What describes a nation, or more importantly who describes a nation? Nations like to tell about heroic, victorious events of their history, it is pleasant; they are proud of their famous compatriots. Moreover, they are flattered to be highly estimated by foreign prominent people for two and a half thousand years and sometimes that words have been even overestimated. But the first-hand sources confirm, consequently, they are real. Accordingly, it is needed to understand why they expressed glorious opinions about Armenians as the authors include famous thinkers of different nations and world greats.

There are many scientific hypotheses known in the history of science, which have been rationally explained for many, even hundreds of years. Great thinkers often come to intuitive conclusions that are incomprehensible to most of their contemporaries, they are even being criticized for their ideas. For decades, I kept viewing an approach by Joseph Pitton de Tournefort (16561708), a great French thinker and member of Paris Academy who noted; Armenian nation is the best nation in the world; they are moral, polite, full of chastity and decency.

At first sight, one may take this kind of statement as unreasonable and exaggerated. Armenians are patriotic, proud, but they are very critical to themselves; even a nationalist Armenian will not express such ideas. At the same time, another French thinker, historian, famous geographer Jacques lise Reclus (18301905) claims: The Armenian villager can be attributed to what Turnefor said; Armenians are the best people in the world without much exaggeration, which, in its turn, means that there are still serious grounds for such opinions.

More than a hundred years after Tournefort, the great English poet Lord George Gordon Byron wrote. The virtues of Armenians are their own, and the shortcomings are taken from others. In short, Armenians are decent and perfect and the like.

At first glance, it seems that such opinions require a lot of different knowledge on many nations, which will let us come to a certain conclusion through comparison. In other words, it was necessary to study a certain set of knowledge, which was still quite narrow at the times of the mentioned authors. Accordingly, the conclusions had to have a different starting point.

From our point of view, that starting point could have been based on several notorious historical facts, in particular:

1) Testimonies of ancient Greek and Roman historians about the Armenian people and Armenia,

2) Although several dozen peoples lived in the Armenian Highlands and Mesopotamia in ancient times, but few survived, including the Armenian people,

3) Starting from the ancient Roman and Persian periods and throughout the Middle Ages, Armenia was the scene of savage invasions (Arabs, Mongols, Seljuks, Ottomans, etc.), but Armenians continued to keep their existence in the Armenian Highlands,

4) the last mentioned outstanding peace-loving characteristic of the Armenian people, which was manifested both during the powerful Armenian kingdoms and after the loss of statehood

5) Existence of Armenian colonies in many countries, including European ones, where Armenians, have both preserved their national identity, and, at the same time, having been integrated in the new national environment, have contributed to the prosperity of those countries,

6) The process of preserving and continuously developing the Armenian language, the theological, philosophical, scientific, literary heritage created in Armenian, and the publishing heritage, too,

7) Existence of unique Armenian culture, civilization, and also contribution of Armenians to world civilization.

These basic ideas, of course, are not exhaustive; there are and there will possible be other ideas, too. It is necessary to understand the main thing: who is the Armenian, what are his peculiarities and what it was that ensured his existence for millennia?

I will emphasize the following description of Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), a great German thinker about Armenians: Hardworking and intelligent people, they have a special origin, all the nations accept Armenians with open arms, they have excellent mettle, it is impossible for us to talk about their preliminary formation.

Till today, modern historiography, linguistics, and ethnography are not able to fully present the preliminary formation of the Armenian nation, but there are certain assumptions. But first, let us consider the special origins of the Armenian people. One thing is certain; the origin, development and formation of the Armenian people are hidden in the thick fog of thousands of years. At all events, according to the modern genetic research, scientists confirm that Armenians have lived in their highlands for more than 7-8 thousand years. The Armenian language and culture also testify to the mentioned facts. It is clear that the perfection of the language, the elaboration, the rich vocabulary, the ability to express thoughts, ideas, knowledge, human emotions could not be created even for centuries, it has, surely, taken millennia. Differently, the development of the language also has required a rich culture, the development of which also took millennia. Language and culture, complementing and enriching each other, as well as creatively assimilating and synthesizing the best values and traditions of neighboring languages and cultures, have become, one may say, a dominant language and culture of regional significance. Thanks to that, the Armenian people have survived in the Armenian Highlands for millennia.

When talking about the special origin of the Armenian people, one cant help drawing attention to the Armenian Highlands. Generally, living in the mountains is viewed to be one of the best ways of protections from outside attacks, but limiting yourself to it does not yet give answers to many questions. The inhabitants of the mountainous regions have to constantly struggle and adapt to the harsh climatic conditions, and in order to achieve the result they need the joint efforts of the people, which, in its turn, forces them to develop special and stricter forms of coexistence as compared with the conditions in the valleys. On the contrary, mountains devote people certain advantages, such as working tools, raw materials for housing (obsidian, copper, tin, iron, various non-metallic building materials, and the like), easier means of self-protection, and all the rest. And finally, the mountains give people spiritual charge, spirituality, and also form a uniqueway of thinkingand a way of life which corresponds to it. The One for all, all for one thinking is typical, first of all, to the mountaineers. The evidence of the last mentioned is not only the way of life, behavior and manners of Armenians, but also of all mountain peoples.

There is not any coincidence that the civilizations formed in Mesopotamia, more specifically in the valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, have constantly been changed, and the Armenian civilization having been formed in the Armenian Highlands has kept maintaining its existence and developing steadily.

The mountaineer, whether he wants it or not, must be honest, decedent, hospitable, hardworking and inquisitive, physically and mentally healthy, conservative, apologist of public and individual order, initiative and courageous, and so on and so forth. Just as he receives guests with open arms, so he will be received with open arms, too. The mountaineer is in need of accepting guests just because he is isolated from the world and needs to be informed about what is going on in the world around him. This is how the excellent mettle, mentioned by Kant, has been formed. It is obvious that the bearer of all this is first of all the villager, to whom Reclu rightly attributes Turnefors words about Armenians.

The open-arms feature is also hardened in the cold. Armenians have also been involved in trade for centuries, which comes to say that they have not cheated in doing business, no matter how much they pursued personal interests, on the contrary, they have been able to attract customers, including members of royal families, great princes and feudal lords, nobles, local big merchants, and also to prove their honesty, kindness, without which they would have never been welcomed with open arms. Armenian merchants often also acted as royal translators, diplomats, achieved high positions in some countries, and became foreign ministers.

It is obvious that during the long contacts the Armenian merchants have not been engaged only in trade, but, simultaneously, have introduced Armenian culture, art, crafts to foreigners, participated in various events of the given country and the like. With their involvement, the Armenians have built churches, schools, established printing houses in the colonies, and came up with charitable initiatives. They have even had a special costume-suit worthy of the time and it is not accidental that Rousseau wore the clothes of an Armenian merchant to avoid political persecution. And, of course, the establishment of that country was well aware of all that.

Another characteristic Armenians have, is their peace-loving nature. Turnefor writes that Armenians consider themselves to be happy when not dealing with weapons, in contrast with other nations, they take up arms only to defend themselves against any attacks. Another thing that is worth mentioning is the assurance of the Russian historian Sergei Glinka (1775 / 6-1847). I am not writing praise, and how far are all stories(about Armenians) from praise? Armenians were not carried away by violent outbursts of conquest by the moral features of their national spirit as all that have been transitory.

Defending the homeland, preserving their own independence, withstanding external violence attempts-these are the main goals for them to get armed. Here is why Mihr, one of their pagan Gods, was a spiritual fire that preserved and would not harm the nature and man. Lets apply to J. Byron again. It is difficult to find a chronology of a nation that is free from vicious crimes than that of the Armenians, whose virtues are the product of peace and whose vices are the result of repression. An English politician, statesman William Ewart Gladstone (1805-1898) is also needed to be mentioned as a known person having written about Armenians; According to him, Armenians are one of the oldest peoples of the Christian civilization and one of the most peaceful, entrepreneurial and sensible one in the world, he also mentions that diligence, striving for peace, common sense are the main reasons why slavery was not formed in Armenia as a society.

We may continue the series of glorifying Armenians may be continued remembering the German orientalist V. Belkin member of the French Academy, Russian military historian Viktor Abaza (1831-1898) and others. Just let me mention that the biggest proof of the Armenians love of/ towards peace is their history, full of episodes of their struggle for independence and liberation, also known in the East for its arrogance, pages about great generals, war heroes and, finally, the best evidence is the epic poem Sasna Tsrer. An example of peace-loving feature of the Armenian people is the King Artashes I of the mighty empire of Greater Armenia, who marked the borders of the Armenian kingdom not through force of arms, but through the presence of an Armenian-speaking population. Generally, peace-loving is conditioned with diligence and the ability to acquire wealth on ones own. For thousands years having lived in the strict conditions of the highlands, Armenians have learned to earn their own living, to work hard, to know the laws of nature, and also to realize that by robbing someone elses property, you impoverish yourself. Having always been constant victim of the surrounding robbers, Armenians have forever realized that robbery is not the right way to live well. Robbery, theft, taking someone elses property always causes resistance and as a result of robbery one should be ready not only to gain, but also to lose; one loses his children, his peace of mind, and often becomes a victim of robbery. There have existed many powerful empires, which have disappeared with their peoples before the eyes of Armenians. Every war, even a victorious one, gives birth to a new war and, predominantly, the winner becomes the loser. This is how the Sumerians, Akkadians, Assyrians, Roman and Parthian empires disappeared from the face of the earth.

Since the ancient times, plunder has been an important part of the way of life of the peoples having in the European continent, but having adopted the ancient Greek philosophical rationalism, the Europeans did manage to greatly promote education, science, technology, develop the arts, and inherit the cruel, malevolent and arrogant path concentrating on urgent political and economic interests and due to that, they succeeded in ensuring a prosperous life for the golden billion of their citizens and subjects.

The thinkers of the European Enlightenment, who advocated the ideas of human rights, freedom, equality, fraternity proclaimed by the French Revolution, in fact did not have worthy followers and did not guarantee the embodiment of the idea of fraternity. It was all this that led archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann Johann Ludwig Heinrich Julius Schliemann (1822-90) to come to the conclusion according to which the tragedy of Europe is that its civilization is stood on the Greek rather than the Armenian culture.

Today, the West is reaping the fruits of its sins; international terrorism and international migration. They are just germs and still Europe has a lot to pay for the atrocities, looting, wars, and damage to hundreds of peoples.

Above we mentioned about the Armenian colonies, which have a history of thousands of years, and not only multilingual literature, references-studies exist but also significant traces of material culture have been preserved. Some Armenian colonies have been created by the migration of Armenians, when for various reasons the Armenians were forced to leave their homeland, others by the forced resettlement or deportation of savage states. The forcible deportation had several goals: first, to evict the Armenian territories in order to appropriate them once and for all, on the other hand, to make those territories unattractive or unsuitable for the enemy neighboring countries. Our immediate neighbors, Byzantium, Persia, Rech Pospolita, Transylvania, Russia, India, have forcibly or peacefully populated villages, towns, and regions with Armenians. By deporting, sometimes taking advantage of, providing land, economic privileges, national educational, cultural, religious freedoms, granting internal autonomy, Armenians settled their uninhabited or occupied territories, using their commercial and craft potential for their own security and development. What was the reason for this kind of friendly attitude towards Armenians? The answer is obvious. Armenians are hardworking, progressive and, also, peace-loving/peaceful.

On this subject, I would love to remind a part from the history of the Crimea. When Russian Empress Catherine II (1762-96) instructed Prince Potemkin to seize the Crimea, he took the following step: invited the Greeks and Christian Armenians, granted tax and property privileges to his country. The caravans of Christian Armenians and Greeks moved to Christian Russia, as a result of which the short-lived worker collapsed economically and lost his resistance on the eve of the Russian invasion.

Byzantium once weakened the Armenian kingdoms, evicted Armenians, paved the way for the Turkish troops to the depths of the country, to Constantinople and perished, so the Turks did not shy/keep away from any means, even resorting to genocide and statelessness, depriving themselves of a viable Christian element.

The West will also greatly contribute to this, as soon as it gets rid of Britains We have no fixed allies, we have no eternal enemies. Only our interests are immutable and eternal(Henry Temple, Lord Palmerson, 1848) destructive philosophy. It is necessary to have permanent friends, which can be achieved only through mutually beneficial cooperation.

Although, at first sight, the words of praise from many famous foreigners about the Armenian people may seem to have been exaggerated, they are really justified. However, this does not still mean that Armenians are the best people of the world, at least because there are many good nations, who have greatly contributed to the development of human civilization. For centuries, Armenians, having been under the brutal rule of foreigners, have taken many of their flaws and now they have left the national-moral image of their ancestors out having lost many values. Accordingly, I am sending a message to Armenians not only to be proud of the glory and praise of the past, but also to make efforts to restore the special majesty and virtue of the Armenian nation, and to get rid of foreign flaws. Only with that self-purification and exaltation you will be able to consider yourself a virtuous people, which is more important than the praise of others.

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What stands behind escalation of the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan? - Modern Diplomacy

What is it, the Austro-Hungarian novelist Joseph Roth asked rhetorically in 1927, in a preface to his book The Wandering Jews, that allows European states to go spreading civilisation and ethics in foreign parts but not at home? Forty years later, as American cities burned while American bombs rained down on Vietnam, James Baldwin made a similar point, though reversing Roths formulation. A racist society, he wrote, cant but fight a racist war this is the bitter truth. The assumptions acted on at home are also acted on abroad.

The relationship between the internal and the external policies of western liberal democracies lies also at the heart of Pankaj Mishras work. The Indian-born novelist and essayist has, over the past decade, become an important and illuminating critic of liberalism and globalisation.

Bland Fanatics is a collection of essays published over that time that range from excoriations of Niall Ferguson and Salman Rushdie, to a study of US president Woodrow Wilsons hypocrisy over his support for national self-determination, to an unpacking of the irrationality of western attitudes to Islam.

Two themes link the essays. The first is the hollowness and bad faith of liberalism. In the early 1960s, the Irish academic and politician Conor Cruise OBrien observed that those in former colonies in Africa and Asia were sickened by the word liberalism, seeing it as an ingratiating moral mask which a toughly acquisitive society wears before the world it robs. Had more western intellectuals paid attention to such hostility, Mishra suggests, had they recognised liberalisms complicity in western imperialism, they might have been better prepared for the current challenges facing the liberal tradition.

Mishras writings have been important in exposing the narrow parochialism of western intellectuals

This leads to the second theme in Bland Fanatics the significance of the non-western world in shaping history and blindness of western liberals to that world. Mishra takes aim at prettified histories of the rise of the democratic west in which centuries of civil war, imperial conquest, brutal exploitation and genocide are glossed over in accounts of how westerners made the modern world and became with their liberal democracies the superior people everyone else ought to catch up with.

Mishras writings have been important in exposing the narrow parochialism of western intellectuals and in bringing the history of the rest of the world into discussions of European and American history and politics. There is, though, a narrowness to his own approach, which raises as many questions about Mishras critique as he does about liberalism.

It is striking, for instance, that there is barely a mention of class in Bland Fanatics, except for the odd line deriding the Brexit pretensions of the British ruling class. To write 16 essays on the problems of liberalism, and the character of its current crisis, without discussing its impact on the working class or the role of the working class in the contemporary anti-liberal tumult, not only in Europe and America, but globally, seems extraordinary.

In an essay on the African-American writer Ta-Nehisi Coates, Mishra chides him for viewing the rise of Donald Trump as an expression of a whitelash from those who feared the black man in the White House, pointing out that Trump also benefited from the disappointment of white voters who had voted, often twice, for Obama, and of black voters who failed to turn out for Hillary Clinton.

