Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Allah Bachaye!

Being brought up in a strictly religious and conformist family and society; I have always been quite aware about the religious sensibilities of people. Despite my differences with others I have always respected the choices of people with regard to their specific mode of Islam or religion in general. From puritanical Salafies to die-hard Shias, all have been part of my inner circle of friends. This may sound counter intuitive but i have had absolutely no issue with them and their views. I still don't.

However, there is one group of religious people who make me uncomfortable. I call them 'born again' muslim reverts who preach and preach over zealously (born again because they have been living a so called hedonistic life until the guidance arrived). They talk as if their decision to revert back to 'conformist' Islam is enough to guarantee them a place in heaven. Quite often they speak to you in a way which makes you feel morally inferior. To me nothing is more immoral than moral snobbishness. I have strong reservations about such people. My issue with them doesn't stem from their conformist stance on religion but rather from their new attitude towards those who haven't seen the 'light of guidance' yet. I needed to give vent to my feelings because I met such a friend of mine who made me feel exactly this way. The session was a torment for me. At the end of our meeting I just whispered to myself, 'Ab Allah hi is ko Allah se bachaye' and left the place.

Sunday, January 29, 2012

Smile!

Neither teleological nor ontological argument holds the truth
The greatest proof for the existence of God on earth can be found in our smiles.

Saturday, January 21, 2012

Sense of an Ending - Barnes on Suicide!

This is an excerpt from the novel 'Sense of an Ending'.

''Alex showed me a clipping from the Cambridge Evening News. “Tragic Death of 'Promising’ Young Man”. They probably kept that headline permanently set up in type. The verdict of the coroner’s inquest had been that Adrian Finn (22) had killed himself “while the balance of his mind was disturbed”.
I remember how angry that conventional phrase made me: I would have sworn on oath that Adrian’s was the one mind which would never lose its balance. But in the law’s view, if you killed yourself you were by definition mad, at least at the time you were committing the act. The law, and society, and religion all said it was impossible to be sane, healthy, and kill yourself. Perhaps those authorities feared that the suicide’s reasoning might impugn the nature and value of life as organised by the state which paid the coroner?
And then, since you had been declared temporarily mad, your reasons for killing yourself were also assumed to be mad. So I doubt anyone paid much attention to Adrian’s argument, with its references to philosophers ancient and modern, about the superiority of the intervening act over the unworthy passivity of merely letting life happen to you.''

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Worst temptation!

Virtue and morality has a temptation of its own. Perhaps the most poisonous one there is. Thus, many incorrigible sinners have yielded to it once in a while.

Making sense of Hegel!

For the better part of 20th century the analytical school of philosophy has dominated the academic circles. Along with many other continental philosophers, one name which particularly evokes extreme repulsion within analytical circles is the philosopher GWH Hegel.

Hegel's reputation as a philosopher in his own time was second to none. He literally ruled the German mind during the first half of 19th century. His influence went beyond the border as well. In England, the dominant school of philosophy hitherto had been empiricism.But such was the spell of Hegel's idealistic philosophy that even Anglo-Saxon mind, which was averse to rationalism or idealism, became a victim of it. People like Bradley and McTaggart openly called themselves Hegelians and taught (in fact preached) Hegelian ideas in major Universities of UK. It was only with the emergence of people like GE Moore and Bertrand Russell that Hegel was eventually marginalized from the academic circles first and then from the popular discourse. As a matter of fact his work became a constant subject for ridicule, non-sensical metaphysical speculation and a prime example of philosophy losing itself in obscurantism.

Its been almost hundred years since Hegel's philosophy has been put to flames as far as academic philosophy is concerned. However, none will dispute the legacy of the man who had inspired a chain of great thinkers (even today people like Francis Fakuyama use Hegelian ideas to shape their own thesis.

