Happiness is....

[muse]

Mending a Muslim divide
By Reza Zia-Ebrahimi

Monday, July 21, 2008
The "Shiite crescent" - an alliance of Shiite Iran with Arab Shiite movements in Iraq and Lebanon allegedly committed to dominating the Middle East - has become a popular intellectual shortcut to explaining Muslim affairs in the West.

Yet the theory is a flawed one. It ignores the complexity of religious, national, local and tribal allegiances that include, exclude or overlap one another throughout the region. Moreover, it does not account for a number of other factors, for example, the reasons behind the occasional inter-Shiite fighting in Iraq.

In an interesting twist, the Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad - two Shiites - happen to be considered the most popular foreign leaders in overwhelmingly Sunni Egypt (and probably most of the Middle East) according to a poll conducted by the Ibn Khaldun Center in Cairo.

Since the death of the Prophet of Islam, Muslims have split into two groups with distinct theological, cultural and even political outlooks: Sunnis (85 percent) and Shiites (15 percent). For most of the past 14 centuries, the two have got along, but often Shiites have been ruthlessly repressed by the Sunni majority. Today, non-Arab Iran is the largest Shiite country (more than 90 percent of its 70 million inhabitants) and the two other important Shiite communities are Iraq (65 percent) and Lebanon (40 percent).

Though inadequate and overinflated, the Shiite crescent theory nevertheless refers to a real problem, which is that of rising tension between Sunnis - the main branch of Islam - and Shiites in various parts of the Middle East.

One crucial but under-discussed arena of Sunni-Shiite relations is Saudi Arabia. Approximately 10 percent of the kingdom's population is estimated to be Shiite. Since the country was established in 1932, Shiite rituals have been subjected to significant constraints and Shiites have been marginalized and intermittently repressed. Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the International Crisis Group have all pointed out the systematic social, political, religious and economic discrimination of Shiites by the Saudi state institutions and ulema, or clergy. Since 1993, Saudi rulers have attempted some rapprochement, by engaging Shiite leaders, although significant advances have yet to materialize.

Sunni-Shiite relations in Saudi Arabia are important for the rest of the Muslim world. Indeed, the kingdom's religious establishment holds sway over many radical Muslim circles, thanks to its worldwide network of mosques, and usually adheres to a puritan and intolerant version of Sunni Islam. As a result, the Saudi ulema bear much responsibility in the propagation of anti-Shiite feelings, but they are also in a strategic position to soothe the occasional tensions between the two communities.

A radical break with well-established anti-Shiism is unlikely; observers of the kingdom know that an inhibited political culture there that puts excessive emphasis on consensus makes Switzerland look like a fast-changing country.

However there are two reasons to believe that time is ripe for some sort of bold action by the rulers. First, despite the slight détente in the kingdom in the 1990s, tensions are mounting since civil war in Iraq and the reassertion of Iran and Hezbollah in Lebanon increased alarm about regional Shiite domination. Many young Saudis who engage in jihad in Iraq are motivated, among other things, by fervent anti-Shiite sentiments. This heated situation has also engendered an increased number of despicable acts of vandalism, like cemetery profanation or the burning down of Shiite mosques, threatening the inter-communal status quo.

Secondly, King Abdullah is investing much hope in his calls for interfaith dialogue. Earlier this month, he concluded an interfaith conference in Madrid, which he hopes to be the first step in a sustained dialogue process. Christian and Jewish religious authorities worldwide have been involved and many declared their support for the king's overture. It is quite an undertaking for the leader of a country that constrains or bans any non-Islamic religious act, sign or place of worship. The legitimacy and credibility of the king's move will, to a large extent, depend on the state of Sunni-Shiite relations within Saudi Arabia.

Recent moves indicate that the king is aware of this situation, and wants to make advances, even at the price of infuriating some members of the ulema.

This month, 22 radical Saudi clerics issued a fatwa, or religious edict, saying that Lebanon's Shiite Hezbollah movement's fight against Israel is a disguise to conceal its anti-Sunni agenda. They proclaimed Shiites followed "infidel precepts."

Reaction was swift: Mohammed al-Nujaimi, a prominent cleric from the religious establishment was dispatched recently to mend fences with Shiites. He met with Hassan al-Saffar, the leader of the Shiite community in Saudi Arabia, and other representatives to condemn the edict. There is good reason to believe that the king was behind this effort.

By Saudi standards, this is a bold move, as the rulers of the kingdom are always wary not to antagonize the ulema, who provide them with legitimacy. Anti-Shiite sentiment is one of the main tenets of the ulema's ideology, usually referred to as Wahabbism, a very puritan and intolerant version of Islam. The king's overture is unlikely to be appreciated by them.

There are reasons to be skeptical about the outcome of the king reaching out to the Shiite community, but mounting tensions and the king's interfaith projects have created a state of affairs in which the Saudi Shiite situation cannot be shunned any longer. If a decent modus vivendi is worked out there, then it can have some impact on Sunni-Shiite relations worldwide thanks to the kingdom's special position within the Islamic world as the guardian of the religion's two most holy sites, and reassert the House of Saud over an obscurantist and anachronistic ulema. Inshallah.

Reza Zia-Ebrahimi is a Middle East consultant and commentator based in Oxford, England.

 

[muse]

Utopia and Violence
Karl Popper

I consider what I call Utopianism an attractive and, indeed, an all too attractive theory; for I also consider it dangerous and pernicious. It is, I believe, self-defeating, and it leads to violence.

That it is self-defeating is connected with the fact that it is impossible to determine ends scientifically. There is no scientific way of choosing between two ends. Some people, for example, love and venerate violence. For them a life without violence would be shallow and trivial. Many others, of whom I am one, hate violence. This is a quarrel about ends. It cannot be decided by science. This does not mean that the attempt to argue against violence is necessarily a waste of time. It only means that you may not be able to argue with the admirer of violence. He has a way of answering an argument with a bullet if he is not kept under control by the threat of counter-violence. If he is willing to listen to your arguments without shooting you, then he is at least infected by rationalism, and you may, perhaps, win him over. This is why arguing is no waste of time — as long as people listen to you. But you cannot, by means of argument, make people listen to argument; you cannot, by means of argument, convert those who suspect all argument, and who prefer violent decisions to rational decisions. You cannot prove to them that they are wrong. And this is only a particular case, which can be generalised. No decision about aims can be established by purely rational or scientific means. Nevertheless argument may prove extremely helpful in reaching a decision about aims.

Applying all this to the problem of Utopianism, we must first be quite clear that the problem of constructing a Utopian blueprint cannot possibly be solved by science alone. Its aims, at least, must be given before the social scientist can begin to sketch his blueprint. We find the same situation in the natural sciences. No amount of physics will tell a scientist that it is the right thing for him to construct a plough, or an aeroplane, or an atomic bomb. Ends must be adopted by him, or given to him; and what he does qua scientist is only to construct means by which these ends can be realised.

In emphasising the difficulty of deciding, by way of rational argument, between different Utopian ideals, I do not wish to create the impression that there is a realm — such as the realm of ends — which goes altogether beyond the power of rational criticism (even though I certainly wish to say that the realm of ends goes largely beyond the power of scientific argument). For I myself try to argue about this realm; and by pointing out the difficulty of deciding between competing Utopian blueprints, I try to argue rationally against choosing ideal ends of this kind. Similarly, my attempt to point out that this difficulty is likely to produce violence is meant as a rational argument, although it will appeal only to those who hate violence.

That the Utopian method, which chooses an ideal state of society as the aim which all our political actions should serve, is likely to produce violence can be shown thus. Since we cannot determine the ultimate ends of political actions scientifically, or by purely rational methods, differences of opinion concerning what the ideal state should be like cannot always be smoothed out by the method of argument. They will at least partly have the character of religious differences. And there can hardly be tolerance between these different Utopian religions. Utopian aims are designed to serve as a basis for rational political action and discussion, and such action appears to be possible only if the aim is definitely decided upon. Thus the Utopianist must win over, or else crush, his Utopianist competitors who do not share his own Utopian aims and who do not profess his own Utopianist religion.