Yet Mishras own account of the rise of Trump, and of populism more broadly, seems implausible and contradictory, too. In his previous book The Age of Anger, Mishra linked the fury that had brought populist leaders to power to that which underlies Islamist terror and sectarian violence, seeing them all as expressions of what Kierkegaard and Nietzsche called ressentiment, the existential resentment of other peoples being, caused by an intense mix of envy and sense of humiliation and powerlessness. The roots of such resentment Mishra traced back to the backlash against Enlightenment rationalism and the refusal of liberals to acknowledge the importance of community, identity and authenticity.

It was a provocative thesis, exhilarating in parts but infuriating, too, in its flattening of historical nuance. It is, for instance, one thing to recognise the importance of community and identity and the anger created by the atomisation of societies. It is quite another, though, to view the desire for community as an expression of what Mishra calls the persistent power of unreason or to see all forms of inchoate and half-articulated rage as drawing upon the same historical source.

In any case, in Bland Fanatics the argument has shifted. Mishra argues here (in an essay written the year after The Age of Anger was published) that the election of Trump represents the last and most desperate phase of a journey that moves through colonialism, slavery, segregation, ghettoisation, militarised border controls and mass incarceration. This is a very different historical lineage to that in The Age of Anger and one shaped by the actions of the elite, not by the feelings of those who resent their exclusion from the world created by that elite.

What is missing in Bland Fanatics is any attempt to analyse liberalism in the round. Were there any historical gains from the emergence of liberalism? What, if anything, is worth saving from the liberal tradition? How should we assess the tension between Enlightenment ideals, from which many anti-colonial movements drew inspiration, and the practice of European colonialism that denied those ideals to the majority of people in the world? Such questions are ignored by Mishra.

There is much that is valuable in Mishras writings, opening up as they do new perspectives in the debate about liberalism and about the relationship between the west and the global south. Its a pity that there is also much that obscures even as it illuminates.

Bland Fanatics: Liberals, Race and Empire by Pankaj Mishra is published by Verso (16.99). To order a copy go to guardianbookshop.com. Free UK p&p over 15

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Bland Fanatics by Pankaj Mishra review both obscures and illuminates - The Guardian

Anaal Nathrakhs brand of extreme blackened, grinding death metal is as consistent as it thought-provoking and heavy. That was true of A New Kind Of Horror (2018) and the very same is looking to be accurate for their next album, Endarkenment. With its recently released first single and eponymous cut being the kind of explosive, riff-heavy style the band are highly regarded for. With all of multi-instrumentalist Mick Kenneys noisy guitars and sick blast beats, and vocalist Dave Hunts huge power-metal refrains sitting in their usual places.

Like other Anaal Nathrakh albums, theres many liner notes to accompany the themes and messages of their songs. Endarkenment is no different. With Dave sharing about this forthcoming album and its subsequent titular songs theme of post-truths, personal selfishness and political dogma, that:

There has been, and continues to be, increasingly widespread rejection of Enlightenment-style values such as rationalism, skepticism, the rejection of faith in favour of judgements dependent on empirically verifiable phenomena and so on. There are local versions in many places, but in our native UK, this was summed up by politician/sinister gnome Michael Goves famous claim that weve had enough of experts. Thus we enter the age of endarkenment.

In the tracks fiendish second verse, Dave sums up that flawed thought process as he savagely, ironically, screams: Fuck you if you think I am wrong. The answers I have are all the answers I need. Which is the most astute comment Ive heard from a band in 2020 about the rut of political discourse and academic debate we find ourselves in. Where people make up their mind based on personal preferences first; distort, reject or cherry pick evidence to the contrary second; and refuse new information and perspectives third. (Which is represented by the band portraying such people as blind swine sadly mislead by bad actors in the below music video.)

That objectivity isnt for someones commentary about movies, books, video games or albums. No, its regarding legitimate issues policy, economics, immigration, race, colour, faith, politics that carry tangible effects and real world implications. Thats why an age of endarkenment can be so dangerous. People substituting the opinion of experts and scientists in lieu of their own beliefs (or the talking heads they follow) in a misguided defence of personal liberties, everyone else be damned. Something weve seen no shortage of from those who stutter and stammer as they rehash their rehearsed mental script about freedoms whenever a shopping-centre staff member kindly asks them to wear a mask or leave.

The Birminghamduos 11th album, Endarkenment, is out October 2nd, 2020.

Read this article:

Anaal Nathrakh enter into an age of 'Endarkenment' with hectic new song - Kill Your Stereo

comment, editorial,

The 250,00 to 400,000 Victorian workers expected to be thrown out of work as a result of the imposition of the hardest lockdown seen in Australia to date will be breathing a collective sigh of relief as a result of the Federal government's decision to amend the criteria for JobKeeper. This comes on top of the recent decision to extend the scheme, which has played a pivotal role in helping millions of Australians to keep a roof over their heads and food on the table since March, for a further six months beyond its original legislated termination date. With up to one-and-a-half million Victorians expected to be relying on the payment by early next month, it would have been a catastrophe for that state - and for two-and-a-half million other people around the country - if the program had been allowed to wind down. One of the most significant changes was to shift the employee reference date (the relevant date of employment for an eligible employee) from March 1, 2020, to July 1, 2020. This means that many workers who had found employment since the economy started to open back up again since June will now also be eligible for JobKeeper. That tweak is potentially crucial to the economic welfare of tens of thousands of people. The other big shift was the decision to modify the criteria for a business's eligibility for the scheme by changing the "turnover reference period". Companies now only have to demonstrate that their income has dropped by the mandated percentage (which varies according to the size of the business) over a single quarter. This means that businesses which may have moved back towards the black during the period the pandemic was effectively under control and restrictions were being eased won't be penalised for that brief period of fiscal spring. The combined effect of these two changes will be to increase the cost of JobKeeper by around $15.6 billion during 2020-2021. The final cost may prove to be far higher given, as the Prime Minister has stressed repeatedly, economic forecasting is extremely problematic given the speed at which the situation can change. The really good news is that because JobKeeper is a national program, the changes announced on Friday will take effect nationwide. That is important given it is, as yet, unknown what impact the Victorian lockdown is going to have on other states. When you shut down one quarter of the national economy, albeit for the very best of reasons, it is going to have a massive flow-on effect. Jobs will be lost in every state and territory, including in the ACT, as a result of the interruption to supply lines sourcing goods and services out of Melbourne and the surrounding area. This is a national crisis. It's not just a case of Victoria catching a bad cold and going back to bed for a bit. The most important takeout from the changes is the timely reminder that this government, once lambasted over it's ideological commitment to economic rationalism, is willing and able to "flex" when the situation demands it. That said, in view of the fact that many Australians are going to be on JobKeeper - and JobSeeker - for far longer than was originally expected, consideration should be given to holding off on the reductions in the level of payments due to take effect later this year. While it is important to wean businesses off taxpayer-funded support payments once the situation eases, the reality is that we are not at that point yet. The Treasurer's work is far from done.

https://nnimgt-a.akamaihd.net/transform/v1/crop/frm/fdcx/doc79s4whfo0ab1nhfplerd.jpg/r9_435_4244_2828_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg

The 250,00 to 400,000 Victorian workers expected to be thrown out of work as a result of the imposition of the hardest lockdown seen in Australia to date will be breathing a collective sigh of relief as a result of the Federal government's decision to amend the criteria for JobKeeper.

This comes on top of the recent decision to extend the scheme, which has played a pivotal role in helping millions of Australians to keep a roof over their heads and food on the table since March, for a further six months beyond its original legislated termination date.

With up to one-and-a-half million Victorians expected to be relying on the payment by early next month, it would have been a catastrophe for that state - and for two-and-a-half million other people around the country - if the program had been allowed to wind down.

One of the most significant changes was to shift the employee reference date (the relevant date of employment for an eligible employee) from March 1, 2020, to July 1, 2020. This means that many workers who had found employment since the economy started to open back up again since June will now also be eligible for JobKeeper. That tweak is potentially crucial to the economic welfare of tens of thousands of people.

The other big shift was the decision to modify the criteria for a business's eligibility for the scheme by changing the "turnover reference period". Companies now only have to demonstrate that their income has dropped by the mandated percentage (which varies according to the size of the business) over a single quarter.

This means that businesses which may have moved back towards the black during the period the pandemic was effectively under control and restrictions were being eased won't be penalised for that brief period of fiscal spring.

The combined effect of these two changes will be to increase the cost of JobKeeper by around $15.6 billion during 2020-2021. The final cost may prove to be far higher given, as the Prime Minister has stressed repeatedly, economic forecasting is extremely problematic given the speed at which the situation can change.

The really good news is that because JobKeeper is a national program, the changes announced on Friday will take effect nationwide. That is important given it is, as yet, unknown what impact the Victorian lockdown is going to have on other states. When you shut down one quarter of the national economy, albeit for the very best of reasons, it is going to have a massive flow-on effect. Jobs will be lost in every state and territory, including in the ACT, as a result of the interruption to supply lines sourcing goods and services out of Melbourne and the surrounding area.

This is a national crisis. It's not just a case of Victoria catching a bad cold and going back to bed for a bit.

The most important takeout from the changes is the timely reminder that this government, once lambasted over it's ideological commitment to economic rationalism, is willing and able to "flex" when the situation demands it.

That said, in view of the fact that many Australians are going to be on JobKeeper - and JobSeeker - for far longer than was originally expected, consideration should be given to holding off on the reductions in the level of payments due to take effect later this year.

While it is important to wean businesses off taxpayer-funded support payments once the situation eases, the reality is that we are not at that point yet.

The Treasurer's work is far from done.

Read the original here:

JobKeeper changes timely and nuanced - The Canberra Times

Last November 11, on the centenary of its relocation to a 93-acre campus in suburban Washington, D.C., Georgetown Preparatory School announced a $60 million capital campaign. In his message for the opening of the campaign, Georgetown Preps president, Father James Van Dyke, SJ, said that, in addition to improving the schools residential facilities, the campaign intended to boost Preps endowment to meet increasing demands for financial aid. Like other high-end Catholic secondary schools, Georgetown Prep is rightly concerned about pricing itself out of reach of most families. So Preps determination to make itself more affordable through an enhanced endowment capable of funding scholarships and other forms of financial aid for less-than-wealthy students is all to the good.

What I find disturbing about the campaign is its branding slogan. I first became aware of it when, driving past the campus a few months ago, I noticed a billboard at the corner of Rockville Pike and Tuckerman Lane. In large, bold letters, it proclaimed, FOR THE GREATER GLORY. And I wondered, ofwhat? Then one day, when traffic allowed, I slowed down and espied the much smaller inscription in the bottom right corner: Georgetown Preps Legacy Campaign.

Ad maiorem Dei gloriam[For the greater glory of God], often reduced to the abbreviation, AMDG, was the Latin motto of St. Ignatius Loyola, founder of the Society of Jesus. Georgetown Prep is a Jesuit school. So what happened to the D-word? What happened to God? Why did AMDG become AM[D]G while being translated into fundraising English?

I made inquiries of Jesuit friends and learned that amputating the D in AMDG is not unique to Georgetown Prep; its a tactic used by other Jesuit institutions engaged in the heavy-lift fundraising of capital campaigns. That was not good news. Nor was I reassured by pondering Father Van Dykes campaign-opening message, in which the words Jesus Christ did not appear. Neither did Pope Franciss call for the Churchs institutions to prepare missionary disciples as part of what the Pope has called a Church permanently in mission. And neither did the word God, save for a closing Thanks, and God bless.

Father Van Dyke did mention that Ignatian values were one of the pillars of Georgetown preps reputation for excellence. And he did conclude his message with a call for men who will make a difference in a world that badly needs people who care, people who, in the words Ignatius wrote his best friend Francis Xavier as he sent him on the Society of Jesuss first mission, will set the world on fire. Fine. But ignition to what end?

Ignatius sent Francis Xavier to the Indies and on to East Asia to set the world on fire with love of the Lord Jesus Christ, by evangelizing those then known as heathens with the warmth of the Gospel and the enlivening flame of the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic faith. St. Ignatius was a New Evangelization man half a millennium before Pope St. John Paul II used the term. St. Ignatiuss chief Ignatian value wasgloria Dei, the glory ofGod.

Forming young men into spiritually incandescent, intellectually formidable and courageous Christian disciples, radically conformed to Jesus Christ and just as deeply committed to converting the world, was the originating purpose of Jesuit schools in post-Reformation Europe. Those schools were not content to prepare generic men for others; they were passionately devoted to forming Catholic men for convertingothers, the others being those who had abandoned Catholicism for Protestantism or secular rationalism. That was why the Jesuits were hated and feared by powerful leaders with other agendas, be they Protestant monarchs like Elizabeth I of England or rationalist politicians like Portugals 18th-century prime minister, the Marquis of Pombal.

Religious education in U.S. Catholic elementary schools has been improved in recent decades. And we live in something of a golden age of Catholic campus ministry at American colleges and universities. Its Catholic secondary education in the U.S. that remains to be thoroughly reformed so that Catholic high schools prepare future leaders of the New Evangelization: leaders who will bring others to Christ, heal a deeply wounded culture, and become agents of a sane politics. Jesuit secondary education, beginning with prominent and academically excellent schools like Georgetown Prep, could and should be at the forefront of that reform.

Jesuit secondary education is unlikely to provide that leadership, however, if its self-presentation brackets God and announces itself as committed to the greater glory ofwhatever.

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If not for the glory of God, then for what? - Catholic Review of Baltimore

Im 20 minutes into an interview with Slavojiekwhen he propositions sex. As a thought experiment, I stress.

Imagine a love encounter. Lets say you are a beautiful lady. He holds his hands up and grins. Sorry, heterosexual! Im old-fashioned. I am a guy, I want to get you.

Such is the nature of conversation with the Slovenian philosopher that he spins from enunciating Marxist social theory one moment to asking about Irelands record in combating Covid-19 the next. Right now he is focused on the implications of futuristic technology envisaged by the likes of Elon Musk which would transmit thoughts directly from one brain to another.

There will be no promises of seduction. Our minds are in contact and your mind reads a signal in me: I want to screw you. I get it back: Over my dead body, and its over in a split of a second.

Musk says he is developing a device called Neuralink with exactly this capability. The Tesla boss claims it will be ready in as little as five years, after which, according to the hype, human language will be rendered obsolete.

iekdoesnt buy it. Our minds work only through language, I claim. Language is this paradoxical intruder, he says. Because we have to communicate in language, I never know exactly what you mean but the very obstacle generates a surplus of meaning.

iek pronounced Djee-shek divides critical opinion. One camp takes him seriously as the Elvis of cultural theory: an original and invigorating left-wing thinker. A second camp treats him as a joke: a high-brow comic act, or the Borat of philosophy, obsessed with sex, movies and the abstruse writings of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel.

There is a third faction which takes iekseriously but as a dangerous relativist. One proponent of this view described him as the most despicable philosopher in the West highlighting, among iek'smany crimes of reason, his claim that Gandhi was more violent than Hitler because Gandhi didnt do anything to stop the way the British empire functioned in India.

Many people previously sympathetic to iekwere driven into this third camp a few years ago when he expressed his support for Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton in the US presidential election.

I am tempted to changing my position, he tells The Irish Times. I will put it like this. I dont think my old statement Trump better than Hillary Clinton was wrong because my calculation was a simple one: If Trump wins it will give a new boost to the left, and it did strengthen. It almost split the Democratic Party [and helped] not only Bernie Sanders but Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. It created, for the first time in I dont know how many decades, a true American left. So I still think the great merit Im sorry for this obscene term to be used with somebody like Trump is Trump mixed the cards in a new way.

Who would he vote for this time, Joe Biden or Trump?

Biden is long-term the same catastrophe as Trump, he replies. While welcoming the chaos of the current incumbent, I think Trump is a little too much. On the other hand, the Democratic contender is sometimes, you can see, painfully senile. Without giving a straight answer, he says he hopes Biden has this talent Ronald Reagan had. I was told . . . Reagan had a good Leninist talent to nominate the right people to positions. I hope [Biden] will build a better quipe around him, which will somehow control the situation.

