their cars just for one day and assuming that on average each car is using one liters of gasoline. The world will save 3000,000 liters of fossil fuel.

2. If all people eat just one gram lesser than their routin, there will be no harm to their health (it will improve the health of large part of world population), it will save 6000,000 Kg of food. 6000,000 Kg is a large saving both for human and for environment.

If you think in this line and include other small things like usaga of water, plastic bags, mailing instead of e mailing, advertising on internet or advertising by mails, taking notes on your computers instead of notebooks, turning off extra lights, using ceramics instead of disposable products for foods and drinks and so on. These all examples are all behavioral and doesnot cost you anything but save you and world.

How is it possible?

Previously such kinds of ideas were looking silly but since social networks grew into giants, it looks promisingly possible. People has started saying that social networks like, facebook will be the largest country in the world in terms of population and the wikipedia is the largest university in terms of accessibility, usage and information resources.

According to Wikipedia, the facebook has currently 400 million active users worldwide. Though it is the much less than only population of a single country like China (more than 1.3 billion people) and it is only 6.6% of world population but the rate of growth of users of facebook is high than population growth of china or the world. Though it will never catch the world population as children and a large part of adults can't use it and also a large number of people choose not to use it either because of privacy or other issues.

Persuasion and convincing people to have a healthy, green and more tolerance, though for a short of amount of time will collectively have great impacts.

To me, in a time when internet is providing chance to reach to people across the world and acts and thoughts of people in any part of world, affecting the people across the globe, the responsibility of the intellectuals, teachers, people advocates, and students who have means and understanding of issues have increased manyfold.

Social networks could become positive

Recently, you may hear voices against socail networking addiction. You hear people are saying they spend a large parts of their time on social networks for nothing and it is costing their studies, careers, relationships and health. If you have a facebook account and you are spending a lot of your time in it, so why not use it to make the world a better place by persuading your friends for green, healthy behaviors and try to increse tolerance and acceptance for other races, nationalities, religions and hence help reducing conflicts. Satrt rallying for change.

Why Change?

During presidential election, 2008, president, Barack Obama, used the word "Change" and the phrase, "Yes we can" as a his election menifesto. It is not only embraced by majority of US citizen but also people across the globe. It shows how the people across the world is looking for change. Though now it is almost two years passed from this presidential compaign but recently the UK politicians are adopting the same menifesto.
Change in America

Change in Britain

Though politicians making big promises to people but we all know very well their limitations. The real change come from behavioral change in individuals. The collective impacts of the behavioral changes of individuals is much larger than any intiative of a government, organization or others. Looking to readiness of people for change it is time for intellectuals to come ahead and lead and the responsibility of all to persuade each other for small acts that cost nothing but bring great changes.

Where to begin

Some may wonder, where to begin? I think the Universal human rights declaration that all nations in the world endorse is a good point to begin. Though majority of people have heard about the human rights but it is surprising when one finds that even majority of educated people have not read it fully. I have copied and pasted universal human rights declaration in this page. It is my contribution in spreading this message. You can do the same.

UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS

"Source: http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/index.shtml

Article 1.

· All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

Article 2.

· Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty.

Article 3.

· Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.

Article 4.

· No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms.

Article 5.

· No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

Article 6.

· Everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law.

Article 7.

· All are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law. All are entitled to equal protection against any discrimination in violation of this Declaration and against any incitement to such discrimination.

Article 8.

· Everyone has the right to an effective remedy by the competent national tribunals for acts violating the fundamental rights granted him by the constitution or by law.

Article 9.

· No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile.

Article 10.

· Everyone is entitled in full equality to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal, in the determination of his rights and obligations and of any criminal charge against him.

Article 11.

· (1) Everyone charged with a penal offence has the right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law in a public trial at which he has had all the guarantees necessary for his defence.

· (2) No one shall be held guilty of any penal offence on account of any act or omission which did not constitute a penal offence, under national or international law, at the time when it was committed. Nor shall a heavier penalty be imposed than the one that was applicable at the time the penal offence was committed.

Article 12.

· No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.

Article 13.

· (1) Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state.

· (2) Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.

Article 14.

· (1) Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution.

· (2) This right may not be invoked in the case of prosecutions genuinely arising from non-political crimes or from acts contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.

Article 15.

· (1) Everyone has the right to a nationality.

· (2) No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality.

Article 16.

· (1) Men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family. They are entitled to equal rights as to marriage, during marriage and at its dissolution.

· (2) Marriage shall be entered into only with the free and full consent of the intending spouses.

· (3) The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State.

Article 17.

· (1) Everyone has the right to own property alone as well as in association with others.

· (2) No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property.

Article 18.

· Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.

Article 19.

· Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.

Article 20.

· (1) Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association.

· (2) No one may be compelled to belong to an association.

Article 21.

· (1) Everyone has the right to take part in the government of his country, directly or through freely chosen representatives.

· (2) Everyone has the right of equal access to public service in his country.

· (3) The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government; this will shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures.

Article 22.

· Everyone, as a member of society, has the right to social security and is entitled to realization, through national effort and international co-operation and in accordance with the organization and resources of each State, of the economic, social and cultural rights indispensable for his dignity and the free development of his personality.

Article 23.

· (1) Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favorable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment.

· (2) Everyone, without any discrimination, has the right to equal pay for equal work.

· (3) Everyone who works has the right to just and favorable remuneration ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection.

· (4) Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests.

Article 24.

· Everyone has the right to rest and leisure, including reasonable limitation of working hours and periodic holidays with pay.

Article 25.

· (1) Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.

· (2) Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection.

Article 26.

· (1) Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages. Elementary education shall be compulsory. Technical and professional education shall be made generally available and higher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit.

· (2) Education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. It shall promote understanding, tolerance and friendship among all nations, racial or religious groups, and shall further the activities of the United Nations for the maintenance of peace.

· (3) Parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children.

Article 27.

· (1) Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits.

· (2) Everyone has the right to the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he is the author.

Article 28.

· Everyone is entitled to a social and international order in which the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration can be fully realized.

Article 29.

· (1) Everyone has duties to the community in which alone the free and full development of his personality is possible.

· (2) In the exercise of his rights and freedoms, everyone shall be subject only to such limitations as are determined by law solely for the purpose of securing due recognition and respect for the rights and freedoms of others and of meeting the just requirements of morality, public order and the general welfare in a democratic society.

· (3) These rights and freedoms may in no case be exercised contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.

Article 30.

· Nothing in this Declaration may be interpreted as implying for any State, group or person any right to engage in any activity or to perform any act aimed at the destruction of any of the rights and freedoms set forth herein.

Evolution and Evolution

Evolution and Religion: The conflict of origin

400 years after the first famous clash of Science and Religion (1610, Galileo affair), we are again in an era of constant encounters between creationists and evolutionists. After resolving the issue the conflict of geocentric Vs Heliocentric we are in another conflict and it is about of origin of life. The origin of life is a difficult subject subject for Science. Both biochemistry and paleontology is unble to provide a clear evidence of spontaneous generation, chemical evolution or Abiogenesis. Though there are a lot of efforts to prove it but they are unable to provide a reliable mechanism. But despite of this void in Science, fossil records and all fields of biology are providing clear evidences of evolution. Evolution is a mature science now though a lot of voids but because of failure in providing an obvious mechnism of abiogenesis the conflict of Origin of life has not resolved as conflict of Geocentric and Heliocentric had resolved. The conflict of origin of life is going to be 150 years (Since Darwin's publiction of "On the origin of species" in 1859).

