Bigot! No, YOU'RE a bigot!

Is the world becoming increasingly intolerant? In fact, quite ironically it seems that the more we talk about tolerance, the more we seem to notice intolerance everywhere. There may certainly be some truth to the fact there was a lot of intolerance always, but with increasing social awareness on these issues, we are identifying them only now, and that gives the impression that intolerance is increasing. However I am of the opinion that intolerance is in fact increasing, though I do not have any research or evidence to quote here.

The Indian liberal calls the conservative a 'bhakt', while getting called a 'libtard' by the conservative in return. On the global internet stage (which is basically the social media) we have the 'social justice warrior snowflakes' fighting the regressive forces of 'fundamentalists,' 'extremists,' and 'bigots.' A popular youtube essayist, CGP Grey explains this internet phenomenon in the form of thought germs travelling through the internet and affecting people in this video. Now, the phenomenon itself is quite interesting and harmless in itself. But activities on the internet often find ways to materialize even in the offline world. So, once again we ask the question, "is the world becoming increasingly intolerant, and if yes, why?"

One of the possible reasons is the nature of internet itself. Internet offers a level of anonymity and detachment that allows people to say things that cannot be said in the offline world. Anonymity can be seen in sites like reddit and youtube, while facebook though not necessarily anonymous still offers a level of detachment, which means that who you are on facebook need not necessarily be who you are in the offline world. And this allows you to get away with saying things. One example for this is the popular manga/anime series Deathnote, where approval of Kira begins in the internet. People want to maintain a level of decency in the offline everyday society, but online they are hailing Kira as the god of the new age under the guise of anonymity.

Another possible reason is the connectivity of the internet as explained by CGP Grey in the above mentioned video. Because of the connectivity, thought germs are not limited by geography, and can spread far and wide. And like his example of the plant and butterfly shows, when thought germs affect individuals, they will inevitably end up joining one or two sides of the existing debate, and the debate itself keeps growing in that manner.

Most communities have their own taboos, not just in terms of topics of conversation but also in terms of behaviour. Accordingly, there is a constant censoring of behaviour and speech by every member of the community. On the internet, however, due to its cosmopolitan nature as well as due to the lack of gatekeeping, there are no clearly defined taboos and subsequently no clearly defined uniform censorship. So, people feel free to speak and behave in manners otherwise unacceptable in their offline communities.

This means, if a particular (offline) community is against the curtailing of the freedom of thought and expression, on the internet, people of the same community will find it easier to express intolerant views, and may find people from across the world who may agree to their intolerant views. This will further validate their own opinions and strengthen their own resolution to their opinion. Moreover, these individuals form their intolerant communities online and may decide to meet offline as well. In this case, we can see how internet in a direct way contributes to increasing intolerance.

However, is this something that can be blamed on the internet? If a person's behaviour is different from due to lack of an anonymity, isn't that behaviour just a performance, akin to wearing a mask? Similarly, isn't who a person is in the lack of censoring and gatekeeping, the person's most honest self? If the answer to these questions is yes, then what does it say about the nature of human beings? Do humanism's ideas of man being inherently good still hold good? These questions need to be discussed.

Do feel free to disagree with me, or even agree with me. In any case, if you wish to discuss these issues, leave a comment. I'd like to know what you guys think. Alright, peace!

The Light Meets the Dark: the gospel in the context of hard questions

Today I had an interesting conversation with a friend. We were talking about the hard questions of life. And I'm guessing that if we are honest, each of us faces moments when we are confronted with hard questions. Questions that makes us uncomfortable. We are confronted with answers that don't feel good. And much too often, the natural tendency is to ignore such questions. Vinoth Ramachandra in his blog post, ""Deconstructing Equality", talks about the question of intrinsic and equal worth of human beings being side stepped or shouted out of view in our contemporary polarized discourse of equality, since it is a hard question.

When I came back home after the conversation, I started listening to an album by Tenth Avenue North, "The Light Meets the Dark." And for the first time, I noticed how the band does not shy away from asking tough questions. I have not been a big fan of contemporary Christian music due to many reasons, out of which one is that CCM often does not deal with hard questions, and just writes feel good inspirational music.

