Desicritics Author: Ergo

Being Gay in India

Ergo — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 00:51:41 EDT

Having lived in India now as an openly gay man for more than a year, I have some interesting observations to report:

Most gay men I meet like to say that they are ”not gay. I’m bi.” [uh-huh, sure honey.]

“Have you ever had sex with a girl?”

“No”

“With a guy?”

“Yes.”

Hmm...

There is a fairly dominant belief among Indian gay men that one is not born gay but is initiated into “gayhood.” I am amazed by how often my conversations with the gay men I meet in person or online go somewhat along these lines:

“So, how long have you been in this line?”

“What line?”

“This! Gay line!”

“Oh, you mean how long have I been gay?”

“Yeah yeah.”

“Since I was born.” — This answer noticeably disappoints them. So, I continue:

“Since as far back as I can remember, I remember having an intense attraction to another boy in my second grade class, so much so that I remember writing down in the last page of my notebook “I love you, [name].”

“Oh my, so early! How is that possible? I just become gay [one/two/three] years ago!”

“Maybe you became fully aware that you are gay only just a few years ago. Perhaps, you may have had that implicit attraction for the same sex all your life; you may have always found boys attractive but never thought much of it.”

“No. I was always attracted to girls. I still like girls.”

“Oh, so you’re bi?”

Most of the gay men I meet here are amazingly adept at hiding their gayness (or, most straight Indian men are incredibly androgynous). One would be hard pressed to identify a gay man in a crowd of men; and the fact that Indian men in general are rather fussy about their appearance, visit their salons for facials and manicures regularly, and dress in the most fashionably form-fitting clothes they can afford, makes the task of identifying gay men here that much harder. Therefore, I am often surprised when I meet a gay man here; often, the first thing that strikes me upon seeing one is “You’re gay!? I wouldn’t have guessed!”

Many gay men are married; and I do not ever care to meet them. The ones I do meet are not worth my time. They are psycho-sexually immature and largely non-introspective. Most of them are still in the closet and actively deny their sexuality by having and flaunting girlfriends.

Gay men in India have little to no resource to healthy ideas about gay sexuality, psychological maturity, and shrugging off feelings of guilt or moral depravity. Also, many of them holding strong religious tendencies does not help the matter.

Homosexuality is legally a crime in India, which creates further psychological, social, and existential barriers to coming out of the closet–indeed, it is positively life-threatening to be an openly gay man in India: the only most widely known gay-interest website in India keeps track of attacks and harassment of gay men by the Indian police and gang members who exploit the fear of being “outed” in the Indian society.

In general, gay men in India are often intellectually and emotionally immature, which often reflects in the kinds of relationships they enter into and endure. Relationships here are fickle, impetuous, and short-lived. Since talking about sexuality in general is still taboo, homosexual issues are rarely ever brought up in discussions–either in the privacy and security of one’s own home with one’s family or on the public debate shows on news channels. In other words, gay men in India are left to fend for themselves and have to learn the relevant psycho-sexual and physical issues on their own. Hence, beyond just the misinformation of all sorts that pervades the Indian gay community, few gay men have a healthy assessment of their own psycho-sexual and moral worth, which means their level of self-esteem is usually very harmfully low.

The constant monitoring of their personal behavior and the persistant filtering of their mannerisms until the point where it ceases to be conscious and becomes a habit indicate a distorted self-image; some grow up with an internalized malevolence towards the society that forces them to hide under a facade. This malevolence over time gets rationalized into a sense of justified sacrifice for the sake of sparing themselves, their wives, and their families the shame of coming out as being gay.

Most gays in India adopt either one of the following ways of living:

1) Live in the closet all their lives, marry, have kids, and engage in discreet sexcapades with other men.
2) Come out of the closet and caricature themselves along the most extreme of homosexual traits such that they come to be perceived as a social freak, which distracts society from the essence of their sexual identity and focuses attention on their jarring persona and loud behavior.

Both practices are attempts to ensure the safety of one’s life and dignity. Those adopting the second approach hope to create such a barrier of “foreigness” or freakishness about them that society will rather choose to ignore them entirely (through ostracism) than bother to be associated with them at all. The manner of protecting one’s dignity in the second approach is by donning on a whole new persona that is superficial and hence acts as a sheild to the true emotional core of such gay men, where their bruised sense of self-esteem is guardedly nursed.

Finally, the extreme freakishness of those adopting the second approach also affords society with a benign target of jokes and derision, thus allowing society to perceive no sense of threat to their morality or beliefs from the reality of homosexual men in India.

The ones who choose neither of the above paths are relatively very few.

What does all this mean for me?