When I am in debate with my friend about the movies like Jurassic Park series and Dr. Jones series, he tells me unless you are not going believe in a fiction you can't enjoy it. It fits for both sides of conflicts. Unless they don't understand, how Science or Religion works, they can understand each others conflicts. But this conflict will only diminish when Science come with a clear-cut mechnism for Spontaneous generation.

Religion, defence/warning display and identity

It is a common observation that venomous animals advertise their toxins by bright pigmentations. It is known as aposematism. These type of advertisements are not limited to venomous animals but some non-venomous animals also display these bright coloration as a warning sign in order to keep away the predators. In term of non-venomous animals it is understandable that they want to keep away the predators but why venomous animals display such warning signs? The answer is easy. The toxins they produce is costly in terms of energy so they try to conserve energy. They also advertise their toxicity to keep away other venomous animals in order to avoid competitions. These escape behaviors are successful so organisms evolve them as their identity.

It is also true to humans. People who have less tolerance for other cultures and religions, look to religious clothings and display just like warning displays of the venomous animals. Are religious or cultural displays really warning signs?

External Links for further readings
1- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenesis
2- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_affair
3- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Origin_of_Species
4- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warning_colouration

Culture of rebellion

Today in Pakistan it is a popular expression that, “Yes! I am a rebellion”. It is popularized during the lawyer’s movement for revival of Judiciary. Certainly! The sudden explosion of media during General Musharraf reign had a significant role in popularizing this term by repeating this slogan in poetry and political advertisements. This expression looks attractive to young generation without knowing its background and the situations that are prevailed in country. “Yes! I am rebellion” when popularized by political leaders and the lawyers provide a justification of rebellious acts by legitimizing it. Legitimization of rebellion against a state where terrorists are fighting a war against people and state at the same time means helping to terrorists. The scholars and intellectuals should make clear the concept of rebellion, its origin and historical background in the region or in modern time so the young generation could decide which rebellion is legitimate and which are not.

There are two basic things that make a rebellion, legitimate:

1- Struggle for freedom

2- Promising an alternative system which is the means of freedom or the destination of rebellion

In a rebellion where the freedoms are not clearly defined for which the struggles are carried on and similarly the freedoms are clearly defined but the alternative system is not presented or is absent then the rebellion is nothing except the bloodshed and destruction or a way for dictatorship or aristocracy.

The new popular culture of rebellion is rooted in socialist and communist movements. In Pakistan the expression “Yes! I am rebellion” is also rooted in leftist movements. Pakistan had leftist movements in forms of KMP (Kissan Mazdoor Party) CPP (Communist Party of Paksitan), PPP (Pakistan People’s Party) and Progressive writer’s movement and National Awami Party (NAP).

- The important point to note is that the National Awami Party’s rebellion led to the separation of East Pakistan and becoming, Bangladesh.
The socialist and communist rebellious movements declined as a new type of rebellions emerged against these rebellions. It was the Jihadist rebellions against the communist governments of Afghanistan and USSR. Now this rebellion had the government as well as international support.
- Again the point that requires to note is that this jihadist rebellion now modified to Talibanism and international terrorism and threatening the very survival and identity of Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Now let’s looks to some of rebellion that had shaped the 20th century and is shaping the 21st century:

1- The Bolshevik rebellion that led to USSR which evolved the Russia to a world power.
2- The Chinese Communist rebellion that evolved China into a world power and a large player in global economy.
3- The Islamic rebellion of Iran which led not only to reemergence of Iranian power but also to reemergence of Islamic world.
4- The Socialist rebellion of Cuba which led to reemergence of Latin America followed by Venezuela and other Latin American countries.
5- South African rebellion which led to equalizing of white and black race to an extent.
On other hand we can find the civil war and destructions due to the rebellions which had not an alternative system that were the destination of rebellion.
- Congo, Darfur, Afghanistan, Algeria, etc are a few examples of non objective rebellions which have created disasters.

Heart of Civilization

Mother

I found horse of latitude under your veil
Hardships of life looked coated by vermeil
When I searched luxury under this dome
I found you like city of seven hills, Rome

You taught me the real soul of four freedoms
Out of class everywhere were doldrums
When my temper was like Hwang Ho
You guided me what to do and not to do

Your wishes get as fastest animal at short run
I feel myself in land of midnight sun
I have no fear of death-valley of California
And I can face floods of sorrow of China

Written By Khudadad at 5/3/2002

Obsession Of Power

When man bowed down to fears
Stars and Volcanoes could not wipe out his tears
He stood to understand the powers
Oceans became his roads and mountains, towers

When man became aware of his own
Fears of his own raised and others down
Then he built great pyramids and walls
His insecure eyes saw the heavenly balls

If men want freedom from fears
Justice is power which can wipe out his tears
No power can defeat him except of hate
When man can defeat hate, there is no date

Written By Khudadad on 5/3/2002

Rhythm Of Life

When innocence depresses by proud
World shrinks and ego sound
An effort to dance against the rhythm of life
fell me that I forgot myslef in crowd

The touches of life lightened my all five
Sweet passions tasted me in this hive
The passion of masterhood embraced me
As I set for a non ending drive

How sweet is the fluency of mind
Body is exhausted but taste is still kind
Soul sleeping in rest and joys are dancing
The most evolved joys that men could find

Written by Khudadad on 5/2/2002

God-lavished Selection

A reverse way to innocence
With a tie to future with patience
When anger burst from doubtful minds
Sharing ideas provoide tolerance

Following wisdom is a hard duty
Like diamond with particular beauty
Need a spark of knowledge
Ignorance will burn till purity

Passion takes fire from pure affection
Sparks of passion lead to perfection
An undistinguishable rest and excitement
It is God-lavished selection

Written by Khudadad on 29/1/2002

Heart Of Civilization

I was overjoyed in the heart of civilization
Every home was King’s court due to privatization
May be everyone was in hurry
Wanting to unite time by hypnotization

On forehead of buildings, those splendid hawks
Were busy with progress and prosperity in talks
I saw Angels in forms of babies
Showing me blessings of God were in Walks

Yes it was Christ in arms of Marry
Healings and peace were covered soils and rocks
Lions beside the roads were waiting
To give water to thirsty instead of shocks

Chimneys were pouring blacks of needs in darks
Saturated souls were enjoying in parks
How fortunate were the pets of those lands
The dogs were singing in their barks

It was heat of love that forest caught fire
Street artists were showing people aren’t tire
Waves were helpless that cities were sailing
And determinations of people proved that liberties never expire

Grapes were getting their sweetness from sun and bulb lights
And their wines warmth were awaking passions at nights
I felt a piece of paradise is left there
As kissed me the sense of freedom and human rights

