Category Archives: Philosophy

Russel on prudence and passion

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A few days ago I wondered about a curious dichotomy that I find in Wilde's writing, that most of his major characters are sharp people with little respect for conventional mores in theory but very conventional lives in practice. I see it as Wilde's well-thought out tacit approval of some of society's seemingly stifling customs. I came across a few lines from Bertrand Russel which seem appropriate here. For those who do not know, Russel was a philosopher whom one could actually understand and respect but that was probably because he was also a gifted mathematician. He had the common sense which the best of philosophers so often lack (My God I hate it when people like Descarte can't figure out whether the table in front of them is real or not). The lines:

The civilized man is distinguished from the savage mainly by prudence, or, to use a slightly wider term, forethought. He is willing to endure present pains for the sake of future pleasures, even if the future pleasures are rather distant...

Civilization checks impulse not only through forethought, which is a self-administered check, but also through law, custom, and religion. This check it inherits from barbarism, but it makes it less instinctive and more systematic. Certain acts are labelled criminal, and are punished, certain others, though not punished by law, are labelled wicked, and expose those who are guilty of them to social disapproval... On the one hand the purposes of the community are enforced upon the individual, and, on the other hand the individual, having acquired the habit of viewing his life as a whole, increasingly sacrifices his present to the future.

It is evident that this process can be carried too far, as it is, for instance, by a miser. But without going to such extremes, prudence may easily involve the loss of some of the best things in life. The worshiper of Bacchus reacts against prudence. In intoxication, physical or spiritual, he recovers an intensity of feeling which prudence had destroyed; he finds the world full of delight and beauty, and his imagination is suddenly liberated from the prison of everyday preoccupations... Much of what is greatest in human achievement involves some element of intoxication, some sweeping away of prudence by passion. Without the Bacchic element, life would be uninteresting, with it, it is dangerous. Prudence versus passion is a conflict that runs through history. It is not a conflict in which we ought to side wholly with either party.

-Bertrand Russel in  The History of Western Philosophy

Flamenco Fiesta

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My good friend Natasha invited me to a Flamenco festival over the weekend. The venue was a sprawling property built over a canyon tucked away in the midst of the bustle of the SDSU campus. I could never have imagined that such a place existed in the heart of San Diego. Deeply wooded mini-trails laden with the smell of fallen leaves, illuminated in patches by the puddles of sunlight which had managed to filter through the thick foliage. I walked down one of these trails to reach a clearing upon which was set a singularly bohemian scene. Musicians huddled together practicing and learning from the flamenco masters who were invited to perform. Periodic taps of their feet and their eyes rapt in attention at the fluid strumming of those guitars. And music, in gushes of good natured melody. Women getting up and tapping to the flamenco beats as I sat in a shaded corner over a pleasant cold rock and soaked in the very unusual sensation of letting go. Like those sunny winter mornings in Lucknow when I would be laying outside on the lawn with a thin white sheet on my face. The chirping of the birds and the reassuring distant sounds of the daily household chores and I would lift the sheet up a little and look at the garden with lazy eyes - butterflies on the flowers, a squirrel running up the tree and a general sensation of warm cozy lethargy. A deep breath, letting go of the sheet, and with it, just letting go. There was Spanish food being made and drinks being served, a massage center, and classes on flamenco dance and yoga. People who had arrived from different parts of the world speaking different languages and dressed informally in beautiful colorful clothes, women with red flowers in their hair and flowing patterned skirts playing music, dancing, singing, men lounging about with their guitars and drums and glasses of sangria.