As a committed Hegelian, or more accurately Hegelo-Lacanian his other lodestar is French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan iekis constantly holding at least two opposing ideas in his head at once. At one juncture, he describes the Hegelian outlook as desperately optimistic but he also says, I dont know a much more pessimist philosopher than Hegel.

To the extent thatiekaccounts for this particular contradiction, it is in the fact that no one is sure what Hegel actually believed; he was, after all, a philosopher described by Arthur Schopenhauer as a flat-headed, insipid, nauseating, illiterate charlatan, who reached the pinnacle of audacity in scribbling together and dishing up the craziest mystifying nonsense.

iekis Hegel incarnate in one sense at least: He has an enormous catalogue of work, producing a book roughly every six months. So frequently, in fact, that he loses track of the title that he is currently promoting.

Which book are you talking about? he asks about five minutes into our Skype call. Ah, its already that one!

The book in question is Hegel in a Wired Brain, a meditation on what the German philosopher born 250 years ago on August 27th would make of technological progress. iekdoesnt use social media and says he has never had a Twitter account; the personalised aesthetic doesnt appeal to him.

I have this old philosophical disdain, when somebody says I personally feel like that, my immediate reaction is: F**k off. I dont care how you feel. Im interested in truth. Truth not in the naive sense of objective truth but truth in the sense of what is the presupposition of what youre saying.

He credits Angela Nagle, the Irish author of Kill All Normies, for influencing his view of online communities. A weird reversal has occurred, says Zizek, wherethe new right almost appropriated all the vulgarity once associated with student reformists, and much of the new left is going into this politically correct direction.

He adds: This is my problem with the tendency to get rid of all reminders of racism, sexism and so on . . . While I am for this struggle, he asks whether ruining monuments is the best tactic. Ren Descartes, for example, is the quintessence of the western mind, pure rationalism, privileged man, no sense of empathy, and so on but wait a minute! Do you know how popular Descartes was among women readers? Why? Because cogito the pure Cartesian I has no sex; its open to contingent sexual construction . . . Without cogito there is no modern feminism.

Whatever about the quality of his logic, iekis charming company.

I have a personal question, he interjects. Dont laugh at me. I ask every Irish person: de Valera versus Michael Collins? Later, he cites the Dublin-based novelist Tana French a big hit in Slovenia as evidence of Irelands greatness. Every stupid, small nation can have a great poet, a great national novelist. To have a good detective writer means you are in.

Given the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic, Ljubljanas most famous son is already thinking of the next book. It will be something like Hegel in the Viral World, he says, having already brought out a short tract called Pandemic! in April.

The restarting of tourists flights across Europe is absolutely crazy, he believes. At the same time, I sympathise with the guy who says I dont want to wear a mask. I understand him. We are being asked literally to change our nature.

As for the effect of Covid-19 on the capitalist system, ieksays: What I like like, its an obscene term to use here for what goes on now is that even conservative prime ministers and presidents have to do things which, if you had to mention them a year ago, they would tell you: Are you crazy? This is radical left; it will never be done.

Dont expect any neat conclusions from iek. But even his fiercest critics must admit that, like a stopped clock which tells the right time twice a day, he inevitably hits upon some truth even if its the simple truth that humans are hopelessly flawed and contradictory.

With a nod to his own shortcomings, he suggests the ridiculousness of our species is what makes us special, as its something no superintelligent computer can match.

This example I use all the time Im embarrassed its in at least five of my books, he says, before retelling a joke from the 1939 Ernst Lubitsch comedy Ninotchka: You go to a restaurant and ask: Can I get coffee without cream? The waiter says: Sorry sir, we dont have cream, we only have milk, so you only can get coffee without milk.

This is a properly Hegelian point, iekadds. Both types of coffee, along with plain coffee are materially the same but they are not symbolically, in our space of meaning, the same.

I debated this with computer specialists and asked them a simple question: Could an artificial mind distinguish between plain coffee, coffee without cream and coffee without milk? And I didnt get a good answer.

Hegel in a Wired Brain by Slavoj iekis published by Bloomsbury Academic.

Link:

Slavoj iek: Joe Biden is long-term the same catastrophe as Trump - The Irish Times

The AIADMK-BJP ties have come under strain in the light of recent controversies over Kanda Sashti Kavasam, a compilation of Tamil hymns in praise of Lord Murugan, and the draping of a saffron shawl around the statue of AIADMK founder M.G. Ramachandran in Puducherry. The visible discord has prompted many to wonder whether this episode will lead to separation between the allies before the Assembly elections, scheduled for April-May next year.

Also read: Karuppar Koottam, Hindu Peravai members held under Goondas Act

Conceding that there are differences in the way they view the rows, the parties say they will, however, stick to their tie-up. The respective position of each of the parties under the existing circumstances need not be viewed in terms of electoral considerations, according to their spokespersons.

Also read: Hindus will no longer be fooled by Dravidian ideology, says L. Murugan

It all started with a little-known group called Karuppar Kootam (Group of Blacks) hosting content on social media about the Tamil devotional work, which is regarded by the BJP, a few political parties and sections of Hindus, as an act of blasphemy.

While accusing the DMK of providing tacit support to the group, the national party is not happy with the ruling party either. Neither the AIADMKs coordinator [O. Panneerselvam] and co-coordinator [Edappadi K. Palaniswami] nor the DMKs leader [M.K. Stalin] condemned the Karuppar Kootam for its action, which has hurt the dignity of Tamil women too, T. Narayanan, spokepserson of the BJP, observes.

Even the police action [arresting four persons purportedly belonging to the group and booking one under Goondas Act] came four days after us giving a complaint and exerting pressure. We need more action, as we believe there are more people behind this group. We need more action, he goes on.

Contrasting the passive approach of the AIADMK on this issue with how the ruling partys leadership reacted strongly and almost instantaneously to the MGR statue row, Mr. Narayanan says that while he is not holding a brief for those behind the statue incident if the intention is to cause trouble, his party does not see anything amiss with regard to the use of saffron shawl per se. Saffron is a symbol of purity and, after all, MGR was not an atheist.

However, Kovai Sathyan, the ruling partys spokesperson, says his party cannot be expected to react to certain events the way the BJP responds. Their [the BJPs] political style is inclined towards religious polarisation but my partys is different. We, the AIADMK, are known as a secular party, favouring all sections of society. Our philosophy is based on what Anna [former Chief Minister C.N.Annadurai] had set out and Puratchi Thalaivar and Amma [MGR and Jayalalithaa] had followed egalitarianism, social justice and rationalism.

At the same time, the ruling party is fulfilling its responsibility by taking action that is required to ensure maintenance of law and order. And we have done it with an iron hand, he says, recalling how the police, exactly a year ago, arrested a man in Kumbakonam for posting an invitation on social media for a beef eating event.

Mr. Sathyan explains that the BJP may view the Kanda Sashti Kavasam row as a political opportunity, but the AIADMKs approach is to ensure that no law and order problems arise, maintaining peace and and public order.

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Analysis | AIADMK-BJP ties under strain after recent controversies - The Hindu

Two people who made controversial comments against a Hindu prayer and a person who desecrated a Periyar statue were booked under preventive detention acts last week.

On July 26, the Chennai police invoked the Goondas act against Surendran, the founder of YouTube channel Karuppar Kootam and his colleague SJ Gopal of the Hindu Tamil Peravai. They were both arrested for circulating content alleged to be defamatory on the Kanda Sashti Kavasam, a Hindu prayer, on social media.

Three days later, the Coimbatore police detained a Bharat Sena functionary, M Arun Krishnan, for desecrating social reformer Periyar EV Ramasamy's statue. This man was booked under the stringent National Security Act (NSA), hardly invoked for acts of desecration.

The preventive detention acts were used on accused who represent two different spectrums of political ideologies currently battling it out in Tamil Nadu. But the manner in which the government has handled both these cases is similar point out political experts. And this, they allege, clearly highlights the AIADMK's efforts to pull off a 'balancing act' ahead of the elections.

"The Hindutva tag is very dangerous in Tamil Nadu and the AIADMK cannot afford to be branded as such, before an assembly election," says M Bharath, a political analyst. "The party has always taken a cat on the wall approach when it comes to dabbling in Dravidian ideology and spiritualism. While it has been born out of leaders like Annadurai who preached rationalism, its leaders, be it former Chief Minister MG Ramachandran or J Jayalalithaa, have been deeply spiritual," he adds.

Bharathi points out that ahead of the state assembly elections in 2021, the government is being doubly cautious in avoiding any further branding, in order to maintain its vote bank.

"They saw what allying with the BJP could do to their vote bank in the Lok Sabha elections and the coming elections too will be a battle of spiritual politics against dravidian and Periyarist ideologies," says Bharath.

"The right wing has a soft corner for AIADMK, and at the same time their Dravidian roots make them acceptable to rationalist vote banks as well. By treating both these cases similarly, they are giving a clear message that they are a neutral party irrespective of past alliances. They will condemn the insult to Hindu prayers and vehemently oppose desecration of Periyar statues in order to strike a balance," he adds.

But legal experts point out that in an effort to maintain its vote bank, the government is blatantly violating and manipulating the law to suit its motives.

Preventive detention in its essence is the imprisonment of a person with aim of preventing them from committing further offences or of maintaining public order. Both the Goondas act and NSA act aims at a year long preventive detention of habitual offenders.

"So, ideally to book someone under the Goondas act, they need to have a history of having committed crimes," says advocate Akhila of the Madras High court. "And if this is their first crime then their act needs to have been created or lead to potential public disorder. Both these cases - the one against Karuppar Kootam and the man who desecrated the statue may legally allow for preventive detention, but it is completely against our democratic principles," she adds.

Then why are these Acts so readily invoked?

"Police use the preventive detention laws as a tool to bypass the regular criminal justice system. This way you don't have to hold a trial till the end of the year, the charges won't be public and the FIR document will not create public debate. It is an effective way of pushing an unfavourable situation under the carpet," she explains. "In a regular case, police would need evidence and the trial process is cumbersome. There are checks and balances and the accused has their own rights. But here they can simply silence them," she adds.

Advocate and political analyst 'Tharasu' Shyam, points out that the government looks at two aspects before they decide what action is required.

"The first is whether there is uproar over the particular issue from the public and the second is if it is a direct attack on symbology pertaining to their politics. Both these causes fit into one of these criterion," he says.

Senior advocate Kannadasan however alleges that the balance portrayed in justice in these cases is merely an eyewash.

"At first glance it may look like both these cases have been treated the same way and both accused have met with the same fate. But that is not the case," says advocate Kannadasan.

He explains that the Goondas Act and NSA have one fundamental difference. The Goondas act is a state act and therefore it is the state which will recommend whether it is applicable in a certain case or not. The NSA however, though invoked by the state, is actually a central act.

"So this means that the Centre decides whether the desecration of the Periyar statue is worth preventive detention. The accused in this case can send a representation in one week. An advisory board will be formed within 40 days after this to decide on the act, " says the advocate.

'Tharasu' Shyam explains that for the Goondas Act to be lifted, the process could be months long as opposed to bail on a regular case that can be reviewed every 14 days.

"It will take the state government 2.5 months to form the board. Then formalities that the accused have to complete will take a month. This in itself will mean atleast three months in prison," he says. "If they have to go to court, the accused's counsel will have to file a habeas corpus petition and this will get delayed in front of the division bench since the state has to respond. Either way, the accused have to face months of imprisonment before they get a chance to apply for bail."

Read more:

The TN govt is using preventive detention in its political 'balancing act' - The News Minute

TheNew York Timespublished an op-ed by Republican Senator Tom Cotton advocating a military crackdown on protests.

Arguably a vile view. But, in a spirit of open discourse and Enlightenment rationalism, The Timesthought it merited publication. Especially, you might think, with mainstream media under assault for alleged left-wing bias.

Yet many Timesstaffers thought differently, objecting to publication. The Timeswas forced to apologize; the editor responsible forced to resign.

This is todays cancel culture. The paper issued a statement saying the Cotton piece did not meet its standards. What it actually transgressed was the politically correct woke catechism. With dissenters not just countered with arguments, they must be suppressed, not permitted to be heard, banished from society.

I recently reviewed Robert Boyerss book The Tyranny of Virtue, calling out this illiberal censorship mania on Americas campuses. Now it has infected our wider culture, when not even an institution like The Timescan stand against it.

AnotherTimesstaffer, Bari Weiss, resigned in protest at the papers capitulation. Echoing Boyers, she criticized what she saw as its new ethos, that the truth isnt a collective discovery, but an orthodoxy already known to an enlightened few whose job is to inform everyone else.

Were between the Scylla of the lefts intolerance of divergent viewpoints and the Charybdis of Trumpian fake news rhetoric trying to destroy the public square from the other direction.

Journalistic objectivity is a modern concept. When I researched events circa 1920 for my 1973 book on Albany politics, I was surprised at how overtly partisan newspapers were. That soon gave way to neutral reporting, with opinion confined to editorial pages. This model enabled the public to shape views based on facts and reality. How quaint that sounds today.

We also once thought the internet would make people even better informed. However, while mainstream news outfits feel both an obligation to play it straight and that this serves their commercial interests information being the product theyre selling that doesnt apply to internet platforms whose product is propaganda, and which can make money by feeding red meat to narrow audience slices.

Meantime, Americas public square used to be dominated by two political sides each also pretty much playing it straight, with issues debated honestly and rationally. Journalistic neutrality fit such a landscape. But that has changed, causing the objectivity standard to be questioned even for mainstream news media.

A recent article in The Economist spotlights the problem by quoting a December Timesreport about an impeachment hearing: the lawmakers from the two parties could not even agree on a basic set of facts. Comments The Economist:Which facts were real? Readers were left to guess.

But the magazine says a new paradigm is emerging, based on moral clarity, a sense of right and wrong.It quotes Wesley Lowery, a Pulitzer-winning journalist, that in lieu of an objectivity obsession, reporters should focus on being fair and telling the truth, as best as one can, based on the given context and available facts.

Theres been a running debate over using the words lie or racist in covering Trump. Ive long watched PBSs Washington Weekwhere journalists discuss the news, without slant. Often this means dancing around the obvious. Like always dissecting Trump actions on the pretense that theres some rationality behind them. At last, recently, The TimessPeter Baker actually used the word insane.

To exemplify the emerging standard, The Economist, quotes this start to a Timesfront page news story:

President Trump used the spotlight of the Fourth of July weekend to sow division during a national crisis, denying his failings in containing the worsening coronavirus pandemic while delivering a harsh diatribe against what he branded the new far-left fascism.

Id call this telling it like it is. Indeed, every word is factual reporting. Some, like diatribe, are loaded words, but even that usage conforms to its dictionary definition.

Of course right and wrong can always be a matter of opinion. And moral clarity, for too many today, translates into the oppressive politically correct orthodoxy Boyers described.

But I keep coming back to our being in an unprecedented national crisis. It predated covid. A crisis of this countrys soul what it stands for, what it means. Whether our pluralistic democracy can endure. This, right now, is crunch time. Journalists and the news media are on the front lines. Their responsibility transcends he-said-she-said neutrality. They must tell it like it is.

View original post here:

News objectivity in the time of Trump telling it like it is - Albany Times Union

Elections will no longer be won by votes, but by the staggering amount of noise a political party amplifies on the Internet. Politicians will continue to benefit from the collective hysteria of a dire cause manufactured and manipulated for their own agenda that is long lost. Their mere virtue signalling will no longer be mistaken for minority appeasement.

Wars will no longer be fought by soldiers in the battlefield, but by keyword warriors on social media. For, today, we stand united in a common fight against a common enemy, whose malignancy grows by and large with a much greater potency than any recorded tumour mind you, this isnt a fight between the far-lefts and far-rights. It is a fight against a society that is dangerously resilient to the fundamentals of rationalism. For, today, the world is engulfed by the oneness of one ideology: hate a cursory glance at Twitter, a politicians speech or newsroom debates for that matter, will point towards that direction.