I have yet to encounter a gay man in India who can even mildly captivate my interest. The slightly more interesting and psychologically healthier ones are mostly expatriates or study-abroad students who don’t intend to stay in this country for too long. Further, being that I am an Objectivist–-which means that I hold strong, radical, and unyieldingly rational principles with an intense passion–-and an atheist, the likelihood of me finding a partner who can be my intellectual companion as well as be worthy of being my highest value and the object of my passionate, romantic worship is most certainly non-existent.

For a related post, see Dissecting the Gay Indian Male.

Golden Anniversary of Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged

Ergo — Tue, 9 Oct 2007 05:22:03 EDT

This year marks the Golden Anniversary of the publication of Ayn Rand's monumental achievement--Atlas Shrugged. The novel has been variously described in leading media channels as the most challenging book of ideas in recent history; the most influential book in the lives of Americans--following the Bible; and the beginning of a radically new turn in philosophical thought and tradition.

The Ayn Rand Institute (ARI) describes the novel as "Ayn Rand's masterpiece; it integrates the basic elements of an entire philosophy into a highly complex, yet dramatically compelling plot—set in a near-future U.S.A. whose economy is collapsing as a result of the mysterious disappearance of leading innovators and industrialists. The theme is: "the role of the mind in man's existence—and, as corollary, the demonstration of a new moral philosophy: the morality of rational self-interest."

A survey conducted by the Library of Congress ranked Atlas Shrugged as the second-most influential book in the lives of Americans; the first was the Bible.

"[S]ales of Ayn Rand titles have tripled since the early 1990s--in fact, more are being sold now than at any time in history. Atlas Shrugged sales on Amazon in the first nine months of this year are already almost double the total for 2006. As of this writing, Atlas ranks 124th on Amazon's sales charts. Compare that to The Da Vinci Code at 2,587.

Rand, an ardent advocate of rational egoism and capitalism, might have been the bane of academics in her lifetime, but now [O]bjectivism is taught at more than 30 universities, with fellowships at several leading philosophy departments. Next year, ARI plans to enter the Washington, D.C., think tank world with a center devoted to the advocacy of individual freedom and capitalism." -- Forbes.com

In the University of Texas, Austin, Dr. Tara Smith leads philosophy department's studies in Objectivism--the philosophy of Ayn Rand. The UT Austin Philosophy department ranks among America's top 20 philosophy departments.

"One of the most influential business books ever written is a 1,200-page novel published 50 years ago, on Oct. 12, 1957. It is still drawing readers; [Atlas Shrugged] ranks 388th on Amazon.com’s best-seller list. (“Winning,” by John F. Welch Jr., at a breezy 384 pages, is No. 1,431.) “I know from talking to a lot of Fortune 500 C.E.O.’s that ‘Atlas Shrugged’ has had a significant effect on their business decisions, even if they don’t agree with all of Ayn Rand’s ideas,” said John A. Allison, the chief executive of BB&T, one of the largest banks in the United States. -- New York Times

Alan Greenspan, ex-chairman of the Federal Reserve, credits Ayn Rand as his intellectual mentor in his new autobiography The Age of Turbulence. Ayn Rand's ideas enjoy pervasive influence in corporate America and a surprisingly large number of fans in India. Since its publication 50 years ago, more than 30 million copies of Atlas Shrugged are estimated to have been sold. This year, more than 130,000 copies have been sold.

In acknowledgement to Ayn Rand's historic achievement, the Liberty Institute in Delhi is sponsoring celebratory events on Friday, October 12, 2007 to be held simultaneously in Mumbai, Delhi, and Hyderabad.

I am organizing and hosting the event in Mumbai in collaboration with Landmark bookstores. Here are the details:

Friday, October 12, 2007
7:00 P.M.
Landmark Bookstores
Infiniti Mall
Andheri Link Road (Lokhandwala)
Andheri - West.

Visit the Atlasphere meta-blog site for in-depth information on this event, including my official announcement and press release. The Atlasphere is an online community of Ayn Rand admirers from around the world, and it has a large subscribership from India. If you are interested in meeting Ayn Rand fans, admirers, and Objectivists from India--for friendship or more--the Atlasphere is where you begin to look.

The Contradictions in the Indian Constitution

Ergo — Sat, 18 Aug 2007 00:07:58 EDT

In my previous post challenging the notion that Indians have something to be properly *proud* of about their nation, I made the following statement:

Political power wielded through violence is the predominant medium of “democratic” expression in this corrupt nation–a nation founded upon a ridiculously long, obtuse, and inept constitution that guarantees no rights to any citizens.

My astute readers might have wondered if the above statement were merely hyperbolic or did I have some substantial argument behind it. I believe I have. My previous post adequately demonstrates the ground realities of how Indian democracy is practiced, i.e., violence is indeed the means of democratic expression in this country.

This post will substantiate my claim that the long and mangled mess of stated laws in the badly-written Indian constitution precisely makes it possible for the political system to institutionalize the violation of rights on a legal and routine basis, thereby guaranteeing no rights to any of its citizens.