And what conversations! Do you have an interesting story to tell beyond your office and your gym and your beaten to death observations? Do you still remember what it was like to be passionate? I sat mesmerized listening to the stories of the people that I met. I had rose tinted glasses and even though I realized that their lives must also have their moments of mundane concerns, the fact that they could be so passionate about something was immensely refreshing. It's a bit like listening to Feynman even though the talents cannot be compared, but still, in that moment when he is talking about physics with a boyish twinkle in his eyes I feel rejuvenated, optimistic and far less cynical. I met singers and musicians and dancers and they would ask me what instrument do I play - a fish on land. The professional performance was in the evening in a little open air amphitheater. Flamenco guitarists jamming to complex turbulent tunes and professional dancers tapping away on the stage - their graceful, womanly and strong presence against the painted backdrop of riffing tunes. I was deeply impressed by the beauty of the spectacle, having never witnessed something like this live and from such close quarters. The dancers shot quick powerful glances and their hands would be leading their bodies in a fluid series of steps, their feet tapping to the beats of the music in the midst of palmas and shouts of olay from the audience. The juxtaposition of their quiet grace and the intense music was breathtaking. I sat in the middle of it all clapping like an excited little kid as the spectacle unfolded in the green and blue and red lights beneath a quiet dark sky with the circular white moon staring from a corner. And I was thinking about that music and that dance and how happy people were and how free, and I was thinking about the world outside that little temporary commune with its deadlines and its ridiculous grind and its little heartbreaks. I was trying to preserve the image of that little island of unmitigated joy, illuminated in its ridiculous colors, as it lay truncated in a vast dark sea infested with tremendous circular waves borne out of their own vicious logic.

Darwin's remote

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I was talking to a friend today about airplanes being equipped with life-jackets and not parachutes when I suddenly realized what an awesome sight it would be if there were actually ejection doors below each passenger's seat. You could have an additional ejection button mixed somewhere between those buttons for light, fan, air-hostess and TV channels. And every now and then, peeking from above the top of the chair in your front, you would see a head here and a head there disappear and you would open your little notebook and add 1 to the running count of people incapable of operating remotes being sacrificed at the cruel hands of Darwinian selection. If you are so inclined, you could go ahead and figure out if on average those who sit in the business class appear to be more successful at following simple instructions and conclude if things like money and a more rounded upbringing equip a person with the intelligence necessary to navigate remote control buttons. One could do similar statistics for age and who knows, maybe the airplane cabins under this novel sifting system would be much quieter places than they are now. You could then correlate your results with other data. An example would be whether it is more common for those who have to be told twice to stow their tray tables and straighten their seats while take-off and landing to also take advantage of the new and revolutionary unexpected jettisoning procedure. But all these statistics aside I really do think that the now dour and colorless airplane cabin which appears such a drag will be a much more exciting place to be. Airlines can probably conduct studies and accommodate more people, knowing that a certain percentage of people on average would rather have a shorter trip. Who's going to be a sure victim? Me. I had a television for 3 years and I could never turn it on and watch the cable. No exaggeration. I only watched it either if it was already on or if one of my roommates, who would surely have survived this Darwinian pitfall, was there alongside me. But then I am a man very aware of my own limitations. When in the vicinity of a remote I do flinch a little and I do suffer from performance anxiety but I never am quite so bold as to take liberties with its operations. My very conservative nature when it comes to collections of buttons might just be enough to save me in this evolutionary paradigm. But then there is nothing shameful about cowardice and ineptitude. If it was not for the ability of certain mammals to live scared in burrows, they would never have survived to become the dominant specie after the extinction event which killed off the dinosaurs (KT boundary).

Duchamp's letter

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I came across the following letter which Marcel Duchamp sent to his brother-in-law Jean Crotti when asked about his opinions on an art piece. Duchamp was a trailblazing artist of the earlier part of the 20th century and has arguably done more than anyone else to shape the artistic sensibilities of the modern Western world. He has been a polarizing figure and I have had more than my share of snickering disapprovals (mostly at the hands of MV) for being fascinated by this artist. Something tells my that the ideas in the letter apply more generally to life.

You were asking my opinion on your work of art, my dear Jean - It's very hard to say in just a few words - especially for me as I have no faith - religious kind - in artistic activity as a social value.