I confess,its been long since I'v last read Hegel or took his philosophy seriously. However, recently while preparing my lecture on Marxism for my Jurisprudence class I had the opportunity to re-read some of the Hegelian ideas. The problem with teaching Marxism is that you cannot make sense of what Marx is really up to unless you have sufficient idea of Hegelian philosophy. As expected, the very name of Hegel's philosophy evoked a sense of boredom in me. Yet, I lingered my way through secondary literature. As I kept on reading Hegel and his subsequent influence upon Marx, one question started bothering me and captured all my imagination. How can we summarily dismiss  a thinker who has been the main source of Marx's own methodology and philosophy? By no means Marx is a an ordinary name, his influence has been compared to prophets, a luxury that not too many philosophers enjoy. The impact of his philosophy and ideas went well beyond the field of philosophy and changed the very politico-economic face of our
planet. The question for me then was quite simple. How did Hegel's legacy lost itself in obscurity? What made Hegel's ideas so different or radical?

Therefore, this blog entry is my attempt to make sense of Hegelian philosophy and strip off the obscure crust that surrounds some of his major ideas that has shaped our modern world.


Phenomenology of Spirit as a starting point:

A major problem in reading Hegel is the difficulty in finding out the starting point. I have decided to tread the same path Karl Marx took in understanding Hegel. He started of with one of Hegel's major works called 'Phenomenology of the spirit'. I will start by explaining the ideas presented in this book one by one.

When it comes to want of words German language is quite rich. The German word for 'spirit' is Geist. However, the spirit is synonymously used with the word mind in German. So one may call it 'Phenomenology of Mind'.

Universal Mind (The Absolute):

Being a pure Idealist, Hegel believes that his theory is the gradual unfolding of the Universal Mind. Right from the start the obscurity begins, what does he mean by Universal Mind?  Hegel believes that the Reality is rational. That rationality is corresponded with the idea of Universal Mind. The individual minds i.e your mind or my mind are just individualized or particularized manifestations of this Universal Mind. There has been considerable debate with regards to what this Universal Mind is. Some have called it God, while others have equated it with the mystical doctrine of 'unity of being'. I personally think that there is no conclusive answer to this question. One may find arguments in favor of both schools of thought but I personally lean towards the pantheistic understanding of Hegel. However, this is not the concern of our debate. For the purpose of this post I would rather tag Universal mind as 'Absolute Idea' manifesting itself in everything that exists.

Development of the Absolute:

In Phenomenology of the Spirit, Hegel traces the development of the Universal Mind. Initially it manifested itself in individual Self or ego, but that ego was neither self-conscious nor aware of his own freedom and universal nature. It encountered the other individual mind and saw it as an object to be conquered. This is where Hegel introduces his concept of Master/Slave relationship.
What Hegel tries to demonstrate by this relationship is the fact that the Mind (Universal Mind) not being self-aware about its freedom takes the other individual mind as something 'alien'. Therefore, the development of the Mind takes place through such inherent contradictions. Hegel calls this 'Dialectical process'. This is probably the most commonly known concept of Hegel. The thesis meets its antithesis and then as result of this confrontation comes out a synthesis. However, this synthesis is itself a thesis and the process continues.

The meaning of history is manifested in this process. The whole of history is a progress towards the Self-consciousness of the Absolute. In the words of Iqbal the Hegelian philosophy can be summed up in one line, 'infinite becoming finite and then again becoming infinite through self-evolving synthesis'.


Hegelianism and Rationalized mysticism:

To sum up what I have written in the preceding part of my post. Hegel saw Mind as Universal and the essence of of this Universal Mind lies in freedom. This freedom is only possible with complete self-consciousness of the Absolute history. Hegel's analysis leads to a strange conclusion. If the end of history is the self-consciousness of the Mind then that stage culminated itself in none other that Hegel's own philosophy. I admit Hegel must not have been a very modest or humble dude otherwise such a conclusion must have seem preposterous to him.