The articles dealing with fundamental rights in the Indian Constitution is broadly structured as follows:

First, a statement of law guaranteeing a right is asserted.
Next, several practicable implications of the law is ennumerated.
Then, a series of exceptions to the “guaranteed” right is highlighted, and the central State is regarded as the final arbiter on all cases of exceptions.

Here is the section of the article dealing with the “Right to Freedom” from the Indian Constitution:

19. Protection of certain rights regarding freedom of speech, etc.—

(1) All citizens shall have the right—
(a) to freedom of speech and expression;
(b) to assemble peaceably and without arms;
(c) to form associations or unions;
(d) to move freely throughout the territory of India;
(e) to reside and settle in any part of the territory of India; and
(g) to practise any profession, or to carry on any occupation, trade or business.

(2) Nothing in sub-clause (a) of clause (1) shall affect the operation of any existing law, or prevent the State from making any law, in so far as such law imposes reasonable restrictions on the exercise of the right conferred by the said sub-clause in the interests of the sovereignty and integrity of India, the security of the State, friendly relations with foreign States, public order, decency or morality, or in relation to contempt of court, defamation or incitement to an offence.

(3) Nothing in sub-clause (b) of the said clause shall affect the operation of any existing law in so far as it imposes, or prevent the State from making any law imposing, in the interests of the sovereignty and integrity of India or public order, reasonable restrictions on the exercise of the right conferred by the said sub-clause.

(4) Nothing in sub-clause (c) of the said clause shall affect the operation of any existing law in so far as it imposes, or prevent the State from making any law imposing, in the interests of the sovereignty and integrity of India or public order or morality, reasonable restrictions on the exercise of the right conferred by the said sub-clause.

(5) Nothing in sub-clauses (d) and (e) of the said clause shall affect the operation of any existing law in so far as it imposes, or prevent the State from making any law imposing, reasonable restrictions on the exercise of any of the rights conferred by the said sub-clauses either in the interests of the general public or for the protection of the interests of any Scheduled Tribe.

(6) Nothing in sub-clause (g) of the said clause shall affect the operation of any existing law in so far as it imposes, or prevent the State from making any law imposing, in the interests of the general public, reasonable restrictions on the exercise of the right conferred by the said sub-clause, and, in particular, nothing in the said sub-clause shall affect the operation of any existing law in so far as it relates to, or prevent the State from making any law relating to,—
(i) the professional or technical qualifications necessary for practising any profession or carrying on any occupation, trade or business, or
(ii) the carrying on by the State, or by a corporation owned or controlled by the State, of any trade, business, industry or service, whether to the exclusion, complete or partial, of citizens or otherwise.

*****

The bold and italics in the above ”exceptions” are mine; they highlight the direct contradiction and actual impossibility of guaranteeing the right to freedom for any individual–either of speech, expression, or action. If the State is the ultimate arbiter of what constitutes the “interest of the general public” or the interest of some tribe, or what motivates public order and what disrupts it, or what is considered “moral” and “decent” and what is construed immoral and indecent, then how is an individual *guaranteed* the freedom and safety of expression unless he has first gained the official approval of the State? And what if the State itself is constituted by men of clear ideological agendas – be it Socialist, Hinduist, Islamic, or Atheist!

This is the structure, nature, and implication of the articles in the Indian Constitution. This contradictory mess of stating a law and ennumerating exceptions to its enactment make it impossible for any individual to act with the safety and security of knowing that he is acting *within* the law.

Under the current state of affairs, one cannot possibly know that one’s actions are within the law, since the State is the ultimate arbiter of the legality and *morality* of your actions. As evidence, witness the recent attack on the author Taslima Nasreen and the subsequent criminal charges filed against her by the State’s law-enforcement machinery for writing a book. Obviously, since Nasreen did not have her book sanctioned by the government, she had no way of knowing that she failed to meet the State’s interpretation of what constitutes a proper freedom of expression in writing the book; hence, she has criminal charges against her.

All that being said, the matter here is more fundamental than merely not having the confident knowledge of the legality of one’s actions–even though that in itself is a serious issue. The matter is of principle. Human rights are a matter of principle–and as such, there can be no exceptions to principles. You either have a right or you do not. Your right is either violated or it is not. There is no middle ground, no gray area, in the matter of principles.

The celebration of Indian independence should be more than a record-keeping of years. Yes, it is undeniable that India has progressed appreciably in recent years; however, realize that while India rides on the shoulders of foreign giants who lead this march towards prosperity, India simultaneously shackles them under the burden of its contradictory and arbitrary legal dictats. In truth, India’s freedoms are not yet secured; and the greatest threat to it is the Indian government empowered by the Indian Constitution, which is the entire basis upon which this country is founded. We are building castles of concrete and glass upon thin air.

