The Joker Question

                                                           

Joker is a fascinating character.I feel very awed by him and his ideas every time I see Nolan's Dark Knight.He is not your  run of the mill, trigger-happy villain who wants to conquer the world or has a backstory justifying his evil. He is evil just because he is, like  a force of nature, he just exists. Anarchy and Chaos are the corner stones of the philosophy which he abides by.

He describes himself as an agent of chaos and he really is. The dilemma that he puts  Gotham in, with two ships having the trigger for each other's bomb asks real soul searching questions.The civil behaviour and morality it seems is a pretence that people put on because they are not allowed to behave otherwise. Push the people sufficiently, and they will throw away the facade or at least think seriously  about it. Now it is a subjective question, whether we will be pulled down into chaos like force of gravity as Joker puts it or we ultimately let our nobler instincts prevail as it happens with the people of Gotham.

But it is an interesting thought, if we really are civil and moral due to our choices or due to compulsion. The overwhelming conviction of Joker is that we behave ourselves just because that is what is allowed in our society, the artificial rules are what hold this world together.And if we let it all loose we might see the people in the truest sense, stripped of the pretence and back to animalistic behaviour. He was successful to a large extent in revealing the moral vulnerability  of humans by changing the outlook of Harvey Dent. But the extent of human nature is such that it never ceases to surprise us.The world is replete with examples where people have shown  examples of kindness in the face of extreme strife and also we see comfortable people behaving in most inhumane ways.So we can't be sure if we will eat each other up  in case food on Earth runs out but it is indeed a distinct possibility.

Facing such a potent villain or rather an idea, Batman did not just have to defeat Joker in the material sense but in a deeper philosophical battle. The only weapon to counter it would have been hope and that is what Batman uses, even if based on a lie. Joker's questions over human nature are answered by Gotham itself when the ships  do not blow each other up. But the light is not lit everywhere, Dent does fall prey to Joker's machinations and embraces his dark side. To defeat Joker, to keep the hope alive, Batman has to lie to make the people believe in themselves, in their own humanity.He has to sacrifice his own self to achieve that.

It really boils to each one of us and where do each one of us wants to go.Its like a self-fulfilling prophecy, if we do think that we will blow the other boat then we might be the one who might get blown up.As for me, I am still hopeful of the world amidst all the strife, I still believe that hope is a good thing and no good thing ever dies.

Times They Are A Changin'

There was a time when it appeared that everything was collating, connecting and joining.The world was getting smaller.I used to think that eventually the world would become one entity.The powers of globalization and liberalism appeared inevitable like a law of nature.

The recent happenings in the world with Brexit, Trump and the Rise of xenophobia across Europe have made me question whether these assumptions are right or not.Add to this the recent regime change in Brazil and you now have a world where every major country is closing its borders , the people are okay even if their leaders don't always say the most politically correct things and in general it is okay to distrust and attack people who are not like them.

To a large extent the reason things are changing this way is that for a long time the world was on the path of globalisation, of inclusiveness, of trusting the people who said the politically correct things and look where it led the world to. The 2008 crisis made the people question the powers that be and this current scenario is really a result of the people wanting the power back to them or at least the appearance of it. A common pattern in all of these political changes is that the new leader is always projected as the outsider, the one not part of the “system”, the one not scared to say what everyone is secretly thinking.

This makes the future so much more unpredictable.I don't know what is going to happen with the world when in the past I thought I knew where it was going.And you never know when something is just an ideology or a rebellious cry and when it becomes an accepted norm.

For example, today you can't say anything against women in general or consider them inferior or degrade them in any way.But back when it started, if you were a feminist then you were the one who had a different opinion than the majority, you were a rebel and you would have to fight it out with the society but now it is so entrenched within all of us as if it is a rule of nature and considered a basic law just like universal franchise where everyone has an equal vote.

Things change so quickly and before you know it there is an entire new world around you and you need to change yourself according to it. We need to keep ourselves one with the times because times, they are a changin'.

On original thought

What is originality?This is one of the fundamental questions that very few people bother to ask.What is an original thought and what is its importance?What people think and believe is affected by so many things that after a point it becomes really difficult to separate the adopted thought  from the genuine.

