BELLUM OMNIUM CONTRA OMNES

My dear, perceptive reader, one of the immortal classics of socio-political literature is Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes, written in 1651. The purpose of this post is solely to discuss the aforementioned phrase, famous today perhaps in a context different from that which Hobbes originally intended. Literally translated, it means ‘The war of every man against every other’. Hobbes intended it to refer to the concept of civil war, and how a strong governmental figure was required to counter these particular urges of man. I shall add a twist to the interpretation, and use it to discuss the concepts of Darwinian evolution and the eternal battle of idealism vs. realism.

Most believe the concepts of Darwinian evolution to be the ultimate expression of anthropocentrism, and thus it is consciously rejected by many ecologists, deep or otherwise. On the other hand, phrases such as ‘for the greater good of the species’ give middle aged couch potatoes and emotionally repressed housewives a warm glow in the belly. It is a comfortable thought, is it not? Unfortunately, the reality is as far removed from this as the earth from the sun. To quote again from Hobbes, ‘The life of man is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short’. A human thinks first ONLY of himself, for himself. Here, we see a shift from anthropocentrism to egocentrism, in a manner of speaking (I know the parallel is not exact, but it is the best I could come up with). Even those few ‘enlightened’ souls (note the inverted commas) who claim to put society over their selves are only deluding themselves. No one, and I mean no one, is going to act for the greater good if it harms them. It’s just not done. Not only is it impossible, but quite frankly, it is inconceivable. This is the proverbial ‘Tragedy of the Commons’. Once more, I am certain I am in for a load full of protests from all quarters, but I believe I owe it to myself.

My dear reader, I’m fairly certain that by now, you have figured out how I plan to extrapolate the argument to the idealism vs. realism debate. Nevertheless, I shall take the liberty of boring you a little further, more for my own benefit than yours. Idealists seem to believe that life is a bed of roses, devoid of thorns, of course. They actually believe that faith can move mountains. However, using a truncated form of Hobbes again, ‘The life of man is solitary’. Each man follows his individual path in life, independent of any and all others. And, considering for instance, India herself, that’s more than a billion paths. Now, as any statistics student would easily tell you, the larger the cardinality of any sample space, the more consistent the statistical mean will be, more immune to the minor deviations introduced by the vagaries of individuals. My point is this; the mean path which, in turn, is the path of the entire country, is invariant, regardless of the actions of any person. This is what sociologists call ‘Social Inertia’, and in a society the size of our country, that inertia is immense!! While we have all the power to choose our own actions and influence our own fates, the same is not true for the whole. More on this, you my dear reader must have already seen here.

With this, my dear reader, I shall take your leave for now. I hope I have impressed upon you the wisdom of Thomas Hobbes and the seeming futility of idealism (note that I mentioned ‘seeming’, more on that later). As always, I look forward to your views on the matter. Farewell… until the next time we meet!!

A BREACH OF COURTESY? A PARADIGM SHIFT?

My dear, perceptive reader; I come back to you today with a short post about a little anecdote. Earlier today, as I was walking out of the classroom, I failed to notice a lady acquaintance of mine. Well, to cut a long story shot, she hailed me back and after a few polite exchanges, we said our goodbyes. No big deal, say you? Perhaps. But one point struck me. A few decades ago, in the Victorian Era, it would have been considered a heinous breach of courtesy to ignore a lady, no matter how concerned you may be with other, pressing matters. And yet, here, it was brushed aside as though it was nothing.

Perhaps my judgment is warped by the fact that I read too many novels by Victorian authors when I was younger, but those little niceties, quaint and outdated as they may be, have always appealed to me. As I cycled away from the aforesaid encounter, the delayed realization struck me!! Something had definitely changed. But what was it? Was it me? Or is it society has ‘evolved’ sufficiently to ignore such common courtesies? Is this the outcome of the ‘Neo-Hellenistic’ revolution?? Am I alone in having a problem with the turn of events?

With that thought, I leave you, my dear, perceptive reader. As always, I invite you to form your own opinions, and request you to share them with me.

THE GOLDEN FLEECE

My dear, perceptive reader, I come back to you today with more of my inchoate musings about the mundane. Perhaps in no other thing is displayed as clearly incontrovertible proof of the takeover of the technological age and its associated social implications as in the morning routine of a typical IITian. Consider, for instance, yours truly, I wake up in the morning, thanks largely to a voice alarm which, trust me, is as irritating as it is effective. My first action in the morn is to yawn and sleepily toggle the switch on my desk onto the ‘ON’ position, do the same to my UPS device and switch on my computer. (Note that I make no mention of performing my morning ablutions prior to this)

Thankfully, I have a fast, reliable for the most part, internet connection available in my room at all not-so-unearthly hours. I shudder to think of how my life would be without the internet. For those as intensely private as yours truly, it is a godsend, no less!! It allows me to maintain the essential interaction with other members of the human race, but yet it allows me to have it on my own terms.

Consider, for a moment, my dear reader, the vast myriad of social networking websites and instant messaging (IM) services. I myself use way too many of the afore-mentioned for my own good. Anyway, I am reasonably certain that the creators of this concept had in mind not its use by people like me, but rather by those extroverts who like nothing better in life than to make new friends. But, foreseen or otherwise, my kind owes an eternal debt to the creation and its creators.

But I digress. The reason for this post was another. I wished to highlight the point that say, GTalk, provides an interface for interaction which is intensely comfortable. I do not have to subject myself to the actual presence of the person with whom I wish to converse or vice versa. (No offense intended, of course) There is an indescribable romance, a mystery to IMing which for some reason, chooses not to reveal itself to me. Yet, I sense that it is there, teasingly, tantalizingly just outside my reach. Don’t you feel it too, my dear reader? Don’t you feel the charm of the chat window, the mystique of multiple interpretations to every line typed, the incredible convenience (to those insecure few) of being able to consider what you say before you actually say it!! Aren’t you, with such a interface, much less likely to put your overly large foot in your mouth??

A case in point for this argument is the use of the call function of GTalk. How many of us actually use it? And when we do use it, it is rare to do so for a full blown conversation rather than a few terse statements, very breve and business-like.

And yet, it is not without its drawbacks. Over such an interface, you see but a façade, only that part of the other the other wants you to see in the first place. You have to inkling of the true nature of the man behind the words. (Or woman, I shall not be accused of sexism) IM is, borrowing from an old fable, the golden fleece which can make the wolf seem a lamb.

One wonders about the cause of this unprecedented comfort level experienced over this interface. As always, I have my own opinions. (Yeah right, big surprise!!) I believe that no one ever truly opens up in a conversation, be t face to face or otherwise. A shield is always raised, invariably. It is just that in a face to face conversation, your counterpart has many more opportunities to sneak peeks of the real you. On the other hand, in an internet conversation, the benefits are dual; the shield can be raised with less effort and also the other cannot penetrate it without substantial effort.

Well, I’m afraid I shall have to truncate this discussion abruptly. I leave it to you, my dear perceptive reader, to form your own opinions and, as always, live on the hope that you shall share them with me.