Happy 60th, India.

What Can India Be Proud Of?

Ergo — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 03:54:08 EDT

I hope I'm not the only one utterly annoyed by all the celebratory hype in anticipation of the Indian independence day. And sure, this may be a reflection of my bias against this nation, but I have some good reasons for it. For one, I find it rather apt that, in the run-up to the day of India’s independence, the nation finds itself embarrasingly servile to the hooliganism of some idiots who sit in the legislatures of this country.

The well-known Bangladeshi author Taslima Nasreen was attacked by Islamo-loonies at a book launch event here in India, and the only people protecting her were–no, not the police–but the media persons. Nasreen was physically attacked by members of a muslim political party who alleged that her books were insulting to their ”prophet” Mohammad. The leader of that muslim political gang demanded that Nasreen’s head be chopped off. Even the most widely read muslim Urdu newspapers faulted the muslim thugs not for attacking the author but–get this–for not having done enough! They wanted her blood.

Carrying pictures of [the muslim party] legislators hurling bouquets [at the author], a newspaper came down heavily on the leaders for allowing her to leave Hyderabad unhurt.
Considered a critic of MIM, the Siasat newspaper lampooned the legislators for their failure to inflict injuries to a woman. The paper suggested that Nasreen could have been killed as the police reached the scene 30 minutes after the attack.

Not to be outdone by this height of vicious irrationality, the Indian police decided to register a case against Miss Nasreen, faulting her for writing a book that stoked communal dischord and unrest, while letting the rioting Islamic marauders go scot-free!

So, as we get closer to the day of India's independence, we are faced with a political party whose members sit in the people’s house of the Indian parliament; we have a bunch of muslim idiots who get on a brutish rampage against an author and demand that her head be chopped off–a clear and actionable threat that warrants arrest; we have an unarmed, helpless author who had no police protection of any sort; and finally, we have the Indian police registering a criminal case against the author for writing a book, for which she could be imprisoned for up to two years, while those savages who made the actionable threat are roaming the nation free to celebrate India’s independence day.

Is this merely a one-off incident? Most certainly not. Rioting marauders epitomize the Indian democratic machinery at work. In this country, democracy means rioting on the streets, attacking innocent civilians, going on strike every two days, stifling expressions of speech, destroying property, and spreading civil terror. Most of these marauders are religious-political parties, political leaders, and their hired goons. In other words, the very people who pull the levers of this democratic machinery are the ones looting and plundering on the streets.

If you don’t like the art created by a student, just barge into his university, break their doors and window, attack any passers-by, and attack the student.
If you don’t like the art of a famous artist, just banish him into exile with death threats and intimidation.
If you don’t like a particular movie featuring lesbian women, just plunder and ransack the movie theaters that choose to screen them.
If you don’t like a person’s sexual orientation, legally criminalize him.
If you don’t like a particular social networking website, just randomly pick the Internet cafes in your neighborhood and destroy their computers and threaten the owners.
If you don’t like a particular book, just attack bookstores and terrorize their customers.
If you don’t like couples kissing in public, just arrest them or extort money from them.
If you don’t like a particular TV station, just take all of cable–paid by customers–off the air.
If you don’t like the muslims, just destroy their mosque.
If you don’t like the Hindus, just bomb them away.

Political power wielded through violence is the predominant medium of “democratic” expression in this corrupt nation–a nation founded upon a ridiculously long, obtuse, and inept constitution that guarantees no rights to any citizens. Truth be said, Indians should properly have nothing to be proud of about their country–and should rightfully be enraged that this is the case!

If you choose to point out the economic progress achieved over the past 17 years in India, note that it has been achieved mostly despite the mangled laws and institutions of the Indian democracy and predominantly by the willingness of non-Indian investors to take on the high risks of functioning in this chaotic, corrupt system, and persevere in the face of it all.

Indians are being made complacent by the illusion of a sanguine future made possible by the global enterprising system of the free market; however, we are missing the crucial fact that the future of this free market is precarious given the lack of a rights-protecting institutional system. Where there’s an institutionalized political system of force and violence, where the government is itself the perpetrator and idle spectator of violence, there can be no freedom.

What exactly can we claim as the proper achievement of Indians? Certainly not the wealth and properity we see today made possible mostly by the foreign entities. The legacy that properly and wholly belongs to Indians is the abject poverty among the masses and the hopelessness of a dim future among the youth that permeated this nation prior to the early 1990s. It is no wonder that all those who could, scrapped every loose rupee to flee India during those years. If we are to be proud of all the 60 years of our independence, we must answer the question why were our parents fleeing the freedom of a newly independent India? What were they running from? Did they not share the sense of pride in a free nation? Were we truly free? Are we still?

PS: This post was written prior to the Indian Independence day.

