Not an Activist any more

I wonder why the world sees ‘activism’ free of universal equity. Sure activism can be constructive, progressive or and often misleading, disruptive and destructive just like any other social or political theory. It is imperative for the activists to explain ‘activism’ across a moral and intellectual code that aligns with progressive and rational thinking instead of imposing their views using violence and destruction. The fair use of logic to substantiate a change in society is often rejected over an emotionally charged activist state of mind. As long as it doesn’t demonize all other practices of supporting an idea over rationality and reasoning, activism doesn’t seem to offer any other way of reforming its own fundamentals.

Where exactly does activism go out of hands or completely fail? Who decides the failure? Who will reform it if required, to be fair I think activists may only consider its own eligible enough to answer such questions. So far I doubt that activism may embark on answering these questions as it may go against them on social and moral grounds.

As soon as we acquire a college degree we begin to politically and socially define ourselves and others. We begin to use labels and supporting ideologies of our chosen influence/s to identify different roles in society. Thanks to our institutes this transformation of an unbiased student into a self proclaimed politically correct torch bearer of justice often takes pride in supporting activism. If the influence doesn’t stop there ‘Media’ steps in and shows us how glorified it is to become a peaceful or violent protestor over the many causes it can find to engage you. Our media and educational institutes often win the fight and they never really fail either since the failure always leaves more causes to turn you into an activist as it is prerequisite for survival for the activist notion.

Over the years activism has been gaining immense heroic attention without deploying any boundaries of social and moral values. Harbored by the media it is portrayed as a revolution every time that loses track of conclusion while our educational institutes continue to fuel it by turning more students into activists, who would not use any other means of proving a point besides protesting and wanting to over throw all other systems working in a society. Media and educational institutes are working side by side as counterparts without defining or following universal (social or moral) equity for activism.

While our institutes provide a limited exposure to carefully filtered ideologies, our media advertises it by showing us diverse activists as role models today. Preying on masses of self righteous freedom fighters the activist regime turns unbiased students into rigid extremists who don’t welcome a difference of opinion or rational thinking. With variable causes to offer there will always be one for every one from religion to animal rights, from political reforms to environment, from women rights to health care it seems as if the only solution is activism. The notion finds its way into using all forms of media from getting ‘likes’ on social media to viewership of television networks and newspapers and following the cool role models like Emma Watson and Beyonce.

                                   

Activists would use the same tactics of communication such as advertisement, propaganda, brand ambassadorship, PR campaigns, violence and man power to impose a narrative on masses. Yet when corporate sector, government, armed forces or any other institute uses the same tactics to perpetuate a political or social influence these activists demonize the act of using these tools. They would hold themselves superior to all other aspects by calling them authoritarian, white supremacists, fascists, capitalists, racists, and many other political slurs that fall out of context on rational grounds as set up by the international law that governs them. It’s funny since activists pretend they want to follow the law, you would often find them quoting the law but you may rarely find them obeying the law. The cherry picking of laws allow them to feed their denial that activism is working for the betterment of society and while treating the problem they often become the problem, that disrupts the harmony of many innocent people, which they never hold themselves responsible for.

Any act against these activists also lands you in trouble on social, political and emotional grounds of course and allows the self righteous ‘Media’ to have more juicy content to promote their act. Activism is never really held accountable for the horrors and intolerant acts of violence it promotes. Sure you may have seen some activists getting arrested and fined for their acts but that is only treating the ill and not the disease. The so-called whistle blowers or watch dogs chanting revolution and idealistic outcomes do everything to turn a rationally thinking person into a rigid activist who works in masses and loses the individuality.

Every system ever suggested or implemented in society needs exploration and reforms; there isn’t any society that has concluded a reason that could turn a city of men into a city of God. If more activists would be willing to take active rolls in rational discussions instead of being political pawns on a chess board we may have a shot and fueling our society with progressive outcomes.

Losing Urdu Fast

Years have passed our Urdu language has stopped creating words and expression of life. Urdu’s focus on adapting influence from foreign languages has been far greater than its native influences, which have been progressing towards a dying culture and expression of self for the speakers, writers or other representatives. This tragedy can be felt through numerous instances of lacking or lacking the use of words and expressions in Urdu even if they existed or not.

How many of us are able to express ourselves in Urdu? Knowing that only a handful of people associated with the language might only be the ones left with such expressions and would really know their language. According to the popular myth often taught in our institutes is that “Urdu is a camp language (زبان لشکری or lashkari zaban) because of its presumed origin in the army camps of the Mughal emperors. That is where Urdu met its ancestors such as Arabic, Persian, Turkish, English, Sanskrit and Hindi. Historical evidence rejects this presumed origin of Urdu and we are left with another counter argument that the word ‘Urdu’ is of a Turkish decent and it literally means ‘lashkar’ or ‘army’ or ‘army camp’. But if we look deeper through cultural and social grounds we learn that cultural conflict and societal associations have been the basis of false historical grounds of Urdu and the loss of Urdu language till today.

Interestingly, there is hardly any language in the world that has not absorbed words from other languages but they have survived the cultural domination. English, being most ‘open’ of them all, has, according to David Crystal, borrowed from over 100 languages, but nobody has ever associated English as a subordinate to other languages, since it has retained its social, cultural and literary value.

Mir Amman (1750-1837) was among the first who presumed that Urdu is a camp language originated in Shah Jehan’s reign when he named a bazaar Urdu-e-Moalla, and that was never questioned in our textbooks till today and words stopped evolving ever since. The practice of enriching Urdu slowed down for the next few centuries, till the freedom movements of 1857 and 1947 drove the language into a cause. The overwhelming freedom movements established Urdu as what we know it today, the language was solely associated with Muslims of India only. Urdu was denied its cultural value by the people of subcontinent till it was run over by press. The dialect was largely under the influence of a political stance as socially empowering tool for the Muslims of India and not as a culturally evolving dialect.

