Thinking is hard work...

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 was just a scribe to Socrates train of thoughts. Socrates never wrote any books but engaged in public discourses in the marketplace (agora). Plato helped to disseminate Socratic teachings to the world. 

But then, I realise that there are some subtle differences in their approaches in their attempts to explore the meaning of life. Socrates believed that discussion out in the open with any Tom, Dick and Harry would bring out wisdom. Knowledge has no boundaries, and not everyone knows everything. Hence, everyone can bring something to the table; a sailor on the understanding of the high seas, a weaver on mastery of designs, a surgeon the grasp of the functions of the body and so on.

In 'The Apology' Socrates compared himself to an annoying gadfly that constantly irritates the horse. He prods others to think, introspect and find the answers to life questions that lay in front from us. He was a master teacher who could needle out responses. He is quoted to have said that his actions are, "as upon a great noble horse which was somewhat sluggish because of its size and needed to be stirred up by a kind of gadfly."

Maya

Plato, in 'The Republic',  as seen in the Cave allegory, thinks that people are like the prisoners who see the world through shadows on the wall look at reality through their own lenses. They are so convinced of their perception of the world that they are unconvinced when a knowledgeable person tries to convince them of the colourful three-dimensional world out there. People need leaders to pave the path for them; preferably, leaders should be philosophers.

When we look around us, Platonic teachings seem to hold many truths. People find it easier to just follow preset rules without thinking. Using the brain is a very strenuous exercise. Following a set protocol decided by the powers that be absolves them from liabilities and wild accusations. They are protected. At the same time, they forget that, through this means, they can be manipulated by self-serving leaders. Some professions demand such obedience. The country wants a soldier to carry out his assignments without having a second thought. When his superior commands him to kill the bandits, his job is shoot, not introspect. But then, does this rhetoric also apply to the promise of a good after-life or better placing in the karmic ladder by an intangible force in the celestial space?

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Automatons, are we?

 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 accepted and revered trait. At that time, the obsession to become rich, if possible overnight, was on everyone's mind. To be rich was being successful, being poor a failure.

Why was that so? The leader then said so.

Syed Qutb - Wiki

That is the psyche of an average man. He is so fickled. He needs a hero figure that he looks up to for guidance. The nearest superhero icon to him is the leader that leads that bring their tribe/nation/congregation through their daily dealings. This must have been the case of the Hindu mythology that put King Rama at the status of a demi-god or even of that of an avatar of God himself. His conduct and decisions in life-changing situations became the foundation of how life on Earth should be lived.

In the present times, this vacuum must surely be filled up by rock stars, pop artists and icons who do nothing like Kendall Jenner and the rest of the Kardashians.

Realising this, Syed Qutb, one of the critical conspirators in extremist Islamism, had posited that people, in general, do not know what they want. They just thread through life like sheep grazing in the field just following the herd. The shepherd needs to guide the passage of flock; to the grassland or the abattoir. The entrepreneur Steve Job, on working to come up with the next generation handheld communication device had been heard to have said when criticised about the acceptability of his new gadget, "People don't know what they want. We'll show them what they want!"

patriotretort.com

Something can go so wrong unchecked under our very eyes for so long with us realising. We are only jolted to reality with a hard jolt that occurs occasionally. We are easily swayed with rhetorics and hero-worship. We follow blindly without thinking. The thinkings ones are too much cowed into submission by the voice of the majority. The occasional scream of realisation by the minority for sense and equity to prevail is cast aside as elitists.

In a way, we are all ignorant children mesmerised to the tune of day to be led blindly into our destruction. Some would call it the lure of the Evil, Satan's mischiefs, negativity or the Dark Forces. I would call it our ignorance. The only way to combat this innocence is to peel open the inner eyes of awareness and enrich our treasure cove of knowledge. 

Reference: The Fish stinks from the Head.

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The more I think, the harder it gets!

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 would have asked himself how it would be to gaze over the hill like the birds did. He must have been bewildered by the ever-changing shape and site of the glowing ball in the night skies. He must have wanted to touch the moon, literally. We would all still be cave dwellers writing this message on cave walls if not for their desire to explore, to take the first step out of their comfort zone and be restless and discontented. He built his first junk, his first flying contraption and his first telescope. All these arose out of his restlessness of wanting more.

Maybe we are just atoms in a mammoth piece of matter. We are just specks in a vast ocean. What is essential is civilisation, not just the individual. It is the forward progression of the whole life-form that matters, not the individual.

But then, a slight aberration in the sequencing of proteins on a DNA thread may actually eat up the entire host in the case of malignancies. Hence, each individual seemingly unimportant action may indeed make a difference. So, conformity makes sense?

Well, that sounds like a carte blanche to the people in power, be it in religion or politics, or are these two mutually inclusive? A scenario of plebeians moving in concert to the tunes of the religious or political leaders may sound enticing to those already in power to continue exerting their tyranny. What a home run!

Subservience and delinquency must both be necessary traits for our survival. 

Thinking aloud allowed

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 racial background had any bearing on the outcome of the trial is also mooted.

Syed's character, his double life of being a religious son at the family level, serving religiously at the local madrasah whilst taking weed and pilfering the mosque's coffers exposed through interviews. Syed was interviewed by phone over the limited time allocated to him.

The witnesses were traced (after so many years). Some of the schoolmates who had gone on with their lives just refuse to be interviewed. Some however, decide to open up as the podcast becomes more famous.

They even go as far as to investigate Adnan's defence attorney, whether she sold out to earn more from the appeal.

The evidence is also scrutinised extensively. Listening to the podcast, we learn quite a lot about telecommunication transmission theory.
It is amazing that the show managed to maintain the attention for a whole season and everybody is left wondering whether Syed Adnan had a fair trial.

Who needs thinkers?

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 dream of creating a purebred Aryan race. The ever mild-mannered Japanese are also guilty of turning a blind eye to their regime which raped and massacred half of the world.

Looking back, these nations would like to forever erase that dark tainted part of their nation's history.

But then, to achieve a particular agenda, a leader has to have ways to influence the masses to do things in a specific fashion so that their mission is accomplished. The masses must be seen to be doing their given tasks without questioning all in the name of the glory of the race, nation, flag or religion. They must be spineless working at a spinal level like zombies. Thinking is not allowed.
If everybody starts thinking and questioning, the target would not be met, and you would have is just pandemonium.

On the other hand, these unquestioning loyalty and war did produce some milestones in the human civilisation. Advances in air transportation, engineering and energy are testimony to this. The sizeable big step forward is also marred by the fact that they are savvier of ways to annihilate each other.