Artists throughout the ages are like Monte Carlo gamblers and the blind lottery pulls some of them through and ruins others - To my mind, neither the winners nor the losers are worth bothering about - It's a good business deal for the winner and a bad one for the loser.

I do not believe in painting per se - A painting is made not by the artist but by those who look at it and grant it their favors. In other words, no painter knows himself or what he is doing - There is no outward sign explaining why a Fra Angelico and a Leonardo are equally 'recognized'.

It all takes place at the level of our old friend luck - Artists, who in their own lifetime, have managed to get people to value their junk are excellent traveling salesmen, but there is no guarantee as to the immortality of their work - And even posterity is just a slut that conjures some away and brings others back to life (El Greco), retaining the right to change her mind every 50 years or so.

This long preamble just to tell you not to judge your own work as you are the last person to see it (with true eyes) - What you see neither redeems nor condemns it - All words used to explain or praise it are false translations of what is going on beyond sensations.

You are, as we all are, obsessed by the accumulation of principles or anti-principles which generally cloud your mind with their terminology and, without knowing it, you are a prisoner of what you think is a liberated education-

In your particular case, you are certainly the victim of the 'Ecole de Paris', a joke that's lasted for 60 years (the students awarding themselves prizes, in cash).

In my view, the only salvation is in a kind of esotericism - Yet, for 60 years, we have been watching a public exhibition of our balls and multiple erections - Your Lyons grocer speaks in enlightened terms and buys modern painting -

Your American museums want at all costs to teach modern art to young students who believe in the 'chemical formula'-

All this only breeds vulgarization and total disappearance of the original fragrance.

This does not undermine what I said earlier, since I believe in the original fragrance, but, like any fragrance, it evaporates very quickly (a few weeks, a few years at most). What remains is a dried up nut, classified by the historians in the chapter 'History of Art'-

So if I say to you that your paintings have nothing in common with what we see generally classified and accepted, and that you have always managed to produce things that were entirely your own work, as I truly see it, that does not mean you have the right to be seated next to Michelangelo-

What's more, this originality is suicidal as it distances you from a 'clientele' used to 'copies of copiers', often referred to as 'tradition'-

One more thing, your technique is not the 'expected' technique - It's your own personal technique, borrowed from nobody - And there again, this doesn't attract the clientele.

Obviously if you'd applied  your Monte Carlo system to your painting, all these difficulties wouldl have turned into victories. You would even have been able to start a new school of technique and originality.

I will not speak of your sincerity because that is the most widespread commonplace and the least valid - All liars, all bandits are sincere. Insincerity does not exist - The cunning are sincere and succeed by their malice, but their whole being is made up of malicious sincerity.

In a word, do less self-analysis and enjoy your work without worrying about opinions, your own as well as of others.

Affectionately,

Marcel

Excerpts from the diary of the first bipedal

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Following are some excerpts taken from the diary of the Australopithecus primate who is now widely considered to be the first to make bipedalism fashionable. His diary incidentally happens to be the first known written work in history as all his ancestors who walked on four feet could never handle paper and pen and those who walked on three could manage only one of the two at one time. Literary work dating before this diary, therefore, only consists of either blank pages or unused pens. It is evident that the author of this diary, unnamed as he is, suffered rejection at the hands of his contemporaries who found his bipedalistic leanings extremely postmodern. They also did not like the fact that when winter came while their hands would get cold, he would just slip both his hands into his pockets and whistle to the tune of 'what a wonderful world.' This, combined with the author's smugness on his ability to count till 10 using his fingers while the tripedals barely managed 5 and the quadripedals only reached as far as zero, meant that he led a life of social isolation.

Jan-4, 4.32 M.Y B.C.