This has been the basis of our lost interest in the language. The few existing literary grounds focused on an expression largely associated with the partition of India and the political turmoil it carried, the other influences existed as a dying poetic plea that generations refused to carry forward. The institutes of India and Pakistan also failed to establish the need for Urdu’s progression by touching the hearts of people. The obsolete curriculum was the final blow to the language, since other social influences like theatre, art, science, literature were never really taken up as a reforming element by the flag bearers of Urdu language. Deprived of historical accounts we still fail to rule out the political influence on the language almost entirely on our society. We still know Urdu as a camp language while ignoring poets like Ameer Khusrow who died in 1325 who had been composing poetry in Urdu, way before the Mughal era that began in 1526 after Babar’s success at Panipat. Khusrow’s life explained Urdu exactly like a chapter that was torn off from a book, he highlights the idea that only the interested students may take up as a conscious affiliation towards the language.

A language takes centuries, even more, to evolve. It is a slow, long, constant, complex and natural process. A language ‘invented’ to serve a specific purpose doesn’t last centuries. Only a cultural influence holds the strength to carry a language through centuries of evolution. Many such artificial attempts have failed among nations trying to communicate with each other. Esperanto, a language formed with the basic roots of some European languages, died despite its early success. That’s where British stepped in and did the job for us.

Muslims came to India as traders, conquerors/soldiers and as sufis/mystics. Out of these traders and conquerors learnt a handful of Urdu to communicate with the locals and being most dominating and authoritative leading power. The fate of the language rests in the historical account, the language needs to be treated like a language and not as a social cause. Associating a language with a socio-political cause takes away the prestige of any language. Urdu speaking people in Pakistan still lack that and fail to realize the product they have become.

The tragedy of losing a rich dialect is a loss of rich culture, if we replace مصنف with ‘authors’ people will not be reminded of Muhammad Hussain Azad, Syed Ahmed Dehlvi, Chiranji Lal, Imam Bakhsh Sehbai, Hakeem Shamsullah Qadri.

 

A Performer's Status

Status and statures determine how you would be treated within bordered subcontinent.

During the first week of 2017 social media was stormed by sad mourners on the tragic death of Mr. Om Prakesh Puri. Om Puri an Indian actor, performer and a household name, known for his long list of acting talents in films like Aakrosh, Arohan, Ard Satya, Machis and many more glorifies his journey to becoming a superstar. Puri’s iconic contributions had not just earned him a good financial status but also a global recognition. Puri’s work has earned him highest awards in India during the very recent years of his acting career that motivated him to become a global sensation appearing in multiple British, American and Art films.

While around the same time across the border there has been another artist not known for grand awards, but for some other reasons that her equally big in Pakistan. She never got any awards not because she didn’t deserve any but mostly because we as a society don’t know what to value and how to award it. It took us over 70 years and counting to appreciate art, something our neighbors learnt a long time ago and they even shared it with us, yet we somehow lost it or refused to accept it. She is Nusrat Aara an actress known for her iconic antagonistic role in the most famous children’s play ever called ‘Ainak wala Jin’.

I concluded that we are not just divided by a border but against an understanding that we lack as a society.

Nusrat Aara was known for her role as ‘Bil Batori’. Her acting gave children the worst nightmares back in 90s when she became a household name for retaining an iconic position on TV screens. It was next to impossible to imagine that an artist irrespective of a meek media industry would end up living a nightmare herself. Sure it’s common for artists to fail and just lag behind while the world sways away but her story goes beyond that failure that we can practically rationalise.

The same day when Puri passed away social media was mourning on his tragic demise, a newspaper in Pakistan published an article that Nusrat Aara was found paralysed and begging on the road near Data Sahab a shrine she was forced to call home.

Having met Puri twice on literary festivals in Lahore that he used to attend quite often, Puri cherished love and enjoyed stardom not just in India but also in Pakistan, where media industry is still struggling to exist. People in Pakistan adored him too. People used to wait in lines to meet him, demanded autographs and pictures with Puri. Something that Aara missed out on all her life and we grew up and forgot about her as a performer. A quarter of that appreciation might have changed her fate. Nusrat Aara was bigger than Om Puri back in 90s but lacked status because of a weaker media. Yet Puri was mourned and Aara was not even noticed while she struggled to feed her stomach. With that part I think I might say it was not just the media industry’s fault entirely who brought Nusrat to this shrine, it was us too, since we didn’t develop good enough heart to appreciate art without a status that everybody wants to have a link with.

Her story reminded me of ‘Andy’ from Toy Story who also grew up and left Woody and Buzz in the adeck, we could not forgive him for doing that and till the end of the movie we kept thinking that this boy didn’t deserve Woody and Buzz. Yet we left not a toy but a human being who made us laugh and who completed our childhood. She is not the first artist who is meeting a similar fate, Muna Lahori (Zakoota Jin), Babbu Baral (actor/comedian), Murtaza Hassan aka Mastana (actor/comedian), Muhammad Farooq aka Ladla (actor/comedian), Majid Jehangir (actor/comedian), Mahmood Khan (actor/comedian) all died crying for help and mercy, all of them ended up on the road while lived to making us laugh. These and many other artists who made us laugh were not even close to earning our concern and sympathy when they needed the most. Since appreciation is a lost cause eventually these performers were treated like disposable bags that carried valuables to home, but when it reached home valuables were locked and bags were discarded. Eventually even these artists stopped begging for work and ended up begging for food and we kept appreciating arts in bigger arenas.