In The Hater, Polish filmmaker Jan Komasa makes a case for what this rather abstract emotion means, in todays rapidly politicised and polarised climate, where voices of dissent are stifled; where free speech largely remains a theory; where innocents are crucified based on assumptions; and where gullible youngsters are radicalised into mercenaries.

Early on, in the movie, the central character Tomasz (Maciej Musiaowski) is expelled from law school for lifting a paragraph from his professors book without attribution. He doesnt show any remorse and gives a curt reply instead: It is a matter of perception. Perception is what that would drive him out of law school and that would later involve him in unlawful activities.

We only get to see fragments of Tomasz from the characters he meets, and stitch them together to form a complete picture about him. We come to know that he is from an economically backward class who survives on his scholarship money he gets from his uncle and auntie (The Krasuckas). That the Krasuckas are well-off and are affiliated to an independent liberal candidate Pawe Rudnicki (Maciej Stuhr), who runs for the local Mayor elections the way this information is slipped is without much pondering. That he has an eternal feeling for their daughter Gabi (Vanessa Aleksander), to whom he sent a friend request seven years back. That he is a compulsive stalker and a pathological liar.

The Hater

We dont just see the hatred Tomasz develops against the left-leaning Krasuckas, that would take a full-borne shape in the second half, but also the hatred that surrounds him. In the eyes of the Krasuckas, he is a nobody who got lucky by getting into a law school. He is constantly ridiculed and joked about for his economic background. There is a Parasite-like commentary when the aunt makes a joke about his smell and the cologne he used. One suspects that the reason he went to law school was also to earn their respect and social privilege to wed their daughter. All this only further manifests more hatred in him.

Also Read: Get 'First Day First Show', our weekly newsletter from the world of cinema, in your inbox. You can subscribe for free here

Some of the initial portions which could have easily been trimmed by 15 minutes come across as an innocent love story between two classes, but the narrative gear changes when Tomasz chances upon Beata (Agata Kulesza), who, on the outside, runs a public relations company. But in reality, she fosters a fake propaganda campaign for a right-wing political party, which is dead against Pawel for his liberal values. The Hater, like its protagonist, struggles to arrive at the central conceit: hate mongering, provocation and well-orchestrated PR machinery employed by a political party. When it does, the how part becomes more interesting than why, which is Jan Komasas slender attempt to have a sympathetic gaze at his protagonist.

In an effort to cocoon out of his poor lifestyle, Tomasz falls into more pitfalls when he gets commissioned to run a smear campaign on the dark web. Hate, in essence, not just sells but pays There are no rules in the textbook in terms of manipulation and provocation, remarks a character. He channels his inner aggression to launch an avalanche of hate groups and offers innovative ideas for fake propaganda without considering the ramifications it would cost. And what are the issues that would earn immediate provocation? Islamophobia, xenophobia, jingoism and LGBTQIA+.

You cannot help but wonder how much relevance The Hater has worldover, regardless of the geographical boundaries it takes the form of right-wing propaganda, if you place it in Indian context. Ask the Indians for 80 more fake accounts, says Beata, to a visibly surprised Tomasz. Do you think well get fake accounts from Europe, she says. The moment you react to a provocative hate message/post, it is a victory not just for Tomasz but for people perpetrating hate, masquerading under a fake identity. Though it makes an interesting commentary on a global pandemic (not COVID-19), The Hater, however, falls short of becoming a good movie. Especially when it gets bogged down by narrative issues in the second half and the final act which appears like an idea worked on much later goes for a toss.

The aeroplane and the radio have brought us closer together. The very nature of these inventions cries out for the goodness in men...cries out for universal brotherhood for the unity of us all, said Chaplin in the closing monologue of The Great Dictator. These technological inventions can only stake claim in splitting the world into two fractions: either you are with them or against them. If only Chaplin were alive to see where we are headed.

For as long as one succumbs to that very temptations of hate without resistance, there will be a Tomasz at work. As a character befittingly puts it: Words fly away, but writing remains.

The Hater is currently streaming on Netflix

Read the original post:

The Hater movie review: A ghastly reflection of todays hate culture - The Hindu

Conservatives today oftenpresentthemselves as populists running against a left said to be out of touch with the common people and enamored of technocratic rule by experts. This is, in fact, a longstandingcritiquefound not only in grassroots ideological discourse but also in the work of conservative philosophers like Michael Oakeshott, who suggested that the left was entangled in an overbearing rationalism that led to forms of social engineering and political manipulation.

However, both the recent COVID-19 pandemic and the resurgence of antiliberal thought on the right have made evident that technocracy is by no means limited to a single side of the political spectrum. To the contrary, the American right also nurtures unique strains of technocratic politics that have played an enormous role in contemporary life.

Consider first how many Americans have rejected social distancing measures by relying on the premise that the economy demands not only markets remain open but also that government assistance be kept to a minimum. The latter was, for example, the line of argument voiced by Donald Trumps chief trade advisor Peter Navarro, an academic economist, whoproclaimedthat the basics of economic science required reopening markets and pushing wage workers (in America disproportionately comprised of racial minorities and immigrants) back into spaces where they risk contracting the virus.

This economic rationale is a popularization of the complex theories of the neoclassical paradigm which helped fuel a massive restructuring of the global economy over the last half century. Neoclassical economics not only made a claim to an expert science of the mechanics of wealth but also suggested a vision of human agency as essentially calculative and self-interested. In popularized form, this purported science was summarized in various folk adages and sentiments like government is never the solution and its the economy, stupid.

One reason the United States currently finds itself so uniquely unable to effectively combat the virus through national contact tracing, effective testing, and greater healthcare coverageis becausemany Americans believe an expert science of economics has established that big government is always to be avoided. This has meant measures proven to be effective against the pandemic in other countries go unemployed or haphazardly implemented. Ironically, a technocratic science of economy ensures that public health experts are treated skeptically even as the United States suffers an astonishing rate of preventable infection and death.

But rightwing technocracy is also evident in a very different form amid the antiliberal right that came to electoral power in 2016. This is particularly clear in the wave of antiliberal intellectualslike Notre Dame political philosopher Patrick Deneen and Harvard legal theorist Adrian Vermeulewho present themselves as diagnosticians of liberalisms impending doom.

For example, Deneens surprise bestseller,Why Liberalism Failed, relied on the social scientific claim that liberalism must collapse because it supposedly conforms to a certain predictable and inescapable mechanics of decline. As Deneen expressed it: liberalism has failed due to an inner logic that generate[s] pathologies. Drawing implicitly on the earlier work of Alasdair MacIntyre, Deneen argued that the atomized and ultra-autonomous conception of the individual in liberal ideology must lead to moral decline and societal dissolution.

Although Deneen presents himself as a critic of technocratic politics in favor of localism and populist nationalism, his theory in fact assumes the same basic conception of political knowledge: one where certain experts offer indubitable predictive knowledge about the future. Indeed, ironically Deneens form of anti-liberalism assumes the very same discredited and obsolete stadial and developmental conceptions of history associated with thinkers like G.W.F. Hegel, Karl Marx, and more recently Francis Fukuyama. But where Fukuyama saw history predictably culminating in liberal ideology, Deneen claims instead to presage liberalisms demise. Deneen has thus simply turned Fukuyama on his head.

The mistakemade evident by reflectionon the insights of hermeneutic or interpretive social scienceis to assume that liberal ideology is an essential type with a reductive set of properties. But liberalism (like all ideologies) is a set of meanings and family resemblances and does not have the logic of a predictable, developmental mechanics or necessary, essentialized process. Instead, human creative agency is such that ideological traditions and human history itself is open-ended. Technocracy, whether of the right or left, fails to grasp this central truth.

Featured Image Credit: by Alem OmeroviconUnsplash

View original post here:

The technocratic politics of the American right | OUPblog - OUPblog

Megxit is turning out to be more than a bit like Brexit. It has become apparent that there is no soft version of either after all, no happy halfway house, no grand compromise that would allow all sides to have their cake and eat it. Youre either in the EU or youre out, so far as Britain is concerned; youre either royal or you aint, in the case of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex. It ends in tears. The only thing left are the recriminations, and to sort out who gets the blame.

Being as theres no such body as the Supreme Court of Right Royal Feuds to adjudicate on such matters, the arguments are being played out in the tabloids and the court of British public opinion, renowned for their tenderness, even-handedness and rationalism. These debates will also, by their very nature, become infected with conspiracy theories and go on for ever and ever.

There are still people out there, after all, who believe that Diana was murdered, who still mourn the abdication of Edward VIII and think the Windsor dynasty are reptilian beings from another world. OK, the last ones always been arguable, but these legends are all endlessly recycled, and often as not referenced whenever the Sussexes appear in the headlines, which sadly they are destined to for the rest of their lives and beyond, even when Covid-19 and Brexit are long forgotten.

Sharing the full story, not just the headlines

From what Ive seen of the curiously named Finding Freedom, a book which puts the Sussexes case with suspiciously well-informed partisanship, were now well into blame game territory. Id quite forgotten that Megxit was still at the pilot scheme stage, to see how things were coming along. It seems there is no way back to royal normality for Harry and Meghan. Their quarantine, though comfortable, is permanent.

For all the fuss about the dramatic revelations, theres not that much thats new here. William advised his younger brother to take his romance with Meghan slowly, which may or may not have been taken as an insult, but probably wasnt meant to be. He did after all not rush into things himself, as waity Katie found to her frustration. Kate apparently resented the extra work shed have to do once Harry and Meghan cleared off. Fair enough, but we all have to make sacrifices. It seems small beer at any rate, compared to a global pandemic 60,000 excess deaths, the sharpest recession in 300 years, three million jobless and cold wars with the EU and China.

But we all enjoy a little escapism, which of course brings us back to the main characters. To borrow a phrase, they quite rightly wanted to escape the predations of the British media and its appalling habit of twisting and lying about everything they do. Understandably they wished to use whatever fame and talents they possess to do some good. Theyd like to make their own way in the world, but not be ostracised from friends and family. In Brexit terms, they wanted to take back control over their sovereignty and their borders. They wanted to cherry pick.

I happen to think they were quite right to want a private life and to try and modernise the institution of monarchy; but it was impractical.

In the end they could not cherry pick after all. The Sussexes have managed to land themselves in the worst of all worlds. Not in the sense of having to apply for Universal Credit or for Rishis 10 meal deal to help go out for the evening, but deeply unsatisfactory from their point of view. Lacking any official security, they are tormented by the paparazzi more than ever, they are spied on by drones, the papers print whatever they like and they are fair game just as any Hollywood or reality show celebs are. They can try to sue the press, but itll do them no good, win or lose. The incentives are too great, and ever more so the colder the commercial climate grows and the temptation to sensationalise intensifies.

Meghan and Harry met through mutual friends in London in July 2016 when one of the former-actor's confidants, Markus Anderson, reportedly introduced them.Anderson is linked with private members club Soho House, of which Harry is a member, but it wasn't until months after the initial London meeting that their burgeoning romance made headlines.

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Photographs of the couple together were published in the press, showing them on holidays, at friend's weddings and eating out in London making the news.But it was by way of an unprecedented statement that their relationship was officially announced. Kensington Palace, writing on behalf of Harry, stated that the harassment being experienced by Meghan and her family, saying a line had been crossed.His girlfriend, Meghan Markle, has been subject to a wave of abuse and harassment, the statement continued, citing "sexism" and "racism". "He knows commentators will say this is the price she has to pay and that this is all part of the game. He strongly disagrees. This is not a game - it is her life and his," the statement read."He has asked for this statement to be issued in the hopes that those in the press who have been driving this story can pause and reflect before any further damage is done."

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In October 2017, Meghan conducted her first public interview since news of the relationship emerged with Vanity Fair, in which she opened up about what it is like to date a member of the royal family. It has its challenges, and it comes in wavessome days it can feel more challenging than others, she told the publication.And right out of the gate it was surprising the way things changed. But I still have this support system all around me, and, of course, my boyfriends support.

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The couple announced their engagement in November and were interviewed by the BBC's Mishal Hussain at their home, Frogmore Cottage, in Windsor, about the news.During the interview, Harry opened up about how much he enjoyed being with someone from outside his inner circle."It was hugely refreshing," he said before discussing the trip they took to Botswana together shortly after meeting. "To be able to start almost afresh right from the beginning in getting to know each other step by step and then taking that huge leap of only two dates and then going effectively on holiday together in the middle of nowhere and sharing a tent together and all that kind of stuff. It was fantastic. It was absolutely amazing to get to know her as quickly as I did."Harry proposed to Meghan with a custom ring made by court jewellers Cleave and Company using one diamond sourced from Botswana and two smaller stones from Princess Diana's collection.

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Princess Michael of Kent apologised for wearing a racist broach to the Queen's Christmas lunch at Buckingham Palace, that was also attended by Meghan and was her first Christmas with the royal family.The princess, who is married to the Queen's cousin, was pictured wearing a prominent piece of "blackamoor" jewellery pinned to her coat as she arrived at the annual royal family gathering.The princess was widely condemned for wearing the "blatantly racist" piece to the Palace and a spokesperson for the royal said she was very sorry and distressed that it had caused offence. They added that the brooch was a gift and has been worn many times before.

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On 19 May, Meghan and Harry married at St Georges Chapel, Windsor Castle. The bride and groom continued to defy convention at the wedding by putting a modern spin on everything from the cake to ceremony itself. The couple chose Reverend Michael Curry, the first black presiding bishop and primate of the Episcopal Church, to deliver a powerful sermon about love. The joyous day was somewhat dampened after it was revealed that Thomas Markle Sr, Meghan's father, would not be there to walk her down the aisle. Instead, Meghan walked herself down the aisle until she was joined by Prince Charles, who gave her away. In an interview with TMZ, Meghan's father admitted to conspiring with a photographer to pose for staged paparazzi photos. As a result of his admission, he felt it would be best to not walk her down the aisle because he didn't want to embarrass the royal family or his daughter. He also shared that he had suffered a heart attack six days prior due to the stresses of the situation.

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Since their wedding, speculation had been mounting that Meghan and Harry were expecting their first child but confirmation didn't come until 15 October, just as the couple were about to kick off their autumn tour of Australasia.Kensington Palace announced that the newlyweds were very pleased to be expecting a baby in the spring of 2019.Their Royal Highnesses The Duke and Duchess of Sussex are very pleased to announce that The Duchess of Sussex is expecting a baby in the Spring of 2019, the palace said in a statement. Their Royal Highnesses have appreciated all of the support they have received from people around the world since their wedding in May and are delighted to be able to share this happy news with the public.However, some people accused the royal couple of insensitivity over the decision to reveal the news during Baby Loss Awareness Week.

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During her pregnancy Meghan, like many prospective mothers, would cradle her bump or place her hand on her stomach during public events.But the royal mother was criticised with some saying she was doing it for photo opportunities.Meanwhile conspiracy theorists took to Twitter with hashtags like #Megxit and #DuchessofDeception, claiming that Meghan was not pregnant and had been strapping on a pillow or a bespoke prosthetic.

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On 6 May 2019, Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor was born at the Portland Hospital in London after Meghan went into labour in the early hours of the morning.The birth was a break from tradition with previous royals, including the Duchess of Cambridge, who have previously used the Lindo Wing at St Marys Hospital in London to give birth.Meghan also chose not to pose for an '"on the steps" moment after leaving hospital like other royal mothers. Instead, the duke and duchess presented baby Archie to the world at a press briefing at St Georges Hall at Windsor Castle.The couple later revealed they chose not to use the courtesy title Earl Dumbarton, which Archie was allowed to use, nor to style him Lord Archie Mountbatten-Windsor, opting for Master instead.