In spite of Hegel's supercilious claims, I would like to draw a comparison between Hegelian philosophy and mysticism. The resemblance is uncanny when it comes to their conclusions. The only difference appears to be in their methodology. Hegel's method is partially rational and partially historical. Whereas mystics emphasize the intuition above reason and history. But it is important to mention here that like all mystics Hegel believes that the Mind is Universal. The apparent multiplicity is just a matter of appearance or lack of self-consciousness (ignorance).

Therefore, the apparent conflict is just 'Maya' resulting from transitory phenomena. Furthermore, like mystics Hegel also believes that whatever happens occurs out of sheer necessity. History in unfolding itself follows a rational and necessary path towards final self-emancipation of the Universal mind or Absolute Idea. Therefore, its meaningless or pointless to challenge a particular development of history. From this one may conclude that Hegel's philosophy may be interpreted as an attempt at rationalizing mysticism. This is a task very few philosophers have dared to undertake.

Conclusion:

Finally I would abruptly end this blog entry without criticizing Hegelian ideas. The task has already been done by numerous other writers and philosophers. The purpose was to re-read Hegel and make sense of his ideas.

I plan to write a sequel to this blog entry regarding how Hegelian philosophy was further interpreted by people like Beaur, Fuaerbach and Marx. Until then you folks should try to make sense of Hegel too :-)

Thursday, January 12, 2012

What is compassion?

Q. What is Compassion?
Ans: Refusing to use the same sword for another by which you yourself were killed once.

Tuesday, January 10, 2012

Purgatory of Disbelievers!

Nature was cruel to him. He was too intelligent to believe in religion. Worse, he was too intelligent to believe himself too. This is the eternal purgatory for disbelievers.

Sunday, January 8, 2012

Paradox of Love based World View!

In recent times my skepticism regarding the love based world view as expounded by mystics has gotten more stronger. Mystics through out the ages have propagated a world view based on love and tolerance. Their Christ like ethics seems to focus solely on love as a solution to all the existential problems. However, I have my reservations with this world view.

If we define love as absence of hatred and lack of repulsion for 'the other' then such a view is an impossibility. For instance, such a world view cannot explain our attitude towards all kinds of hate based world views. Rejecting such alternative world views must necessarily be based on repulsion or hatred of some kind (hatred of violence or intolerance etc). In that way a love based world view cannot claim to be based on complete absence of hatred.

Conversely, someone may  accommodate such alternatives within a love based discourse by tolerating the intolerant. This leaves us with an even greater problem. The love based world view by endorsing the intolerant doesn't completely get rid off the potential hatred. Therefore, its a catch 22 situation. I call it the paradox of love based world view.

Thursday, January 5, 2012

I'm not Fat its just..

A: You are getting fat Qasim..
Me: I am not fat its just the universe which is expanding :p

Tuesday, January 3, 2012

Love and Forgiveness!

“One forgives to the degree that one loves.” - La Rouchefaucault

This is  true. The amount of our love determines the boundary of our tolerance. For instance parents love their children and for that very reason they may forgive their gravest mistakes. Similarly, a person passionately in love may forgive or ignore things that one normally doesn't tolerate.

However, what about the tragic figure who forgives the beloved out of sheer love but finds it impossible to forgive himself for loving the other? Is there a cure for such a soul? Perhaps love is not only about forgiving others but also oneself. Forgiving oneself for being oneself. Perhaps the essence of true love is to cherish even our mistakes. Perhaps!

Sunday, January 1, 2012

Goethe's Shikwa!

I should honour you? For what?
Have you softened the sufferings,
Ever, of the burdened?
Have you stilled the tears,
Ever, of the anguished?
Was I not forged as a Man
By almighty Time
And the eternal Fate,
My masters and yours?

Do you somehow imagine
I should hate life,
Flee to the desert,
Because not every
Flowering dream may bloom?

Here I sit, forming people
In my image;
A race, to be like me,
To suffer, to weep,
To enjoy and delight themselves,
And to mock you –
As I do!

Prometheus by Goethe.