But its not all dark we still love art and we love to laugh on shows like Fifty Fifty, Feeka In Amreeka, Ainak wala Jin and so on. They will remain in our access on Youtube but in real life we have nothing to appreciate or own as a society. May be it is because we have learnt to appreciate art through status and statures, that others define for us. If an artist from a renowned last name like ‘Sethi’ would be advertised we would instantly make it huge in Coke Studio. We would be updated with his Twitter posts and over glorified skills, but in a much bigger surrounding we may even mourn over a loss of an artist like Puri, and every other wall will be sharing his post and dialogues and their concerns about his epic journey.

But our love for art pretty much slaps us as a society who continues to ridicule their artists, performers, athletes that we have disposed over the years all in the name of status. If Nusrat Aara would have had a last name of Sethi, Jehangir, Hashmi, Maqsood, Chaudhry, she would have been hosting a morning show or organizing intellectual debates in public spheres. She would not have even been close to getting an actual nightmare of finding herself sitting on the stairs of the shrine of Data Ali Hajveri begging for food. This says a lot about us and our society that we will continue to live in. She has unfortunately made a mistake for choosing a life of a performer in Pakistan. 

Yet we love art and performances that adds up to our intellect, pride and our positivity.

Some points to consider while distinguishing Muslims and Islamists

Before I begin to write this I want to express my intention behind this article. As a cultural Muslim, I like to check myself in regards to my beliefs and understanding based on my observation, research and experiences. I have tried not to be biased, but as a human I may have made some or many errors. That I leave to the readers to conclude with their comments and criticism.

Now to begin with

                                Muslim                                                                    Islamist

Believer of 5 pillars Namaz, Rozah (Fasts), Hajj, Zakat and Jihad	Believer of Sects based 5 pillars of Islam like Wahabi, Deobandi, Shia, Barelvi etc
Forms and follows his beliefs based on his/her perception mostly associated with emotions, fear, customs, history and values	Follows and spreads beliefs of his religious leader/s, without any room for acceptance of belief that contradicts the overall notion (it could be family, social political groups as well as the religious groups of Madaris)
Accepts other religions in existence but not in beliefs, relevance or alternative and holds his/her beliefs as the most superior	Doesn’t accept other religions in terms of existence or beliefs, and considers his/her own beliefs as the most superior
Not an Activist at heart	Activist
Holds history  and culture as important aspect of belief	Holds no or low priority to history and culture
Extremist views that can lead to anger and violence on accounts of God and Prophet/s	Extremist views in regards to God, Prophet/s, Caliphate, Imamat, Sahaba, Pir, Ameers and Religious leaders
Believes in creationism (try to relate creationism with metaphysics and science without scientific research or proof and/or evidence – their relevance is self-conceptualized and emotionally driven)	Creationism is the only truth they know as told by their religious leaders
Submission without rational, logical explanation. If something contradicts with the science they may reject a proven fact in contrast to their beliefs	Total submission no questions asked and no answers required
Believes in Authoritarian rule, but accepts social liberty on grounds of universal human rights and education unless shirk or apostasy is in context	Believes in Authoritarian rule and do not accept social liberty on grounds of universal human rights and education

We want our women to be funny ... but

It’s weird to start an answer with a question, but situation calls for it. Who’s the funniest woman you know? Or is globally seen as funny? You do need some time to actually answer that right, but try asking that same question for men, and you would actually have more answers than you think you had. Ellen’s show would be a no match to the generally offensive male humor you see on South Park, Beavis n Butthead, jay n silent bob n so on. Legendary comedians like Jim Carrey, Martin Lawrence, Eddie Murphy, Mike Myers, Robin Williams all the way up to the silent reformist Charlie Chaplin. The global idea of funny from men to women somehow ducks down women contributors by huge numbers and even ages.

The prevalence of depressive disorder in Pakistan is at phenomenal rate of 44.4% as per the most recent poll conducted 6 years ago, that’s how updated we are, (25.5 percent in males and 57.5 percent in females) according to eminent psychiatrist and Pakistan Association for Mental Health (PAMH).

Causes can diversely vary from severe financial and housing difficulties, large number of children and literacy in the background of social adversity were particularly closely associated with depression percent in both the genders. Taking a non-empirical approach I wouldn’t compare men or women’s mental stability or instability for all the things they do or they don’t in regards to humor. Keeping both external and internal factors constant for men and women, somehow men still stand out as the funnier gender. With merely 750 trained psychiatrists in Pakistan and most of them based in urban areas like Karachi, Lahore, Rawalpindi, Islamabad, Peshawar and Quetta, it is a lofty task to treat such a huge number of patients as well. In women's case even liberal movements could not trigger a recognition for sense of humor and women are still not funny. What is the excuse here people?

Comedy is not about happiness. It’s more about exaggeration and creating a situation that can transform even the darkest and most sadistic issue to be worthy of a gag. Sense of humor has the ability to simplify complexes into stupidity or wisdom while being hysterical. It’s also about maturity and the ability to understand things on a deeper level and feel the hidden gags in tragedy. But that’s not how women see it or adapt it and they still have a hard time learning it. They still get offended on things way more than men they would always find humor to be offensive, dirty, racist, sexist, chauvinist and so on. Ofcourse it’s not the same for all the women, it’s a general observation.

Men perceive humor with an approach of 'darker the better', 'more offensive the better', 'sometimes more abusive the better' and ofcourse 'the dirtier the better'. It’s not that women don’t know that, they can even identify it but they are unable to originally create it and epic for it. It always works on women when it comes to men's sex appeal. After falling for the looks the second thing majority women would look forward to in a guy would be his ability to be funny and use comedy.

