RIFLE RANGE BOY

That is the danger of self-teaching oneself of philosophy. One tends to garble everything up and develop his own 'brand' of philosophy. It cannot be such a wrong thing, on the contrary, since no two philosophers can completely agree with each other. Whatsmore, even students and masters have parted ways upon minor disagreements. Think Plato and Aristotle, Freud and Jung, you know what I am talking about. Even with time, a particular interpretation can morph, perhaps as an afterthought or in keeping with the flavour of the era. The scope of the field of philosophy itself has evolved over time. If before it used to encompass everything under the sun and beyond, mathematics, grammar and sciences included, it is now agreed that it covers knowledge, life and existence. Since the journey of life does not come with a preset map, I guess that it could be sailed anyway we like as long as we live and let live. Let everybody navigate his own route.  I always thought Plato ...

 Kardashians - fiz-x.com This post was spurred with someone mentioning how the whole Government machinery has suddenly found new vigour to streamline all its dealings. At a wink of an eye, civil servants who all this while had not been civil enough to show the gratitude to the salary that the taxpayers paid them, have found rejuvenated zest to right their wrong of so many decades. Have they really turned over a new leaf? Have they had their wings clipped or hand tied that prevented them from doing what they were yearning to do all these while - to serve? Are these moves just reactionary to the change in the tide of the time? My thoughts were cradled back to a time in our recent past. The mantra of the day then was that we were to become an industrialised and advanced country by 2020. Wealth and money were then the new God. The yardstick to gauge the advancement of a society was the material things, not civic-mindedness, positive human values or culture. Megalomania was an acce...

The congregation all nods in unison. They hail the young preacher's view of life. It appears all too easy; that we should be contented with what we have, that there is no limit to human desires, that the world has everything to meet all our needs but not our greed, that a happy man is one who makes the best of what is available around him. A man who finds joy in the simplest of things is a happy man! The congregation go all agape with his simplistic outlook on life even though none could complete a single day without the comfort of their air-conditioning and the nimble, agile limbs of their ever-obedient servants. If only the place were right, they would raise their hands in awe as if they were at a qawwali performance. It all sounded like Epicurean teaching to me, but the sceptic part of me went overdrive. Is it not human nature to always strive for something higher? Our ancestors, the caveman, must have yearned to explore the green strip of land across the wavy blue sea. He wo...

I think it is more relevant now than ever, the platform to intellectually tease out and argue a certain event as it is unfolds. The human race has evolved and has weathered the atrocities of Mother Nature simply by being able to critically evaluate their shortcomings and dare to make changes.This is the thought that went through my mind as I completed listening to the 12th episode of the season 1 of 'Serial', the podcast that is taking the podphiles the world over by storm. A 17year old second generation American boy of Pakistan origin, Adnan Syed, is convicted of murder of his schoolmate cum ex-girlfriend, Hae Min Lee, is incarcerated for life in 1999. Almost 20 years later, the producer decide to re-look into the case files and critically analyse whether justice was carried out correctly. Over a year, the files are scrutinised. The background of the accused is dissected critically. His background, family, recreational activities are all bare open. The idea whether his rac...

The Eichmann trial had often been critiqued for being a witch hunt, looking for a scapegoat rather than trying to get to the root of the problem. A problem far more significant than Adolf Eichmann transporting prisoners to Auschwitz, more than just sending the lambs to the slaughter! Hannah Arendt, writing for the magazine New Yorker, herself a Jewess who suffered imprisonment by Nazi, was expecting to see a gruesome-looking mean dude at the trials. She was quite surprised at the simple-looking civil servant who was more interested in completing his given task at the dock. He was oblivious to the sequelae of his actions. Arendt coined the term 'banality of evil' and proposed that evil done unknowingly by an unthinking person is the worst kind. That got me thinking... Again and again, history has shown people choosing a leader and following his directions blindly. The Germans elected a monster through the legal means who rocked the whole world to realise his megalomaniac dre...