Fast clouds covered sky and glorious sunlight
People were running fast to stone glorious knight
Imaginations flew along with angels
And brought hopes to newer height

I smelt there the fume of baby’s mouth
To cleanliness of polar ice sheets of south
But my pot of good perceptions broke
When other day I found civilization shout

The breeze of civilization turned into hurricanes
The rains of explosives blessed us with drought
Hunger of power snatched breads of hungers
Black blood of civilization had darker turn out

The humanity can’t bear that much stress
Here lack of milk make innocent babies depress
There the lives of splendid pets publish in press
Neither worn out clothes come fit nor new bloody dress
19/1/2003
Geological food for thoughts
1- Big fives (Mass extinctions)

Earth hostory has seen the five large mass extinctions the most famous of them is the boundary between Cretaceous and tertiary period known as K-T boundary happened 65 million years ago in which Dinosaurs has wiped out. There are many theories about causes of mass extanctions. Meteroite impacts and global warmings and plate tectonics are three most reasonable causes but still there is no consensus. For us studying mass extinction is very important as it is feared the the current global warming will lead to modern day ice age and mass extinction.

2- Cambrian explosion a challenge for both geologists and biologists

Cambrian explosion is also known as a biological big bang is an amazing event in geological record which indicate abrupt appearances of complex organisms in very short time span. It has renewed the now old debate of creationist and evolutionists. Though it is not as sudden as thought as well as new evidences and discoveries still awaited but it has really troubled geologists and biologists to explain the sudden change. One of the big reason is the energy that organisms got from free oxygen enabled them to modify and adopt new changes with higher costs of energy but it is not enough.




3- Green revolution and Geology

a- Using a concept of sedimentology to help reduce global warming. The most basic and important lesson that geology teach us is lithification or diagenesis. Lithification is provide a solution to mass waste that modern men use and pollute soil, water and air. Paper (cellulose), plastics (carbon chain), glasses (Silicon and oxygen chain) and metals all good cement to lithify the sediments. If we lithify the sediments (silt, mud, sand and gravel) by using these cements we can make different building materials especially blocks so we can convert our garbage easily into useful structures. It is a technology that sedimentology offer to us.
b- Using porosity for making redischarge of rain water especially in areas where drought is a serious problem and people of area is threatened by environment of becoming envrironmental migrants.

4- How generalization of data led to discovery of continental drift then to sea floor spreading and ultimately to Plate tectonic theory.

It is a tradition in scientific investigations and research to specify or concentrate on certain details but this approach besides being productive and making researches easy has serious drawbacks. One of the drawbacks is missing key links necessary for developing coherent theories like plate tectonics.

It was not a single evidence that led to theory of plate tectonics. Fossil records, ice ages, sedimentary deposits, volcanism both on continents and in oceans, geography, magnetism, earth quacks, isostasy, etc all these phenomenon collectively created a big picture to understand plate tectonics. Hence beside specification, generalization of geological data is necessary to solve problems like evolution, mass extinctions and global warming.

Fate VS Destiny

Socratic methodology has still no room:

Socrates method of philosophical inquiry was to engage in face to face discussion and cross questioning in order to dust off the false images of truths that are filled minds. It is a very effective, noble yet less welcoming method of looking for truth. Only people who loves truths than false imageries tolerate to be questioned about about their world perspectives. Socrates method became unbearble to ruling class of Athens and they despite liking him, forced him to die. I was always impressed by Socrates method and I look to it as most genuine way of looking for truth. Through passage of time it became an essential part of my personality and I can't live without this. Before coming to US, I had in my mind that individuals are tolerant enough to be cross questioned atleast in University but to my astonishment, I found that it is an individualistic society where people dislike to talk about religion and politics. As Science become a new religion so questioning some established theories in Science is like questioning somebody's beliefs. Though, I respect this trends as it is necessary to let people live as they like but Socrates couldn't have sweet times in this environment either.


Life is not meaningless but their meanings are not of equal value:

Everybody looks for some meaning in life but we see the surge of meaninglessness in post modern philosophy. Perhaps this philosophy had more appeals in times immediately after WWII when destructions prevailed and people were killed not for a particular reason but for variety of reasons. However, in a time period when we live and the world is facing different kind of disaster that is uncertain economic future and it is making people think, OK! if life is not about having a good life then what is it about? Certainly, if your efforts, works and dreams of having a good life might be ruined by an economic depression then what to live for? It is a time to realize that life escaping from truth, reality and meaning may decline the spirit of your survival. Definitely, everybody has their own definition of meaning in their life and nobody can challenge the values of those meanings but still we have a general judgment of values of meanings. Let's look at it from a common experience of prices of commodities. Prices of commodities are not stable and they change regularly. The same item's prices change from place to place, due to transportation, taxes, labor, demand and so on. This variation and instability in prices doesn't mean that there is no value of commodities. There are values and most important is the values are never equals. For example, despite of variations in prices we never expect a mug's price equal to house's price. This is what truth is. So is the value and worth of meaning in life. We value swimming for sake of health, enjoyment and may be for earning a living but this is not of equal value of swimming to save lives. We may consider later as heroic. In conclusion, variation in coneption of meaning doesn't mean meaninglessness and second meaning have different values. Living a well-loff life has a high value but higher is valued living for well-off of others and it is why people who share their fortunes and acheivements with others are rewarded as great.

Philosophy and Politics:

Though both disciplines use reasoning but for different reasons. Politicians use reasoning to persuade people. Persuasion is power. Philosophers on other hand, use reasoning to reach the truths or find reality. Truth is satisfaction. Philsophers truths may clash with each other but still they still give their readers a set of logic to grow closer to facts. Politicians on the other hand use the reasoning to blur the facts by mostly fantacizing the facts in order to please people and make them listen as what they want to listen to make persuasion easy.

Fate VS Destiny:

The main difference between fate and destiny is, fate is a life long menifestation of our existence while destiny is bound to future. Our race, culture, place of birth are things that are part of fate which we can't change. Our destiny is our Preferences and visions and desires which we adopt and it is totally depends on our will. Simply we don't have the option of where we begin but we have the option of chosing the direction of ending though we still can't chose our end. One of the unfortunate thing is the divisions and relations of human based on their race, culture and place of birth which they do not have the choices to choose, so people's preferences, visions and desires are affected by these divisions and relations. However, it looks that as globalization is deepening its roots, the preferences, visions and desires are getting more importance.

US progress: Individualism VS systematization:

There is a key difference between systematization and individualism. Individualism benefits most, creative, skillful and people with a fortune and position but system benefits all. Certainly, individuals with creativity and big money benefits more from system but still it serves all in one way or another. So it is creative and rich people along with systematization that has led to progress of US. It is not only creative people and their finaciers that have critical roles but growing system make people to grow especially, credit history, behavior history (with criminal or clean history record) and also Professional history (Academic acheivements, Professional experience, social and leadership participations, publications and awards) make people to abide the law, live socially conscious and work hard for having a better life. Though systematizations have done a very good job in filling gaps atleast at cosmetic level but it couldn't fix the cultural, educational, racial and financial gaps yet.