But he has to do more. He has to be very thorough in eliminating and stamping out all heretical competing views. For the way to the Utopian goal is long. Thus the rationality of his political action demands constancy of aim for a long time ahead; and this can only be achieved if he not merely crushes competing Utopian religions, but as far as possible stamps out all memory of them.

The use of violent methods for the suppression of competing aims becomes even more urgent. For unavoidably, the period of Utopian construction is liable to be one of social change. In such a time ideas are liable to change also. Thus what may have appeared to many as desirable at the time when the Utopian blueprint was derided upon may appear less desirable at a later date. If this is so, the whole approach is in danger of breaking down. For if we change our ultimate political aims while attempting to move towards them we may soon discover that we are moving in circles. The whole method of first establishing an ultimate political aim and then preparing to move towards it must be futile if the aim may be changed during the process of its realization. It may easily turn out that the steps so far taken lend in fact away from the new aim. And if we then change direction in accordance with our new aim we expose ourselves to the same risk. In spite of all the sacrifices which we may have made in order to make sure that we are acting rationally, we may get exactly nowhere — although not exactly to that ‘nowhere’ which is meant by the word ‘Utopia’.

Again, the only way to avoid such changes of our aims seems to be to use violence, which includes propaganda, the suppression of criticism, and the annihilation of all opposition. With it goes the affirmation of the wisdom and foresight of the Utopian planners, of the Utopian engineers who design and execute the Utopian blueprint. The Utopian engineers must in this way become omniscient as well as omnipotent. They become gods. Thou shall have no other Gods before them.

Utopian rationalism is a self-defeating rationalism. However benevolent its ends, it does not bring happiness, but only the familiar misery of being condemned to live under a tyrannical government.

Karl Popper needs no introduction. This passage is taken from his essay of the same title and is part of the compilation called Conjectures and Refutations

 

[nitesh]

thanks muse, good articles.

 

[muse]

Yes, It's a Top Down Business, as Dr. Farish Noor had outlines, but it's better than nothing


A beginning for global Christian-Muslim compatibility
Leaders within the two faiths, meeting at Yale this week, acknowledge dangers of prejudice, pledge to work toward mutual understanding.
By Jane Lampman | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
from the August 2, 2008 edition

New Haven, Conn. - In a three-day conference this week, Christian and Muslim leaders from around the world began shaping their own role in reducing tensions and restoring a sense of hope among their followers.With unusual candor and good will, the group of 140 clergy and religious scholars meeting at Yale University in New Haven, Conn., sought common ground between the faiths and touched on some of the most contentious issues."[O]urs is an effort to ensure that religions heal rather than wound, nourish the human soul rather than poison human relations," they said Thursday in a closing conference statement.

The global gathering was the first in response to "A Common Word between Us and You," * the open letter from 138 Muslim leaders to all Christian churches **urging dialogue on the basis of the shared principles of loving God and loving one's neighbor. But as some reminded them, many of the faithful are far from applying those values in everyday life.

Prince Ghazi bin Muhammad of Jordan, an author of A Common Word, spoke in opening remarks of the large numbers on both sides who admit to prejudice against the other, and of the dehumanization and demonizing that is a regular practice. This is what Hutus and Tutsis did to one another before the genocide in Rwanda, and what was done to Jews before the Holocaust, he warned, suggesting that sparks from another terrorist attack or war could unleash new horrors.

Recognizing that to live together in peace, much less love one another, requires greater understanding between the faiths, the conference focused primarily on theological discussion ** on "who we are and what we think." As they talked about concepts of God or sacred texts or who is one's neighbor, sheikhs and ayatollahs and pastors and professors (and occasionally rabbis) spoke frankly about commonalities and differences.

Together they "affirmed the unity … of God and God's merciful love as infinite, eternal and embracing all things," as well as the mutual respect and freedom of religion due to all. But in what one participant called "comfortable candor," they differed over such matters as the Christian concepts of the Trinity and original sin, views of Jesus, and why Muslims do not think of God as Father.

They just touched on difficult issues such as proselytizing, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and religious freedom and persecution, but left the in-depth discussion - the real test - for later gatherings.

In a quip that captured the tone of informal and formal sessions, Prince Bola Ajibola of Nigeria praised the group for "dining but not whining together. It's an achievement," he said.

The conferees did commit to practical steps, including setting a week every year when Muslim and Christian clergy would preach about the good in the other tradition, and creating a website for books recommended by Christians on Christianity and Muslims on Islam appropriate for people of different ages. A study guide on frequently asked questions about the two faiths will be published. They also pledged to carry the Common Word message back to their constituents and congregations.

Al Qaeda issued a threat this week against engaging in interfaith activity (saying King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia should be killed for his recent conference in Madrid). The conferees denounced the threat in their statement, saying "dialogue is not a departure from faith; it is … an essential tool in the quest for the common good."

Several speakers confirmed the benefits of interfaith work. Dalia Mogahed of the Gallup organization, who wears a hijab, recalled how her family moved from Cincinnati to Pittsburgh on Sept. 12, 2001. "We were terrified to go out of the house," she said. But when they got the courage to go to Friday prayer at the mosque in their new neighborhood, they found that half the congregation was non-Muslim and had come in solidarity. "It was due to the mosque's decade of interfaith involvement."

Leith Anderson, president of the National Association of Evangelicals, told of a retired Christian farmer in the Midwest who frequently railed against Muslims, though he had never met one. When he was invited to visit Jordan for two weeks on an interfaith venture, he accepted. The time spent with families there changed his attitude to one of respect, said the Rev. Mr. Anderson.

One speaker described a Christian bishop in Tanzania who found his prayer life and ministry were transformed when he decided to follow the example of a Muslim friend by getting up at 4:00 each morning to pray.

The most important aspect of interfaith gatherings, many say, is developing relationships. "It's easy for Muslims or Christians to criticize the other, but once you've got a friend, you find what you might say doesn't fit that person," says Dudley Woodberry of Fuller Theological Seminary, an evangelical school in Pasadena, Calif.

Even Evangelicals were surprised by the large number of their group attending the conference. "The response to Common Word has been mixed" in the community, says Don Wagner, who teaches at North Park University in Chicago. Some Evangelicals have been vocal in their antagonism toward Islam, while others simply question the purposes of interfaith dialogue. Dr. Wagner is participating in a smaller Evangelical-Muslim dialogue that is planning its third conference.

Sayeed Syeed, director of interfaith relations for the Islamic Society of North America, has several projects under way with Christians and Jews, and Europeans are visiting to learn from their activities. The Yale conference is part of "a major paradigm shift in Christian-Muslim relations," he says.

Given the challenges of the new millennium, he adds, "everyone is looking for new answers."

 

[muse]

Change and consciousness
Fyodor Dostoevsky

I am a sick man. I am a spiteful man. I am an unattractive man. I believe my liver is diseased. However, I know nothing at all about my disease, and do not know for certain what ails me. I don’t consult a doctor for it, and never have, though I have a respect for medicine and doctors. Besides, I am extremely superstitious, sufficiently so to respect medicine anyway (I am well-educated enough not to be superstitious, but I am superstitious). No, I refuse to consult a doctor from spite. That you probably will not understand.

Well, I understand it, though. Of course, I can’t explain who it is precisely that I am mortifying in this case by my spite: I am perfectly well aware that I cannot “pay out” the doctors by not consulting them; I know better than anyone that by all this I am only injuring myself and no one else. But still, if I don’t consult a doctor it is from spite. My liver is bad, well — let it get worse!