The third song of the album, 'you are more,' is one of the band's highly successful songs both critically as well as on the charts. The song talks about questions of self worth, and in quite unflattering tones claims that self worth cannot be drawn from the choices one has made in life. In a concert, lead singer and frontman, Mike Donehey says about the song, "We preach something like this, 'the choices you make make you who you are.' You know, only proud people say that, only people who've made good choices say that... Well, here's the gospel, you gotta admit you are a bum, and you don't need to prove a thing to anybody because He did it for you."

The first song of the album, 'healing begins,' makes an appeal to let down one's walls. The second verse says, Afraid to let your secrets out / Everything that you hide / Can come crashing through the door now / But too scared to face all your fear / So you hide but you find / That the shame won't disappear. And then the pre-chorus kicks in, So let it fall down / There's freedom waiting in the sound / When you let your walls fall to the ground / We're here now.

The last song of the album, 'Oh my dear', closes out the questions raised by "healing begins," in a very satisfactory manner by telling the story of a person opening up and talking about some of their deepest secrets: You said, 'I just don't think that you'll understand / You'll never look at me that way again / If you knew what I did.' // And so your tears fell and melted the snow / You told me secrets nobody had known / But I never loved you more, even though / Now I knew what you did. // Oh my dear, I'll wait for you / And grace tonight will pull us through / Until the tears have left your eyes / Until the fears can sleep at night / Until the demons that you're scared of disappear inside / Until this guilt begins to crack / And the weight falls from your back / Oh, my dear, I'll keep you in my arms tonight.

Each of the song in the album deals with heavy questions. The band deals with defeat, feelings of inferiority, fear, hurt, and the various challenges one faces while living the Christian faith, in a very succinct manner. And it is only in the context of asking the real tough questions that the hope and appeal of the gospel (the word gospel literally means 'good news') really stands out.

I experienced the album to be quite inspirational. But it does not inspire by ignoring and shying away from the difficult questions, but rather talks about hope in the midst of the ugly reality that we have to live in everyday.

Disclaimer: I am not good at critically analyzing music, and hence this is not so much an album review as much as a closer look at the message of the album from a purely lyrical perspective. I must also admit that I really love Tenth Avenue North and encourage all you readers to check out their music. The Light Meets the Dark is a good place to start, and here's the third song of the album, you are more. Cheers!

Why recent events have got me troubled.

Deathnote is probably one of the most well known manga/anime out there that deals with questions of morality. For those of you who have not read/watched the said comic/show, the story deals with a genius protagonist who is given a book of the shinigami (god of death) by which he can kill people by writing their name on it. Light Yagami, the said protagonist proceeds to cleanse the world, beginning with criminals.

Eventually, the world takes notice that someone is killing criminals and though in public they say he is a criminal (since the Governments have declared him one), on the internet under anonymity many hail him as a god, and call him Kira (Killer). Kira catches the interest of famous investigator L, and what follows is one of the best wars of intellect in modern storytelling.

What is interesting throughout the story, is the many questions of morality and justice that the story raises. Crime rate drastically reduces as a result of Kira and eventually even Governments develop a neutral attitude towards Kira. But L, and later on Mello and Near continue to fight him, and the audience is left to wonder who is truly justice in the story. The whole philosophy is well captured by Light Yagami, "If we catch Kira, he is evil. If he wins and rules the world, then he is justice." And L himself states, "it's not a sense of justice. Figuring out difficult cases is my hobby."

It is good to ponder on these questions raised by Deathnote. We are so used to the existing ethical and moral values surrounding us that we may not be aware that our society may not always have held the same values. For example, the Western world derives a lot of its thought from the Greek tradition. And ancient Greek thought did not always value pity. E A Judge observes of the ancient time, “Pity was a defect of character unworthy of the wise and excusable only in those who have not yet grown up. It was an impulsive response based on ignorance. Plato had removed the problem of beggars from his ideal state by dumping them over its borders” [“The Quest for Mercy in Late Antiquity,” 107]. However, we today celebrate celebrities who give for charities and consider empathy to be a very important trait to have to be even considered human.

