Conscience VS popular tide

I don’t know the real appetite of a bear for a honey hive but I use it as an analogy to illustrate my craving for ice creams. It is just beastly. To me, if anything is close to ice creams are biographies, especially autobiographies. I really can’t afford missing any “bear-time” (the chance to read biographies or eating ice creams). Thanks to technology and those who develop Apps, especially those Apps that allow downloading free eBooks, now I can get bear-time, every day that I use bus to go school. These days, I get almost 15 minutes of bear-time in bus (both ways) and use it to enjoy reading the “The life of Abraham Lincoln” by Henry Ketcham (You can download to read it free on Google books). Though by reading this biography, I get a feeling that the writer was a real devotee to Abe and had written the book having the picture of a saintly figure in his mind but of course, I am in a stage of life that I can imagine a human figure even out of most revered saints. Reading the book, the thought that struck me again and again was the repetition of history. Of course, the events do not repeat themselves but the forces and processes that drive the events do not change and repeat themselves. Let me illustrate this by borrowing the event of the Lincoln-Stone Protest from the book,

….“ The prophetic event of his legislative work was what is known as the Lincoln−Stone protest. This looks to−day so harmless that it is not easy to understand the situation in 1837. The pro−slavery feeling was running high, an abolitionist was looked on as a monster and a menace to national law and order. It was in that year that the Reverend Elijah P. Lovejoy was murdered martyred at Alton, Ill. The legislature had passed pro−slavery resolutions. There were many in the legislature who did not approve of these, but in the condition of public feeling, it was looked on as political suicide to express opposition openly. There was no politic reason why Lincoln should protest. His protest could do no practical good. To him it was solely a matter of conscience. Slavery was wrong, the resolutions were wrong, and to him it became necessary to enter the protest. He succeeded in getting but one man to join him, and he did so because he was about to withdraw from politics and therefore had nothing to lose. Here is the document as it was spread on the journal:

Resolutions upon the subject of domestic slavery having passed both branches of the General Assembly at its present session, the undersigned hereby protest against the passage of the same.
They believe that the institution of slavery is founded on both injustice and bad policy, but that the promulgation of abolition doctrines tends rather to increase than abate its evils.

They believe that the Congress of the United States has no power under the Constitution to interfere with the institution of slavery in the different States.

They believe that the Congress of the United States has the power, under the Constitution, to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia, but that the power ought not to be exercised, unless at the request of the people of the District.

The difference between these opinions and those contained in the above resolutions is their reason for entering this protest.

(Signed)

DAN STONE,
LINCOLN,

Representatives from the county of Sangamon.”……………..

What really moved me is that Abe got only one person on his side on his protest against “Pro-slavery resolutions”. It might have seemed a failure on those days but today no one sees that a failure as his stand based on his conscience has won over what were popular trends and sentiments in those days. Though, today, we don’t have physical slavery in the sense of those frontier times but the issue of “Human Rights” is an equivalent issue as to that of issue of slavery was then. The deep desires for supremacy and monopoly of values or religious beliefs have much popular appeal than to give in much for sake of “Human Rights” even if it appeals to conscience.

I agree that Human Rights have been misused as a foreign policy tools and even as a warfare tool against opponents and opponent governments. I agree that Human Rights have been used as a political tool or even economical tool by people who don’t really believe in it. It has been misused to an extent that if you talk about Human Rights, all and I really mean all try to find what you really want to conceal, using it. Some see weakness in it, some see ambitions and others see cowardice and betrayal in it. So when Abe protested against pro-slavery resolutions, he got just one supporter on his side but it didn’t stop him because his conscience was much bigger than the whole popular sentiments and judgments out there.

Although my bear-time is beastly but it gives me some humanely thoughts and let me to not wash out by current sentiments and events but see the processes that is going to repeat again and again…

You gotta love Ants !!!

Yeah, you gotta love ants, they are law abiding citizen but mind it, they are communist and they are communist in strictest sense. They are communist even long before Karl Marx had thought of writing his communist manifesto and perhaps even longer than that -even before anything had to look close to Marx (Ants (co-)evolved 140 to 160 million years ago and diversified along with flowering plants). Their system didn't collapse for their entire known history, perhaps because they haven't produced any libertarian,hehehe ... I am sure, the ideology don't stop from loving such law abiding citizen as ants...

I don't know, how you celebrate your valentine day but for more than a decade I hadn't missed ant's valentine's day (annual mating ritual that lasts for one day and it is usually occurs oh hot sunny day).... it is the day that you can see countless number of winged prince (smaller head and longer antenna than princess) and wingless princess ants swarm and they are looking for their pairs..For those who are not much familiar, it is an awkward day but truly it is a romantic day.. (There was an underground colony of ants at our house and we were feeding them regularly and no one was allowed to harm them as it was believed that harming ants will bring misfortunes.. Superstition, you may call it but compassion I would name it)

It is not just economy, romance and hard work that make ants look lovely to me but also their skills that make me appreciate these tiny creatures... I was frequent to use the example of ants feeding system to talk about food at home and school... Men are very sensitive to their outfits..very cautious at sizes, colors and fabrics but when it comes to food, who cares then? tastes drive everything... Ant nurses are specialized in giving care and esp in food. They make food according to needs of each ant category (It was not like men to invest heavily in health related research, spent on health and debate health insurance and yet don't know even the basics of preparing and eating healthy)

Ants are real patriots. They work heartlessly for prosperity of their colony (worker ants) and fight to death to defend their colony(Soldier ants)..

I don't know why tonight , I remembered ants (I had to read a paper on iron plaques on rhizosphere and the authors were so boring and vague in their writings that I wasn't moving from 3rd page so it makes sense that my mind needed an escape and ants came to rescue me..hehehe) but seriously if you have watched "Matrix movie" and want to see it outside of virtual world in real world then ants are most likely candidates... They have perfect stable "Utopian societies", now for more than 140 million years...

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....
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