The Marriage of Collectivism and Religion

Ergo — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 03:29:31 EDT

Collectivism is an ideology that trumps the supremacy of a group over an individual. It is the lack of a strong or coherent identify of the individual self. Many philosophers believe that it is impossible to know, let alone define, what the “self” really is. They argue that identity is only derivable from the Other-than-Self. Sartre, among others, held this belief as the crux of his philosophy and his formulation of the Being-for-Itself. In fact, according to Sartre, a person would be acting on bad faith and would be insincere in making any claims of “I am” because not only is one’s consciousness always changing and never static but also there isn’t any concept of self-consciousness that is unamendable to objectification by the Other.

Sartre’s entire metaphysics places individuals in a state of constant conflict against each other. According to Christine Daigle who discusses Sartre’s key concepts in Philosophy Now, Issue 53, “Sartre made such a good case for this conflictual relationship [that] he had made it impossible for him to elaborate a workable ethics…. Sartre is struggling to establish an ethics that rests on reciprocity and authenticity.”

My own view is that a metaphysic that does not recognize the identity of the individual is a metaphysic of Collectivism. And any such metaphysic that is based on collectivism simply does not allow or permit any coherent and consistent ethical or moral theory to be formulated which can be applicable universally without individual conflict. Hence, every attempt to extrapolate an ethics from such a metaphysic will inevitably run into problems and dangerous inconsistencies.

Collectivism, by definition, has to mean the supremacy of the ethic of a group over the individual — the repression of a minority voice or opinion, the lack of self-determinate autonomy. Any mob mentality has to smother individual mentality. Human beings do not think alike, behave the same way, and have similar tastes or opinions. Thus, the concept of majoritarianism (the basis of democracy), mob mentality (collectivism), sacrifice of the one for the many or the other (utilitarianism and altruism), necessarily has interpersonal conflict inseparably built-in to the ethical system. A universally applicable ethics of no conflict cannot ever arise from such a system unless it is accompanied by force or divine dogma, which itself presumes a conflict and is therefore a contradiction. (This hopeless of view of universal ethics has been so deeply and unquestioningly accepted by society that now people believe it is impossible to live in a society where there can be no conflict among free and rational human beings.)

People can gather in groups and be affiliated with collective bodies based upon their chosen or accepted values. However, the attempt to spread those values upon an entire population by force or doctrine without accepting or recognizing the right of the other to choose their values is the essence of ideologies based on collectivism – at their very fundamental root, they begin by the violation of the rights of the individual; thus, they cannot possibly sustain any ethical principle that can be universally applied to all individuals.

This is where religion comes into play. Religion and cultural collectivism share an insidious synergy. An alliance of religion and collectivism necessarily leads to gross, widespread, and unspeakable violations of human rights in all cases. As I said earlier, collectivism is an ideology that simply cannot justify any ethics that could even fake a veneer of benevolent morality. Religion, however, comes in and easily paints a layer of supernaturally justified morality on the ethics of a collectivist ideology.

Violence and the violation of human rights comes most easily to those societies that have no concept of individualism; hence, no idea of individual human rights. What religion provides is a unifying and collective vision to rally around; but even more importantly, it provides a moral–and often claimed to be divine–justification for collective action. Thus, religion firmly grounds the locus of morality outside and beyond the rational faculties of an individual and in some irreproachable dogmatic authority of a supernatural Being.

For example, the collectivist tribalism observed among Africans engaged in looting, plundering, rape, and chaos reflect the interplay between their faith and their collectivist culture. Many of these Africans are Christians and many of them are Muslims, both engaged in bitter tribal war and “ethnic” cleansing. They equally revel in their depraved existence in violence; although, for the most part, the Christian Africans concede to their own genocide and thus remain consonant with their religious ethic of self-sacrifice whereas the Islamic Africans remain consonant with their religious ethic of jihad against the “infidels.”

Collectivist mobs in India have incited many protests and riots over religious, political, cultural, and social issues: each mob justifies their enforcement of morality by their respective religious beliefs: Hindu, Islamic, or Christian beliefs (e.g., Shiv Sainiks plundering cybercafes, Islamic Jihad against the ”decadence” of the free West, and the Christian demand to violate freedom of speech by banning offensive movies).

The tendency of collectivist cultures to quickly take up arms and tear the limbs off of other people or destroy someone else’s property reflects not directly a zealous practice of their respective doctrinal beliefs of religion, but their mind-set of non-identity, drowned in a mass of collectivism, that recognizes no individual body, no individual property. Religion only provides the veil of moral justification.

Their claims to religiously motivated actions merely cloaks their tribalism and evil in glossy euphemisms of “moral fiber,” ”unity,” “community,” ”traditional mores,” ”martyrdom,” and “heavenly reward.” Their religion provides them with the psychological and spiritual justification for their violent actions that their collectivist ideology cannot possibly provide.