A serious joke for philosophers:

It is expected from philosophers to solve the real life problems in order to be relevant to real life. What is the biggest question of real life for everybody than becoming a millionair. Though it is true that is the most real question but I would say it is making joke of philosophers. If a philosopher knows, how to make a million dollar, he would be much busy in making money than doing philosophy. What do you think?

Do we need, Utopias?

Utopias are promised ideal times. Though people may think of utopias as philosophical jargons but actually we live with utopian perspectives. Almost all religions have the concepts of utopias. Paradise land or paradise heaven are sorts of utopias. It is not limited to religions only but Sciences and technologies have their own promises. We are dreaming through sciences and technologies to cure all diseases, control populations, colonize the neighboring planets and cope with natural disasters effectively, solve economic problems, have robots work for us and have a parallel digital world where we could move back and forward in time,.... etc. This is a matrix which we keep dreaming of. Again it is not just religion and science which promise us of ideal times but also our politicians who promise a lot and even beyond their capacities. Another example is of national dreams, like American dream, where individuals are encouraged to have a successful careers, an ideal time in one's life. When we look to all these utopias, we can conclude that it doesn't matter either we need them or not but they are here and we all accept one of them. Utopias are collective visions and born out as a result of rebellion to existing ones especially in times of chaos and despairs. Do we need them? It is your decision.

A few words of wisdom

Peace can exist there, where lie can’t exist.

Accepting this as a formula one can measure and predict the peace in a society. A society is very fragile where lie is part of culture and it is praised as cleverness. Any penny that earned out of lie has to be paid back in conflicts. In a market where bargaining is the culture of trading I have never bought a thing in which I had peace of mind and satisfaction that the shopkeeper has not cheated me irrespective of the price and quality. So I always avoid markets with bargaining culture. Any society which encourage bargaining as a trading culture will always under threat of economical crunch and crises and peace in such societies are just the result of fear.

Society is result of teachings of its institutions.

Every society has able men but character is not judged by ability. It is really rare moments in one’s life when he gets opportunities to live and work with a bunch of best minds or ablest few of a society. Ability certainly has attraction but it is really tragic when one finds best minds with bad characters. It certainly shocks one and makes him think hard the reasons.

Unfortunately! I had this experience and after keen observations and thinking processes I have concluded that society is the result of teaching of its institutions. Corrupt institutions can produce men of great abilities with outstanding achievements but their achievements have no effect on society due to their bad characters.

Irrespective of beliefs and teachings when one enters in a religious institutions that are responsible for popular thoughts, beliefs and cultures and find them covered in dust, dark, dull, without any greenery and cleanliness then it forces one to think how I can clean my spirit here? What this place can give me? If the teachers in these institutions are ignored about other societies, disciplines and have no acceptance to people from other faiths and disciplines of knowledge then abilities can be of no profit out of these institutions.

The same is true for schools, colleges, universities and governments institutions. No doubt these institutions produce individuals with great abilities that ability is a natural gift but these institutions fail to produce individuals with great characters.

Individuals with great abilities but bad characters are more destructive than constructive.

Environment is the best indicator for first judgment.

Whenever one enters in a society, city, home, institution, the environments tells him a lot. Men is the only organism that shape their environment to suit them so by effect of people on their environment one can tells the nature and status of people of the area. I find people trying hard in convincing people about their greatness, truth of their beliefs and the righteousness of their positions but when I look to their environments, and then I judge their expressed point of views with their actions. If their environments are really providing me evidence of their actions to their claims then certainly it is easy to become convince or at least take notice of their claims otherwise it is better to not waste our times.

Love of God is tested in Love of People.

People are the creature of God. God loves to create people of different races. If I really love God then I should love His all acts. If I hate another race then this means I didn’t like the act of creating that race. My love of God is tested by my love of fellow men and especially those of other races. If I can’t prepare myself to love fellow men then my religious acts are just cultural rituals empty of faith and spirituality. Even I love all people of other religions and spirituality movements because love of God and His creatures is common in all religions and this commonality is the real core and all other things are secondary and based on rituals.
Poverty and oppression is more logical to stand for than progress.

Progress is inevitable and no one can stop it. It is a common expression that we frequently hear. It has no boundary and all measurements of progress are objective measurements and can be used for or against. Poverty is inability of people or individuals to get necessities of life to an accepted standard in a time and place. So, poverty can be finished by making able people to get those necessities. Certainly! It is a clearer job than progress and it is in itself a progressive act. On other hand progress is a broad based terms with not accepted set of standards to compare with as it has no boundary. Certainly it could be measured with baseline of previous positions but it is not satisfactory for progress to just move from baseline. The famous expression for progress, “Sky is the limit” shows that there is no boundary to reach for progress. I am not against the progress but I am just arguing that empowerment of poor is the real progress.

Similarly! Oppression is an act of snatching or ignoring the rights of people or a group of people. Human rights and accepted rights of a people or group of people is a clear objective that is achievable so standing for them is wiser than standing for an immeasurable progress.
All apostles and great men stood against poverty and oppression. Prophet Moses (P.B.U.H) stood for oppressed and poor people of Israel who were slaves in Egypt. It was poor, neglected and diseased people who were attracted to Christ (P.B.U.H) Prophet Muhammad (P.B.U.H) started preaching in Arabia, where poverty, ignorance and isolation of people of this area weren’t comparable to glory of Persia and Rome. He stood for slaves, poor, oppressed and equaled them with nobles of the Arabs. All men are equal is still an appealing appeal because still world doesn’t accept that all men are equal.

Neo-Ignorance and Literature

Today the world stands in a position that mankind first time in its entire history experiencing two kinds of ignorance, but it is very amazing that modern men stressing only in one and neglecting totally the other one.

What really ignorance is, that mankind has deep concerns to struggle against it? Ignorance is the inability of mind to judge his potentials and potentials of his environment and hence slows down the rate of evolution by wasting the potentials. Based on this definition the ignorance is of two types:-

1- Paleo-ignorance (the ignorance due to illiteracy)
2- Neo-Ignorance (the ignorance due to meaninglessness)

1) Paleo-ignorance: was a problem that ruled all over history till today. The good news is that education included in basic needs of modern men and hence there are the largest networks of educational institutions all over glob that are growing. Education is rapidly growing to become a basic need for survival. In this context “literacy for all” is an urgent human aid that literate people can donate to save a great majority of mankind from potential extinction in modern development of mankind.

2) neo-ignorance, a new problem of modern men that ignores the obvious potentials due to directionless-ness. There are flood of information but much porous minds are unable to absorb them and utilize them. This is more serious form of ignorance than illiteracy, as illiterates by becoming literate enter in a new world with full of opportunities. What is the solution or way for neo-ignorant that can’t absorb the opportunities their knowledge and skill offer them. If the modern men neglect this new rapidly expanding ignorance all the efforts that made to develop mankind by making literate a great majority of illiterate people would go all in vain.
If the present situation continues I am looking forward to another dark age in human history that will have totally different symptoms from medieval ages. MEANING beside profit is what, world striving for. Thirst for larger and larger profits resulted in psychological collapse and it become a close parasitic friends of modern men that surely affect the development of whole mankind. The most simple and obvious examples are “Collapse of science” for few last decades, the collapse of an economic system, while all existing systems are waiting for sudden collapse. The collapse of social and political ideologies, while men in all over the world lost their identities is another symptom of neo-ignorace.