Unless we’re talking about the feminist sadists that have a problem for every solution would not be the case. We want our women to be funny, men still think they deserve funny women. Men’s idea of funny women is not somebody who’s cracking jokes all the time, men can actually give liberty to that. Their idea of funny women would be the one who could enjoy or understand their jokes the same way as men would. Most of the married men evolve into sarcastic hilarious characters because their lives had shown them such epic levels of depression that they end up with an attitude of ‘FUCK THIS SHIT’. We don’t see women developing that very often. Sure they would have faced their fair share of depression but they turn sadist more often. Men somehow have the tendency to face these troubles and yet be a part of a comic movement.

The Pakistan Medical Association (PMA), the core body of Pakistani doctors, says: “It is alarming to note that a big proportion of our population is suffering from psychiatric disorders, principally depression. The prime reason for this problem may be considered the overall economic, social and political atmosphere of our country.”

It’s not men who associate women with sadism or tragedy. Women just have tendency to enjoy sadism way more than they would enjoy comedy on their own. All men know this as a fact you want to get a girl just make her laugh, because she can’t do it on her own. Even a feminist dude would understand this while a feminist woman might jump out of the crowd yelling 'that’s not true' one can only reply to her with a smile followed by “sit your ass down, you dry delusional mind-fuck you wouldn’t know".

Feminism just didn’t help make women funny. Instead it made women angry which is why they don’t get along very well with sense of humor. Feminist women have the tendency to somehow relate to tragedy and sadism, way more than normal women would and they are force feeding it to the society turning women angrier and less funny. This idea is prevailing all over the world now, no matter how privileged a woman would be she can always choose to be a victim and spread sadism further in society oh and it’s so not funny. Men want their women to be funny they crave that. But women just don’t get it and its getting worse.

Reasoning (bridging rationality and irrationality) Part I

Alfred Tarski was a Polish logician he wrote “Logic is justly considered the basis of all other sciences, even if only for the reason that in every argument we employ concepts taken from the field of logic and that ever correct inference proceeds in accordance with its laws”

To an idea rationality can be a judge with a black robe and a counsel’s wig, and we all know we can’t ignore the judge. A mere idea may not matter enough its application needs to be tested trailed and applied to understand the feasibility keeping existing factors upon a rational approach. The basis of this idea may always lead you to distinguishing well from bad reasoning. Logic fills the gap and advocates a judge’s conclusion.

This practice may lead us to see what we are committed to when it comes to accepting what we take a view of as reason instead of accepting beliefs for which we may lack adequate reasons. There is a need to provide adequate reasoning for which we consider various factors supporting rationality and avoid loosely related statements to discover assumptions.

If our brain reasons based on rationality and irrationality, it should be divided on to the following factors to enhance understanding of human behaviour.

Rational: Logic, nature, science, metaphysics

Irrational: Imagination, emotions, belief, arts and culture

These factors may lead to evolve social structures that can answer contradictions and present solutions for the social problems. The reasoning should be presented as rational solutions to social problems leading to anarchy (solely based on opinions and differences).

To understand and apprehend; sure you need a model. This model should be considered common knowledge, rather something that opens doors to them at a Master’s level. Religion gives a perfect imagination to a child that his irrational brain understands and develop as truth at a very early age. Unlike actual logic and reason, this happens only because rationality is never considered equally important by the society and religion makes sure that rationality does not pitch in. If science and religion don’t get along very well, it is because rationality always falls as a victim to irrationality in a society and does not allow science to implement the logics it concludes.

To implement rationality on an early age it should be injected within a society in a way where it would come to people rather people coming to it without a compulsion to stay intact once proven successful or implementable.

Such laws need to be introduced and kept within a society appropriately with a responsibility to be embraced as common knowledge and not as superior divine truth. It should be introduced as a choice to be embraced and accepted as a life form. Irrational reasons that keep you intact and restricted to information may not fall under justice to the idea of knowledge. It may not be justifiable and may hold more probable chances of deteriorating society (if in power).

On top of it if such irrational ideas set themselves as a compulsion. As a factor of society it may get distorted by the lesser optimistic approaches of creativity, imagination, fiction, emotions and will set an irrationality as common knowledge. Leading to a state where society falls as victim.

Philosophically knowledge should trigger a person's intellect to justify his approach surpassing the contradictions. He may only be able to achieve it once he could be able to deconstruct what is derived using all the prerequisite rational elements like logic and nature etc.

to be continued ...

A rational thought of a Stoic God (philosophy of happiness)

Markus Aurelius one of the most famous Stoic philosophers identifies the idea of God in the Hellenistic period

“If there are Gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. But if there are Gods and they are unjust, then you don’t have to worship them. And if there are no Gods then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life, that will live on in the memories of your loved ones”

To understand God we need to understand what the world is like what exists in it. A blend of energies and matter creating life, bound by laws of nature we call force. While energy leads to creating matter that forms the universe. Energies breed life as it is the building block of matter.

Based on these concept things like time, meaning of words, space is dependent on ‘matter’ to exist. Without the existence of matter they don’t really exist, yet links us through experiences and calculates our existence spread over time.

To understand existence and question it, it is important to be a rational thinker. Rational thinking leads to understanding of transforming information to knowledge. If we understand this idea and it seems that we agree to the basic idea so far narrated we can move forward to enhance our understanding of God.

Besides being good and evil, the existence of God remains part of a belief. God is not an entity or has a personality that is outlined by a manual of laws and practices answering our confusions and outlining every human being according to a same structure and instructions over an idea of inner peace. Stoics believe that inner peace doesn’t come through an external source be it God, because a person cannot depend on an external factors for happiness that rests within.

