Obsessed with the “worlds”

When an artist creates an imaginary world (to represent dreams and unconscious mind), through images or words, it is called surrealism and if he envisions an attainable future (Sci-fi or Utopian), again by creating an imaginary world, it is called idealism. On other hand, if he all the way breaks with real world (Rebellion against nature) again using his imaginations, we call it abstract art (Obsession for creativity?). O Yes, you can find a lot of alternative definitions about those fancy terms…. I don’t intend to define, introduce or talk about those arts movements as they are not my specialty. Instead I just wanted to say that we create our “worlds” and then identify ourselves with them and while we share the earth with other organisms but we do not share our “worlds” with any other organism not even with apes. What about all those ape-making of mankind? Well frankly, there is no doubt that there are strong correlations biologically but culturally, I don’t see any correlation and all those generalizations do not make sense at all..

It is not just apes that have no share in the “worlds” created by mankind but humans have created “worlds” that keep them apart from each other. How one sees these “worlds” depends on what one wants out of them. Let me give you some examples; if you are Samuel Huntington, interesting in selling a big project for global hegemony then you will see it as “Clash of Civilizations”… If you are King Abduallah of Jordan and is really worried about your throne because of “Arab Spring” then you will see it as “overlapping of cultures” and if you are Mark Pagel, an evolutionist and feeling uneasy that why you can’t find any genetic phylogeny for cultural evolution but still you want to see cultural diversity as something biological and to make it sense in light of evolution, you will say, “Genetically we remain a single species, but culturally we are worlds apart, comparable to dinosaurs, birds and mammals…..”

When I was a little boy, there was a proverb that I was frequently hearing; Shoemakers don’t own a decent pair of shoes, Construction workers don’t own decent housing, Drivers don’t own decent housing, Tailors don’t own decent pairs of dresses, Cooks don’t eat healthy meals and so on… Although this proverb is appearing counterintuitive but it is true at least for one thing and that is for sure… Humans that have unlocked the secrets of the largest thing like Universe that is really hard to have a clear picture of its vastness and size even imaginary and the smallest particles like subatomic particles that require cyclotrons to detect…. have not yet unlocked their own “intelligence”… Human intelligence is conscious of itself but it is not sure of its origin and how its operates (despite of a lot of generalizations, it is still a mystery)..
MRI scans produce images of blood flows in a live brain but it can’t explain and able to find a mechanism for mechanization of human intelligence. Even there are great debates between Philosophers, psychologists and neurologist about such aspect of human intelligence like “free will”. Does it exist or it is just a “fantasy” based on which human have created their “real worlds” (legal systems; doesn’t matter the source or the way it is created)… That is exactly like a construction worker who works at giant construction projects but can’t build his own house….

But who cares about the origin and nature of “intelligence” as long as it is available all the time and free of costs and we can use it to uncover or construct things of interests… As long as we can create “worlds” without knowing the origins and how it really works then we will value the concepts of “wrong” and “right” (constructed concepts) over what things really are… and as long as we value very high the definitive/constructed concepts, we would continue to seek supremacy of our values over others’ values and continue to take interest in battle of Titans…

Pakistan on the Brink: The Future of America, Pakistan, and Afghanistan

Reading Chinese Machiavelli

Unlike all major ancient civilizations that had become part of history, Chinese civilization is the only one which went through all historical stages without any fall. The continuity of Chinese civilization is a challenge to generalized historical theories of rise and fall of civilizations. In fact Chinese civilization has all characteristics and characters of any ancient civilization. Guess what? it has also my favorite character, "Socrates". Socrates was a revolutionary figure in ancient Greek Philosophy as he turned the practice of Sophism into discipline of Philosophy. While mentioning Socrates, it is a matter of interest to note that it was Socrates' students who turned to evolve the single handed movement of their teacher into a successful "intellectual revolution" by setting up schools such as Academia by Plato in first generation and Lyceum by Aristotle in second generation.

So what we know about Socrates comes through the writings of his students especially through "Republic" of Plato that includes sketches about life, personality and dialogues of Socrates. It might be a matter of amusement to note that an identical picture comes from China. The 'Analects of Confucius" is equivalent to the "Republic" of Plato and is not written by Confucius himself but by his disciples. Although, there is a contrast between Socrates' life styles and circumstances, interests and even practices but their roles are almost similar in their respective civilizations and to me Confucius is Chinese Socrates. Confucius is well known both in East and West and his philosophy has been practiced not only in China but also in neighboring countries, what we know as East Asian countries....

If I have to grandly classify the world based on their philosophies, I would say historically there are three geo-philosophical regions (These regions are distinct in their philosophies),

Spiritual East, that includes, North Africa, Middle East, South and Central Asia, Practical Far-East that includes Eastern Asian Nations and Idealist West that include western nations...