...I did not know how to become anything; neither spiteful nor kind, neither a rascal nor an honest man, neither a hero nor an insect. Now, I am living out my life in my corner, taunting myself with the spiteful and useless consolation that an intelligent man cannot become anything seriously, and it is only the fool who becomes anything.

...What can a decent man speak of with most pleasure?

Answer: Of himself.

Well, so I will talk about myself.

...I want now to tell you, gentlemen, whether you care to hear it or not, why I could not even become an insect. I tell you solemnly, that I have many times tried to become an insect. But I was not equal even to that.

I swear, gentlemen, that to be too conscious is an illness — a real thorough-going illness. For man’s everyday needs, it would have been quite enough to have the ordinary human consciousness, that is, half or a quarter of the amount which falls to the lot of a cultivated man of our unhappy nineteenth century, especially one who has the fatal ill-luck to inhabit Petersburg, the most theoretical and intentional town on the whole terrestrial globe. (There are intentional and unintentional towns.)

It would have been quite enough, for instance, to have the consciousness by which all so-called direct persons and men of action live. I bet you think I am writing all this from affectation, to be witty at the expense of men of action; and what is more, that from ill-bred affectation, I am clanking a sword...But, gentlemen, whoever can pride himself on his diseases and even swagger over them?

Though, after all, everyone does do that; people do pride themselves on their diseases, and I do, may be, more than anyone. We will not dispute it; my contention was absurd.

But yet I am firmly persuaded that a great deal of consciousness, every sort of consciousness in fact, is a disease. I stick to that.

Let us leave that, too, for a minute. Tell me this: why does it happen that at the very, yes, at the very moment when I am most capable of feeling every refinement of all that is “sublime and beautiful,” as they used to say at one time, it would, as though of design, happen to me not only to feel but to do such ugly things, such that; well, in short, actions that all, perhaps, commit; but which, as though purposely, occurred to me at the very time when I was most conscious that they ought not to be committed.

The more conscious I was of goodness and of all that was “sublime and beautiful,” the more deeply I sank into my mire and the more ready I was to sink in it altogether.

But the chief point was that all this was, as it were, not accidental in me, but as though it were bound to be so. It was as though it were my most normal condition, and not in the least disease or depravity, so that at last all desire in me to struggle against this depravity passed. It ended by my almost believing (perhaps actually believing) that this was perhaps my normal condition.

But at first, in the beginning, what agonies I endured in that struggle! I did not believe it was the same with other people, and all my life I hid this fact about myself as a secret. I was ashamed (even now, perhaps, I am ashamed): I got to the point of feeling a sort of secret abnormal, despicable enjoyment in returning home to my corner on some disgusting Petersburg night, acutely conscious that that day I had committed a loathsome action again, that what was done could never be undone, and secretly, inwardly gnawing. Gnawing at myself for it, tearing and consuming myself till at last the bitterness turned into a sort of shameful accursed sweetness, and at last — into positive real enjoyment!

Yes, into enjoyment, into enjoyment! I insist upon that. I have spoken of this because I keep wanting to know for a fact whether other people feel such enjoyment?

I will explain; the enjoyment was just from the too intense consciousness of one’s own degradation; it was from feeling oneself that one had reached the last barrier, that it was horrible, but that it could not be otherwise; that there was no escape for you; that you never could become a different man; that even if time and faith were still left you to change into something different you would most likely not wish to change; or if you did wish to, even then you would do nothing; because perhaps in reality there was nothing for you to change into.

Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821-1881) was a famous Russian novelist and fiction writer who is known for his insightful exploration of human psychology in the socio-political and spiritual context of 19th century Russia. This is an edited excerpt taken from his novel Notes from the Underground, considered to be one of the founding works in existentialism

 

[S-2]

You hint obliquely with a broad metaphor.

I wonder- should the shoe fit...?

Very nice choice of author.

 

[muse]

On national prejudices
Oliver Goldsmith

As I am one of that sauntering tribe of mortals, who spend the greatest part of their time in taverns, coffee houses, and other places of public resort, I have thereby an opportunity of observing an infinite variety of characters, which, to a person of a contemplative turn, is a much higher entertainment than a view of all the curiosities of art or nature. In one of these, my late rambles, I accidentally fell into the company of half a dozen gentlemen, who were engaged in a warm dispute about some political affair; the decision of which, as they were equally divided in their sentiments, they thought proper to refer to me, which naturally drew me in for a share of the conversation.

Amongst a multiplicity of other topics, we took occasion to talk of a different characters of the several nations of Europe; when one of the gentlemen, cocking his hat, and assuming such an air of importance as if he had possessed all the merit of the English nation in his own person, declared that the Dutch were a parcel of avaricious wretches; the French a set of flattering sycophants; that the Germans were drunken sots, and beastly gluttons; and the Spaniards proud, haughty, and surly tyrants; but that in bravery, generosity, clemency, and in every other virtue, the English excelled all the world.

This very learned and judicious remark was received with a general smile of approbation by all the company — all, I mean, but your humble servant; endeavouring to keep my gravity as well as I could, I reclined my head upon my arm, continued for some times in a posture of affected thoughtfulness, as if I had been musing on something else, and did not seem to attend to the subject of conversation; hoping by these means to avoid the disagreeable necessity of explaining myself, and thereby depriving the gentlemen of his imaginary happiness.

But my pseudo-patriot had no mind to let me escape so easily. Not satisfied that his opinion should pass without contradiction, he was determined to have it ratified by the suffrage of every one in the company; for which purpose addressing himself to me with an air of inexpressible confidence, he asked me if I was not in the same way of thinking. As I am never forward in giving my opinion, especially when I have reason to believe that it will not be agreeable; so, when I am obliged to give it, I always hold it for a maxim to speak my real sentiments. I therefore told him that, for my own part, I should not have ventured to talk in such a peremptory strain, unless I had made the tour of Europe, and examined the manners of these several nations with great care and accuracy: that, perhaps, a more impartial judge would not scruple to affirm that the Dutch were more frugal and industrious, the French more temperate and polite, the Germans more hardy and patient of labour and fatigue, and the Spaniards more staid and sedate, than the English; who, though undoubtedly brave and generous, were at the same time rash, headstrong, and impetuous; too apt to be elated with prosperity, and to despond in adversity.

I could easily perceive that all of the company began to regard me with a jealous eye before I had finished my answer, which I had no sooner done, than the patriotic gentleman observed, with a contemptuous sneer, that he was greatly surprised how some people could have the conscience to live in a country which they did not love, and to enjoy the protection of a government, to which in their hearts they were inveterate enemies. Finding that by this modest declaration of my sentiments, I had forfeited the good opinion of my companions, and given them occasion to call my political principles in question, and well knowing that it was in vain to argue with men who were so very full of themselves, I threw down my reckoning and retired to my own lodgings, reflecting on the absurd and ridiculous nature of national prejudice and prepossession.

Among all the famous sayings of antiquity, there is none that does greater honour to the author, or affords greater pleasure to the reader than that the philosopher, who, being asked what “countryman he was,” replied that he was a citizen of the world. How few there are to be found in modern times who can say the same, or whose conduct is consistent with such a profession! We are now become so much Englishmen, Frenchmen, Dutchmen, Spaniards, or Germans, that we are no longer citizens of the world; so much the natives of one particular spot, or members of one petty society, that we no longer consider ourselves as the general inhabitants of the globe, or members of that grand society which comprehends the whole human kind.

Did these prejudices prevail only among the meanest and lowest of the people, perhaps they might be excused, as they have few, if any, opportunities of correcting them by reading, travelling, or conversing with foreigners; but the misfortune is that they infect the minds, and influence the conduct even of our gentlemen; for let a man’s birth be ever so high, his station ever so exalted, or his fortune ever so large, yet if he is not free from national and other prejudices, I should make bold to tell him, that he had a low and vulgar mind, and had no just claim to the character of a gentleman. And in fact, you will always find that those are most apt to boast of national merit, who have little or no merit of their own to depend on.