The stop of science, economical, social and political ideologies pushed all minds in a great sense of insecurity and confusions that they are living under the fear of a constant invisible danger due to lack of predictability. All people think of short term and large profits, as they do not rely on present situation.

These symptoms are rapidly getting worse by passing times. The people are no more caring about their attitudes and potentials but they just struggle to adopt the rapidly changing situations due to short-term profits to survive in present conditions. If these situations didn’t address seriously the hope of big minds with force then neo-renaissance will be far in present times.
Analyzing present situations I suggest that besides struggling against illiteracy the global organizations also seriously think about the neo-ignorance. Especially the creative minds all over glob must redefine all what we had that may lead to a direction that could help reduce neo-ignorance. Physics need to see new dimensions other than Quantum Mechanics that caused to stop the scientific developments. Economists, political scientist and social scientists must look for other mechanisms other than profitism that may again awake the zealous hope of mankind (especially students) and save them out of meaninglessness.

I have brought forward a new definition to the “Justice” as “calculated discipline” that I am sure will lead and open new ways that help us reduce neo ignorance. Though I have applied to certain fields but here in reference to “Literacy and sustainable development”, I have applied to Literature in this context as follows:-

Usually it is a custom that deductions are made of the evidences, experiences, discussions, references, observations but we start discussion from deductions as we travel to past to judge the position of literature in human history and also to see either it is sustainable or temporary waves in oceans of events. The deductions are as follows:-

1) History of men developed from kings, Lords as main characters to people (more sustainable) as main force of change.

2) Development of nations from common beliefs, ideologies rather than physical boundaries and demographical distributions.

3) Development of the concept “ life itself is a religion” from concept of traditional view of religions due to controversies of ideologies and religious beliefs.

4) The development of ambiguous and confused informed minds from strong believes with localized information.

5) Development from following nature as ideal to engineering nature, taking creativity as ideal.

6) Development of labor from physical labor to mental labor and hence development of more psychological disorders than physical disorders.

7) Development of virtual reality from conscious reality.

8) Development of dominance of dream world through rapid expansion of the medium of expressions and more deep explorations of individual’s self-developed world.

Are the above developments sustainable? Is literature has a prominent role in developing the above developments?

Before answering the above questions we must analyze what is literature? Then we can determine the role of literature. There is a common misconception and malpractice of the concept of literature, that literature is always thought and treated as the master pieces while if we see more analytically to physical history of human thoughts, for thousands of years the thousands of anonymous folk literatures developed the minds of trillions of mankind for long times in history. “Literature” is the reflector of life or more commonly the mirror of the society. The definition as the reflector of life is more appropriate as literature’s subjects are more vast than society that pace into unknown worlds and heavenly bodies in Science fictions and extraterrestrial stories. Here in discussion we use the term Literature as a general reflector of life in any form that has been described. The reason I didn’t distinguished literature in particular manner is that when I look to forms of literature or the sources of literature I can’t exclude any known field that has not been described in literature. There is only one commonality in all these form of description and that is human. Hence I deduce and define Literature as,” Literature is the reflection of life through human mind”. There could more deductions on these bases but more important one is that,” Literature is the reflection of human mind through life and reflection of life through human mind”. A natural question arise here that, while neither life is totally explored and defined nor human mind have been understood and explored then what will be use of this incompleteness to us?

The most important side of life and similarly literature as reflection of mind is hidden in this question. The incompleteness is the source of all desires, ambitions, feelings, discoveries, inventions and adventures without them there are no concept of development. The development is in real sense rooted in incompleteness. Here I must add that incompleteness is not all that literature totally relies on. What literature aspire in its reflections is “justice or calculated discipline” base sustainable development.

If we map the sources of literature in a very raw manner it will look as follows:-
Main sources of literature

- Life
- Science
- Religion
- Aesthetic/romanticism
- Resistance/revolution

Base of above diagram we study the role of literature in sustainable development of humankind except of references of masterpieces. The first thing that requires clear definition is life as from its reflections the literature got its existence. I prefer to very simplify the understanding of life to avoid confusions and ambiguity related to complexity and incompleteness of life, as it is still evolving. “Life grows and reproduces” is the commonest of its entire feature. The growth of life is always in a sequence as follows:-

Simple complex (organized) more complex (more organized)
Societies also grow and reproduce as an organic body but again there is a problem in view of sustainable development and that is decay of societies and extinctions of life forms. These decays are also part of sustainable development as what that has lost its quality of growing can’t further develop so they must cleaned to make room for growing one and its natural law. These sweep clean ups are very obvious in reflections of life by literature to make development intact in calculated discipline of nature to help fellow men in reaching completion of immortality. Here we deduce that following nature is following sustainable development and deviating nature is following decaying to extinction.

What really nature is? Is really nature is ideal to follow? For understanding nature we have no more reliable source other than Science as science study the natural laws. What totally science is based on is natural laws so the accepted laws of Science are the accepted laws of nature. Science though has different growing branches but still all of them work on one pivot and that is “Calculated discipline”. Hence instead of diversity of the nature its entire component works on the pivot of “Calculated discipline”.

Now we come to the most sensitive issue as the human history had seen the clash between science and religion. Though there were and are controversies in Science also but as Science grows the controversies resolve and Science is going towards unification in diversity. Religion is going from unity towards more divisions in diversity. Having this fact in mind then is it right that, life itself is a religion? Yes as religions teach mankind to follow the nature. Life is nature, so natural life is what religions guide men. There are concerns about deviation in religions so can science resolve the problem as the most reliable source of natural laws.

Yes, as there is one thing common in life, nature, Science and religions and that is,” calculated discipline”. What is not in boundary of “calculated discipline is not natural, scientific, religious and hence soon or later decay to extinct. There must be we keep one point in our minds that,” Nature has much by products but no waste.”…………

Aesthetics and romanticism can’t exist if there is no “calculated discipline as John Keats says,” Beauty is truth and truth is beauty”. Revolutions and resistance have no more manifesto and goal other than,” calculated discipline”, as there is no other appropriate definition of JUSTICE except, “CALCULATED DISCIPLINE”.

Form deductions, sources of literature I deduce that literature can’t be more than “depiction and description of calculated discipline” and “calculated discipline” is the sole “sustainable development”.

Literature is the mirror of life in which we can see past, present and future in different forms as, nature, science, religion and in one common form that is,” evolving human.

Paradigm shifts and self image

Introduction

One of the phenomenons of the globalization is paradigm shifts that have affected almost all of us. Advancements in telecommunication technologies and movements of people across national and cultural boundaries are two most influential factors of globalization. Rapid technological advancements made it possible that several technological generations live at the same time. It is interesting to know how technological advancements have caused paradigm shifts and also how different technological generations interact and perceive themselves. So let’s first define technological generations and make a time frame for each generation so it could help us in our investigation across generations.