To achieve this self actualization and understanding of God as quoted by many sufi poets as well one must be fully focused on living a good life without boundaries on thoughts. But there has to be a limit on actions and reactions.

“Very little is needed to make a happy life, it is all within yourself in your way of thinking.”

Markus Aurelieus

God is in the universe He is everywhere but He is not outside the universe. He exists among matter and energy, while matter exists on its own due to the energy. So if energy is neither created nor destroyed then matter would also be an infinity and constantly evolving, leading to a force governing the infinite existence of matter. Force also becomes an infinite source but depends on matter while matter depends on energy that exists on its own. Modern religions like Christianity, Judaism and Islamic believe that God exists everywhere (within and outside the universe) which gets contradicted against this argument.

For stoics God is more like an organizing principle that governs all matter and orders even the tiniest event occurring in the universe according to His design. God is less like a person and more like a ‘force’.

Stoics have an interesting idea of the building block of God as matter is broken down into energy. God is broken down or made of ‘Pneuma’ that means Breath. Based on the philosophical reasoning breath is considered a fire element. Stoics believe that every entity in the universe has a limited amount of ‘Pneuma’ in them which allows God to govern all matter. That makes us all a little bit of God ourselves.

“All is one and one is all”

Robert Plant (Led Zeppelin)

Since Stoics believe that God is a force and not a personality that bounds the universe by laws through a precise design that we are unable to cheat and/or modify. This makes God maximally rational therefore He orders everything maximally rationally rather ordering irrationally without logic. His laws are not dependent or effected or reasoned by submission. There would be no deviation from a plan so the idea of free will doesn’t really exist or the branching of life either.

In Christianity the word ‘Pneuma’ is taken up as ‘Logos’ meaning an embodied soul of God that explain Jesus as the son of God and shares the importance of breath as breathing life into beings. These were not original ideas that were prolonged and taken up by the modern religions like Islam. When Muslims quote breathing life into dead to make them rise again on the Day of Judgment it is rationally challenged by the Stoic philosophy. Since the ideas were blatantly taken up from previous philosophies to be modified and applied to the then modern societies that didn’t have a background for such an idea.

It is easier to inject an idea among people who don’t know, where people know even a tiniest bit of information can lead to questions that can raise conflicts to the spread of the injected idea.

A rational thinker cannot believe in God, he just has to know it.

One must live a good life, a good life is one that is happy, happiness comes from virtue, happiness isn't pleasure unlike the concept of hedonism or necessarily what we mean as happiness as a personal idea.

The problem arises from the Greek word Eudaimonia. A lot of philosophies have Eudaimonia as an end goal or the purpose of life, it is translated as happiness but more literal meaning can be ‘human flourishing’ it is everything that a good life can consist of. A lot of philosophers concluded the definition of philosophy to be the idea of finding ‘Eudaimonia’ and how to achieve it. For stoics it is finding virtue, the only thing that will always be good, without any qualification or any internal or external factor will be ‘being rationale’ the most important question that remains is

How do we know how to be rational?

That can be answered with depth by the concept of Stoic God. Since God is perfectly maximally rational and we being the bit of God ourselves, we should try to be more like God rather than an influential human figure and eventually we will be rational.

Ofcourse the God we humans are trying to be is not a modern God but rather a logical force governing all matter and energies in the universe. Therefore in accordance with the Stoic philosophy we all have the ability to be rational leading to be virtuous and eventually happy living a good life. All we have to do is to accord our will according to the universe, rather than believing irrationally through submission.

Is ‘Modern Feminism’ turning women into sadist radicals in urban societies?

Women in most urban parts of the world are most liberated and free in the human history today. Yet in many ways they are NOT doing merely as well as men, they are doing BETTER. Women’s emancipation is one of the glories of the modern civilization making the greatest chapter in the history of freedom. So why then women in feminist movements from organization like

National Organization for Women

Professors in our Universities and Colleges

Women in Media

Still so dissatisfied, the feminists rarely acknowledge women’s progress. Yes they agree to certain things have been achieved but they still don’t reject their activist brand of feminism and always end up defining “FREE” as proof of just how entrenched patriarchy and inequality truly are. Women are so oppressed they don’t even know it. Years after years these women make claims about women in violence, women in depression, and women in eating disorders, women and workplace injustice to support their views. Over the years their claims have been closely studied leading to a finding that their victim statistics are misleading.

Consider the issue of Gender Wage Gap

It is a common saying that women earn 2/3^rd of a dollar while men earn a dollar for the same amount of work. This is constantly repeated by feminists and their supporters. After a close in depth study this has been proven false. The pay gap is simply the difference between average earning of all men and women working full time, it does not account for differences in occupation, positions, education, job tenure, or hours worked per week.

Now the wage gap activists like “American Association of University Women, National Women’s Law Centre say that even when we control these factors women still earn less” It always turns out they have neglected one or two major data points in their research.

Take the case of doctors

On the surface it looks like women physicians are clearly victims of wage discrimination, they appear to work less for the same work. But dig a little deeper and you find that women are far likely to opt for lower paying specialities like paediatrics, family medicine, gynaecology then higher paying cardiology, anaesthesiology they are also more likely to work part time and even the women who work full time put in 7 to 10 percent less hours then men. Women physicians are more likely to take long leaves of absence usually to start a family now there are exceptions but most workplace pay gaps narrow to the point of vanishing when one accounts for all these relevant factors.

Now how do the women’s advocacy groups react to this?