Should it be alleged in defence of national prejudice, that it is the natural and necessary growth of love to our country, and that therefore the former cannot be destroyed without hurting the latter; I answer, that this is a gross fallacy and delusion. That it is the growth and love to our country, I will allow; but that it is the natural and necessary growth of it, I absolutely deny. Superstition and enthusiasm too are the growth of religion; but who ever took it in his head to affirm that they are the necessary growth of this noble principle? They are, if you will, the bastard sprouts of this heavenly plant; but not its natural and genuine branches, and may safely enough be lopped off, without doing any harm to the parent stock; nay, perhaps, till once they are lopped off, this goodly tree can never flourish in perfect health and vigour.

Is it not very possible that I may love my own country, without hating the natives of other countries; that I may exert the most heroic bravery, the most undaunted resolution, in defending its laws and liberty, without despising all the rest of the world as cowards and poltroons? Most certainly it is: and if it were not, I should prefer the title of the ancient philosopher, namely, a citizen of the world, to that of an Englishman, a Frenchman, a European, or to any other appellation whatever.

Irish poet, essayist, and dramatist Oliver Goldsmith(d. 1774) is best know for the comic play She Stoops to Conquer, the long poem The Deserted Village, and the novel The Vicar of Wakefield

 

[muse]

Trick or treat?
Riccardo Rebonato



A new way of thinking about individual choice has taken the political landscape by storm. America’s new president Barack Obama and the leader of the British Conservatives, David Cameron, (just to drop a couple of names) have shown an interest in it. Its intellectual and academic pedigree is impeccable. It is said to be effective, evidence-based, and cheap to implement. Most of all, it stakes a claim to a degree of philosophical coherence of which the various “third ways” of the last decade could only dream.

The novel idea, elucidated in Cass Sunstein’s and Richard Thaler’s book Nudge, is that skilfully controlling the way alternatives are presented to us can “nudge” us toward making the choices that our own “better selves” would make. “Libertarian paternalists” like Sunstein and Thaler claim that we have two different ways of making decisions: one “from the gut” (called System I), and the other more deliberative and far more effective (called System II).

But, while System II choices may be more effective than System-I decisions, they are more “expensive” to make: one needs data, analysis, and concentration. Only when the importance of the task warrants the effort do we shift gear and deploy the System-II heavy artillery. This division of labour between the System-I and System-II mechanisms would work well were it not for the fact that our lazy and cheap decision-making mode tends to take over in situations that should command our fullest attention: choosing a pension plan or a healthcare scheme, for example. As one can imagine, the results of this System-I coup d’etat are not pretty.

Old-fashioned paternalists have always been very well aware of this. In these situations, liberal paternalists feel no qualms about taking control and forcing choices upon us (“Wear seat belts and enrol in the pension plan, and in the end you’ll thank me”). The criticisms of this attitude boil down to a simple question: “Who is better equipped than I am to make choices about my welfare?”

Libertarian paternalists are different. To make us choose what is good for us, they avoid fines, compulsion, and prohibition in favour of “nudges” — institutional arrangements that we could, in principle, easily override, but that, given our tendency to rely on System-I, we end up going along with. With a neat twist of logic, our cognitive imperfections are turned on their heads, and made to work to achieve System-II choices. And, indeed, well-chosen nudges have been shown to be extremely effective in altering choices that make a substantive difference to the lives of many (say, enrolment in pension plans).

But here lies the rub: if the architecture of choice is truly so important in determining outcomes, does it really matter if manipulation rather than coercion is used to make us choose what someone else has decided is ultimately good for us? What is gained by tricking rather than forcing people into making choices they wouldn’t have made? Isn’t the power of the manipulator more insidious, and perhaps to be more greatly feared, than that of the policeman? In short, what is so libertarian about “nudging”?

Libertarian paternalists offer a novel answer to these questions. As long as choice engineering tricks us into making choices that our own more deliberate self would make, they say, manipulation is justifiable. Nudges should be so chosen as to prod us toward those choices that we ourselves would make, if we would only sit down and think carefully about the matter at hand.

There are, unfortunately, some logical problems with this apparently elegant solution. Is it really always so reasonable and effective to listen to System-II preferences? According to neo-classical economists, the answer is a resounding “yes”, and, in many cases, they can point to substantial evidence to validate their claim.

Unfortunately, however, hyper-rationality does not always produce attractive outcomes when social, rather than individual, choices are concerned. Indeed, sometimes it leads to results that are inefficient, “nasty”, or both. The benefits of tax evasion may far outweigh the risk of getting caught, but imagine if everyone decided to evade taxes at the same time. In these situations, the System-II decision maker has no tools to resort to in order to escape the sub-optimality (and social nastiness) of the rational decision.

It gets worse. Consider the following example. I am an organ donor. Thaler and Sunstein also believe that donating organs is a good thing. Therefore, one of the “nudges” they recommend is to make organ donation as the default option in the case of a fatal accident. But there is nothing irrational in having a very strong preference not to have one’s body used for spare parts after one’s death. We cannot use System-II to fault this preference. How would we feel if we used the System-I decisional laziness about changing defaults to “trick” someone into a course of action to which she would have violently objected, perhaps on religious grounds?

Ultimately, there is a fundamental and unresolved accountability deficit in the way libertarian paternalists go about nudging us. The Enlightenment idea that our System-II rationality can always point to an optimal choice about which every reasonable individual would agree clashes with the widely accepted modern idea that there is a plurality of reasonable choices.

If this is the case, who is to decide in what areas individuals can be fairly nudged by social engineers? Whose and which choices are the nudgers suppose to encourage? And who will nudge the nudgers?

These questions, I am afraid, still await a convincing answer.


Riccardo Rebonato is Visiting Lecturer in Mathematical Finance at Oxford University, Adjunct Professor at Imperial College and Tanaka Business School, and Global Head of Market Risk and Quantitative Analytics at the Royal Bank of Scotland

Gentle Friends may also want to explore "Manufacturing Consent"

 

[muse]

Calling all mice and ...


How to defeat the barbarians among us



Saturday, March 21, 2009
Charles Ferndale

There is at present a struggle in Islamic communities between what might be called the traditions of cultured Islam and what might be practitioners of a barbarian interpretation of it. Cultured Islam is ancient. Those who have adopted a barbarian interpretation are a fairly new force and have reached their ascendancy only in the twenty-first century. Never before have the barbarians wielded so much power. Sure, the barbarian interpretation has smouldered for a long time in discrete locations but it has never wielded much force. So why has it emerged, in all its ugliness, over the last eighty years?

The first and most important part of the answer requires us to recognize that the conflict between the barbarians and true Muslims is not a truly religious conflict. It does not have deep roots in doctrinal differences. It is almost entirely a conflict over power. It might be possible to argue that this is true of all religious conflicts that become violent, but I think there are religious conflicts (say, between some sections of Shia and Sunni Muslims) that are rooted in doctrinal differences, at least sometimes.

That the barbarians now laying waste to all that made Islamic culture great are motivated simply by a desire for power is clearly illustrated by the conduct of the followers of Sufi Mohammad and his son-in-law, Fazlullah, in Swat. These gangsters went on a spree in Swat that violated many of the most deeply revered principles of Islam and of the Pakhtun code of good conduct. They murdered a much loved singer in cold blood, which could never be justified by any doctrine; they murdered girls and boys, which can never be justified by any doctrine; they murdered innocent adults of both sexes on the pretext that their victims were un-Islamic (singing, dancing, selling music, going to school, sporting clean-shaven chins, wearing insufficiently long beards, or insufficiently short shalwars, or being out at night, looking wrong, minding their own business).