“A technological generation are generations of people who live in era dominated or influenced most by a technology”

Recent technological generations:

Because the technological generations from country to country and from continent to continent so we use Wikipedia as a source, because it is a user contributed encyclopedia and people around the world can delineate their own technological generations.

1- Radio generation:

A paragraph from Wikipedia (under title of, “Old-time radio” illustrate the radio generation in USA,

“Old-Time Radio (OTR) and the Golden Age of Radio refer to a period of radio programming in the United States lasting from the proliferation of radio broadcasting in the early 1920s until television's replacement of radio as the dominant home entertainment medium in the 1950s. During this period, when radio was dominant and the airwaves were filled with a variety of radio formats and genres, people regularly tuned in to their favorite radio programs. In fact, according to a 1947 C. E. Hooper survey, 82 out of 100 Americans were found to be radio listeners.”

2- TV generation:

“The Golden Age of Television is the period in the United States between the late 1940s and the early 1960s, a time when many hour-long anthology drama series received critical acclaim.

The golden age of British TV enjoyed its peak around the same time as in the United States, ranging from approximately 1949 to 1955 — although the term has been used to describe the period right through until the 1970s.”

3- Video cassette recorder/CD/DVD generations:

4- Computer generation/Internet generation:

“The Information Age, also commonly known as the Computer Age or Information Era, is an idea that the current age will be characterized by the ability of individuals to transfer information freely, and to have instant access to knowledge that would have been difficult or impossible to find previously. The idea is linked to the concept of a Digital Age or Digital Revolution, and carries the ramifications of a shift from traditional industry that the Industrial Revolution brought through industrialization, to an economy based around the manipulation of information. Commonly seen as an outflow from the Space Age, capitalizing on the computer microminiaturization advances of that effort, with a fuzzy transition spanning from the advent of the personal computer in the late 1970s to the emergence of the internet in the early 1990s, and the adaption of such technology by the public in the two decades after 1990. Since the invention of social media in the 2000s, the Information Age has evolved into the Attention Age according to some publications.”

5- Smart phone/pocket held digital devices generation

“A Smartphone is a mobile phone offering advanced capabilities, often with PC-like functionality (PC-mobile handset convergence). “

“The first Smartphone was called Simon; it was designed by IBM in 1992 and shown as a concept product[8] that year at COMDEX, the computer industry trade show held in Las Vegas, Nevada.”

Simply it is miniature computer that are introduced in market. Nexus of Google Inc and Ipad of Apple Inc is the recent additions of 2010.

Movement across national and cultural boundaries:

Culture and religion is the strongest paradigms that through which we divide people into ours and others, see and understand the world around us. But movements across national borders and also across cultural boundaries cause a paradigm shift.

Paradigm shift:

Stephen R. Covey in his famous book, “The 7 habits of highly effective people” used the concept of paradigm shift for changing self image. He declares the paradigm shift as the most important insight that one can gain from perception demonstration but he warns that paradigm shift could be both positive and negative. He argues that the paradigm shift from earlier Character Ethics to Personality Ethics is a negative shift.

Self image:

Oxford dictionary defines self image as, “the idea one has of one’s abilities, appearance, and personality”.

Everyone has a picture of himself/herself of worth, value, appearance and achievements. Simply, these are our opinions and judgments about us. These are not static and absolute opinions and change from time to time by changes in us and in our circumstances. The changing perspectives about us are really important in our performances and growth rates. But sometimes we stuck to a self image that we liberate ourselves or in other time the changes become so rapid that we can’t adjust ourselves to it.

Hypothesis:

Technological generations go through paradigm shifts. It is logical to think that individuals who are with strong character and learn how to use technology of his/her time the paradigm shift will be positive and vice versa.
People who cross the cultural borders to experience the new expectations that are usually different from expectations than in which he or she was used to. The change in expectations makes to rethink and shake the concept of self image. Again, it is logical to think that for individuals with strong character it will be a positive paradigm shift.
Fusions of the technological adaptations or cultural adaptations are a paradigm shift that improves self image by uniqueness of the paradigm shift.
Test:

1- To learn the experiences of the different age groups with different backgrounds to investigate the affects of paradigm shifts due to technological advancements and their influences in their self image.

2- To learn the experiences of the international students or immigrants and to investigate the affects of the paradigm shifts facing the change in expectations.

Methodology:

1- Using paper questionnaires, digital questionnaires and interviewing face to face to learn the result of paradigm shifts on their concept of self image.



References:

1-Old-time radio. (2010, February 20). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 16:42, February 21, 2010, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Old time_radio&oldid=345227589

2- Golden Age of Television. (2010, February 13). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 17:04, February 21, 2010, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Golden_Age_of_Television&oldid=343675571

3- Information Age. (2010, February 16). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 17:03, February 21, 2010, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Information_Age&oldid=344311269

4- Smartphone. (2010, February 18). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 17:12, February 21, 2010, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Smartphone&oldid=344818208

5-Covey, Stephen R. 1990. The 7Habits of Highly Effective People. New York. Fireside Publisher

Stories, too short (Part: 1)

2
Looking to pictures of locked doors I filled in grieves and come to an economist and asked him, “Why people are losing their homes? Is it the result of currency crunch?”
He smiled and replied, “No! It is not the currency crunch as government is pouring billions of dollars in financial and other corporate but it is crunch of trust”
His answer looked logical to me and I ask him again, “Can you explain the crunch of trust to me, please?”
He smiled again and starts explaining in detail, “Banks are warehouses of wealth of people. It is the trust of people that they are depositing their wealth in bank. Banks are using trust of people and providing loans based on these wealth that are asset of people by showing it as their own wealth. The greed on interests of loans as well as competing to each other for interests, banks are providing loan that exceeds assets that people have deposited. As they fail to fulfill their obligation to real wealth of people and people start losing confidence to banks and pull out their money.”
I was in shock for a while, listening about bank and asked, “Then why governments are not taking action to protect people?”
He looked strangely into my eyes and replied, “It means you really don’t know anything?”
I just nodded my head in his favor, without saying anything.
“Governments themselves are earning money out of it and people have no way to other than to trust on government and banks. People make some confused reactions and then again start trusting on banks and governments. The analysts then start saying, it is a natural cycle of panics. They have to repeat every twenty to thirty years. Have you not heard of previous panics and depressions?”

3

It was almost noon. As I entered the shop, there were few shopkeepers taking their lunch. They were eating bread with water. There was nothing else. It really hurt me. We found nothing of interest in that shop and headed to another shop. They were also on their lunch but I amazed as looked at their lunch. They were eating very large pieces of meat covered with thick fat. As we came out of shop, I asked my father who was more familiar with Afghans. “I really can’t understand of what I saw. In one shop Afghans were eating bread and water and in another they were eating too much meat and fat?”
My father smiled, “I can understand what you want to say. They are not poor as their main trade is smuggling. It is their tradition that they save their money by cutting costs of their livelihood. As you saw they live for long times on water and bread and then when their bodies become in demand of energy they eat too much meat and fat at one time.”
“They are behaving like lion and other meat eating animals that after eating a prey wait for a week or longer for another prey? Crocodile even can wait for longer times?” I asked.
“Yes! It will take time to learn that money is not precious than human lives……..” My father told me and I understood a lot by this short sentence that was explaining a long history.