They say women’s choices are NOT truly free. Women, who take leaves for their families, work as paediatrics, put in fewer working hours are held back by invisible barriers or internalized oppression. According to National Organization for Women “powerful sexist stereotypes steer women and men towards different education training and career paths and family roles.” But is it really social conditioning that explains women’s vocational preferences and their special attachment to children?

I will answer it in a way that in pursuit of happiness men and women take different paths and isn't it patronizing to say that most urban women are not free self determining human beings. Another way to prove that male and female wage gap isn't true is that if women are being paid less than men, in a corporate world wouldn't the capitalist owners fire men whom they pay extra money to and give jobs only to women doing the same amount and nature of work. Why wouldn't they use this huge market benefit resulting in profits and cutting cost?

Christina Hoff Sommers (Resident Scholar, American Enterprise Institute) “as a regular lecturer on campus I have seen young girls have fully accepted the propaganda of feminism, even in US where girls are most liberated, fortunate women on the planet yet in their feminist theory classes they are likely to learn that they are put upon by men, tyrannized by men. The more elite the school, the more advanced the degree they are more likely to take such feminist propaganda more seriously”. But this doesn't have to continue.

The time has come for women to take back feminism, reform it, correct the excess of it, repudiate the victim propaganda, get rid of women are from Venus and men are from Hell and begin the arduous task of correcting a three decades of feminist misinformation. There has to be a platform where the excess of modern radical feminism should be checked for legitimacy that should be allowed to double check their actions and theories to reform the idea for generations.

Women who suffer and are true victims of domestic violence, wage gaps, rights in general can be helped by truth and solid research and not by hysteria and hype.

Appreciate and make good use of the unprecedented freedom that you have.

With reference to video from Christina Hoff Sommers.

Understanding Feminism in South Asian Society

A chunk of work that needs to be shared

Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak

The Engaged Feminist Intellectual 

What comes to me very strongly is that in many ways in order for what we recognize as feminism to operate as an engagement we must presume socialist norms, which are written within capitalism, because it means turning the use of capital from capitalist to socialist uses.

Where there is no agency of turning and development of capitalism not noticeable except as remote victim, today the task has been picked up by the international civil society, which I have described as "self-selected moral entrepreneurs" on many occasions. These people are confident that gender redress can be computed in terms of making the phenomena of gendering accessible by general terms provided by world governance style documents, every unit in fought over in prep com meetings, everything most simply understood, as in a PowerPoint presentation; as in knowledge management plans, decisions made by logic rather than subject-engagement.

A certain kind of anti-capitalism, not invariably present in this sector which is often dependent upon, and happily so, upon corporate funding, substitutes for a proactive socialism here. The slow and deep language learning that must accompany accessing cultural infrastructures so real long term change might be envisaged is largely absent.

The distinction between problem solving and the un coercive rearrangement of desires between doctors without Borders and primary health care, let us say, is often ignored here. This kind of "feminist engagement" is not noticeably "intellectual," if the intellectual is a person who analyses the existing situation before choosing the most convenient instrument for solving a problem that has been constructed as a "case" by looking at the grid established by people in a completely different level of capitalist society.

In this sort of below the radar rural situation, in eastern India, at least (that is another problem, we tend to generalize too soon, because of the alliances of the international civil society with the benevolent feudal feminism of the global South), the problem-solving approach can apply to clearly visible cases of domestic violence.

The Three Pillars of Modern Radical Feminism

I see three pillars to this new form of Modern Radical Feminism being engraved within the urban societies all over the world.

• Dignity
• The word NO
• Men

Dignity:

Tammy Bruce (Board of Directors on National Organization of Women) says “I feel pride and some guilt for this designation, Pride because feminism has pushed forward some very important and needed changes and guilt because it has done a lot of damage”. For radical modern feminists dignity stands for two things

•  It should be the core of what feminism should be about
•  A woman should be able to freely choose her path in life

College students in the western world aspires to be in any field such as lawyers, journalists, artists, doctors, engineers but they would not choose a wife or a mother to be a career path or even consider it one of the paths to follow. If this is a given factor to a college student today it is not just considered a no go as a career but it is discouraged by the feminists by labelling it offensive, sexist, embarrassing and anti-feminist. It has happened to many women who are pro-marriage and family life, their views are not event considered as ones to be heard or acknowledged by the radical feminists. This happened to a guest contributor Susan A. Patton at Princeton University in 2013 who published a letter stating that marriage and being a mother and a wife needs to be acknowledged equally as other career choices by college students and she suffered the criticism beyond our expectation by the feminist groups.

When what was due to keep the dignity of a woman was to value and respect all responsible choices. “While talking of dignity I can’t see anything less dignified that a woman in the sexual arena act like men or ought to act like men. Is this what a truly liberated woman wants?” Tammy. Think of casual sex and think of it like men do and what they aspires to? The answer to this question on an international level is a ‘YES’ by the women.

• Feminism has downplayed the desire of women to have family
• Simultaneously hyping the rewards of career and casual sex around the globe

Not exactly the recipe of success and happiness

The word NO

There is great power in the word No. The consequences of using the word No to define feminism has been catastrophic in the last 3 decades. Particularly the time when Pakistan met the idea of feminism while it was already evolved from the original narrative, women who fought NOT to be treated as a sex object have been more objectified than ever, you see it on tv, internet, advertisements, magazines, newspapers and now we see teenage girls pursuing teenage boys like boys used to do some decades ago. How did this happen?

Because feminism advocated that women should behave like men, whatever men did and however they did it, that is what women should do. Feminists were angry at men but they wanted to be like men at the same time. No wonder our society is so confused women are robbing themselves to say no to this, solution is to take that power back.