But if our ethical and moral values are not so constant and universal and must be seen as arising from within a spatial and temporal space, then that puts us in a tricky spot when violations of our values take place. Recently, a community that I have been associated with for a while was shocked at the behaviour of one its most prominent faces. The said prominent face violated one of the most sacred values on which the community was built - that of being against violence against women - by himself having engaged in predatory behaviour against women. The community itself was enraged, and quite rightly so. But without a fixed point of view for our viewing of moral values, we are going to be in a problem like that of Deathnote. On what basis can I blame a person for the transgression of a moral value, which I cannot defend objectively? On what basis do I say, "till here and no more?" On what basis can I draw my lines?

I myself am deeply troubled by the incident, and that is because the worldview I hold on to considers human life to be very valuable and of high worth. My worldview moreover considers love as the highest virtue, and this value has been perverted by the incident. And my worldview has an objective stand because it proceeds from an objective ultimate reality - that of God.

P.S. I don't want people thinking I've actually read EA Judge (though I'd like to be that well read someday). I got the quote from another blog post. And I've borrowed some ideas from him as well. And here's the link:
https://varughesejohnblog.wordpress.com/2017/10/05/a-haunting-ethic-that-refuses-to-go-away/

Is my faith even real if I'm not moved to action?

Hello, all you readers!

I know that I haven't been very active here and I apologize for that. (Please don't read the post-script of my previous post on this blog).

Anyway, on 29th I attended an event commemorating the birthday of Gauri Lankesh, a journalist who was murdered on September 5, 2017. I must admit here that I wasn't aware of her before her death. Eventually I came to know that she was an outspoken critic of right-wing ideology in the country. And in commemoration of her life, young emerging leaders of this country vowed to fight fascist forces in the country.

Here's the deal. I am a Christian, and one of the things that comes with being a Christian is the conviction that the Bible is God's Word and is authoritative for all matters of life and conduct. There are quite a few people in this country who would claim to be the same. But days like today make me skeptical of whether there are as many true followers as they say there are.

The Bible has nearly a third of its contents talking about social justice. The God of the Christians according to the Bible is clearly concerned with social concerns. 

I hate, I despise your religious festivals;

    your assemblies are a stench to me.

22 

Even though you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings,

    I will not accept them.

Though you bring choice fellowship offerings,

    I will have no regard for them.

23 

Away with the noise of your songs!

    I will not listen to the music of your harps.

24 

But let justice roll on like a river,

    righteousness like a never-failing stream!

The above lines are from Amos 5, where God is angry at the people of Israel. And why is he angry? The following lines are from the same chapter a little before the previous lines:

you levy a straw tax on the poor

and impose a straw tax on their grain

....

there are those who oppress the innocent and take bribes

and deprive the poor of justice in the courts.

Today our society may not be very different from the Israel of Amos' day. The poor are largely ignored; farmers are committing suicide due to rising debt while rich industrialists are getting foreign holidays while defaulting on loans; large segments of the population live in fear every day for what they believe and what they eat; people who stand for the truth are killed, beaten up, or are slapped with sedition charges; history is being rewritten according to the whims and fancies of those in power; and even the people in the judiciary are not clearly impartial.

And if God is angry at these things at Israel, wouldn't he be equally angry at the same things here? And if God is angry, clearly those who claim to worship him must be equally outraged at the injustice? But why are my Christian brothers and sisters largely silent on these issues? Is it the same God that we worship? Is it the same Jesus we claim as our master? Or are there no Christians at all in the Universities of our land?

Martin Luther King Jr. was a Christian preacher who was outraged at social inequality and injustice. He fought for civil rights for all. He said "we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like a river, and righteousness like a mighty stream." His study of the Bible moved him to fight for social justice. I wish Christian students in the universities of our country would study the Scriptures, and truly be the salt and the light to this society that seems to be decaying and falling into darkness!

I am sad that I was not aware of Gauri Lankesh before her death. And what saddens me more is that there are many of my Christian brothers and sisters especially in our Universities who may not still be aware of her. Further more, many of us Christians in comfortable places may not even be aware of the recent Bhima Koregaon violence, the murder of Junaid Khan under suspicion of carrying beef, and similar such tragedies that have rocked the country in the past two years. In the event I attended on 29th, Kavita Lankesh, sister of the deceased Gauri Lankesh said, "ignorance is bliss, but today we cannot afford to be ignorant." And that is the line I want to leave my Christian brothers and sisters with.