In the above examples, regardless of how many voices speak out in dissent of those activities, if collectivism is the mind-set of the majority, all they need is religion to paint a veneer of a high-minded moral principle in order for them to feel justified in not only suppressing the minority dissent, but also in carrying out their dastardly evil acts.

Collectivism is not only just a philosophical ideology; it is also an incredible evil in itself. It is not enough to just study philosophical ideologies as abstract principles; rather one must think of the ramifications in concrete reality if those principles were to be put into practice. By advocating the impossibility of defining the notion of “self” and thereby abdicating the “self,” philosophers like Sartre are committing grave errors in thought, which has often led to grave evils in reality.

The Cosmology of Shantaram and Gregory David Roberts

Ergo — Sat, 14 Jul 2007 02:14:50 EDT

The author of Shantaram — also known by that name — is an ex-convict who spent years in maximum security prison in Australia and Germany along with other hardened criminals. Therefore, no doubt, he has several fantastic stories to tell. Indeed, his novel/memoir has become a decent commercial and popular success and is now being made into a movie of the same name starring Johnny Depp.

However, one evening at the Kala Ghoda Art Festival, Gregory David Roberts did not—by all explicit appearances—come to speak about his book or promote it (although, I believe that is indeed the reason for his appearance). He came to speak about his “Cosmology,” including his own fantastical theories, which he categorized as “the quantum leap.”

By the end of his hour and half speech, I developed a particular sense of dislike for the man for the clever philosophizer that he is. Even though he is intellectually sharp, I choose to not call him intelligent, but only very clever. Intelligent, to me, connotes not only intellectual giftedness but also some degree of honesty and respect for facts and truths. However, being clever or shrewd does not connote those things. A sophist is clever, in my opinion, not intelligent. This man came across to me as a sophist.

Given the power of ideas in human life, I reserve particular disgust for those who willfully or ignorantly *preach* distorted ideas or downright wrong and harmful ideas to people, like what some priests, mystics, philosophers, and popular fiction writers do.

One among the many misguided claims he conjured up was to argue that atheism was illogical and simply not justifiable. If atheism is not the bastion of reason and scrupulous adherence to facts and evidence, then I don’t know what is. To support his contention, he evoked Godel’s proof of spherical properties (that no point on or within a sphere can fully and accurately describe all the qualities of that sphere) to illegitimately extrapolate the notion that by virtue of being within this universe, one could never know everything about this universe. However, he is ignorant of the simple fact that one need not know everything about the universe to categorically make the true statement that god does not (indeed, cannot) exist. Further, having substantially read into and about Godel's famous theorems and their philosophical implications, I can assert with confidence that never had Godel intended his work to be extrapolated in such illegitimate means.

Then, Gregory David Roberts goes on to argue that stones and rocks have life, consciousness, and creativity; however, these characteristics are undetectable to us humans. (Somehow, he was privy to this incredible bit of information. I presume during his years spent in prison, he befriended one too many rocks.)

What upset me most was his pretense at being rational and logical while conflating scientific fact with his supernatural fantasies. He was eager to repeatedly pepper his speech with the use of words like “science,” “cosmology,” “rational,” “logical,” while the real content of all his rubbish was mysticism, irrationality, non sequiters, misdefinitions, ignorance, and obvious distortions.

In the end, while he kept referring to his ideas as “his personal cosmology,” it really was simply a variant of several old and tired hippie philosophies that like to think of all human beings as illuminant souls that belong to one big ball of light, proclaim we are all gods (rapists, serial killers, and soccer moms all together), embrace pacifism, and dream of world peace.

Book Review: Blink: Malcolm Gladwell and Ayn Rand

Ergo — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 04:01:42 EDT

Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink (2005) is a book that explores the “power of thinking without thinking.” The main thrust of his argument is that often, in many situations, most people make quick judgments without engaging in a conscious, logical, process of thought, and indeed, Gladwell argues, this is an effective and efficient mode of thinking.

His book lays out three tasks that need to be achieved: Blink attempts to make the case that “decisions made very quickly can be every bit as good as decisions made cautiously and deliberately” and that “snap judgments and first impressions can be educated and controlled”; finally, the books seeks to demarcate the times when our instincts can be trusted and when we should be wary of them.

Now, if you simply dig a little under the words Gladwell uses, such as “instincts,” “snap judgments,” and “thinking without thinking,” what you will realize is that Gladwell’s thesis is not novel in any significant sense, at least not to someone who is well-versed with Ayn Rand’s philosophy of Objectivism.

Ayn Rand had decades ago stated that one must "trust your subconscious" while engaged in the task of writing. However, like much else of what Rand said, this little instruction to trust one’s own subconscious mind can be extended beyond the context of writing and applied to practically every realm and action in life.