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Danny Baker was fired by the BBC after tweeting about the royal baby using a photo of a chimpanzee.The former BBC Radio 5 Live host was criticised for the post, which he shared moments after the Duke and Duchess of Sussex revealed their son, Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor, to the world.The tweet featured a black-and-white photograph of a couple holding hands with a chimp dressed in a suit alongside the caption: Royal baby leaves hospital.Baker swiftly removed the post after receiving backlash from Twitter users who branded it as racist due to Meghan's mixed-heritage. The 61-year-old later apologised, writing: Sorry my gag pic of the little fella in the posh outfit has whipped some up.Never occurred to me because, well, mind not diseased. Soon as those good enough to point out its possible connotations got in touch, down it came. And thats it.Now stand by for sweary football tweets.

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The BBC showed a comedy programme, Tonight With Vladimir Putin, which portrayed the Duchess of Sussex saying Stay the f*** out of my trailer or Ill cut you, Kate.Both episodes of the programme included a feature entitled "Meghan Markles Royal Sparkle". In one episode The Duchess of Sussex's character was asked what makes her angry. The character replied with an anecdote about the Duchess of Cambridge asking to borrow her hairbrush.I say no because thats gross and then I leave my room and come back and I can tell shes used my hairbrush anyway because its covered in skanky hair thats going grey and I say, Stay the f*** out of my trailer or Ill cut you, Kate, she yelled.The show also made fun of the Duchesss relationship with her father, Thomas Markle.

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In June 2019 the Duke and Duchess of Sussex received criticism after it was revealed that their home was renovated with 2.4m of taxpayer-funded costs.Frogmore Cottage in Windsor was turned into a single property for Harry and Meghan, from five separate homes.While the couple, who moved from Kensington Palace in April before the birth of their son Archie, paid for any upgraded fixtures and fittings themselves, royal accounts showed that the public fund met the cost of replacing heating, electric, gas and water main systems, as well as replacing ceiling beams and floor joists.Frogmore Cottage is owned by the Crown Estate and was a gift to the couple from the Queen, who was kept updated on the work. It had not been the subject of work for some years, and had already been earmarked for renovation.

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Meghan and Harry chose to christen Archie at an intimate ceremony attended by close family. Royal baptisms are traditionally private but the couple went one step further by going against convention and deciding not to announce Archies godparents."The godparents, in keeping with their wishes, will remain private," a statement from Buckingham Palace read.Speculation remained rife as to who had been named the godparents of Meghan and Prince Harry's son, with contenders including media mogul Oprah Winfrey, fashion stylist Jessica Mulroney and Hollywood actor George Clooney.The duke and duchess' decision sparked huge criticism among royal watchers. They have to give the public something, wrote one person on Twitter. We are paying them and it feels like they do not care about the public.

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Harry and Meghan were heavily criticised for using private jets to go on holiday with Archie to the south of France. Many people accused the couple of hypocrisy given their staunch views on environmentalism. It came after two other European trips, including one to Ibiza for Meghans birthday and another to Sicily where Harry flew to discuss climate change at a conference.Harry later defended the use of the transport by claiming it was to ensure their safety. Meanwhile, Sir Elton John publicly defended the couple.Speaking in Amsterdam for a new flying scheme, Harry said: "I came here by commercial. I spend 99 per cent of my life travelling the world by commercial. Occasionally there needs to be an opportunity based on a unique circumstance to ensure that my family are safe. It's genuinely as simple as that."

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Prince William and Harry had been at the centre of rift rumours for months, ever since it emerged that the Sussexes were moving to Windsor. In August, the speculation came to a head with royal sources and experts claiming the brothers have drifted apart. Appearing on Channel 5s documentary William & Harry: Princes At War? royal expert and editor of Majesty magazine Ingrid Seward said: I would think it might bother William a little bit, because he might see the way that Harry and Meghan do things as being detrimental to the business of the monarchy as a whole. Seward added that the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge were surprised by Harry and Meghan's whirlwind romance, saying: "It was all so quick that William and Kate didn't have a moment to get to know Meghan because Harry hardly knew Meghan. "And of course William and Kate would have quite naturally thought 'oh she's been married before, she's older than Harry, I hope she's going to make him happy'. Anyone would think that."

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In August it was announced that Meghan Markle was to guest-edit the September issue of British Vogue magazine. The cover of the special edition featured a grid of 15 women selected as Forces for Change and articles inside that had been commissioned by the duchess. While the response was largely positive, some people criticised her choice of women, which did not include the Queen, and questioned whether or not a member of the royal family should edit a magazine, despite several others having done so before. I feel like I need to bring a bit of reality to the situation. We're talking about Vogue magazine. Probably the most elite, expensive, snobby, fashion-dominated, skinny-dominated magazine in the entire world. This is not some great mainstream force for good. This is a magazine for the elite. Brexit Party MEP Ann Widdecombe also took aim for picking political stars, saying: Royals have not only got to keep out of politics but they have got to be seen to keep out of politics.

British Vogue/Peter Lindbergh

In October 2019, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex took part in an ITV documentary about their royal tour to southern Africa.In Harry & Meghan: An African Journey, Harry opened up about his aversion to paparazzi and confessed that he and his brother, the Duke of Cambridge, are on different paths, fuelling speculation that the two have grown apart.Meanwhile, the Duchess of Sussex revealed she had been struggling with criticisms in the media, telling ITVs Tom Bradby that she was not really okay.Bradby later said that the couple seemed vulnerable and bruised during the filming and revealed he knew that things werent entirely rosy for the couple ahead of filming.The reality I found was just a couple that seemed a bit bruised and vulnerable, Bradby told Good Morning America. That was the story I found and it seemed the right journalistic thing to do, to try and tell that story as empathetically as I could.

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Following the ITV documentary, Meghan and Harry issued an official statement, in which the duke said he could no longer be a "silent witness" to Meghan's "private suffering".There is a human cost to this relentless propaganda, specifically when it is knowingly false and malicious, and though we have continued to put on a brave face as so many of you can relate to I cannot begin to describe how painful it has been," the statement read.In the same statement, it was confirmed that Meghan had filed a claim against Associated Newspapers "over the intrusive and unlawful publication of a private letter written by the Duchess of Sussex, which is part of a campaign by this media group to publish false and deliberately derogatory stories about her, as well as her husband."The proceedings in the Chancery Division of the High Court related to the unlawful publication of a private letter from Meghan to her father.

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In December, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex released their first Christmas card with their son, Archie Harrison Mountbatten Windsor.The seven-month-old took centre stage in the black-and-white photograph, staring right down the camera lens while his parents laugh behind him with a Christmas tree in the background.While many royal fans were overjoyed by the image, others accused Meghan of using Photoshop to sharpen her own face so it would stand out more.Meghans close friends, Janina Gavankar, who captured the photo, spoke out to defend the couple on Instagram, writing: So proud to have taken the Christmas photo for one of my best friends and her family." She also clarified that the photo had not been edited.The couple enjoy a six-week break in Canada with Meghan's mother, Doria Ragland.

Sussexroyal/Instagram

Meghan and Harry are pictured at Canada House in London to thank the Canadian high commission for their warm hospitality following their trip over Christmas. One day later, on Wednesday 8 January, rumours about the couple possibly moving to Canada begin to surface, which Buckingham Palace initially refused to deny.At 6pm on Wednesday evening, Meghan and Harry announce their decision to relinquish their roles as senior members of the royal family in an Instagram post on @SussexRoyal. Their statement is followed by one from Buckingham Palace describing discussions regarding the move as being at an early stage. It is later understood that the couple did not consult any members of the royal family prior to releasing their statement and the mood at Buckingham Palace was one of disappointment.

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Meghan and Harry met through mutual friends in London in July 2016 when one of the former-actor's confidants, Markus Anderson, reportedly introduced them.Anderson is linked with private members club Soho House, of which Harry is a member, but it wasn't until months after the initial London meeting that their burgeoning romance made headlines.

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Photographs of the couple together were published in the press, showing them on holidays, at friend's weddings and eating out in London making the news.But it was by way of an unprecedented statement that their relationship was officially announced. Kensington Palace, writing on behalf of Harry, stated that the harassment being experienced by Meghan and her family, saying a line had been crossed.His girlfriend, Meghan Markle, has been subject to a wave of abuse and harassment, the statement continued, citing "sexism" and "racism". "He knows commentators will say this is the price she has to pay and that this is all part of the game. He strongly disagrees. This is not a game - it is her life and his," the statement read."He has asked for this statement to be issued in the hopes that those in the press who have been driving this story can pause and reflect before any further damage is done."

Getty

In October 2017, Meghan conducted her first public interview since news of the relationship emerged with Vanity Fair, in which she opened up about what it is like to date a member of the royal family. It has its challenges, and it comes in wavessome days it can feel more challenging than others, she told the publication.And right out of the gate it was surprising the way things changed. But I still have this support system all around me, and, of course, my boyfriends support.

Getty

The couple announced their engagement in November and were interviewed by the BBC's Mishal Hussain at their home, Frogmore Cottage, in Windsor, about the news.During the interview, Harry opened up about how much he enjoyed being with someone from outside his inner circle."It was hugely refreshing," he said before discussing the trip they took to Botswana together shortly after meeting. "To be able to start almost afresh right from the beginning in getting to know each other step by step and then taking that huge leap of only two dates and then going effectively on holiday together in the middle of nowhere and sharing a tent together and all that kind of stuff. It was fantastic. It was absolutely amazing to get to know her as quickly as I did."Harry proposed to Meghan with a custom ring made by court jewellers Cleave and Company using one diamond sourced from Botswana and two smaller stones from Princess Diana's collection.

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Princess Michael of Kent apologised for wearing a racist broach to the Queen's Christmas lunch at Buckingham Palace, that was also attended by Meghan and was her first Christmas with the royal family.The princess, who is married to the Queen's cousin, was pictured wearing a prominent piece of "blackamoor" jewellery pinned to her coat as she arrived at the annual royal family gathering.The princess was widely condemned for wearing the "blatantly racist" piece to the Palace and a spokesperson for the royal said she was very sorry and distressed that it had caused offence. They added that the brooch was a gift and has been worn many times before.

Getty

On 19 May, Meghan and Harry married at St Georges Chapel, Windsor Castle. The bride and groom continued to defy convention at the wedding by putting a modern spin on everything from the cake to ceremony itself. The couple chose Reverend Michael Curry, the first black presiding bishop and primate of the Episcopal Church, to deliver a powerful sermon about love. The joyous day was somewhat dampened after it was revealed that Thomas Markle Sr, Meghan's father, would not be there to walk her down the aisle. Instead, Meghan walked herself down the aisle until she was joined by Prince Charles, who gave her away. In an interview with TMZ, Meghan's father admitted to conspiring with a photographer to pose for staged paparazzi photos. As a result of his admission, he felt it would be best to not walk her down the aisle because he didn't want to embarrass the royal family or his daughter. He also shared that he had suffered a heart attack six days prior due to the stresses of the situation.

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Since their wedding, speculation had been mounting that Meghan and Harry were expecting their first child but confirmation didn't come until 15 October, just as the couple were about to kick off their autumn tour of Australasia.Kensington Palace announced that the newlyweds were very pleased to be expecting a baby in the spring of 2019.Their Royal Highnesses The Duke and Duchess of Sussex are very pleased to announce that The Duchess of Sussex is expecting a baby in the Spring of 2019, the palace said in a statement. Their Royal Highnesses have appreciated all of the support they have received from people around the world since their wedding in May and are delighted to be able to share this happy news with the public.However, some people accused the royal couple of insensitivity over the decision to reveal the news during Baby Loss Awareness Week.

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During her pregnancy Meghan, like many prospective mothers, would cradle her bump or place her hand on her stomach during public events.But the royal mother was criticised with some saying she was doing it for photo opportunities.Meanwhile conspiracy theorists took to Twitter with hashtags like #Megxit and #DuchessofDeception, claiming that Meghan was not pregnant and had been strapping on a pillow or a bespoke prosthetic.

Getty

On 6 May 2019, Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor was born at the Portland Hospital in London after Meghan went into labour in the early hours of the morning.The birth was a break from tradition with previous royals, including the Duchess of Cambridge, who have previously used the Lindo Wing at St Marys Hospital in London to give birth.Meghan also chose not to pose for an '"on the steps" moment after leaving hospital like other royal mothers. Instead, the duke and duchess presented baby Archie to the world at a press briefing at St Georges Hall at Windsor Castle.The couple later revealed they chose not to use the courtesy title Earl Dumbarton, which Archie was allowed to use, nor to style him Lord Archie Mountbatten-Windsor, opting for Master instead.

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Danny Baker was fired by the BBC after tweeting about the royal baby using a photo of a chimpanzee.The former BBC Radio 5 Live host was criticised for the post, which he shared moments after the Duke and Duchess of Sussex revealed their son, Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor, to the world.The tweet featured a black-and-white photograph of a couple holding hands with a chimp dressed in a suit alongside the caption: Royal baby leaves hospital.Baker swiftly removed the post after receiving backlash from Twitter users who branded it as racist due to Meghan's mixed-heritage. The 61-year-old later apologised, writing: Sorry my gag pic of the little fella in the posh outfit has whipped some up.Never occurred to me because, well, mind not diseased. Soon as those good enough to point out its possible connotations got in touch, down it came. And thats it.Now stand by for sweary football tweets.

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The BBC showed a comedy programme, Tonight With Vladimir Putin, which portrayed the Duchess of Sussex saying Stay the f*** out of my trailer or Ill cut you, Kate.Both episodes of the programme included a feature entitled "Meghan Markles Royal Sparkle". In one episode The Duchess of Sussex's character was asked what makes her angry. The character replied with an anecdote about the Duchess of Cambridge asking to borrow her hairbrush.I say no because thats gross and then I leave my room and come back and I can tell shes used my hairbrush anyway because its covered in skanky hair thats going grey and I say, Stay the f*** out of my trailer or Ill cut you, Kate, she yelled.The show also made fun of the Duchesss relationship with her father, Thomas Markle.

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In June 2019 the Duke and Duchess of Sussex received criticism after it was revealed that their home was renovated with 2.4m of taxpayer-funded costs.Frogmore Cottage in Windsor was turned into a single property for Harry and Meghan, from five separate homes.While the couple, who moved from Kensington Palace in April before the birth of their son Archie, paid for any upgraded fixtures and fittings themselves, royal accounts showed that the public fund met the cost of replacing heating, electric, gas and water main systems, as well as replacing ceiling beams and floor joists.Frogmore Cottage is owned by the Crown Estate and was a gift to the couple from the Queen, who was kept updated on the work. It had not been the subject of work for some years, and had already been earmarked for renovation.

Getty

Meghan and Harry chose to christen Archie at an intimate ceremony attended by close family. Royal baptisms are traditionally private but the couple went one step further by going against convention and deciding not to announce Archies godparents."The godparents, in keeping with their wishes, will remain private," a statement from Buckingham Palace read.Speculation remained rife as to who had been named the godparents of Meghan and Prince Harry's son, with contenders including media mogul Oprah Winfrey, fashion stylist Jessica Mulroney and Hollywood actor George Clooney.The duke and duchess' decision sparked huge criticism among royal watchers. They have to give the public something, wrote one person on Twitter. We are paying them and it feels like they do not care about the public.

Getty

Harry and Meghan were heavily criticised for using private jets to go on holiday with Archie to the south of France. Many people accused the couple of hypocrisy given their staunch views on environmentalism. It came after two other European trips, including one to Ibiza for Meghans birthday and another to Sicily where Harry flew to discuss climate change at a conference.Harry later defended the use of the transport by claiming it was to ensure their safety. Meanwhile, Sir Elton John publicly defended the couple.Speaking in Amsterdam for a new flying scheme, Harry said: "I came here by commercial. I spend 99 per cent of my life travelling the world by commercial. Occasionally there needs to be an opportunity based on a unique circumstance to ensure that my family are safe. It's genuinely as simple as that."