Saying No means that I will not be defined by anyone else NOT by feminists and not by men’s sexual desires. That is female power.

Men

Whether feminists agree or not, it was men who gave up their monopoly to give women the right to vote, men who invented birth control, refrigerator, washing machine and so many other devices that liberated women and men are different from women. Academics like to speculate that “men and women are basically the same but they like to socialized differently.” Bobbi J. Carothers Harry T. Reis (men and women are from earth Journal of personality and social psychology Vol 104 no 2 Feb 2013). Moreover sexes need each other for example women civilize men, its what they are suppose to do but in order to do so, women must

• Preserve their dignity
• Not be afraid to use the word No
• See men as partners NOT as competitors or oppressors

That is the solution for a society to be stronger otherwise it will only get worse, and by the time we will realize it the differences would be of such grand level that we will only be remembered as ignorant fools who damaged the society from a grass root level.

(with reference to Tammy Bruce's Video)

The Conflicting Tree of Belief

The biggest conflicts humans have faced within a society are associated or based on the word belief. The word holds the ability to penetrate and define a state of mind about a self sustaining idea or theory using sentimental values as a tool to incentivize inner peace or identification of self to set barriers and laws based on a hierarchy of superiority outlining social, moral and spiritual contentment that may be applicable on a person or group of people with similar weaknesses and strengths to adapt it and make it ultimate with or without a scientific logical method or an explanation.

“Discrimination is not liberal. Arguing against discrimination is not intolerance.”

Richard Dawkins

The idea of belief grows like a seed that doesn’t tolerate a conflicting idea that may question the basics or detailed explanation based on rational thinking. A human brain has boundaries but no limits; the potential of a human brain has the ability to expand like the universe. “A pattern of findings demonstrates that the anatomical structure of adult human brain can change very quickly, specifically during the acquisition of new, named categories,” said by Researcher Veronica Kwok of the University of Hong Kong and colleagues in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. This can be understood in a way that process of human evolution is limitless and is happening fast.

“Beliefs are propositions about the relations among things to which those who believe have made some kind of commitment that could be pragmatic or emotional. A proposition's credibility may appear obvious from experience or a proposition may seem to be the most prudent assumption on which to act. In either case the commitment has pragmatic basis. Emotional commitment to a proposition occurs when a person wants to feel a need for it to be true because of what its truth implies about things that matter.” As suggested by Ward H. Goodenough

Goodenough’s study does not include ‘rational thinking’ as a major pillar to base belief as an act to associate the ultimate both religion and science are trying to find. Historically we have lost a lot of information that we still have hard time understanding and decoding how it happened. But the information did leave some clues or proves of their existence in fossils and monuments and stories and myths. Using this statement to define everything that has been logically proven under scientific laws is something a belief hinders and rejects to exist and uses sentimental and psychological tools to reassure its existence thus belief breaks certain boundaries but rests in limits constrained by pre-existing ideas of the ones who understood the need and use of belief to rule or remain in power.

The capacity of belief cannot be endless because it demands submission of a person’s thought process. The idea of belief and energy are like two brothers fighting for royalty, where both have suppressed and oppressed each other in the course of history through a chain of command that uses similar tools like fear, spirituality, hatred, diplomacy and peace all leading to conflict for the gain of power or survival.

Belief resists the idea of knowing beyond limits, it escapes it by either refusing to acknowledge the endless capacity and capability of our brains to understand, adhere and possess infinite knowledge or the second escape is by putting barriers to the endless capacity of our brains to understand, adhere and possess infinite knowledge to label yourself superior among men and inferior to belief or energy. A human brain has tissues just like all other muscles bound by to give an outcome based on its use. The way we can build muscles on our arms and legs we can also train our brains to enhance our capacity of thinking and refining our thoughts for conclusions. This makes the limit of thoughts to become endless as associated with the diverse factors of both pure and social science. Yet we have no quarrel on accepting the existence of time and energy to be the building block of life and existence.

Hence it is difficult to rely on belief for conclusion rather than rational research justifying the findings and not the belief itself to an individual, leading belief not to require logical acceptance to many findings and proven theories. Since submission to a higher power can be diplomatically more rewarding but it will end up creating copies of information that seizes the idea of growth in all aspects that cross limits known sacred to a belief with slight alterations while energy remains neither inferior nor superior it may vary in magnitude but does not vary in core and nature.

The tool used by belief here is merely the idea of growth that grows different branches all connected to the same roots and refusing to accept the existence and possibility of different trees around it. It doesn’t mean the fruit it grows would not be sweet or the sweetest it may be, but the sweet is not the only taste a fruit is bound to have, unless all you consciously or unconsciously want to taste is only sweet nothing other than that is unacceptable even if it exists naturally too. This can be the core of conflict between energy and belief, the science and religion. Mostly led by belief through superiority based on the factors that offer awards like acceptance and endorsement in society, power in society, end of resentment within a group or a feud.

The idea of putting all your queries on to a higher being or a more purposeful existence of God and His most valued followers, leading to an end of your purpose or keeping you within a barrier or a group that may only end up making you a branch, a fruit or a leaf of just one tree standing over the same roots.

Insensitivity of Pakistan to tragedy (Laughter on tragedy and violence in Cinemas)

Death is a disturbing sight usually constitutes an awful spectacle. It intrigues a phenomenon of insensitivity demanding empathy and attention of concern. But we as Pakistanis have lost it and made it an amusement to justify our ignorance to humanity. Many cultures have depicted death, violence and tragedy as entertainment only a few have managed to make it humorous amusement, we have not realized it yet we should be put right at the top of that list. This turmoil is justified in the name of religious sacrifices or battles according to a general belief prevalent in Pakistan, but we Pakistanis have enhanced the scope to a day to day incident and our media made it a theatre of tragedy.