4

I always believed that democracy means tolerance but how much tolerance? It was not clear for me. I was always asking people about limits of tolerance but there were no satisfactory answers. Then there were a famous clip of a news report on electronic media in which Muntazir al Zaidi, an Iraqi journalist tried to hit the president Bush with his shoes. Mrs. Bush called it democracy in Iraq. It really expanded my vision and understanding about democracy. Now I can understand that in democracy we should tolerate the shoes also but still I am puzzled that if someone try to shoot me, should I tolerate his bullets or not?”

5

I was trying to take a few photographs of deer that were grazing. Two women stopped near bar, where I was taking photographs. As women reached near me, one of her looking angrily to me and told loudly to the next woman that I could here, “I don’t believe that they also can appreciate animals”. I replied her uncontrollably, “Though you are not appreciable but I appreciate you”.

6

An M.Phil student asked me, “Why you are always talking about evolution while God has not created evolution?”
I amazed of his baseless judgment and asked him, “How do you know that God has not created evolution?”
“We are not able to explain it though science has advanced a lot since its popularity.” He replied.
“Can you explain black matters, time travel, and parallel universes?” I asked him.
“No!” He replied.
“If we can’t explain them then does it mean God hasn’t created them?”
He remained silent and without answer.
“There are many problems that we can’t explain” I told him.

7

“Is your political objective to govern on people?” asked from a politician.
“No! My objective is to serve people” He replied.
“But you only appear during elections?”
“Because it is time to reach people”
“You can serve people when in office and out of office”
“But I am not allowed to use public money when I am out of office.”

8

Luther King said, “I have a dream when people are not judged by color of their skin but to content of their character.”
At 20th January 2009 the US celebrated the Barrack Hussein Obama’s presidential inauguration and at 22nd January Larry King said at Larry King Live that, “My son Kennedy is eight years old and he says, he loves to be black”.

9

While visiting victims of killings, he distributed aid money to suffering family and then delivered a motivated speech to masses. On the way back to home one asked him, “It is becoming a trend that governments and political parties are compensating with handsome money the physical damages. Is it because people become more conscious to capabilities of their guardians on delivering their promises?”
“You are right but besides it is always true that money unites people and words motivate them. A motivated and united people prevail and a motivated but divided people collapse inside.”

10

He had a house on rent but most of his friends were taxi drivers. He came to his elder brother for an advice, “I can buy a taxi and have extra money if I sell my house. Beside I can earn two to three times more than I get out of house rent. It is wiser to have more money out of my investments”.
“This is a rule that if you have more than chance then you can take risk because in case of failure you have still chance to live on. You have only one chance and you are going to risk for a thing that you haven’t experience in it. It is wiser to not take risk in this case” his elder brother advised him.”
His friends laughed and taunting him coward. “Business means risk. If you are not going to take risk you will never succeed in life” his friends advised him.
He sold his house and bought a taxi. He were not earning as his friends because he was an inexperienced man. The taxi’s engine seized and extra money went for repairing. He sold the taxi on loss. Now he hadn’t a house nor could get another taxi. Hazaras call it, “One who buys by five and sell for four just for sake of people call him businessman.”

Liberal Socialism

History is the greatest test of human imaginations. Though we are not in end of history to that our judgments become a final decision on human experiences and knowledge but still we have seen the rise and fall of great human imaginations and experiences based on these imaginations. We have seen the fall of socialist economic system and free market economy. We have also seen the clashes between religions (crusades), religion and science (Trial of Galileo), ideologies (Cold war), cultures (Clash of civilization/ war on terror) and clash between empires (From dawn of human history it has never stopped).

From all these clashes we have two main things that are the core of all other things,

1- Freedom of religions, ideologies, expressions, learning and trade is natural and irresistible.
2- There are individuals that can’t support and protect themselves in merciless competitions of free economy and can’t express themselves. This inability to survive economically and culturally is called poverty. Hence it is the responsibility of state and society to protect them and help them to survive by an acceptable standard of life.

Certainly, these two core lessons of history can be best expressed by term social liberalism. Social, because state and society is responsible to continually struggle against poverty and people unable to compete is protected by state and society. Liberal it is called, because the freedom of people and individuals are protected.

Still this term and this practice are not new. Netherland liberal social policies and liberal democrats of Britain have the approaches of mixing liberalism and socialism. But our resolve here is not again based on historical lessons which have different approaches from the mixing of socialism and capitalism.

We start our liberal socialism by accepting a few bitter historical lessons as follows,

1- The main clash is not between cultures, civilizations, ideologies and religions. These are cultural units of societies that are used by administrative units of societies which are political parties, multinational companies, special interest groups and states. As these administrative units are always struggling for power and the expansions of their powers by every means so we call them, Empires and their clashes as “Clash of Empires”.
2- Once it is decided that Clash of Empires is an essential and inevitable part of history then we have to divide the empires into legitimate and illegitimate empires. Why we should accept Empires before we talk about legitimacy and illegitimacy of empires? Growth is a natural process and growth has to expand and it is not stoppable. It will find its legal or structural ways to expand. We have a Hazaragi proverb that says, “You can’t keep chick under the basket forever. It has to grow out of size of basket”. It is a natural process that when a chick grow it has to expand its territory to survive. Same is in case of men but here it is economical and cultural expansions that are important not military expansions. We define empire as, “Any administrative unit that has expansionist policies is an empire. So we can find states as empires, multinational company as an empire, a religious organization as an empire, a political party as an empire and a special interest group or an organization as an empire. Once we have defined empire then we can categorize empires into two groups of liberal socialist empires and colonial empires. Empires that respect human rights, freedom of religions, ideologies, learning, trade and mobility of people and is responsible for social welfare of people is called liberal socialist empire and their expansion is natural. On other hands an empire that violates any of above conditions is an unnatural empire and hence we call them colonial empire and people must resist them.

3- Democracy is expanding as a popular and natural form of government as masses are empowered. But men have experienced the tyranny of majority and corrupt use of power by majority. Similarly people have experienced the tyranny of rich and elite groups in democracy because they have the resources to openly compete by controlling media and buying votes and representatives of people. These two main reasons caused the fall of leadership of countries in hands of corrupt and incapable groups that rule people and ruin their futures. Hence it is needed to change the structure of present day democracy to ensure the participation of all who have roots in people. Democracy shouldn’t be the rule of majority or rule of elite group but rule of people. It is possible by giving share of governance based on percentage of votes that a group achieves not based on majority and hence democracy shouldn’t be game of winning and defeating and making society divided and most of time to failure of democracy. Another serious illness of democracy has been lack of merit in legitimacy of political parties and individuals who stand for elections. To bring most able people and parties to leadership of people it is necessary that individuals and political parties prove their social services and democratic behaviors to behaviors to become legitimate for participation in elections.