Take notes: It's 2017!

Hello everybody!

I think civility demands me to first and foremost wish everyone a happy new year! I must though tell you of a certain friend of mine who laughed when I said, happy new year. She found the wish ironic since it is highly probable that the year is not going to be a happy one. Don't we all love cynics? No? Just me? Oh, well...

So I've been thinking that the best way to start the year would be by taking up a good five minutes of your time with a rant on something that has been annoying me for a while now. And that is the Indian education system. Now, I don't want to sound like one of those annoying urban teenagers (though I am said to be annoying, live in a city, and am a teenager) who keeps complaining about India and keeps praising the West. I love India, and am truly truly grateful for many things here. And just like I dislike things about my own self, I think I can be allowed to dislike certain things in this country of mine. (Audible gasps and whispers of the word 'anti-national' are heard.)

What motivated me to type out this rant has been this one class, and particularly the teacher, who dictates notes to us, and insists on us taking it down. What makes this worse is that, the class is English Literature. Now, I happen to love the subject naturally, but when archaic practices such as dictating of notes happens in the class, I lose all interest. However, the practice in itself cannot be blamed. There is a cycle where existing values held in the country prompt such practices to exist, and such practices in turn, fuel the values. This value system has prompted us to place our values on all the wrong things. The root of this problem is an unhealthy emphasis on productivity, which may or may not reflect our love for money.

A few examples of this can be seen in our day to day lives. I'm sure most of us have heard such lines as, "At the end of the day you need marks to show. Otherwise, no one will employ you." "Is there any scope in that field?" And so on and so forth. Educational institutes have become centres that feed the industry with employable youth, and not centres of learning. This explains the increasing number of institutes where authoritarian modes of management prevail. Students are discouraged from engaging in dialogue with the management, because such people who do engage in such dialogues may cause harm to the industry by questioning practices and policies there. Uniformity is praised, and eccentricity and radicalism is shunned. Formal attire is enforced because the industry will demand the same, and many such rules are enforced. The companies that recruit these graduates benefit because they get the kind of people they want, and the institution benefits because with more placements, more students want to join their institution.

Another indicator of this value system can be seen in recent events. Educational institutes, where ideas need to be encouraged, and solutions for the ills of the society should be thought of, are being highly restricted in the expression of their ideas. Many people are calling for the closing down of Central Universities where students are spending public money to talk about the problems of society and possible solutions, rather than getting trained to become machines that will work for the industry and become 'productive.'

I would not really have an issue with the emphasis on productivity. It does raise the standard of living and whatnot. But the problem with just being productive is that the emphasis is on survival. Get good marks, and get a decent job. Make a decent living, and produce offspring that will continue the cycle. We have lost the drive to live; the drive to further the growth of culture and civilization, and we are reaching stagnation. I don't want to just survive. I want to live and grow. And I wish many more of us wished that.

So, to that teacher who insists on me taking notes, "I'm sorry, I think we can do so much more."

And with that, adios!

P.S. Sorry, this rant was rather long, and not as light hearted as my other posts, but I guess I was just venting out. And if you did read this super boring piece till the end, thank you! And here's to hoping I'll be a bit more regular in my posts in 2017.

1...0...1...0...1...1...1...0...0...0...1...0

Good morning all you awesome people (you're awesome because you're reading my blog)

I know that I haven't posted for five months, and I sincerely apologize. But I'm back. Exams provide you with a lot of free time for doing all sorts of things, like writing blog posts

One of the topics that I might be questioned on in the exam is the concept of the binary. So this blog post is my attempt at understanding that.

Many people first come across the term during middle school or high school, or maybe primary school (doesn't really matter, they come across it during school) in a Computer class. And all that the sad student is taught is that the binary system was the first language used with the computer. It consists of 1 and 0. In other words, you talk to the computer using 1s and 0s. Simple enough? An important thing to note in this system is that 1 and 0 are different. I'm sure many of you are going:

But that is an important thing to note. 1 is not 0 and 0 is not 1. Now let us proceed.