They destroyed hundreds of schools in which young people had received an education. They killed teachers. They decapitated people and then mocked their dead bodies (I have photographs). They desecrated sites sacred to the Pakhtun culture, like the shrine of Rahman Baba, a man good in every way that the savages are bad. This is but a short list of their atrocities. None of these actions can be justified within the traditions of cultured Islam nor within the traditions of Pakhtunwali. So what is quite clear is that the barbarians are at war with Islam itself, and, in Swat, with Islam and Pakhtunwali. The response of the present Pakistani government was to conduct an inappropriate form of war against the criminals, which killed many more innocents than savages, and then to capitulate to them. Imagine that!

The government made a deal with these killers and gave them what they wanted. The phony peace was rapidly followed by a much contented group of barbarians allowing girls and boys back to school. It remains to be seen whether people will still be murdered for any of the other violations of the barbarian 'code'. What the barbarians were doing was that they were attacking all that the members of the Swati community regarded as important and valuable. They were saying: 'There is nothing sacred to you that we are not willing to destroy. So obey us, or lose all that you love: including your lives, the lives of your children, your animals and your homes!' What the savages wanted was power – and they got it. They now control the lives of all living creatures in Swat. In short, terrorism worked. Robbery with violence on a grand scale, succeeded with the help of the present government. No surprise to anyone.

To understand what is going on behind these scenes, we should take a closer look at madressahs. The majority of the madressahs now in Pakistan were set up after 1980 to educate the sons of Afghan mujahideen, who were fighting the Russians on behalf of the Americans. The madressahs were financed mainly by Saudis of the Wahabi persuasion. The young boys who went there were illiterate when they arrived and still ignorant, semi-literates when they left. When they emerged they were enraged savages who had had none of the forms of education necessary to make boys into good men. They knew nothing about love, affection, kindness, tenderness, nobility, imagination, mercy, compromise or fairness. These virtues can only be learned in a loving family and a caring community. It is also true that, of the non-Mujahideen population, the boys sent to madressahs were sent by families too poor to keep them. And very often the boys they sent were, in the opinion of the parents, the least talented ones. They must have felt betrayed and abandoned. Their loneliness and grief must have been unendurable. I feel deeply for them. A good many of them also emerged enraged. Others emerged cowed (I know some of both types). Many of these people became cannon fodder for power-hungry men financed by opportunists, usually from abroad. The worst became leaders. Together, the dispossessed joined up to take what everyone else had and they had never had. Religion was no more than a recruiting device that worked with other illiterate, ignorant, dispossessed, lost, unloved young men.

f the analysis I have given here of the rise of the barbarians is accurate, then it is obvious how it should be defeated. The madressahs should be taken over and run as high quality schools that actually teach useful skills. A huge amount of money and talent should be devoted to them. Families who cannot support their children must be helped so that they can keep their children at home. Dignified work must be given to everyone willing to work. The poor must have a realistic chance of social advancement. Education and real opportunity for social advancement are necessary conditions of any successful fight to counter the rise of the barbarians. These are necessary but not sufficient conditions. Much more must be done and it must be done by leaders truly committed to the welfare of Pakistan. So far, Pakistan has had no such leaders, least of all now. For even a beginning to be made, the country needs an un-corrupt government. And that in itself needs a social revolution of which there is no realistic hope. So Pakistanis can look forward to the triumph of the savages, accompanied by widespread civil war and eventual disintegration; which will suit its enemies just fine.

Putting the rise of the barbarians into an historical context may help us to understand what is happening. This kind of thing has happened again and again throughout history, with minor variations upon the main theme. The main theme has always been the revolt of the dispossessed. Many different religions have been involved. Sometime no religious issue has been involved. It happened during the French revolution that broke out at the end of the 18th century (1798). It was called the Reign of Terror. Anyone who seemed to have been unduly privileged was slaughtered and their possessions taken. A number of failed revolutions of the same kind occurred during the 19th century. In October 1917, the Bolsheviks took power in Russia and within a few years people who seemed even slightly well-off were slaughtered all over Russia.

After 1990, the Soviet government accepted that about 50 million Kulaks (small land owners) had died as a direct result of Stalin's policies. In some Soviet territories, anyone who even wore glasses was killed. It happened during the Chinese revolution in 1949 and again, with greater savagery, during the so-called 'cultural revolution', which was actually a revolt against culture (see Jung Chang's 'Wild Swans'). It happened in Cambodia, under the terror of the Khmer Rouge (see Roland Joffe's brilliant reconstruction in the true film called 'Killing Fields').

One of the few revolutions in which it did not happen was the Nicaraguan revolution lead by the Sandinistas against the few wealthy families that owned all of Nicaragua. It was precisely because that revolution was so admirable, just and good that the Americans devoted years to destroying it. They did not want the idea of a good revolution to take hold in Latin America. Despite these few exceptions, violence and terror are usually the 'religions' of the oppressed. They have called terror a purifying ritual, though, actually, it has been but the exercise of raw power. The troubles along Pakistan's western border and in Punjab are just proto-revolutions with a religious veneer. The only effective counter moves would be genuine reform, not hot air.

The writer has degrees from the Royal College of Art, Oxford University, and the Institute of Psychiatry, University of London. He divides his time between the UK and Pakistan. Email: charlesferndale @yahoo.co.uk

 

[muse]

Calling all mice and ...

Sorry about that - I meant Calling all mice and ...Barbarians

 

[muse]

tortured paragraphs but you may find the idea interesting.




On virtue and happiness
John Stuart Mill

The utilitarian doctrine is, that happiness is desirable, and the only thing desirable, as an end; all other things being only desirable as means to that end. What ought to be required of this doctrine, what conditions is it requisite that the doctrine should fulfil, to make good its claim to be believed?

The only proof capable of being given that an object is visible, is that people actually see it. The only proof that a sound is audible, is that people hear it; and so of the other sources of our experience. In like manner, I apprehend, the sole evidence it is possible to produce that anything is desirable, is that people do actually desire it. If the end which the utilitarian doctrine proposes to itself were not, in theory and in practice, acknowledged to be an end, nothing could ever convince any person that it was so.

No reason can be given why the general happiness is desirable, except that each person, so far as he believes it to be attainable, desires his own happiness. This, however, being a fact, we have not only all the proof which the case admits of, but all which it is possible to require, that happiness is a good, that each person’s happiness is a good to that person, and the general happiness, therefore, a good to the aggregate of all persons. Happiness has made out its title as one of the ends of conduct, and consequently one of the criteria of morality.

But it has not, by this alone, proved itself to be the sole criterion. To do that, it would seem, by the same rule, necessary to show, not only that people desire happiness, but that they never desire anything else. Now it is palpable that they do desire things, which, in common language, are decidedly distinguished from happiness. They desire, for example, virtue, and the absence of vice, no less really than pleasure and the absence of pain.

The desire of virtue is not as universal, but it is as authentic a fact, as the desire of happiness. And hence the opponents of the utilitarian standard deem that they have a right to infer that there are other ends of human action besides happiness, and that happiness is not the standard of approbation and disapprobation.

But does the utilitarian doctrine deny that people desire virtue, or maintain that virtue is not a thing to be desired? The very reverse. It maintains not only that virtue is to be desired, but that it is to be desired disinterestedly, for itself. Whatever may be the opinion of utilitarian moralists as to the original conditions by which virtue is made virtue, however they may believe (as they do) that actions and dispositions are only virtuous because they promote another end than virtue, yet this being granted, and it having been decided, from considerations of this description, what is virtuous, they not only place virtue at the very head of the things which are good as means to the ultimate end, but they also recognize as a psychological fact the possibility of its being, to the individual, a good in itself, without looking to any end beyond it; and hold, that the mind is not in a right state, not in a state conformable to Utility, not in the state most conducive to the general happiness, unless it does love virtue in this manner — as a thing desirable in itself, even although, in the individual instance, it should not produce those other desirable consequences which it tends to produce, and on account of which it is held to be virtue.