'Those are 7 children you've got,' I told my brother today, only to be met with yet another stare of disbelief and suspicion. He stopped counting after five and refuses to admit that the food he manages is not sufficient for his family. I've told him time and again that I won't always be around to count for him and that he should try to stand on his own feet but sadly enough his attitude is steeped knee deep in orthodoxy. He refuses to see what I see but that's primarily because he doesn't get up as high as I do. And that's precisely the problem. That's the problem with him. That's the problem with his wife. In fact, that's the problem with our entire specie. Sometimes I'm afraid that if we don't try to free up our hands now, we won't have enough time to learn how to eat with knives and forks once they are invented. The best we would ever manage to do is to use chopsticks but how does one eat steak with them? Forget eating, how would one apply soap on his back? There are many issues that one worries about, not least of them being the utter hostility with which my suggestions are met. I think I have mentioned before that I'm not exactly a blast at parties and social gatherings. Oh yes I do manage a conversation every now and then but I just have to pick up the plate in order for everyone to remember errands they need to complete. They have instilled fear about me in the minds of the young ones and those little cretins try to throw rocks at me when I'm not looking - for once I'm happy that their motor abilities are impaired by this institutionalized quadripedalism.

What the world needs now is a bit of a revolution. We have to join hands and rise up to the challenges. Sure our hands are tied now with conservative orthodoxy but this ambivalence has to go if we intend to handle the opportunity which is provided by our increasing reach. Our future, I believe, can be in our own hands. Right now it's merely in our own feet. The world, I hope, would be at our feet someday. Right now it's also at our hands.

Steppenwolf

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I read the book Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse over the weekend and here is an effort to glean some coherence out of its brilliantly ambitious and seemingly inchoate mass of ideas. I am glad to say that despite the back cover of the book containing phrases like 'blend of eastern mysticism and western culture', 'soul's journey to liberation', and 'vital spiritual force' this book has much more to offer in terms of imagination and depth than so many treatises on all kinds of philosophy do. There is no doubt that my contempt for philosophizing, especially the sort which gives you the idea that there is something higher worth aspiring for, results from my own belief in the ridiculousness and accidental nature of life. Yet, I cannot deny that life has a beautiful intricacy to it - the sort of complexity which gives rise to our best artistic creations, our desperations, our flights of imaginations, happinesses, insecurities and so many other interesting concepts. As someone who stands in awe at the magnificent variety of life, I find it a worthy occupation trying to dissect this complexity without falling into the trap of moralizing or teaching. Steppenwolf is an enjoyable attempt at this. Barring some questionable references to the 'wisdom of the east', the 'immortality of the soul', and a few other nuggets of bullshit thrown here and there (Mr. Hesse was a spiritualist so I did expect some unbearable passages.) Steppenwolf is a good book.

It is contemporary in the sense of concerning with the isolation of a man in the modern society. It deals with the sort of isolation which on a superficial level is afforded only by the modern society and is seen to be increasing as technology allows us to be more and more disconnected yet connected. On a deeper level, though, this book is about the kind of isolation which is very much independent of time and age. The isolation of the man who has refused to buy into the common ideals of society. The man who has spent considerable effort trying to hone his intellectual side and, thus, has developed a highly biting sense of contempt towards the mass of humanity who do not appreciate the 'finer way of living.' This mass of humanity, quite understandably, finds such a man unbearable and is only too happy to leave him to his own devices. The desperation that follows this isolation, however, is compounded by the fact that man is, in essence, merely an animal. His animal instincts (represented by the wolf in this book) often clash with his desire to be civilized. The desire to kill, to be unlawful, for sex, and for aggression are in direct odds with his desire to be swept away in the gay abandon of Mozart, Handel, Bach, and the intellectual thoughts of Nietzsche, Novalis, and Goethe. Our protagonist (Harry), therefore, decides that suicide is the only resolution to such a deep seated conflict.

This is where he comes across a girl who seems to be able to read his thoughts and make more sense out of them than Harry himself can. She empathizes with him and gives him an immediate reason to live for. The essence of the book from here on is Harry's reintroduction to the 'indulgences of the bourgeoisie.' Dancing, jazz, sex, drugs - all those activities of the common man which Harry had so much contempt for. The wolf rears its head against the cultural snob every now and then and the inevitable question is raised - 'What is right?' And thankfully the question is left more or less unanswered; or at least open to interpretation.