Getty

Prince William and Harry had been at the centre of rift rumours for months, ever since it emerged that the Sussexes were moving to Windsor. In August, the speculation came to a head with royal sources and experts claiming the brothers have drifted apart. Appearing on Channel 5s documentary William & Harry: Princes At War? royal expert and editor of Majesty magazine Ingrid Seward said: I would think it might bother William a little bit, because he might see the way that Harry and Meghan do things as being detrimental to the business of the monarchy as a whole. Seward added that the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge were surprised by Harry and Meghan's whirlwind romance, saying: "It was all so quick that William and Kate didn't have a moment to get to know Meghan because Harry hardly knew Meghan. "And of course William and Kate would have quite naturally thought 'oh she's been married before, she's older than Harry, I hope she's going to make him happy'. Anyone would think that."

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In August it was announced that Meghan Markle was to guest-edit the September issue of British Vogue magazine. The cover of the special edition featured a grid of 15 women selected as Forces for Change and articles inside that had been commissioned by the duchess. While the response was largely positive, some people criticised her choice of women, which did not include the Queen, and questioned whether or not a member of the royal family should edit a magazine, despite several others having done so before. I feel like I need to bring a bit of reality to the situation. We're talking about Vogue magazine. Probably the most elite, expensive, snobby, fashion-dominated, skinny-dominated magazine in the entire world. This is not some great mainstream force for good. This is a magazine for the elite. Brexit Party MEP Ann Widdecombe also took aim for picking political stars, saying: Royals have not only got to keep out of politics but they have got to be seen to keep out of politics.

British Vogue/Peter Lindbergh

In October 2019, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex took part in an ITV documentary about their royal tour to southern Africa.In Harry & Meghan: An African Journey, Harry opened up about his aversion to paparazzi and confessed that he and his brother, the Duke of Cambridge, are on different paths, fuelling speculation that the two have grown apart.Meanwhile, the Duchess of Sussex revealed she had been struggling with criticisms in the media, telling ITVs Tom Bradby that she was not really okay.Bradby later said that the couple seemed vulnerable and bruised during the filming and revealed he knew that things werent entirely rosy for the couple ahead of filming.The reality I found was just a couple that seemed a bit bruised and vulnerable, Bradby told Good Morning America. That was the story I found and it seemed the right journalistic thing to do, to try and tell that story as empathetically as I could.

Getty

Following the ITV documentary, Meghan and Harry issued an official statement, in which the duke said he could no longer be a "silent witness" to Meghan's "private suffering".There is a human cost to this relentless propaganda, specifically when it is knowingly false and malicious, and though we have continued to put on a brave face as so many of you can relate to I cannot begin to describe how painful it has been," the statement read.In the same statement, it was confirmed that Meghan had filed a claim against Associated Newspapers "over the intrusive and unlawful publication of a private letter written by the Duchess of Sussex, which is part of a campaign by this media group to publish false and deliberately derogatory stories about her, as well as her husband."The proceedings in the Chancery Division of the High Court related to the unlawful publication of a private letter from Meghan to her father.

Getty

In December, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex released their first Christmas card with their son, Archie Harrison Mountbatten Windsor.The seven-month-old took centre stage in the black-and-white photograph, staring right down the camera lens while his parents laugh behind him with a Christmas tree in the background.While many royal fans were overjoyed by the image, others accused Meghan of using Photoshop to sharpen her own face so it would stand out more.Meghans close friends, Janina Gavankar, who captured the photo, spoke out to defend the couple on Instagram, writing: So proud to have taken the Christmas photo for one of my best friends and her family." She also clarified that the photo had not been edited.The couple enjoy a six-week break in Canada with Meghan's mother, Doria Ragland.

Sussexroyal/Instagram

Meghan and Harry are pictured at Canada House in London to thank the Canadian high commission for their warm hospitality following their trip over Christmas. One day later, on Wednesday 8 January, rumours about the couple possibly moving to Canada begin to surface, which Buckingham Palace initially refused to deny.At 6pm on Wednesday evening, Meghan and Harry announce their decision to relinquish their roles as senior members of the royal family in an Instagram post on @SussexRoyal. Their statement is followed by one from Buckingham Palace describing discussions regarding the move as being at an early stage. It is later understood that the couple did not consult any members of the royal family prior to releasing their statement and the mood at Buckingham Palace was one of disappointment.

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On the other side, they are no longer playing the kind of role in charity and official business they once did. They have been, so far, much less successful in this than Diana was. Their anomalous position means they cant do what they used to do in Britain or the Commonwealth, or at least not so seamlessly in conjunction with the Palace, government and the armed forces.

The Sussexes then find themselves in limbo, and often enough a luxury lifestyle version of purgatory. It all has an air of impermanence about it. The best thing might be for them to live a more modest, anonymous, life, renouncing all their inherited or acquired celebrity. But even if they tried, the world wouldnt choose to forget them, and would always be curious about them. The title of the latest book about them is apt for, in their own terms, they probably never will find freedom.

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The Meghan and Harry drama is just like Brexit theres no cherry picking and itll all end in tears - The Independent

Written by Suraj Yengde | Updated: July 26, 2020 8:55:54 am Representation through reservation is just one way to render justice to the oppressed castes whose labour and dignity were reduced to nothing by the ruling castes of India. (File)

India as a nation owes a huge debt to Dalits upon whose backs its civilisational columns have been raised. Dalit talent, skill and stamina make India one of the most desirable places for outsiders, including the British. Various art forms, literature, music, poetry originate from the Dalit, Adivasi and Shudra worlds. In their inventive genius and performative zeal, the Dalits have hymned and hummed to the rhythms of their tragedies, preserved their culture amidst the torture of untouchability.

They have cried and prayed, protested and fought back. In all of this, they have paved the path for new forms of sensorial experiences.

Almost all the classical Indian art forms have Dalit origins. There are examples of Dalit art being stolen and Brahminised. And to stop the Dalits from reclaiming the same, they were barred from practising and participating in many of the arts.

This eliminated any competitive edge that Dalit talent might have posed. That is why, even today, many classical art events are bereft of Dalit participation.

Even in other innovations, the Dalits have helped science flourish and rationalism take precedence. In their spiritual practices and prayers, the belief in the Almighty is rooted in the essence of enlightenment.

How then do we reconcile our past mistakes of murdering the Dalit existence so as to remedy the situation for future work?

One possible way is to think about reparations, making amends for the wrongs one has done, by paying money to or otherwise helping those who have been wronged. It is one of the means to correct the past and on-going injustices. Reparations can be categorised in three broad types:

Moral reparation: Acknowledgement of past mistakes and seeking forgiveness to establish a healing process for the wounded souls and traumatised minds.

Spiritual reparation: Giving leadership and respect to communities whose attempts at spirituality were declared a crime.

Conditional reparation: This is a reparation in the form of money and material reimbursements. It flows from the social and economic factors that stole the land, labour and value of an entire community.

Reparations are an international demand of colonised countries. The Lancet Commission on Reparations was set up at Harvards Medical School to examine the moral, legal, economic, historical, and political evidence for various global claims to reparations and redistributive justice. Alongside the African Americans, Roma, Caribbean Slavery, victims of Indias caste system were also given a hearing. The Indian case was presented by the economists Sukhadeo Thorat and Amit Thorat.

Reparation facilitates an occasion for the country to come together to reflect on the enormous weight of unpaid labour by the Dalits, who put their sweat and blood to raise the nations economy, from farm to industries. The soul of the country continues to be torn. To stitch it back we need redistributive justice and reparations to piece it together. Redistributive justice in the form of land redistribution and taking into account the toil of Dalit womens wombs.

In the fiestas of protests and justice movements, the Dalits have not yet come around demanding reparations. It is a chance to show a mirror to the society that continues to see anti-Dalit violence and hatred due to its own intrinsic insecurities.

These insecurities have been built over generations. Reparations are an opportunity for us to come together as a nation and help rebuild the broken promise that Independence held out.

Each institution in this country is implicit in this crime of Dalit violence. This has easily transfused into the structures that hold this country together.

Representation through reservation is just one way to render justice to the oppressed castes whose labour and dignity were reduced to nothing by the ruling castes of India.

As a nation, we need to be able to grieve collectively to overcome. This country can mourn for the victims of the Nazi genocide, even the victims of the India-Pakistan Partition, but it becomes hard as stone at the mere mention of atrocities against Dalits.

To change this blatant apathy, we need to start anew. The constitutional promises through reservations and land reforms were one of the few ways for us to get together. But these remain hotly contested. Reparation is one of the most viable ways to secure justice for all.

Suraj Yengde, author of Caste Matters, curates the fortnightly Dalitality column

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Its time India paid reparations to its Dalits - The Indian Express

For decades, school curricula, especially textbooks produced by the National Council of Educational Research and Training, have been a political battleground for conflicting ideas of India. But in the latest round of revisions, parts of the political science curriculum for Class 12 students under the Central Board of Secondary Education have been burnished into an ode to the Bharatiya Janata Party.

In the new NCERT textbooks, the decision to strip Jammu and Kashmir of special status on August 5, 2019, is cast as an achievement of the current government. It followed years of unstable coalition governments, major acts of terrorism as well as mounting internal and external tensions, students will read. It was made possible after the Bharatiya Janata Party walked out of the coalition government presided over by Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti the text spells her name wrong. The partition of Jammu and Kashmir into two separate Union Territories, the textbook says, fulfilled the divergent political and developmental aspirations of the region. Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh are described as living examples of society in India. A section on different kinds of separatist politics in Jammu and Kashmir has been excised from the new edition of the NCERT textbooks.

The Central Board of Secondary Education also recommends supplementary reading which features most of the BJPs favoured slogans. Students will be told there was a clarion call among political circles to remove special status, which stood against the principle of Ek Vidhan, Ek Nishan, Ek Pradhan referring to one Constitution, one Flag and one Head of the State/Government respectively. They will be told that after 2014, there was a shift from caste and religion based politics to development and governance oriented politics under the slogan of Sab ka saath, sab ka vikaas, everyones support, everyones development. After five years of stellar performance, the material reportedly suggests, this has graduated to sabka saath, sabka vikaas, sabka vishwaas, everyones support, everyones development, everyones trust.

The 2014 elections certainly meant a decisive shift away from the Nehruvian era of textbooks. Since its inception in 1961, the NCERT has been seen as an institution that reflected the establishment worldview, even though it was meant to be an autonomous body. Generations were shaped by its textbooks, which came with a Nehruvian wash, speaking of secularism, rationalism, scientific inquiry. This was challenged every time there was a change in government at the Centre. From the Janata Party in the 1970s to the first National Democratic Alliance government in the early 2000s, the Hindu Right used the texts to address its historical sense of wrong, emphasising cultural nationalism and Hindu traditions. Much has been written about former Human Resources Development Minister Murli Manohar Joshis saffronisation of textbooks under the first BJP government.

But the last six years have seen an unprecedented onslaught on the social sciences as they have been taught for so long. Chapters on clothing and caste conflict were dropped. So was material on peasants and farmers. Historic battles were to be rewritten and Hindu nationalist icons introduced into the curriculum. A few weeks ago, chapters on secularism were dropped, apparently to lighten the load for students. These incremental changes have culminated in the ringing endorsement of the ruling party evident in the new curriculum.

The political tussles over the social sciences have resulted in a larger loss the loss in real knowledge about our past and our present. Much has been excised from record in the current curriculum, for instance. Deleted: the mass arrests and the communications blockade that was imposed on Kashmiris before the August 5 decision was sprung on them. Deleted: the objections raised by several Opposition parties and the complete gag on political activity in Kashmir. Deleted: the widespread support for separatism, the persistence of militancy and a year of bloodshed in Kashmir. Deleted: the BJPs hate-filled campaign speeches, deployed judiciously when vikaas was not enough to win votes. Deleted: the lynchings and violence directed at minorities, the attempt to recast citizenship so that it reflected the BJPs worldview of India as a natural home for Hindus, not a secular country.

Perhaps the BJP hopes that, once these facts are lost, it will have won the battle against history itself.

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In the new revisions to the CBSE political science curriculum, an ode to the BJP - Scroll.in

Rationalism, in Western philosophy, the view that regards reason as the chief source and test of knowledge. Holding that reality itself has an inherently logical structure, the rationalist asserts that a class of truths exists that the intellect can grasp directly. There are, according to the rationalists, certain rational principlesespecially in logic and mathematics, and even in ethics and metaphysicsthat are so fundamental that to deny them is to fall into contradiction. The rationalists confidence in reason and proof tends, therefore, to detract from their respect for other ways of knowing.

Rationalism has long been the rival of empiricism, the doctrine that all knowledge comes from, and must be tested by, sense experience. As against this doctrine, rationalism holds reason to be a faculty that can lay hold of truths beyond the reach of sense perception, both in certainty and generality. In stressing the existence of a natural light, rationalism has also been the rival of systems claiming esoteric knowledge, whether from mystical experience, revelation, or intuition, and has been opposed to various irrationalisms that tend to stress the biological, the emotional or volitional, the unconscious, or the existential at the expense of the rational.

Rationalism has somewhat different meanings in different fields, depending upon the kind of theory to which it is opposed.

In the psychology of perception, for example, rationalism is in a sense opposed to the genetic psychology of the Swiss scholar Jean Piaget (18961980), who, exploring the development of thought and behaviour in the infant, argued that the categories of the mind develop only through the infants experience in concourse with the world. Similarly, rationalism is opposed to transactionalism, a point of view in psychology according to which human perceptual skills are achievements, accomplished through actions performed in response to an active environment. On this view, the experimental claim is made that perception is conditioned by probability judgments formed on the basis of earlier actions performed in similar situations. As a corrective to these sweeping claims, the rationalist defends a nativism, which holds that certain perceptual and conceptual capacities are innateas suggested in the case of depth perception by experiments with the visual cliff, which, though platformed over with firm glass, the infant perceives as hazardousthough these native capacities may at times lie dormant until the appropriate conditions for their emergence arise.

In the comparative study of languages, a similar nativism was developed in the 1950s by the innovating syntactician Noam Chomsky, who, acknowledging a debt to Ren Descartes (15961650), explicitly accepted the rationalistic doctrine of innate ideas. Though the thousands of languages spoken in the world differ greatly in sounds and symbols, they sufficiently resemble each other in syntax to suggest that there is a schema of universal grammar determined by innate presettings in the human mind itself. These presettings, which have their basis in the brain, set the pattern for all experience, fix the rules for the formation of meaningful sentences, and explain why languages are readily translatable into one another. It should be added that what rationalists have held about innate ideas is not that some ideas are full-fledged at birth but only that the grasp of certain connections and self-evident principles, when it comes, is due to inborn powers of insight rather than to learning by experience.

Common to all forms of speculative rationalism is the belief that the world is a rationally ordered whole, the parts of which are linked by logical necessity and the structure of which is therefore intelligible. Thus, in metaphysics it is opposed to the view that reality is a disjointed aggregate of incoherent bits and is thus opaque to reason. In particular, it is opposed to the logical atomisms of such thinkers as David Hume (171176) and the early Ludwig Wittgenstein (18891951), who held that facts are so disconnected that any fact might well have been different from what it is without entailing a change in any other fact. Rationalists have differed, however, with regard to the closeness and completeness with which the facts are bound together. At the lowest level, they have all believed that the law of contradiction A and not-A cannot coexist holds for the real world, which means that every truth is consistent with every other; at the highest level, they have held that all facts go beyond consistency to a positive coherence; i.e., they are so bound up with each other that none could be different without all being different.