This opinion is not, in the smallest degree, a departure from the Happiness principle. The ingredients of happiness are very various, and each of them is desirable in itself, and not merely when considered as swelling an aggregate.

The principle of utility does not mean that any given pleasure, as music, for instance, or any given exemption from pain, as for example health, is to be looked upon as means to a collective something termed happiness, and to be desired on that account. They are desired and desirable in and for themselves; besides being means, they are a part of the end. Virtue, according to the utilitarian doctrine, is not naturally and originally part of the end, but it is capable of becoming so; and in those who love it disinterestedly it has become so, and is desired and cherished, not as a means to happiness, but as a part of their happiness.

To illustrate this farther, we may remember that virtue is not the only thing, originally a means, and which if it were not a means to anything else, would be and remain indifferent, but which by association with what it is a means to, comes to be desired for itself, and that too with the utmost intensity. What, for example, shall we say of the love of money? There is nothing originally more desirable about money than about any heap of glittering pebbles.

Its worth is solely that of the things which it will buy; the desires for other things than itself, which it is a means of gratifying. Yet the love of money is not only one of the strongest moving forces of human life, but money is, in many cases, desired in and for itself; the desire to possess it is often stronger than the desire to use it, and goes on increasing when all the desires which point to ends beyond it, to be compassed by it, are falling off.

It may, then, be said truly, that money is desired not for the sake of an end, but as part of the end. From being a means to happiness, it has come to be itself a principal ingredient of the individual’s conception of happiness. The same may be said of the majority of the great objects of human life: power, for example, or fame; except that to each of these there is a certain amount of immediate pleasure annexed, which has at least the semblance of being naturally inherent in them — a thing which cannot be said of money.

Still, however, the strongest natural attraction, both of power and of fame, is the immense aid they give to the attainment of our other wishes; and it is the strong association thus generated between them and all our objects of desire, which gives to the direct desire of them the intensity it often assumes, so as in some characters to surpass in strength all other desires. In these cases the means have become a part of the end, and a more important part of it than any of the things which they are means to. What was once desired as an instrument for the attainment of happiness has come to be desired for its own sake. In being desired for its own sake it is, however, desired as part of happiness.

English philosopher and social reformer John Stuart Mill was one of the major intellectual figures of the 19th century

 

[muse]

Tyranny of the majority
Bertrand Russell

The problem of the distribution of power is a more difficult one than the problem of the distribution of wealth. The machinery of representative government has concentrated on ultimate power as the only important matter, and has ignored immediate executive power. Almost nothing has been done to democratise administration. Government officials, in virtue of their income, security, and social position, are likely to be on the side of the rich, who have been their daily associates ever since the time of school and college. And whether or not they are on the side of the rich, they are not likely, for the reasons we have been considering, to be genuinely in favour of progress. What applies to government officials applies also to members of Parliament, with the sole difference that they have had to recommend themselves to a constituency. This, however, only adds hypocrisy to the other qualities of a ruling caste. Whoever has stood in the lobby of the House of Commons watching members emerge with wandering eye and hypothetical smile, until the constituent is espied, his arm taken, “my dear fellow” whispered in his ear, and his steps guided toward the inner precincts — whoever, observing this, has realised that these are the arts by which men become and remain legislators, can hardly fail to feel that democracy as it exists is not an absolutely perfect instrument of government.

It is a painful fact that the ordinary voter, at any rate in England, is quite blind to insincerity. The man who does not care about any definite political measures can generally be won by corruption or flattery, open or concealed; the man who is set on securing reforms will generally prefer an ambitious windbag to a man who desires the public good without possessing a ready tongue. And the ambitious windbag, as soon as he has become a power by the enthusiasm he has aroused, will sell his influence to the governing clique, sometimes openly, sometimes by the more subtle method of intentionally failing at a crisis. This is part of the normal working of democracy as embodied in representative institutions. Yet a cure must be found if democracy is not to remain a farce.

One of the sources of evil in modern large democracies is the fact that most of the electorate have no direct or vital interest in most of the questions that arise. Should Welsh children be allowed the use of the Welsh language in schools? Should gipsies be compelled to abandon their nomadic life at the bidding of the education authorities? Should miners have an eight-hour day? Should Christian Scientists be compelled to call in doctors in case of serious illness? These are matters of passionate interest to certain sections of the community, but of very little interest to the great majority. If they are decided according to the wishes of the numerical majority, the intense desires of a minority will be overborne by the very slight and uninformed whims of the indifferent remainder. If the minority are geographically concentrated, so that they can decide elections in a certain number of constituencies, like the Welsh and the miners, they have a good chance of getting their way, by the wholly beneficent process which its enemies describe as log-rolling. But if they are scattered and politically feeble, like the gipsies and the Christian Scientists, they stand a very poor chance against the prejudices of the majority. Even when they are geographically concentrated, like the Irish, they may fail to obtain their wishes, because they arouse some hostility or some instinct of domination in the majority. Such a state of affairs is the negation of all democratic principles.

The tyranny of the majority is a very real danger. It is a mistake to suppose that the majority is necessarily right. On every new question the majority is always wrong at first. In matters where the state must act as a whole, such as tariffs, for example, decision by majorities is probably the best method that can be devised. But there are a great many questions in which there is no need of a uniform decision. Religion is recognised as one of these. Education ought to be one, provided a certain minimum standard is attained. Military service clearly ought to be one. Wherever divergent action by different groups is possible without anarchy, it ought to be permitted. In such cases it will be found by those who consider past history that, whenever any new fundamental issue arises, the majority are in the wrong, because they are guided by prejudice and habit. Progress comes through the gradual effect of a minority in converting opinion and altering custom. At one time—not so very long ago — it was considered monstrous wickedness to maintain that old women ought not to be burnt as witches. If those who held this opinion had been forcibly suppressed, we should still be steeped in medieval superstition. For such reasons, it is of the utmost importance that the majority should refrain from imposing its will as regards matters in which uniformity is not absolutely necessary.

Bertrand Russell was considered one of the greatest minds of the twentieth century. The above is an excerpt from “Political Ideals” (1917)

 

[muse]

One of my favorites, I am sure you will enjoy it:



A hanging
George Orwell

It was in Burma, a sodden morning of the rains. A sickly light, like yellow tinfoil, was slanting over the high walls into the jail yard. We were waiting outside the condemned cells, a row of sheds fronted with double bars, like small animal cages. Each cell measured about ten feet by ten and was quite bare within except for a plank bed and a pot of drinking water. In some of them brown silent men were squatting at the inner bars, with their blankets draped round them. These were the condemned men, due to be hanged within the next week or two.

One prisoner had been brought out of his cell. He was a Hindu, a puny wisp of a man, with a shaven head and vague liquid eyes. He had a thick, sprouting moustache, absurdly too big for his body, rather like the moustache of a comic man on the films. Six tall Indian warders were guarding him and getting him ready for the gallows. Two of them stood by with rifles and fixed bayonets, while the others handcuffed him, passed a chain through his handcuffs and fixed it to their belts, and lashed his arms tight to his sides. They crowded very close about him, with their hands always on him in a careful, caressing grip, as though all the while feeling him to make sure he was there. It was like men handling a fish which is still alive and may jump back into the water. But he stood quite unresisting, yielding his arms limply to the ropes, as though he hardly noticed what was happening.

Eight o’clock struck and a bugle call, desolately thin in the wet air, floated from the distant barracks. The superintendent of the jail, who was standing apart from the rest of us, moodily prodding the gravel with his stick, raised his head at the sound. He was an army doctor, with a grey toothbrush moustache and a gruff voice. “For God’s sake hurry up, Francis,” he said irritably. “The man ought to have been dead by this time. Aren’t you ready yet?”

Francis, the head jailer, a fat Dravidian in a white drill suit and gold spectacles, waved his black hand. “Yes sir, yes sir,” he bubbled. “All iss satisfactorily prepared. The hangman iss waiting. We shall proceed.”