The book ends with Harry's foray into the very imaginative 'theater of magic.' It raises topics like the profligacy and the simultaneous necessity (even inevitability) of war, the ridiculous duality of our civilized existence in a world which is hopelessly burning, the triviality and the simultaneous magic of 'human emotions' like love,  the chanced nature of our birth and existence, and the ultimate folly of taking oneself too seriously. To my liking, none of these topics are explicitly stated or preached upon but a reader with sufficient intelligence should be able to sniff them out in the brilliant and surrealistic theater of magic. I, with my very limited intelligence, could decipher some broad themes but I am quite flummoxed by the way the book ends. At this point, it appears to me that some characters and ideas of the book have been modeled upon the Bhagwad Gita but my ignorance of Gita prevents me from being able to verify my suspicions.

All in all, it's a very good book. Highly recommended.

So it goes.

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Just finished reading Vonnegut's famous Slaughterhouse Five. New York Times, in their original review of the book, said something to the effect that you'd either love it or push it aside as a science fiction book. I suppose great works have that capability of sharply dividing public opinion but I just found the book... listless - which is probably a great compliment for it in a warped sort of way.

The book, like other Vonnegut's novels, is about nothing really. I mean, it sort of has an anti war message in its mundane and trivializing portrayal of the bombing of Dresden. It may be called a science fiction novel in its description of the planet of Tralfamadour but the greatest compliment I can give to the book is that it's about nothing and the only thing it manages to do in its 250 pages is babble about zillion small and disconnected happenings and concepts. I am by no means being critical -  because I really believe that Vonnegut, for the kind of writer that he was, appreciated above all other acclaim, the acclaim of being the champion of nothing. It seems to me that he was the sort of chap who looked at the triviality of the world and the seriousness with which people took themselves with an amused look - and the world with all its self-presumed purpose was nothing but a heady dose of entertainment for him. Very much like George Carlin actually. He preaches no morals, sort of believes in predestination, really doesn't have much sympathy for any cause, and doesn't want anything to do with group mentality. He is disinterested with the travails of the irrational humanity but understands that he needs to milk it in order to lead a decent life. And he knows that he is smart enough to jeer at the dumb humans and us humans would love him for it. Slaughterhouse Five is exactly the sort of novel which you expect to come from such a person.

I love the ideas in the book and share Vonnegut's amusement at human irrationality (not to say that I'm not irrational), but a satirical antiwar book, for me, has to be measured against the gold standard of Catch-22, and it just doesn't hold up there. There is a cruelty in Catch-22, an absolute inhuman disgust at human herd-mentality, a complete disregard for so many of our cherished ideals - it's a symphony in cacophony, and S5 is nowhere near. Vonnegut probably never tried to write another Catch-22 and there is no obvious reason to compare the two but I cannot help it. But here is the thing - if I had to ignore the content of the book and evaluate Vonnegut as the avant garde, zany writer that he was supposed to be, I'd prefer Woody Allen over him. Allen is not considered a great writer maybe because he never really wrote seriously, but from what I have read from him, there is nobody that I've read (with the exception of Kafka) who even comes close to how crazy his imagination was and is. The trouble with Vonnegut is that in whichever department I choose to evaluate his brilliance, it is always easy to find someone else who is much better. So it goes (and that's how Vonnegut ends most of his paragraphs).

Chicken...