The fact is that there is a general level of acceptance about certain things like if a politician says that women should not have voting rights he would be shred to bits on prime time news because the general acceptance in the society is that men and women are equal at least that is what everybody in principle has  to pretend no matter what they think in their private lives.But  if the same politician had said the exact same words a 100 years back they would not have evoked sharp criticism only raised brows may be and if he had said the same thing 200 years back it would have uninteresting even dull responses because he would be stating only the accepted norm of the  society. So the point  is that there is a certain unwritten common  code of acceptable behavior which the society follows and it cant be codified

But fast forward 200 years and the accepted norms are changed.The question arises how do these changes arise and why do we as a citizen blindly follow the accepted norms the prevailing society.If for example a person holds the opinion of equality of men and women because it is what everyone says .Should that person get credited for holding such broad views about women or is he merely a function of the society that he is born in ?.It raises the serious question whether  our thought is only reliant on the prevailing society or are capable of independent thought process of our own?And if so where does our influences end and original thought begin?

On Freedom

I don't know what kept me from writing for so long...i guess it was the lack of readership or rather lack of interaction which disinterested me in writing posts.And i think it hits everyone who blogs at some point of time when  you don't seem to have the motivation to blog but here i am giving it another go.
For some time now i have been thinking about freedom and what is it actually.Now it being an abstract concept it is very difficult to come up with an exact definition for it and yet wars have been fought, massacres have been committed, people have have been killed  for this very abstraction.

But are we really free??Us the people who are supposedly free now that the British have left(Obviously i am referencing India only because it is unlikely that the six people who would be reading this post would have a US passport).Do we make the choices that we want to make?Or are we just following the existing structure of the society because that is what we are supposed to do and that is what is easy to do??In that respect are our choices the function of our surroundings and if so than where does the freedom lie?Isn't it all an illusion of freedom under the chains of societal norms.?

What i believe is that freedom is a huge responsibility.Freedom makes us feel lost.Freedom makes it difficult to decide because there is no guideline to follow.Freedom can make life hell.And so we have devised several contraptions to give us a path to follow which includes religion.Now religion in itself can be a very broad term but the one here is the ugly organised religion of evangelism and conversions.This is the religion of the priest in the grand inquisitor(Brothers Karamazov) where the priest rebukes Christ for having given the curse of freedom to the people and says that he is no longer needed.The chains of church would provide the salvation to the common man.

But i don't want to go into how freedom is suppressed.I want to talk about are really free???anywhere at all??anyone at all??what is true freedom?I think true freedom would lead to us gratifying our needs.And in all possibility in the order of Maslow's pyramid.But to be able to know ones desires,that in itself has become a big task because of the years of influence of the existing society wherever we live.To be absolutely free of the shackles of society that is something that i think about.The people who meditate possibly Buddha or Mahavira might have come across this only.They might have been able to delve deeper into themselves and see beyond what was being projected on them by their times.

If we make free decisions,where would that lead us to?Not just big decisions the daily life decisions that we make.How do we spend the 24 hours that we are provided daily?Eating ,sleeping, performing daily routines beyond this how do we decide what to do with our time?Most would be doing a job.But ultimately it is something that we do for money?So is that what should be our driving force??Is that what our freedom has led us to??And there is no denying the value of money.But if we are free to do anything what would we to do?

Desiderata- A poem

DESIDERATA(by Max Ehrmann)

Go placidly amid the noise and haste,

and remember what peace there may be in silence.

As far as possible without surrender

be on good terms with all persons.

Speak your truth quietly and clearly;

and listen to others,

even the dull and the ignorant;

they too have their story.

Avoid loud and aggressive persons,

they are vexations to the spirit.

If you compare yourself with others,

you may become vain or bitter;

for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.

Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.

Keep interested in your own career, however humble;

it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.

Exercise caution in your business affairs;

for the world is full of trickery.

But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;

many persons strive for high ideals;

and everywhere life is full of heroism.

Be yourself.

Especially, do not feign affection.

Neither be cynical about love;

for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment

it is as perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years,

gracefully surrendering the things of youth.

Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.

But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.

Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.

Beyond a wholesome discipline,

be gentle with yourself.

You are a child of the universe,

no less than the trees and the stars;

you have a right to be here.

And whether or not it is clear to you,

no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God,

whatever you conceive Him to be,

and whatever your labors and aspirations,

in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.

With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,

it is still a beautiful world.

Be cheerful.

Strive to be happy.

                                                                                                            

Moral of the Armstrong story.

The scandals of Tiger woods (who had squeaky clean image) Bill Clinton and even more recently and closely the spectacular fall of Rajat Gupta make one wonder whether the proverb "you can fool some of the people all  the time,you can fool all the people some of the time but you cannot fool all the people all the time", is really true at all.These were people who had everything most people think or dream of, they were the epitomes of  a public image and what we come to know in the end is that they were just fooling all the people all the time.

We need heroes.There is no denying it.there is almost a natural tendency in humans to look up to someone,to pull you up in tough times and Lance Armstrong was born for it.The great American hero, the cancer survivor ,seven time Tour de France winner, philanthropist, a larger than life image, a fairytale  too good to be true, a living legend.