The idea of binary was extensively used by a bunch of literature nerds called 'postcolonial theorists'. It's not a big thing really. At the end of this post, you can go around pretending you are one. Anyway, these postcolonial theorists would study countries that were ruled by another country. And while studying that, they would sometimes use the word 'binary.'

When these folks use the term, what they usually mean is a system of oppositions. Let me explain that. Imagine you are 1. We are already said that 1 is not 0 and 0 is not 1. That means what you are not will be 0. Get it? Since you are 1, your 'opposite' will be 0. For example, if you are a girl, and you are 1, then a boy will be 0.

Now the Europeans were the ones who usually went around ruling other countries. And what they did was they put all that they themselves were, into 1 category (say, 1). And they put the opposite of all that in another category (say, 0). So, anyone who was white, European, educated, civilized, and Christian, were all 1. And all those who were 'not white' (black, brown, yellow, blue....), non-European, uneducated, uncivilized, and 'barbarian' were all 0. And as already said, 1 can never be 0 and 0 can never be 1. This means that a European can never be 'barbarian, or a non European can never be 'civilized.

So, the binary system means that there are only two categories in the world. And you are either one or the other. When these Europeans went to Africa or Asia, they would see people who were not European and were not white. And they would immediately say that these people were barbarian, uncivilized, and dangerous. Another way of saying this that is quite popular among these postcolonial theorists is saying 'self' versus 'other'. Self is all that you are, and other is all that you are not. Some of these theorists who talk of these things have also been called dualists. I know that that is a lot of big words for one post. But I hope it was tolerable.

That is all for this post. If you are interested, more posts are on the way. Stay tuned.

Adios!

Civil War

So the buzz right now seems to be about Captain America: Civil War. And though I am (very) late, I feel I should at least talk about it a little bit, because I’d be a fool not to. I watched the movie. So yeah, that’s it. That’s all I had to say on the movie.

Wait, don’t go! I mean, that’s all on the movie, but there is something else I’ve been thinking about recently – conflicts in the mind. We all experience them; and they are some sort of civil war. In this boring rant of mine, I shall be exploring why we go through such conflicts, and why they are important.

Homo sapiens (by which I’m referring to the sad species to which you belong) have wants. We all have specific things we want. And these wants make us do what we do. For example, you want to procreate. This want drives you to make a sad attempt at flirting with people, which in turn results in your being called a creep. And wants don’t stop there. We have various different wants that make us do different things. Take for instance a classroom. The teacher drops something, and a particular student (let’s call him Ramesh) is quick to run and get the thing for the teacher. The natural explanation would be that Ramesh is helpful by nature. But once the teacher leaves, and a neighbouring student, say, Suresh, drops something. Now if Ramesh doesn’t help him, how would you explain his behaviour? One possible explanation is that Ramesh wants to win the teacher’s favour, possibly to get marks. But when Suresh drops the pen, Ramesh doesn't want to put in the effort when he gets nothing from it.

A normal human being has a number of different wants. As we've already seen, wanting to get marks is a want. Similarly, wanting to relax can also be a want. So, what happens when these wants, or shall we say motives, are in conflict? When there is such a conflict, the said person is faced with a choice. And choices are what define a character.

This is a very important concept especially in creating works of art, like books, movies, or TV series. Character formation. Take for instance, the famous character of Harry Potter. In the first book, 'The Philosopher's Stone,' you see the character (Harry) making a choice. He chooses to sympathise with the snake at the zoo. This defines his character as kind. Let's look at a much later book when he is older, 'The Deathly Hallows.' Here, though he doesn't like Draco Malfoy all that much, he still chooses to save Malfoy's life in the Room of Requirement when there is a fire. The conflict faced by Harry here was between being kind and saving his own life.

It is the sum total of choices made while faced with a conflict of motives that define the character of a person. So, if you are a writer or a filmmaker, pay attention to these things. Observe humans around you, and look for these conflicts. They are quite interesting. And if you are not a writer or a filmmaker, you can still look for these things to understand people, and yourself better. Finally, I quote Dumbledore (because it's cool to quote), "it is our choices, Harry, that show who we truly are, far more than our abilities."

And with that, adios!