Although Chinese philosophy has not the taste of spiritualism and idealism but its practicality makes it palatable to common instincts.

When one looks for a practical Philosopher in the Western world, Machiavelli is the most likely name to come first in his mind. Because Machiavelli's practical philosophy does not fit very well to idealistic Western Philosophy and Spiritual Eastern Philosophy so he is looked upon as a philosopher of ruling class and Machiavelli himself was looking to himself in the same way and it is perhaps why he was named his most famous book, "The Prince"... If you are familiar with Machiavelli then Sun Tzu is not an alien to you except that Sun Tzu is taller in practicality than Machiavelli..

As globalization pushing the nations closer to each other, we see the inertia in the form of new conflicts and new means of competitions to increase the spheres of influences. It is quite predictable that fear of losing is by-product of this globalization inertia. If the East is scared of decline in spirituality, the West is worried about scrambling of idealism. Even layman can sense the ad hoc responses to current challenges. While Eastern and Western Philosophies are just looking into cultural aspects of conflicts, the Sun Tzu tells us why certain regions of world are land of conflicts.. Why certain places and people faces uninvited wars and conflicts again and again?

Following is a documentary about Sun Tzu's book, "The Art of War". While, I am not interested in war but I believe that in order to understand Peace, one needs to understand war and conflicts. It is necessary to understand why certain people are victims of conflicts and why certain people are interested in war instead of Peace....
....................................................................................

....................................................................................

....................................................................................

The illusion of Power

Here I am reading the two different opinions from two close generations on the same subject, decline and transformation. Professor Joseph Nye in his article, “What is wrong with transformational leadership?” compares era of Clinton to those of Bush Junior’s era and blames Bush for ignoring reality in favor of changing it but on other hand expresses satisfaction on the power of current institutions. Umair Haque a representative of current generation in his article, “The Economic Roots of Your Life Crisis” does not blame leaders but the decline of the institutions for general “disorientations of current generation”.

Well, I am not in mood of taking sides but for me, it is really interesting to see the differences of opinions in two neighboring generations. Looking to the nature of general decline both in terms of governance and economics that is global in its nature, it would be unfair to blame individuals who were more of products of those institutions. I am reading Professor Nye’s article for long and I have noticed a big shift in his position from advocating the projection of “smart power” to currently more focusing on “leadership”. By having a look to the lists of his current articles, “When Women Lead”, “Angela Merkel’s Vision Thing”, “Charisma We Believe in” and now “What is Wrong with Transformational Leadership”, I feel that he is seeing the problem with “leadership” instead of his proposed “smart power” and still looking for some charismatic and smart leader for successful execution and strong comeback of his “smart power” (In Mideast, the goal is "smart power"......"Smart Power" ).

To me, power is the biggest illusion that people get from fall or failures of others. After collapse of Soviet Union, there were a big shift in balance of power on the world’s theatre but instead of seeing the resulting chaos, the “generation” who was involved in the struggle against Soviet Union got an illusion of power. That is a common symptom both in West and East, particularly in Pakistan that was frontline state in struggle against Soviet Union. Like Professor Nye, the Pakistani generation that was involved in struggle against Soviet Union, got an illusion of power and instead of seeing the mess they had created during their “Holy Struggle” both in Pakistani institutions and society, they tried to project their “power” to Afghanistan and Central Asia. Guess what was the “Power”? Of course, it was not something secret and mysterious. The power that was the fruit of two decades of struggle was Taliban and religious extremists groups. After two decades of projection of “Taliban Power”, the toll of destruction to Pakistani institutions and society is unimaginable. Tolerance, trust and confidence are things almost missing in the society. How our “Power generation” expect from current generation to not be disoriented? This is lost generations who have the problem of wasting too much time in understanding their situations, society and governing institutions than learning and inventing time. The time they spend wandering about their situations and governing institution is not only wasted but also waste them. This is a generation that is lost in waste. It is really unfortunate that instead of rethinking institutions, the politicians are blamed. Despite of all these, I see a hot pursuit for “Charismatic and Strong Leadership” to bring changes to Pakistan.

Let me dare to say, “Sorry, with decline of most institutions, any charismatic leadership will be just a memorable failure”. It is not time for hunting a leadership but “leaderships in all spheres” and serious rethinking about the restructuring of institutions. There is still time to come out of “illusion of power” and correcting others but instead it is time for “correcting self” and that is more of an urgency call.

As a member of current generation, I walk in same shoes as Umair Haque walks. It doesn’t fit and it hurts walking so “you” can’t blame me for not walking well while it hurts. Our problem is that change has already come (May be through technology) but we still want to forcefully resist it. Let’ see if change will force us to go for change or we will be saved just by continuing to look for a “Charismatic Leader” and blaming failed leaders for the mess.

World's Oldest Fossilised Forest Unearthed in NY