4- Religious authorities largely tyrants in history of men. The coalition of church and monarch in dark ages in Christian world and the support of Sultans by religious authorities in Muslim world have kept both worlds’ masses impoverished. Hence religions shouldn’t be exceptional in way to governance. Religious representatives should come to governance through democratic process and should respect the decisions of people to let the religious groups become liberators not tyrants and hence religious groups become more tolerant for each other and stop killing of people by name of religion or God.

5- Liberty doesn’t mean freedom without accountability. Being free means great responsibility of knowing others rights to not violate them because it is a crime to attack others rights and freedom. Teaching students of their rights as well as others rights and respecting them is what make individuals brave enough to take responsible of their actions against others as well as enjoying and exercising their own rights and freedom. Hence freedom requires awareness, learning and is responsibility. It is really an expensive responsibility to keep eye on your own actions and expressions as well as administration units to not snatch freedoms under any name or by thick shadowing.

6- Classes existed from dawn of human history till now and no society even socialist societies could erase them down. Classes are natural as diversity and capacities of individuals are diverse. Hence class struggle is unnatural and a wrong approach. Yes! Poverty could be erased so there shouldn’t struggle against classes but against poverty. Struggle for equality in society is wrong because class system is natural but struggle for equality before laws is justified.

7- Culture is not the product of the high class. It is the products of identity. The most sensitive and conscious people who value their identity enrich and diversify cultures. These types of people may belong to any class of society but it is true that cultures are exploited by high class. As villages are deeply connected with their lands and traditions so during cultural revivals the elite and ruling classes return to their roots for their identities. Rural areas the cultural museum of a nation as they give meaning to eroding cultures of villages and evolving them to survive in flood of cultural mixings and exchanges.

8- Knowledge is a cyclic process and reasoning is arbitrary. Only arbitrary reasoning satisfies minds. When we are confused, it is because we are missing the position of our point in the orbit or cyclic. Sure! It is a better acceptance and human ego will not accept it at first hand as human imaginations are free without any boundaries. But these free imaginations become compel to accept arbitrary reasoning in order to become understandably expressible. Why reasoning is arbitrary is simple. All the processes of nature is cyclic and in order to express and found the reasons we have to related to nature and it become all cyclic. It does not mean we are limited and are in inescapable prison of arbitrary reason but we expand and move cyclic not in linear.

9- When we found arbitrary nature of reasoning and our movements in arbitrary manner then we come to our spirit which is also move arbitrarily around two elements, Love of God and Love of men. These two loves are inseparable. The love of God is tested in love of men. The greatest liar is one who claim love of God and hate His creations. Spirituality is natural and is connection between God and human through love of His creatures. Spirit knows only one language and that is love.

10- Races are the biological expressions of nature and as nature diversify and changes so are the races. Men has a unique position in expression of knowledge and that is though men can’t control their evolution but they like nature can express themselves by their developments. What nature express in millions of years men express in decades.

11- Accepting racial, cultural and geographical boundaries as natural expressions are accepting nature and denying racial, cultural and geographical boundaries are denying nature. All conflicts out of denying are unnatural and hence crime.

12- Globalization is a natural process as mobility and migrations are characteristics of life. Freedom of movements of people, interactions and trade across borders are natural rights of men.

13- Global institutions which are representatives of all nations of globe are only legitimate if its structures include the representations of the nations based on their percentage in world. Veto power is the signature of colonial power and is undemocratic and unnatural hence under veto power the global institutions lose their legitimacy. Global institutions are responsible for ensuring liberty and social welfare of people of the globe without any discrimination.

Hidden Treasures of Love

May I deserve?

A beauty which is gifted
Slowly to my heart shifted
My taste of beauty lifted
By hopes and fears, my heart drifted

Your imaginations become my duty
O beauty! You are the desires gravity
I want your beauty to preserve
Tell me! May I deserve?

Mercy on my dissatisfaction
Lead my imaginations to perfection
Break the honors fiction
And write my passions diction

With wings of your love fly to beauty’s tops
And refresh my mind like dew drops
Wash my heart with your wisdom
And liberate me from dreams kingdom
5/1/2002

Thirst For Wisdom

Men of power is searching for social nut and bolt
Avoiding senses of liberties that causes revolt
One who locked by breezy locks of desire
Wants to enslave and he knows that liberties never expire

A ruined castle on the grave of a defeated history
Told me that no one is more thirsty than those who are in fires
Now it is in his hands to decide
Which thirst among thirsts he requires?

The fires of love that causes a thirst of wisdom
Darkness by confronting it stirs
There are fire of power that rebirth the appetites
Appetite of enjoyments that spoiled by admires

The ruined castle told me to burn in fire of love
That never binds men in groups and shires
12/2/2003

Knight

O! Braves why are you wandering?
For offense on whose homes are you pondering?
Do you think that explorers explored all?
And knights in whole earth are bordering?

Come and see here knights bent their knees
Healed all wounds that were homes of tease
Minds are battle grounds and warriors are wisdom
By burning souls bitterness decrease and aesthetics increase

Do you want to shape the world as you wish?
Here is the real liberty, no ownership no lease
Your swords can cut but can’t bring equality
Look to all pages that alike as two peas

Whenever all doors closed to you
Come again here that wisdom never cease

Written BY Khudadad on 11/2/2003

Hidden Treasures Of Love

How were those dreamy nights?
That I drowned in dancing thoughts
Where I could see the whole world

It were your eyes like magician’s pot
Your shining and long blond hairs
Amazed me like mountains ridges knot
By your smiling appeared your teeth

And looked me like Milky Way’s sparkling dots
Warmth of your love was knocking to my hearts
As I am feeling the creations shots
I was wandering in her beauty’s imaginations

That she sailed to me like clouds over towers
Her face gloomed like a red flower
I asked the flower, why are you glooming?
She replied, I am pregnant to life’s flower

When I die I sleep in the arms of earth
Dews as envoys of life give me again birth
I wear the lights of sun and smell breezes
My triumph is love’s touch, doesn’t it a gloom worth?

Then I felt on my cheeks her tears cold
I amazed as about sadness, she never told
I was to ask when breeze flew her away
Her fragrance told me that her red blood was sold

She was hidden treasure of love
But her covers were torn and old
She asked the waves and breeze to help
But men on the top asked her to be bold

Life may die but she had to live for ever
Diversity of life turned into lifeless uni-fold
19/1/2003

Naive

How simple and splendid wisdom she had
Not confused, what is good and what is bad
How beautiful was her image of beauty
Flowers were floating in pools under trees shad

How naïve was her image of a friend
With hands full of fruit, smiling heavenly maid
Wolf with red eyes smelling for preys
As it couldn’t graze, wolf was sad

Deer was proud of its flower grazing
Silky breeze filled her head
Mountains standing face to sun, back to shad
Tears of heavens were in mountains feet laid

When clouds roar and mushrooms were come out
It was glorious time like her glorious fad
But now in the pools of people around
She looked to others, uncultured and mad

A naïve’s paradise is under raid
Where nature had grown her under its shad
Life without ostentations were a pure life
Here in eyes of people she looked dead
20/1/2003