According to Rand, the subconscious mind “sums up [man’s] psychological activities, integrating his conscious conclusions, reactions, or evasions into an emotional sum that establishes a habitual pattern and becomes his automatic response to the world around him” (Romantic Manifesto). Rand described the subconscious as a kind of computer which is programmed by the conscious mind. The conscious mind sends material that is integrated and stored in the subconscious.

At any given moment, the conscious mind can only be aware or cognizant of a limited set of concretes and abstractions. To a large extent, man relies on his subconsciously integrated storehouse of pre-existing knowledge to guide him and help him make his conscious decisions. Rand said, “Man, by his nature, cannot refrain from generalizing; he cannot live moment by moment, without context, without past or future; he cannot eliminate his integrating capacity and confine his consciousness to an animal’s perceptual range” (RM).

Man’s consciousness is an “enormously powerful integrating mechanism” (RM). We are constantly making connections between things, entities, concretes, events, etc. All of these connections and relationships–these integrations–are stored in our subconscious minds, to be summoned in lightning speed by our emotional evaluations or cognitive consciousness. In other words, Rand pointed out that the subconscious plays a critical role in our snap judgments and emotional responses.

In times of crises, for example, the quick actions, evaluations, or emotional responses are products of our subconscious integration of the perceptual data being fed by the conscious mind. Thus, man often has to resort to the immense integrative power of his subconscious mind, but has to ensure that the outputs of the subconscious mind are congruent with his conscious perceptions and reasoning–it is a continuous and reciprocal loop of information being exchanged between the conscious and the subconscious.

However, one should never leave the reigns of control entirely within the domain of the subconscious, especially when it has not been consciously shaped by a rational philosophy.

It is for this reason that Ayn Rand stressed the importance of being careful and aware of the kind of material that is being fed into the subconscious; rubbish in, rubbish out is the principle by which our subconscious minds work. This is particularly evident in the process of child-rearing, wherein the kinds of material presented to a child by his parents during childhood can remain with him in his subconscious mind until adulthood unless he consciously and volitionally reprograms his mind and his emotional responses with the rational premises.

“To the extent to which a man is mentally active, his mind works as the programmer of his emotional computer. To the extent to which a man evades, the programming of his emotional computer is done by chance influences” (RM).

If our conscious minds are a mess of evasion, irrationalism, and unknown fears, our subconscious responses–-our intuitive first impressions, snap judgments, emotional evaluations–-will also reflect the same mess of blankness, purposelessness, and inexplicable and unknown fears.

Malcolm Gladwell notes that “Just as we can teach ourselves to think logically and deliberately, we can also teach ourselves to make better snap judgments.”

In my opinion, Ayn Rand indicated more fundamentally that it is only when we teach ourselves to think logically and deliberately that we can also teach ourselves to make better snap judgments.

The Virtue of Intolerance

Ergo — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 11:03:51 EDT

The notion of tolerance has the connotation of holding the moral high ground, of being an act of virtue that needs no explanation and no substantiation, of requiring no insight into the context of that which is being tolerated.

The popular view seems to be that tolerance is unarguably a good thing – the implication being that to be intolerant is to be a tyrant.

The notion of tolerance comes in a package deal bundled with other corrupted concepts like diversity, multiculturalism, extremism, moral complexities, subjectivist grayness, etc. The problem with all of these is that their essential defining characteristics are removed from any context that make them meaningful.

For example, “extremism” or to be an “extremist” is de facto an undesirable quality; its essential characteristic of holding one position to the utter exclusion of the other is divorced from the context of what the positions actually entail and why would that exclusive position be wrong.

However, the concept of tolerance suffers from an added unique distortion. Not only is the concept usually divorced from any particular context and is enshrined as an unquestioning companion of benevolence, tolerance is always used in the acquiescence of the bad and in compromise of the good.

Notice how the good, the true, or the rational never requires toleration, it is only the opposite of these that do. No one ever tolerates the good while simultaneously identifying it as the good. However, the contradiction implied in the phrase “tolerating the good” escapes most people.

When one is asked to “tolerate differences of opinion” or “diversity” one is implicitly branding the differences of opinion and diversity as bad. This not only corrupts the meaning of the concept “tolerance” by misusing it but also paints a broad brush over the concepts of diversity and opinion. If by rational and objective judgment, the opinions are valid and the diversity of people beneficial, then the question of tolerance simply does not arise. With regard to the good that is objectively identified, there is (and properly cannot be) any need for tolerance.

However, when a racist spouts hatred, I have the moral high ground in not tolerating his views and explicitly condemning him for it. To tolerate racist views is to betray your commitment to reason and justice. To tolerate evil is to shortchange on your commitment to the good. Ask yourself why would you need to ever tolerate something that was good and rational anyway? Then, why are you asked to tolerate the irrational, the untrue, the dishonest, and the evil? What virtue lies in tolerating these, and by what standard is it a virtue?