That is why his fall from grace hits even harder.

I remember we used to have a moral science chapter about real life heroes and Armstrong was one.......now it looks odd (for lack of a better word) that we used to study his heroics as apart of our syllabus.I don't know if the book is still on but consider a boy who has just read about him and learns of his doping....

The fact that he could fool so many people for such a long period of time is really awe inspiring.Armstrong never accepted that he doped even when people wrote books about it or when his team mates alleged it,he even sued people for alleging doping on him.One can not help but feel  hatred for someone who harassed other people for speaking the truth,who used to visit children and deliver inspiring speeches when he himself was the God of sleaze.The amount of goodwill,trust and hope that people invested in him, in his image was tremendous and his fall has affected many not in the least the patients funded by his Livestrong foundation.Now that he has been caught he emerges a mere mortal, the deconstruction of his image shows a fallible human who did whatever he could to save himself.Even now; going to Oprah and making a show out of his confession does not improve his credentials,because thats what trust is about ,when you break it and at this level ;even the Queen of confessions can't save you.

The moral of the story in our moral science book was that hard work and strong will conquers all but the way things are this appears to be very far from truth.The moral seems to be that deceit and treachery wins all,that in this world you can get away with any thing you do,and that even a 7 time cycle champ cant be trusted to be honest and real,that this world has come to such a point that when we look for inspiration what we see as role models  are just carefully cultivated charades of people with money and a good PR agent.

Or that moral can be that while looking for inspiration we should not look up to someone but to our own self,to the innate belief in one,that we should not judge other people simply because its an impossible act to perform,that when we decide our morals we should not need the help of someone else.Whatever Armstrong might have done in the races the fact remains that he did beat cancer fair and square,that what he achieved still remains something most people fail to do, that his will and determination did indeed succeed at something,that he did raise $500 million for cancer patients.

May be the true moral is somewhere in between, somewhere between the extremes, somewhere between black and white, somewhere between the pessimism and the optimism....... like everything else in life.

The outrage and the country.

The latest thing to have caught the mood of the nation after the corruption protests is the heinous crime on the 16th of December. The lawlessness of this country was once again displayed for the world to see.The fact that it took one week for the prime minister of this country to speak up on the issue while the president of the united states made a public statement on the very day of connecticut shootings requires another post.For now it is about this incident.The crime was dastardly ,make no mistake about that but what intrigued me was the outrage that followed it.

What beats me in the outrage is that people react only when a such a crime is committed in the tier 1 city and that too in a "decent" area.Does any one know Thangjam Nanao Singh?.Not many.No one cares for the brutal cases that occur in the hinterlands of this country or in city slums.No vigils are held for them ,no one raises a voice for them.In short, no one gives a damn.

Moreover the knee-jerk reaction is what surprises me the most..Does any one remember the  Keenan Santos and Reuben Fernandes case?Not many.The outrage,the facebook groups squared up to zilch.This has become a sort of a cycle.,an incident in a metro, outrage, rally,provocative emotional images and graphics(at times with background score) on news channels, candlelight vigils,facebook likes groups,change the dp......new t20 match of India....sehwag scores a ton....whatever happened to the incident.

This is seriously sad. 

I don't have a problem with death penalty or castration or whatever you wanna do with the culprits but the problem in this country are not laws but their implementation ,the required amount of police personnel,their training to deal with such incidents,the patriarchal mindset of the society .

The offender does not feel free because of lack of laws but because he knows that the girl will herself not speak up,even if she does the social and parental pressure will push her down,if she does manage to reach the police station the insensitive police would not cooperate and if the culprit is influential,might simply refuse to make an fir. Supposing she beats all odds ,the pathetic judicial system makes sure the remaining glimmer of justice is quashed.

Call me a cynic but this " 'like'-this-to-bring-a-change","click-here-for-revolution","change-dp-to-to-change-the-nation" kind  of armchair slacktivism makes me squirm.A similar kind of "activism" was shown during the corruption protests when many went to the jantar mantar to get a pic with Indian flag to make a dp because it was the new "in-thing".Teaching your maid's kid a new word every day can bring more change than this.A false sense of altruism is all one gets most of the times.This comic by Garbage Bin shows the hypocrisy.

Not that there is no hope for this country ,the repeated protests and anger in this country do indicate there is a silver lining for this country after all.But this system needs massive changes.This rape incident and the lokpal issue point to  the larger need of police,judicial,electoral and  administrative reforms.There have been countless committees for them but it is only when people get on the streets for them when the politicians would bother with them. Till then the politicians are happy making more committiees and the people are happy creating a new page to like.