“Well, quick march, then. The prisoners can’t get their breakfast till this job’s over.”

We set out for the gallows. Two warders marched on either side of the prisoner, with their rifles at the slope; two others marched close against him, gripping him by arm and shoulder, as though at once pushing and supporting him. The rest of us, magistrates and the like, followed behind... It was about forty yards to the gallows. I watched the bare brown back of the prisoner marching in front of me. He walked clumsily with his bound arms, but quite steadily, with that bobbing gait of the Indian who never straightens his knees. At each step his muscles slid neatly into place, the lock of hair on his scalp danced up and down, his feet printed themselves on the wet gravel. And once, in spite of the men who gripped him by each shoulder, he stepped slightly aside to avoid a puddle on the path.

It is curious, but till that moment I had never realised what it means to destroy a healthy, conscious man. When I saw the prisoner step aside to avoid the puddle, I saw the mystery, the unspeakable wrongness, of cutting a life short when it is in full tide. This man was not dying, he was alive just as we were alive. All the organs of his body were working — bowels digesting food, skin renewing itself, nails growing, tissues forming — all toiling away in solemn foolery. His nails would still be growing when he stood on the drop, when he was falling through the air with a tenth of a second to live. His eyes saw the yellow gravel and the grey walls, and his brain still remembered, foresaw, reasoned — reasoned even about puddles. He and we were a party of men walking together, seeing, hearing, feeling, understanding the same world; and in two minutes, with a sudden snap, one of us would be gone — one mind less, one world less.

The gallows stood in a small yard, separate from the main grounds of the prison, and overgrown with tall prickly weeds. It was a brick erection like three sides of a shed, with planking on top, and above that two beams and a crossbar with the rope dangling. The hangman, a grey-haired convict in the white uniform of the prison, was waiting beside his machine. He greeted us with a servile crouch as we entered. At a word from Francis the two warders, gripping the prisoner more closely than ever, half led, half pushed him to the gallows and helped him clumsily up the ladder. Then the hangman climbed up and fixed the rope round the prisoner’s neck.

We stood waiting, five yards away. The warders had formed in a rough circle round the gallows. And then, when the noose was fixed, the prisoner began crying out to his god. It was a high, reiterated cry of “Ram! Ram! Ram! Ram!” not urgent and fearful like a prayer or a cry for help, but steady, rhythmical, almost like the tolling of a bell. The dog answered the sound with a whine. The hangman, still standing on the gallows, produced a small cotton bag like a flour bag and drew it down over the prisoner’s face. But the sound, muffled by the cloth, still persisted, over and over again: “Ram! Ram! Ram! Ram! Ram!”

The hangman climbed down and stood ready, holding the lever. Minutes seemed to pass. The steady, muffled crying from the prisoner went on and on, “Ram! Ram! Ram!” never faltering for an instant. The superintendent, his head on his chest, was slowly poking the ground with his stick; perhaps he was counting the cries, allowing the prisoner a fixed number—fifty, perhaps, or a hundred. Everyone had changed colour. The Indians had gone grey like bad coffee, and one or two of the bayonets were wavering. We looked at the lashed, hooded man on the drop, and listened to his cries—each cry another second of life; the same thought was in all our minds: oh, kill him quickly, get it over, stop that abominable noise!

Suddenly the superintendent made up his mind. Throwing up his head he made a swift motion with his stick. “Chalo!” he shouted almost fiercely.

There was a clanking noise, and then dead silence. The prisoner had vanished, and the rope was twisting on itself. I let go of the dog, and it galloped immediately to the back of the gallows; but when it got there it stopped short, barked, and then retreated into a corner of the yard, where it stood among the weeds, looking timorously out at us. We went round the gallows to inspect the prisoner’s body. He was dangling with his toes pointed straight downward, very slowly revolving, as dead as a stone.



Eric Arthur Blair (1903-1950), better known by the pen name George Orwell, was a British author and journalist. Noted as a political and cultural commentator, as well as an accomplished novelist, Orwell is among the most widely admired English-language essayists of the 20th century and best known for his novels: “Animal Farm” and “Nineteen Eighty-Four”

 

[muse]

The psychoanalysis of Pakistan
Sunday Magazine Feature
By Haider Warraich
Published: July 24, 2011
If nations are like people, then what sort of person would Pakistan be? And what if that person were to see a therapist? If nations are like people, then what sort of person would Pakistan be? And what if that person were to see a therapist? If nations are like people, then what sort of person would Pakistan be? And what if that person were to see a therapist?

The door creaked open as the therapist led Pakistan into the room, his clothes drenched, his hair wild, his shirt unbuttoned, his hands covered in mud. “This is the last time I see you without an appointment, Pakistan.” The therapist tried not to reward Pakistan by obliging to his unannounced visits and subsequent tantrums, but this time, she knew that there was something terribly wrong.

Pakistan lay on the couch, with the therapist sitting behind him close to the door. She dimmed the lights, giving the weathered wood paneling a bronze glow. She hadn’t known Pakistan for long, but long enough to detect a disturbing pattern. Having changed several therapists, Pakistan followed a predictable course with all of his previous shrinks — starting off in a blaze of intimacy, slowly withdrawing, reaching a point of violent confrontation and then starting over with someone else. She knew that he badly needed her to understand him, even as he erected every possible obstacle in her endeavours to do so. Every session with Pakistan was a struggle — both for the therapist, as she tried to decipher his thoughts and motivations beneath the white noise of his obscurantist denial and obsessive paranoia — and for him, as he resolutely prevented her (and himself) from reaching his innermost chambers.

The therapist had no idea just how old Pakistan was, for even by his own accounts, his birth was a matter of great dispute. Pakistan was born either in the Bronze Age when the Indus Valley Civilisation was established in Mohenjodaro. Or, in the 8th century with the arrival of Muhammad bin Qasim, the 17-year-old Arab general, who became the first man to plant the flag of Islam in the Indian Subcontinent. Along the way, he also planted seeds in the collective Jungian psyche, the shoots from which continue to surface to this day. Sometimes he claimed to be born as a reactionary ideal in 1857. His real genesis, in 1947, was corroborated by an official birth certificate. Though that might simply be the day he was separated from his Siamese twin in a rather bloody operation.

The therapist took out her file to review her notes. From session to session, Pakistan varied from bouts of extreme pride and grandiosity– touting the mark on his forehead from excessive prostration during prayer, picking fights with the toughest boys in the neighbourhood, showing off the missile tattoos on his biceps — to states of despicable self-loathing — slitting his wrists to atone for his ‘sins’, claiming to have disavowed his religion and his brethren, shooting up heroin to disassociate himself from self-reflection. It was difficult to pin a diagnosis on him. Her initial hunch was that he had manic depression, swinging from grandiosity to doom and gloom. But she couldn’t pick that diagnosis, since these personality traits had persisted since about as long as the therapist could note. She relied on what she knew of Pakistan’s life thus far to inch closer towards a diagnosis.

Pakistan’s childhood remained of great interest to the therapist. While it was a topic that Pakistan refused to confront directly, drawing from his nightmares, his rambling digressions, and notes she had received from his previous therapists, a vague picture had come together. Born on the stroke of midnight, Pakistan and his twin brother, India, had had a tumultuous childhood, resulting in frequent fights, bleeding noses and cut lips. Orphaned in his infancy with the premature death of his father, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, frequently beaten by his estranged brother (who also took away Pakistan’s favourite cashmere sweater), deeply insecure due to his short stature, and lacking any sort of guiding hand, Pakistan had a tormented upbringing. Once he attacked his brother to take back his sweater but failed (though he still claims it was his brother who started that particular round of fisticuffs). To this day, Pakistan refused to acknowledge any blood relationship with his brother, claiming to be a separate entity from him.