In the field where its claims are clearestin epistemology, or theory of knowledgerationalism holds that at least some human knowledge is gained through a priori (prior to experience), or rational, insight as distinct from sense experience, which too often provides a confused and merely tentative approach. In the debate between empiricism and rationalism, empiricists hold the simpler and more sweeping position, the Humean claim that all knowledge of fact stems from perception. Rationalists, on the contrary, urge that some, though not all, knowledge arises through direct apprehension by the intellect. What the intellectual faculty apprehends is objects that transcend sense experienceuniversals and their relations. A universal is an abstraction, a characteristic that may reappear in various instances: the number three, for example, or the triangularity that all triangles have in common. Though these cannot be seen, heard, or felt, rationalists point out that humans can plainly think about them and about their relations. This kind of knowledge, which includes the whole of logic and mathematics as well as fragmentary insights in many other fields, is, in the rationalist view, the most important and certain knowledge that the mind can achieve. Such a priori knowledge is both necessary (i.e., it cannot be conceived as otherwise) and universal, in the sense that it admits of no exceptions. In the critical philosophy of Immanuel Kant (17241804), epistemological rationalism finds expression in the claim that the mind imposes its own inherent categories or forms upon incipient experience (see below Epistemological rationalism in modern philosophies).

In ethics, rationalism holds the position that reason, rather than feeling, custom, or authority, is the ultimate court of appeal in judging good and bad, right and wrong. Among major thinkers, the most notable representative of rational ethics is Kant, who held that the way to judge an act is to check its self-consistency as apprehended by the intellect: to note, first, what it is essentially, or in principlea lie, for example, or a theftand then to ask if one can consistently will that the principle be made universal. Is theft, then, right? The answer must be No, because, if theft were generally approved, peoples property would not be their own as opposed to anyone elses, and theft would then become meaningless; the notion, if universalized, would thus destroy itself, as reason by itself is sufficient to show.

In religion, rationalism commonly means that all human knowledge comes through the use of natural faculties, without the aid of supernatural revelation. Reason is here used in a broader sense, referring to human cognitive powers generally, as opposed to supernatural grace or faiththough it is also in sharp contrast to so-called existential approaches to truth. Reason, for the rationalist, thus stands opposed to many of the religions of the world, including Christianity, which have held that the divine has revealed itself through inspired persons or writings and which have required, at times, that its claims be accepted as infallible, even when they do not accord with natural knowledge. Religious rationalists hold, on the other hand, that if the clear insights of human reason must be set aside in favour of alleged revelation, then human thought is everywhere rendered suspecteven in the reasonings of the theologians themselves. There cannot be two ultimately different ways of warranting truth, they assert; hence rationalism urges that reason, with its standard of consistency, must be the final court of appeal. Religious rationalism can reflect either a traditional piety, when endeavouring to display the alleged sweet reasonableness of religion, or an antiauthoritarian temper, when aiming to supplant religion with the goddess of reason.

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Rationalism | Britannica

Rationalism is the philosophical stance according to which reason is the ultimate source of human knowledge. It stands in contrast toempiricism, according to which the senses suffice in justifying knowledge.

In one form or another, rationalism features in most philosophical traditions. In the Western tradition, it boasts a long and distinguished list of followers, including Plato, Descartes, and Kant. Rationalism continues to be a major philosophical approach to decision-making today.

How do we come to know objects through the senses or through reason? According toDescartes,the latter option is the correct one.

As an example of Descartes' approach to rationalism, consider polygons (i.e. closed, plane figures in geometry). How do we know that something is a triangle as opposed to a square? The senses may seem to play a key role in our understanding: we see that a figure has three sides or four sides. But now consider two polygons one with athousand sides and the other with a thousand and one sides. Which is which? In order to distinguish between the two, it will be necessary to count the sides using reason to tell them apart.For Descartes, reason is involved in all of our knowledge. This is because our understanding of objects is nuanced by reason. For example, how do you know that the person in the mirror is, in fact, yourself? How does each of us recognize the purpose or significance of objects such as pots, guns, or fences? How do we distinguish one similar object from another? Reason alone can explain such puzzles.

Since the justification of knowledge occupies a central role in philosophical theorizing, it is typical to sort out philosophers on the basis of their stance with respect to the rationalist vs. empiricist debate. Rationalism indeed characterizes a wide range of philosophical topics.

Of course, in a practical sense, it is almost impossible to separate rationalism from empiricism. We cannot make rational decisions without the information provided to us through our senses, nor can we make empirical decisions without considering their rational implications.

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Rationalism in Philosophical Traditions - ThoughtCo

I. Definition

Rationalism is the philosophy that knowledge comes from logic and a certain kind of intuitionwhen we immediately know something to be true without deduction, such as I am conscious. Rationalists hold that the best way to arrive at certain knowledge is using the minds rational abilities. The opposite of rationalism is empiricism, or the view that knowledge comes from observing the outside world. However, in practice almost all philosophers and scientists use a combination of empiricism and rationalism.

Rationalism is an idea about where knowledge comes from, and is therefore part of the philosophical sub-field of epistemology.

Math provides a good illustration of rationalism: to a rationalist, you dont have to observe the world or have experiences in order to know that 1+1=2. You just have to understand the concepts one and addition, and then you can know that its true. Empiricists, on the other hand, argue that this is not true; they point out that we can only rely on mathematical equations based on some experience of the world, for example having one cookie, being given another, and then having two.

Rationalism and empiricism both play a role in science, though they correspond to different branches of science. Rationalism corresponds to mathematical analysis, whereas empiricism corresponds to experiments and observation.

Of course, the best route to knowledge combines rational contemplation and empirical observation. Rationalists and empiricists agree on that; they just disagree on which one is more important or primary.

Constructivism is an effort to combine empiricism and rationalism. According to constructivists, we can observe the world around us and gain a lot of knowledge this way (thats the empiricist part), but in order to understand or explain what we know, we have to fit it into an existing structure. That is, we have to construct a rational set of ideas that can make sense of the empirical data (thats the rationalist part). Constructivism is a popular idea among teachers, who find it helpful in structuring lessons: constructivist teaching involves presenting new information in a way designed to fit in with what the student already knows, so that they can gradually build up an understanding of the world for themselves.

Many people think that the progress of the human race is based on experiences of an empirical, critical nature, but I say that true knowledge is to be had only through a philosophy of deduction . . . Intuition makes us look at unrelated facts and then think about them until they can all be brought under one law. (Albert Einstein)

Many people think of science as an inherently empirical discipline after all, its based mainly on observation and experiments, right? But theres also a rationalist side to science as seen in this quote from Einstein. Einstein was not big on experiments or peering through telescopes. Instead, he took data that other people had collected and tried to understand it rationally (i.e. mathematically). His brilliant theories of special and general relativity were not the results of new experiments, but rather the result of applying a keen rational eyeand intuitionto existing data.

Music has always been inseparable from religious expression, since, like religion at its best, music marks the limits of reason. Because a territory is defined by its extremities, it follows that music must be definitively rational. (Karen Armstrong)

Many rationalist philosophers are fascinated by music, for exactly the reasons that Karen Armstrong points out in this quote. Music is intensely rational in some ways (you can analyze its structures and frequencies and find all sorts of mathematical patterns there), but its also extremely emotional and seems to short-circuit our rational brains. Thus, music exists right on the boundary between rational and anti-rational. Armstrong also makes the more controversial, but no less interesting, claim that religion works in a similar way, operating at the boundaries between rational thought and non-rational emotions.

Rationalism has deep historical roots; you might even say that its discovery defines the birth of philosophy in various cultures. The ancient Greeks are probably the most famous example: ancient philosophers such as Plato and Pythagoras argued that reality is characterized by some basic abstract logical principles, and that if we know these principles, then we can derive further truths about reality. (Thats the same Pythagoras who invented the famous Pythagorean Theorem more evidence of the connection between rationalism and math.)

However, other Greeks disagreed. Aristotle, for example, based much of his philosophy on observation. He was fascinated by the natural world and spent much of his time gathering samples of plants and animals; in some ways he was the first modern biologist. This method is, of course, based on observation and therefore is a kind of empiricism.

Rationalism really took off in the Medieval Islamic world, where Muslim philosophers looked to Plato for inspiration. Platos rationalism proved to be extremely important to medieval Islam, which was an intensely rationalistic religion based on logical deduction. Its first principle was tawheed, or the Unity of God, and all other truths were thought to be logical consequences of that single revelation.

Both rationalism and empiricism played a major role in the Scientific Revolution. Empiricists did experiments and made observations by, for example, looking through telescopes. But many of the most important discoveries were made by rational analysis, not empirical observation. And of course, the experiments were also partially inspired by reason and intuition.

Isaac Newton developed his theory of gravity by working out the mathematical relationship between falling objects and orbiting planets. (Sometimes people say that Newton discovered gravity, but really its more accurate to say that he explained gravity.)

The debate between rationalists and empiricists was resolved to some extent by Immanuel Kant, one of the most influential philosophers who ever lived. Kants theory was that empiricism and rationalism were both true in their own ways: he agreed with the empiricists when he said that all human knowledge comes from observation. This, he said, is in fact the way that people learn about the world. But our observations are also based on certain innate ways of reasoning; our brains are hard-wired to make certain conclusions from observation and reason further in certain ways. So, he also agreed with the rationalists that knowledge is determined by rationality. As you might expect, many constructivists can trace their lineage back to Kant.

In Civilization V, one of the social policy options is Rationalism. This social policy improves science output for your civilization and allows you to produce more Great Scientists. This makes sense since rationalism was so important in the early scientific revolution. However, the game illustrates rationalism with a picture of a scientist looking through a prism, presumably as part of an experiment. So the picture would fit better under the heading of empiricism rather than rationalism!

Vulcanians do not speculate. I speak from pure logic. (Spock, Star Trek)

Spock is the perfect rationalist. His powerful brain can compute logical probabilities faster than any human being, and he is not distracted by pesky emotions or personal biases (at least most of the time; he is half-human, after all). He is capable of incredible feats of logic, such as playing three-dimensional chess.

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Rationalism: Examples and Definition | Philosophy Terms

Having the imprimatur of one Terrence Malick on your film, especially as executive producer, is never a bad thing. Director Carlo S. Hintermann, who makes his narrative feature debut with The Book of Vision after several documentaries, worked with Malick as second unit director on the Italian shoot of 2011s The Tree of Life. Now, Malick has helped the Italian-Swiss filmmaker shepherd this latest project. The Book of Vision is set to open the Venice Film Festival Critics Week, and it has a first trailer. See below.

Heres the synopsis: Eva, a promising young doctor, leaves her brilliant career to study History of Medicine in a remote university. Now is the time for her to call everything into question: her nature, her body, her illness, and her sealed fate. Johan Anmuth is an 18th Century Prussian physician in perpetual conflict between the rise of rationalism and ancient forms of animism. The Book of Vision is a manuscript that sweeps these two existences up, blending them into a never-ending vortex. Far from a proper scientific text, the book contains the hopes, fears, and dreams of more than 1800 patients. Dr. Anmuth truly knew how to listen to his patients, whose spirits still wander through the pages, life and death, merging in a continuous flow. The story of Anmuth and his patients inspire Eva to live her life to the fullest. Nothing expires in its time. Only what you desire is real, not merely what happens.

Hintermann directs an international cast including Charles Dance (Game of Thrones), Lotte Verbeek (Outlander, The Borgias), Sverrir Gudnason (Borg vs McEnroe), Isolda Dychauk (The Borgias, Faust) and Italian actor Filippo Nigro. The art was created by Lorenzo Ceccotti, aka LRNZ, who also served as the concept visual designer of the film. With this film I tried to capture and isolate the transcendent and immanent vision of nature, which swarms outside and inside the body, always changing like the soul, LRNZ said.

Speaking to Variety, Hintermann described The Book of Vision as a game of mirrors between two dimensions with time jumps inspired by the type of storytelling in video games. The director also described the movie as a cross between Barry Lyndon and Labyrinth.

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The Book of Vision Trailer: Terrence Malick-Produced Drama Is a Time-Jumping Spiritual Journey - IndieWire

Ahead of the films premiere at the 35th Venice International Film Critics Week this September, an official trailer and poster have been released for The Book of Vision.

Directed by Carlo S. Hintermann and executive produced by Terrence Malick, The Book of Vision features an international cast that includes Charles Dance (Game of Thrones), Lotte Verbeek (Outlander, The Borgias), Sverrir Gudnason (Borg vs McEnroe), Isolda Dychauk (Faust, TwoGirls) and Italian actor Filippo Nigro.

Check out the poster, synopsis and trailer here

Eva, a promising young doctor, leaves her brilliant career to study History of Medicine in a remote university. Now is the time for her to call everything into question: her nature, her body, her illness, and her sealed fate. Johan Anmuth is an 18th-century Prussian physician in perpetual conflict between the rise of rationalism and ancient forms of animism. The Book of Vision is a manuscript that sweeps these two existences up, blending them into a never-ending vortex. Far from a proper scientific text, the book contains the hopes, fears, and dreams of more than 1800 patients. Dr. Anmuth truly knew how to listen to his patients, whose spirits still wander through the pages, life and death, merging in a continuous flow. The story of Anmuth and his patients inspire Eva to live her life to the fullest. Nothing expires in its time. Only what you desire is real, not merely what happens.

The Book of Vision will premiere at the 35th Venice International Film Critics Week in Italy on September 3rd 2020.

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Terrence Malick-produced The Book of Vision gets a trailer and poster - Flickering Myth

Javed Akhtar talks about his Richard Dawkins Award win, the demerits of 'good and bad bigotry', and why there is a difference between 'inheritance' and 'nepotism'.

It wasin Marchlast year that I, along with a few others, first encountered Javed Akhtar's stirring clarion call to writers, imploring them to exert the might of their pens through his new poem,Likh.

"Jo baat kehte darte hain sab, tu woh baat likh Itni andheri thhi na kabhi pehle raat, likh

Jin se qaseede likkhey thhay woh phenk de qalam Phir khoon-e-dil se sachche qalam ki sifaat likh

Jo roznamon mein kahin paati nahin jagah Jo roz har jagah ki hai, woh waardaat likh

Jitne bhi tang daire hain saarey torh de Ab aa khuli fizaon mein ab kainat likh

Jo waqeyaat ho gaye unka to zikr hai Lekin jo hone chaahiye, woh waqeyaat likh

Iss bagh mein jo dekhni hai tujh ko phir bahaar Tu daal-daal de sada, tu paat-paat likh"

The occasion was the 53rd Shankar-Shad Mushaira held annually in Delhi,a much-awaited affair that takesstock of and celebrates the decadent richness of Urdushayari in the subcontinent, with poets from Pakistan also in attendance...exceptthat they were not last year. Amid escalating cross-border tensions with Pakistan, the organisers chose to give their neighbours a miss.

A little over a year later, asnews broke thatAkhtar has been commemorated withthe coveted Richard Dawkins Award for being a public figure whoendorses "the values of secularism, rationalism, upholding scientific truth", I was rather unsurprised to learn that he was the sole Indian recipient of the honour. In that moment, I was transported back to my seat in the audience at the poets' congress,clinging onto eachlafz andiltija in his verses thatbeseeched society to be fearless in their pursuit of truth.

In a telephonic interview withFirstpost,the 75-year-oldpoet and screenwriter who is spending time away from the 'Maximum City's' din at his Khandala homediscussesthe merits of rationalism, the debate on nepotism, and whyhe writes for those who suffer.

What does winning the Richard Dawkins Award mean to you personally, considering you have been on the receiving end of a lot of hate and trolling for the very same views which have been acknowledged by this award.

Ah, you see, this is unique because this is an honour that has been given to me for my thinking, my beliefs or shall I say lack of beliefs and my point-of-view about rationality and religion. It is the first time that I have been awarded such a recognition, so I am very thankful. Remember one thing, if you have views, you will be challenged. Whatever views you have, there will be some people who will disagree with you, while some will totally understand you. I can see that there is a great attempt on Twitter and on other social media platforms todestroymy credibility and reputation as a secularist and rationalist, but that does not matter. It's totally expected. And more often than not, I keep getting hate mails from different communities some Hindu, some Muslim both of them troll me. That's alright, really. It does not matter to me.