A virtue is that which you do to gain and keep your values. If you hold that the defense of your values (the act of keeping and protecting your values) is your moral obligation, then the condemnation and refusal to tolerate those that go against your values or directly threaten your values is merely a corollary of the same moral obligation. Intolerance is then a virtue when practiced in safeguarding your values.

Intolerance does not mean resorting to violence or the violation of rights but a clear and firm statement of denunciation, a condemnation of the immoral action or speech, a refusal to sanction and endorse, and a commitment to not cooperate.

Ambitious Plans for a World Class University in India

Ergo — Mon, 9 Jul 2007 07:54:00 EDT

The Chronicle of Higher Education reports that there are plans to institute a world-class American-style university(subscription only) in a small village a few miles off the town of Puri in Orissa, India.

Vedanta University is being funded by the rich Indian-American mining industrialist Anil Agarwal to the tune of 1 billion dollars. The university will rest on 7,500 acres of land to accommodate 100,000 students, offer courses in the liberal arts, engineering, agriculture, and medicine, and will even boast its own airport.

Architects from Baltimore have already drawn up plans and rendered computer-generated images of the university. The plans reveal a campus shaped like "twin blossoms, bordered by a lake, and entered through any of 34 gates, each with its own name and symbolism. As beautiful as a mandala and as intricate as a postgraduate mathematics problem, it's almost certainly the most ambitious campus plan ever conceived."

However, like practically all development projects in India, the university, too, is facing a hurdle posed by the farmers and villagers of Beladala, which is the proposed site of the university campus. Apparently, in their zeal to protect the meagre and impoverished lifestyle they now enjoy, these farmers are adamant in protecting their farms and their futures from the influx of new jobs, a market for their goods, and a vibrant economic environment.

Uncertainty in Free Markets

Ergo — Mon, 2 Jul 2007 02:09:30 EDT

The nature of the free market system is squarely based on the fact that no one man has omniscient knowledge; hence, insofar as there is any planning, it is done on a personal and limited scale because beyond a certain level of complexity, it becomes impossible to accurately predict–let alone plan–the possible actions and ramifications. At best, educated forcasting models could be created in accordance with observed trends–but even these are subject to the volitional nature of man.

Now, as opposed to this being one of free market’s inherent weaknesses, the limited knowledge of economic actions and ramifications becomes one of its greatest strengths. It means that no man has to bear an impossible cognitive load in attempting to ensure his survival (and the survival of his business) by trying to account for every possible eventuality. It means that man must function by thinking in broad and fundamental principles and not by scrutinizing every minutiae of a concrete situation. It means that no man is obligated to have all the answers and no man has the legitimate right to plan the actions of another man and force it upon him.

One man’s limited knowledge in a particular area does not mean that everyone else is also limited in knowledge in that same area. Just as capitalism engenders the division and specialization of physical labor, the free market system functions on the division of intellectual effort. It leaves you free to pursue and specialize in that which you have the most interest in pursuing, thus resulting in different people attaining knowledge and specializing in different fields.

The free market requires that people who have the specialized knowledge trade with each other their ideas and services and arrive at their own particular solutions to the problem at hand. The planning, insofar as it occurs, occurs within this limited sphere involving many different actors; there is no top-down approach to planning.

Thus, while it may seem daunting to have such uncertainty inherent in an economic system, keep in mind that the uncertainty is unique only to you (or to a few people), unique only to that specific sphere that you are uncertain about, and is in fact the nature of existence.

For example, take the issue of health care. As a non-medical lay person, you may properly feel uncertain about how efficacious a health care system functioning on free market principles would be in providing health care services to all or most people. You may not know how it will work, who the principle actors will be, how the medical services might be disseminated in rural or hard to reach places, will the required drugs be manufactured by drugs companies, etc. But the point is, you don’t need to know and indeed it is impossible for you to know all of these things. There may be a large number of actors at play and an infinite number of motives driving each of them. Given the freedom to pursue their own ends and the guarantee of protection from force and fraud, the principle actors will engage each other in trade and exchange to meet their desired ends and resolve the relevant problems because it will be in each actor’s own interest to minimize problems and maximize their chances of survival.

This is the most basic fact that socialists, communists, and social planners most adamantly wish to deny and invalidate. In their attempt to forsee and plan for every eventuality, their “scientific” planning strategies create unreal strictures upon the actions of *all* people and events.

Thus, when you have people claiming that to leave an issue up to the markets is too dangerously uncertain and that strict controls and supervision is required, they are making the impossible claim to having omniscient knowledge and the ability to forsee, control, and plan for every possible eventuality. This method is a chronic pursuit of failure and disappointment as has been amply demonstrated by half a century of evidence.