After his companion and childhood friend, Bangla, abandoned him in the early ‘70s, instead of reflecting on the many years of neglect and abuse he had inflicted on her, Pakistan transitioned into another high of energy. His charisma won him many friends and he formed a relationship with a mysterious sheikh, who would go on to have a deep impact on him. Sheikh Al-Wahab charmed Pakistan with his white robes and his shiny Rolexes (which he would jingle whenever he wanted Pakistan’s attention). The therapist could see that Pakistan believed that the sheikh, and his devout breed of Islam, offered him a chance to reconstruct his identity … but it was a dangerous façade.

Armed with this new identity, Pakistan entered a phase of gradual psychological self-mutilation, wherein he began to erase all memories that contradicted his new self. He grew a beard, rode his pants high on his tummy and learnt Arabic, but forgot his own native tongue. In his attempt to be born anew, he began to loathe himself: his brown skin, the festivals he celebrated, and the culture he shared with his estranged brother.

Pakistan’s newly found religiosity didn’t go entirely unnoticed. In fact, Uncle Sam encouraged Pakistan’s violent streak in order to settle a score against its long time adversary by training Pakistan’s crazy cousin, Talib. With his AK-47 loaded with incendiary rounds and an even more incendiary faith, Talib, with the help of his Arab roommate, Qaeda, and Pakistan’s full backing, did for Uncle Sam what no one else could have. After the fight, when Pakistan and Talib turned around to celebrate their victory with a series of high-fives and ‘Allah-u-Akbar’ chants, Sam was nowhere to be found. All they had to show for their efforts was a crate full of Kalashnikovs, heads full of grandiose delusions and a stash of smack to ensure insight remained an unwanted guest.

Pakistan, far from smothering Talib’s zeal, channeled it to settle scores with India in his unending struggle to regain his cashmere sweater. But in his efforts to agitate Talib against India, it was Pakistan who was influenced by his oddly appealing cousin. Meanwhile, Qaeda ran out of his supply of Ritalin® and, no longer in the spotlight, grew increasingly bored in his suburban house-cave. Convinced that Sam, who no longer showered him with attention, was the root of all the evils in the neighborhood, Qaeda went to Sam’s house with his bamboo stick and poked it right into Sam’s eye. Sam, infuriated, attacked Qaeda, who had taken refuge in Talib’s house-cave next to Pakistan’s, and demanded of Pakistan that he too join him in fighting both Qaeda and Talib. Scared out of his wits by the heavily muscled and belligerent Sam, Pakistan shaved his beard and donned a suit to convince Sam that he was ‘with him, not against him’. But in his heart, Pakistan could not abandon Talib, and banking on Sam’s short attention span (possibly due to serious ADHD), hoped to be able to hold off any Public Displays of Affection with Talib until Sam’s interest fizzled out.

But Talib just didn’t get it. He began to attack Pakistan for supporting Sam. Talib and Qaeda dealt Pakistan blows the likes of which he had never received, tearing into him, ripping apart whatever was important to him. But for all the pain they inflicted on him, Pakistan blamed everyone else in the neighborhood. Unable to remove himself from his association with Talib and Qaeda, and yet fully aware of their actions, the therapist noted that Pakistan found himself more confused, more in pain, more depressed and more vulnerable, than ever before.

The therapist formulated Pakistan’s history into what she regarded as a pattern of unstable identity, unstable relationships and fearful attachments. She started crossing out all the different diagnoses she had written on her sheet including adjustment disorder, substance abuse, depression with psychotic features, dysthymia and anti-social personality disorder, until the only diagnosis un-maimed by her pen was borderline personality disorder.

And yet, even armed with this knowledge, the therapist continued to have a difficult relationship with Pakistan. She knew that this was not just because Pakistan was, to put it mildly, un-normal, for she barely knew anyone in the entire neighbourhood who was.

“What happened, Pakistan? You look terrible.”

Pakistan remained mum, looking blankly up at the ceiling. The therapist prodded on, “Why do you have mud on your hands?”

“A great flood destroyed my house. I had to dig myself out of the rubble. My cow, Rani, my princess, I couldn’t find her. The waters took her away. My crops have all run a-waste.” Pakistan spoke in a monotone, staring blankly at the ceiling. The therapist didn’t know what to feel. A part of her believed he was pre-schizophrenic, his ability to process reality crumbling slowly. Another part felt that the heroin was like a virus, forever impairing his ability to test reality. She tried to feel sympathy for him, but found herself unable to do so. “Did anyone help you out?”

“Sam helped me out, not because he cared, but because he feared that if I lost my mind a bit more, I would blow up in his face.”

The therapist carried on, without believing his entire flood story. Just a few years back he had come running to her, with an earthquake-story in which his house was leveled, and here he was again, carrying on what was now becoming a comically long list of tragedies, some real, some imagined. “Why do you think these catastrophes happen to you?”

“It is a test of my faith, or a punishment for my transgressions, I can’t seem to understand.” The therapist’s attempts at objectivity began to fail, as Pakistan’s contradictions started to amuse her. His misery became a source of mirth, rather than solemn reflection.

“What transgressions?”

“I have failed my religion and no matter how much I pray for forgiveness, Allah continues to punish me. And I continue to be Sam’s slave. I have shaved my beard and started wearing suits just so that he does not suspect me of being with Talib. But inside, I know that I am in the wrong, and that is why Allah-Almighty punishes me.”

“But haven’t these Muslim ‘brothers’, hurt you more than even those who you claim are your enemies, including your actual sibling? Look at how you’re bruised, scarred, hurt — isn’t that the work of your so-called brothers?”

“They are angry, and justified in being so.”

“So they have the right to spew hatred and commit violence, but no one else does? Why bend the rules for them? Your sheikh has taken more from you than even your worst enemies: he took away you.”

“What is that supposed to mean? I have me.”

“What me, Pakistan? What of you do you have left?” The therapist’s frail figure shook, her spectacles danced on the bridge of her nose, as she continued to unabashedly counter-transfer.

“All of me is here in front of you. Me, born to live life governed by the laws of Islam, and to vanquish the apostates who tarnish its name.”

“But how can that be! Don’t you remember that when you were born, not in the 8th Century, but in 1947, your first law minister was a Hindu, and your finance minister was an Ahmadi, a sect you now consider as worthy of murder!”

“That cannot be true! Why wouldn’t I remember it if it were so? Wait, you are right, but how…?”

The blank look left Pakistan. Suddenly, he was awash with palpable emotion. The therapist knew what was going on, a rock had been upturned, and from beneath it had scampered out a thousand repressed memories. Memories of a father who never said his prayers, who swore by his suit and his whisky, of a time when festivals were marked with kites flying in the sky rather than blood from sacrificial animals running in the streets. Clearly in pain, Pakistan held his head. He tried to get up from the couch, before falling onto his knees, his hands covering his ears, ensuring that nothing but the voice within was heard. The therapist ran to the door, but stayed on to look at Pakistan writhe as alarmed guards ran in to pin him to the ground. Her unfinished case history was still lying next to her chair in the room. She was shaking. This would be her last session with Pakistan not so much because Pakistan’s malady awoke no empathy in her anymore, but because she knew she had stepped on the wrong side of Pakistan’s split monochromic psychological spectrum of blacks and whites.

Pakistan’s search for reflection began anew; a search that he ensured was always a never-ending spiral, where the journey itself is enacted only to avoid the destination. The therapist wondered who Pakistan would be if she were to meet him after some time; she wasn’t even sure if she would recognize him. She held the notebook tightly next to her chest and walked off determined to hold on to her diagnosis, if nothing else. And yet, she knew that in spite of all that he had endured (and inflicted) he had still lived to tell the tale. A survivor and stubborn to the core, she knew he’d be back. And while he wouldn’t be pretty for his pains, she knew, irrationally, that she might just like to see him again.

 

[SQ8]

Nice one muse..