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...or Buffalo wings, as they are called in the country for which the rest of the world is an appendix, refers to the uncooked lump of meat skewered over the top of two drumsticks. Sure it has two eyes, a nose, and two ears but these are details not worth the time of anyone except the technical ones - and let's face it, their opinions don't count. So anyhoo, I was describing Chicken. Well, not much to describe there, is it? They go about their lives doing something quite inconsequential until one day - BAM - on a barbeque, roasting away under the warm embrace of Lawry's garlic salt. Some of them give eggs, a lot of which end up in Denny's and the rest of them produce more chickens which send up Lawry's share by a fraction of a percentage. So if there is like a chicken equivalent of Immanuel Kant who has brooded upon the purpose of his life, I suspect that Lawry's pvt. ltd. features prominently in his musings. If eggs have life (you never know, some people even think plants have life!), they probably think about Denny's a lot. But I think we should really rein in our crazy speculations, which already crossed the line of rationality when we started thinking of chickens and eggs as anything more than food. What a crazy idea! Anyhoo, to make things a bit clearer, because let's face it - it's a complicated topic, I have made the following flowcharts which explain everything about chickens and eggs:

1 Chicken -> 2 drumsticks + 1 barbecued breast piece

1 egg -> not much, but 2 eggs -> 1 omlette

Speaking of chickens and eggs, I have often wondered which came first. I think we'll have to see if Lawry's setup their shop before Denny's because let's face it, what would Lawry's have made if the world only consisted of eggs? Vice-versa, how would Denny's have made omlettes from chickens? A quick search shows that Lawry's was established in 1938 and Denny's in 1953 which means there were no chickens before 1938 and no eggs before 1953. There you have it - once and for all, a huge conundrumstick solved!

God and Russian literature

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We all understand that it's all a theater, don't we? That the world as we know it is just a cosmic afterthought, a mere divine joke in which a lot of people take their parts far too seriously and the rest of them have a hearty laugh about it. It's like a friendly banter over beer and you just have to look closely enough to realize that nothing really is sacrosanct. So in this world which appears serious but is actually quite ridiculous, every smart theory must have its stupid, trivial dual. Like god for example. Science works its ass off trying to explain every little detail, checks and rechecks itself innumerable number of times, sweats like a pig, and finally has to contend with so much uncertainty that Heisenberg's cat, in comparison, seems like a sure bet. It's the serious explanation but then there's the joker's explanation which is god. 'It's just the way it was intended' and poof!, there goes all your seriousness.

Anyway, the reason I was thinking on these lines is that while reading a bit of Dostoevsky, it suddenly dawned upon me that all my disappointment in Russian literature might not have anything to do with its content at all. One thing is for sure though, when it comes to depressing, morbid imagination there is no race which trumps the Russian. No other group of people, as a whole, has inflicted as much misery upon the world as Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, and Chekhov together have through their stories of the sad farmer whose wife had an affair. But that is probably not the only reason why I find it hard to read Russian literature (actually I very much like Chekhov). The main reason, I think, is the bloody names these Russians have. 'Bezukhovs', 'Drubetskoys', 'Ekaterina Alexandrovna Shcherbatskaya', 'Pavel Fyodorovich Smerdyakov', 'Katerina Ivanovna Verkhovtseva' etc. I mean, what the hell? Here I am, trying to wade through an already dense plot where commentaries on human nature are getting intermingled with moral dilemmas and plot twists, and suddenly Ms. Katerina Ivanovna Verkhovtseva walks in and I have to spend the next two minutes dealing with her roadblock of a name. Any race which is sadistic enough to name their young one Katerina Ivanovna Verkhovtseva must necessarily be a depressed one. Their tragedies must necessarily be complex and detailed and heroic and there must necessarily be a complete lack of trivial subject matters. The trivial subject matters are for races which name their children Tom and Rob and Dick. For such races, human life is a travesty to begin with, their coffers have always been full and they have never had to face paucity as a culture, hence, their literature is light on its feet. Imagine an elaborate tragedy with backstabbing siblings and cheating wives and death and misery and moral turpitude and imagine its central character named Bob. Just doesn't cut it. Something tells me that that central character can only be named Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov or some other Russian derivative of the same. Well that's my alternative 'god' theory of the difficulty of Russian literature. It kicks in when I don't feel like thinking or arguing because it's all quite pointless to begin with. There is never a resolution to any argument so I might as well have a bit of fun and indulge in a bit of mockery - very much like the god argument. Did I make any sense? Oh dear god, I sincerely hope not!