We are not alien to the fact that critical thinking spaces are shrinking in India and across the world, and they have largely been divided into various binaries. In such times, for a person of wordslike you, how do you hold on to nuanced dialogue?

I don't think critical thinking is shrinking, but spaces for it yes, maybe.However, there are people who think consistently, rationally, logically, scientifically in a more progressive, liberal and secular manner. Their voices, at the moment, are not heard, andsometimesthey are suppressed. Sometimes they feel that perhaps this is not the time to belouder and clearer than is necessary, because a lot of frenemies and enemies who are powerful can harm them. But, even if the other point of view is silent, or in the closet, it is not non-existent. And I am sure that at the right time, we will feel their presence.

And as for nuance, well, there are certain holds barred if you want to be decent and cultured. You just cannot use any language, or say everything in the crudest manner there is a difference between frankness and crudity and rudeness; let's not confuse the two. I think whatever you want to say, you can say it decently and in a cultured way.

Image courtesy: Javed Akhtar

In a recent interview, you've mentioned that principally, a rationalist should be an atheist. How easy or difficult is it to stand by such statements at a time when one can be persecuted for their beliefs?

It's not just a matter of 'should be'. If you are not an atheist, you are not a rationalist. Rationalists and atheists aren't two different things, as a matter of fact. Rational thinking essentially means not depending on faith, because faith is something which you start believing in without any logic, reason or evidence. On the other hand, rationality meanslooking at things and finding reason, logic, witness and evidence behind them. Only then when you accept something, is when you practise rationality. So it is inherently the opposite of faith.

In any kind of social crisis whether it's the pandemic or the CAA-NRC-NPR in recent times the minorities and the poor arethe ones who are the most oppressed systemically, irrespective of who is in power. However, under the current regime, the communal divides have become visibly more pronounced. What is the emotional and social cost of this crisis? Howdo you, personally,hold on to hope when you know that actively or tacitlyyour friends and colleagues are, perhaps, supporting these disruptive forces?

Even today, when we are complaining about the things that you mentioned, majority of Indians do not approve of the things happening. But the fact is, those people are fragmented into different parties and different groups. Today, the situation is such that it is enough to be in power if one gets 31 or 32 percent votes. This means that almost 67 to 68 percent of the people did not vote for you. But since the opposition is fragmented, it becomes ineffective. That is what is happening. So, I suppose that all those people who think that what is being done is not right, and the ideology that is gradually taking over society and the nation is not the right ideology, they will have to find some common platform and come together.They have to say this in a unified voice, because as long as they are divided, they will remain ineffective like they are today.

This brings me to the question of the 'apolitical artist' a term we hear a lot today, especially in the Hindi film industry. What do you think the term means? Is there any space to appreciate an 'apolitical artist' today?

I think, if you dissect anybody's mind or intelligence, you willknow that nobody is apolitical. But perhaps, it is their expediency thatmakes them look apolitical, and keeps them distant from all controversies, or subjects that can cause any kind of backlash or trouble to them. That is about it. But I don't think in India anybody is totally apolitical. They have their beliefs, their conditions and thoughts; they may or may not express them, but they of course have their ideas.

But when it comes to an artist and their art, can an artist, who claims to be apolitical, also say that their art has to be seen in the same 'apolitical' light, especially during such intensely polarised times?

It is not possible to do that. Artists look around, imbibe, and through some process of osmosis, learn what is happening in society, and then express their comments on the happenings through some form of art like a painting, a film, a play, a story or a novel. All of this is nothing but what is happening around the artist, which the artist styles from his/her point of view, and irrespective of how nuanced their comments may be, they cannot exist in a totally water-tight compartment from the artist; because the artist's point of view, morality, likes and dislikes, terms and conditions will seep into that story, that painting, that poem. So, I don't see how an artist can be totally neutral it is not possible.

As a matter of fact, if the artist is insisting that he/she is totally neutral, then the artist is with the powers at play. Because, in a situation where some people are very strong while some are very weak, if you say you are "neutral", you are obviouslysiding with the ones in power. By not saying anything, or by saying that you are indifferent, youare saying something. If you say you are 'apolitical' or neutral, you are, wittingly or unwittingly, condoning, or at least accepting the status quo. That is also a comment and a political stand.

Image courtesy: Javed Akhtar

You have said that critique cannot be limited to others and other communities, and one has to be critical of themselves and their own communities as well in order to progress...

First of all, you have to look around and set your home right, and accept what is wrong within your own home, society and community, and then talk about others.

...But we've often seen that when peopleadopt such an approach, there are sections that tag them as highbrow 'intellectuals', whose ideas are said to be inaccessible to the common person. What do you have to say about that?

That depends on the way you express yourself. But the fact remains that if somebody, say a Muslim, refuses to see what is wrong within their own community, and starts criticising and lecturing others, that will not be helpful. This is true for a Hindu also. The words of such people will not matter. There are some people certain Hindu names who only criticise Hindu communalism, but don't say a word about Muslim communalism. Similarly, there are also some Muslim names on Twitter, who only criticise Muslim communalism, and don't say anything about Hindu communalists. I think both are wrong. You see, you make a mistake by choosing your good communalism and bad communalism, good bigotry and bad bigotry. There is nothing like that. A bigot is a bigot, whether he/she is from your community or any other community. However, if you want to take a rational and objective stand, youhave to criticise fundamentalism, regressive thoughts, anti-women and anti-other thoughts, or any thought that, directly or indirectly, propagates hate or schism in society. And this is irrespective of whether they are expressed by someone from your community or someone else's. You get the right to criticise another community only if you are just and willing to criticise your own community as well.

While we are on this subject, I remember a statement that you made in a public speech earlier this year,while addressing a crowd in Ghaziabad on the CAA-NRC issue. You said, "Ameer Musalmaan ke paas (identity proof)hai...tum fikar na karo uski. Sirf gareeb Musalmaan ke paas nahi hai, gareeb Hindu ke paas nahi hai, gareeb Dalit ke paas nahi hai. Yeh problem gareeb ka hai. Koi mere bacchon ko thodi nikaalne waala hai? Mere paas paisa hai. Usse tum poochhoge? Usse tum maalum karoge, jiske vote se tum power mein aaye ho?"These aresome powerful words coming from a person who belongs to a fraternity that chooses to remain largely reticent on political matters.

However, being an influential figure from the Muslim community in India, do you think it's fair to alwaysexpect the 'Muslim celebrities' and actors who arguably belong to a persecuted and vulnerable community in the country, even if influential to make statements on communal tensions in India? Should one not expect more celebrities from Hindu and other communities to speak in support of their Muslim counterparts?

You may belong to a vulnerable section, but irrespective of that, you have to give your honest opinion andnot pull any punches. Youhaveto.

You see, what I was trying to say (in the speech) is that some people with vested interests have alwayswanted todivide the society vertically. Their religious communities or religious identities become their only identity. But the fact is that society is not divided vertically itisreally divided horizontally. There are very poor people and there are very rich people, and in between the two, there exists a whole spectrum, which is religion and community-blind. Some people belong to the middle class in every community, some are very poor in every community, there are also the poorest of poor in every community, much like the upper-middle classes in every community. The percentages may be different, but the fact remains that instead of dividing peopleaccording to their religions, if you look at it through the lens of economics and finances, you will know how the society is doing.

Some people don't want to establish that people from every community are in dire conditions. If this happens, the oneswith vested interests will be proven guilty. They would prefer that these situations not come into focus, and instead of that, talk about communities and divide the society in some other way that will help them in not getting exposed.

But this again brings me back to the question of whether you thinkmore people belonging to a visible majority should speak up increasingly for the disenfranchised and persecuted communities...

Actually,communities are not at fault.The average person from any community wants their children to go to a good school, and wants a good hospital for their family, and so on and so forth. People just wish for a decent life, and these are the ambitions they have that's about all. But there are certain segments in every community who are troublemakers. Therefore, we should never accuse an entire community. So we need to differentiate between the community and its Right wing and extreme fringes, which exist everywhere and in every community.

The recent and unfortunate death of Sushant Singh Rajput has, once again, opened up debates on nepotism and privilege in the Hindi film industry. I ask you this question because your children too have successfully ventured into films, even though they have not been charged with nepotism as much as some others from the industry have been. Most 'film families' have responded defensively to these charges. What are your thoughts on this debate?

You see, first of all, one must differentiate between nepotism and inheritance. If you take a big industrialistdealing in major projects, factories, investments, bank balances and properties, when he/she dies or even during his/her life the person will give all of it to his/her children, right? If there is a shopkeeper, that shopkeeper will give his shop to his children, or maybe to his mother, or son, or daughter, or whoever else he wants to give it to. So even in the film industry, if a man wants to give his property to his children, is that nepotism? There is definitely a difference between inheritance and nepotism.

Mr Yash Chopra has made a huge business and a studio. So to whom should he have given his studio? Obviously to his wife and his children. So would you say that the fact that he gave his studio to his children is nepotism? He is a producer, andnow his son wants to become a director. So if he gives him his own money and takes a personal risk for his children, and makes a film for his son who is the director, is it nepotism? How can it be nepotism? Everybody works for their children and theirfollowinggenerations, and strives to give them as many facilities and opportunities as possible. So how do you call this nepotism?

Besides that, if you look at the list of actors in the industry, they are not there because of nepotism. Theymight have one foot in the door because they probably have a parent in the film industry, or perhaps belong to a film family. There was one foot in the door, accepted. But that's about all.

The maximum that you can do for a child is give him a break. Ultimately, you cannot rig the results of your child's efforts. At the end of the day, he or she willbecome successful only if the public has approved and appreciated the person. There is no rigging possible here it is a totally fair election.

You can give them a chance, that is all. There are many people who have been successful, but their children have not found much success. Conversely, there are also successful children whose parents did not do well in the industry. So, you can give both kind of examples. There are also people who came from outside and are doing extremely well, like Shah Rukh Khan and Akshay Kumar, who are huge stars today. They do not come from film families; they were complete outsiders who have now made a place for themselves. Look at the heroines Katrina Kaif, Anushka Sharma, Deepika Padukone. They don't come from film families either, but have become huge stars.

When it comes to Alia Bhatt whose father Mahesh Bhatt is a successful director shebecame a star from a film that was produced and directed by someone who is not related to her. So what kind of nepotism is that? She is an extremely talented girl. Alia has become popular not because she is Mahesh's daughter, or because someone gave her a break, she is successful because she is a very fine actor.

There is no 'us' or 'them'.In the rolling credits that are shown in the beginning or at the end of a film, you'll see that every film and itsunit has people from every part of India, belonging to every community, caste, region, language. The sets have people from every segment of society. The producer cannot afford this kind of nepotism. If someone has not made a place for himself or herself, the producer will not back that person or give that person a break; he cannot. Ultimately, it is your talent, your popularity and acceptance by the audience that will sustain you, and not because somebody is backing you. Someone can give you a break, yes.

Youcan say that this person is his/her child, but then their parents at one point were outsiders, who came and worked in the industry, made a place for themselves and were successful. Now today, if they put their money to bet on their children, who are we to raise objections? They are notusingpublic money, or taking government aid to make the film. They are using their own hard-earned money. If they want to use their money for their own children, we cannot object to that, can we?

When it comes tothe media in India, you have been a fierce advocate for a free press in the country. Over the past couple of years, have you noticed any difference in your interactions with journalists?

Well, today I can see that television channels do not have any room for a Barkha Dutt, or Karan Thapar, or Punya Prasun Bajpai, or even a Nidhi Razdan. These are exceptionally well-knownand competent journalists, so I sometimes wonder as to why no channel is interested in choosing them for a programme? I don't know, but I would like to find out more about this.

What do you have to say about how the governments have been handling the coronavirus outbreak across the country?

It is not an ideal situation, and it is very easy to criticise the government.However,the fact remains that there was not much that they could have done anyway, except for maybe announcing the lockdown with a warning four days or a week prior to imposing it. Because, you know, the economically vulnerable sections really suffered due to the short notice given, allowing people only four hours, between 8 pm and 12 am. Indians, whom we now call the 'migrant labourers', were the worst sufferers.

When it comes tohandling the coronavirus outbreak, the medical fraternity and the bureaucracy are trying their best. However, it is out of control in many countries; they are in a no-win situation. If they continue with the lockdown, it will reflect very badly on our economy, whichin any case was not very healthy. And if they relax the lockdown, the coronavirus outbreak will start spiralling. So it's a no-win situation for the government also, and I won't like to criticise them. Imagine yourself in their shoes, what would you have done?

For us to come out wiser from this situation, there should be a greater budget allocated for healthcare in the country, with more hospitals built.There should besome kind of a hospital in every locality that has at least the basic equipment and medicine. Oftentimes, there are hospitals without proper facilities and medication, or even machines that are required today.We will have to prepare for such eventualities and increase healthcare budgets at state and central levels.

So would you say that a situation like this has revealed the cracks in the way the society has been run all these years?

Firstly, this is an extreme situation nobody in the world was prepared for it. Even a country like the USA is totally helpless. Comparatively, we seem a little better. But the fact remains that we could have been, and we should have been, and at least in future we should be more well-equipped to face such a situation. Health has not been prioritised so far; now we have to allocate more national and state budgets to healthcare, and infrastructure should be made much better. You cannot depend completely on private hospitals it is the responsibility of the government, which it cannot shrug off. All the governments have to look into this, so that in the future we are not so unprepared.

Finally, is there anything you have written during the lockdown that you could share with us? Hasyour writing helped you cope with the crisis?

What is more important is, does my poetry help others who are suffering?

Of course, somewhere you appeal to the conscience of the nation and the people who are listening to and reading your poetry, but the situation is more difficult than this. Most of the times I write for those who suffer, expressing his or her feelings through words.

Humsafar, by Javed Akhtar. Image courtesy: Javed Akhtar

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Fellow Traveller(Translated from the Urdu by Rakhshanda Jalil)

Walking barefootOn the scorching-searing roadMelting in the heat of the sunCarrying their bundle of hunger and thirstBoth have set out from the Big CityTo return to their small house in their small villageThe houseThat is far, far beyondThe strength of their feetAnd the resolve in their heartWho knows how far away?

When the gates of the factoryWere shut in their facesWhen the contractorThrew them out of a half-built factoryWho was there to look after them?

There was no hope on any pathThe city was desertedEvery building seemed as though a strangerAll the houses and shopsHad their eyes closedAnd in that cityWhere they had toiled for yearsThese twoWere aliensEven the Houses of all the Gods were lockedOnly a silence echoed all aroundWhere could the beggar go to beg?

Even those loudspeakers were silent nowThat would tell them till yesterdayWho they wereAnd what their true and complete identity wasListen to us, they would say, and understand:They are the sons of BaburAnd you are the son of a MaharanaYour history is different from theirsYour values are different from theirsYour faith is different from theirs

And those loudspeakers too were silent nowThat used to say:They are the worshippers of idolsAnd you are the soldiers of GhazniYou are the steadfast walkers on the true pathYour belief is different from theirsYour hopes are different from theirsEven your destination is different from theirsYour paths, too, are different

All the loudspeakers dispensing such wisdom and knowledgeAre silent nowAnd the two of them can seeTheir path is the sameWalking barefootOn the scorching-searing roadMelting in the heat of the sunCarrying their bundle of hunger and thirstThey have been walking like this for centuriesBoth burning alike from the fire in their bellies

Now, both have realisedThere are only two castes in the world:Rich and poorAll else are lies.

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The Javed Akhtar interview | If you say you are apol..re, wittingly or unwittingly, accepting the status quo - Firstpost