We Pakistanis share common traits with ancient Romans that we can witness if we would hit the cinemas, the only entertaining activity left to common people after food. Romans viewed bloodshed of humans as entertainment. The elites from English Renaissance theatre, also known as Elizabethan theatre in England from 1562 and 1642 also did the same. Common genres of the period depicting English or European history included violence and death. It should ring bells once we turn on our news channels or Facebook accounts which is filled with Taliban videos, disturbingly gaining thousands of likes and comments both pro and anti. Yet this remains on our radar 24/7 if we don’t see a terrorist attack killing none it wouldn’t be a news to us.

Shakespeare's plays about the lives of kings, such as Richard III and Henry V, belonged to this category of death and violence, so does the Christopher Marlowe's Edward II and George Peele's Famous Chronicle of King Edward the First all of these depict tragedy, death and violence as amusement.Later came the term “Dark humour” which became a more educated label for such entertainment.Historical plays dealt with more recent events, like A Larum for London which dramatizes the sack of Antwerp in 1576. The only difference was the act depicting tragedy, battles, and bloodshed, was that it was fiction inspired from the real life incidents leaving a strong moral or sometimes sarcasm to the spectators and society. So people could learn from it despite all the hindrances it continued to be bolder. But you don’t see that happening in Pakistan, the theatre and its informal education has lost its value among the potential audience.

Tragedy, death and violence were amazingly popular genres. Many plays managed to live for centuries like Marlowe's tragedies,Dr. Faustus and The Jew of Malta are only a few. Theatre even in darkages never left without a moral. The morals spectators enjoyed the most were “revenge dramas”, such as Thomas Kyd's The Spanish Tragedy. The four tragedies considered to be Shakespeare's greatest (Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, and Macbeth) were composed during this period as well as many others leaving strongest morals to date. How we Pakistanis can be related to this is exactly the moral, that we get none, “revenge, retribution, retaliation, rebellion mean nothing to us. Everything falls under the entertainment leaving us more insensitive to the real incidents and not fiction.

Speaking of dark humour as we know today were called “comedy”, yes Comedies were common, too where people laughed. A sub-genre developed in this period was the city comedy, which dealt with life in the city of London, after the fashion of Roman New Comedy they became happy whileour city issues remain to be the basic human rights, survival, and religion. These topics are still not felt to shake consciousness among us. Certain issue like religion still remains a sacred taboo in Pakistan that cannot appreciate controversial or contradicting views.

After about 1610 in the West, the new hybrid sub-genre of the tragicomedy became the centre of attention. Spectators’ laughter started getting suppressed; audience became more conscious of their theatrical experiences. Whereas in Pakistan this evolution didn’t occur, only the cultural stories relying highly on the imagination became the source of education, but with the advent of religious extremism in society even that was put to an end. It only took a few decades to completely put this education to an end, and spread the word of violence and tragedy in the name of religion showing value to the evolved out of the darkages.

Religious fanatics in Pakistan follow footsteps of the Romans killing for fun, raping for sexual pleasures and all of it gets easily justified under the umbrella of religion that nobody can be certain of and question. Criticism also doesn’t reach them, because the majority in Pakistan accepts it as either a religious conflict or religion itself, the dead gets labelled “Murtid” (Non-believer) so easily and deserving a brutal death gets justified.Leaving spectators entertained with an inspiration, Never does it get labelled “Extremism” that is punishable. This has become a day to day exercise and even the silent spectators have joined the club, slowly penetrating insensitivity among us. Now once a Shia, Christian, Baloch, Ahmadi, children, women get killed it’s no big deal.Bombs explode kill thousands doesn’t do much to Pakistanis yet some smile others stay quiet.

Fighting extremism has to go a long way in Pakistan since our society does not know what social change could be to them. We haven’t learnt anything from our past. Yet we set forth our critic and keep adding fuel to the fire of extremism on daily basis. We refuse to identify our enemy; we may come to a point where we can agree upon blaming the “Mullahs” but refuse to open our minds. We are immune to tragedy and are cold at heart, we enjoy being insensitive now. We are a country run by Islam leaving everything to Allah and the judgement day that is our escape If we consider extremism wrong in general we instantly come to point where we justify the acts of terror and we have been cold to this issue for so many years that now it has developed into humour.

Tragedy, pain, agony, death has become material of laughter in our society today. Our cinemas are reviving since 2008, people in urban areas can now have an activity other than eating food. Movies like ShoaibMansoor’s “Bol” (Speak) and “Khuda key liey” (In the name of God) have brought families to the cinemas a few years ago and they have highlighted social taboos like the role of “Mullahs” and religion in context to taboos such as violence, death, child molestation and women in our society. The subjects highlighted are disturbing on its own, (seeing ourselves on the screen being mocked and getting a reality check). But for me these negative highlights diminished when I experienced a much more disturbing social act, people in Pakistan laugh in cinemas while watching a child being molested by truck drivers (quoting a scene from “Bol”) that was funny to people. The hall laughed and I sat numb and shocked to see their reaction to the disturbance and tragedy on the screen.

How did this happen, we were taught in schools to obey the prerequisites of Islam based on “peace and humanity” when did we lose it I really can’t say. But it definitely has a lot to do with our beliefs and religion that failed to educate us unlike the theatre in the West. After the Peshawar attacks I believe all humans in Pakistan were in shock. Even the loss of 140 children in APS (Army Public School) didn’t do much to raise a consciousness in people and reclaim their sensitivity. A handful of people raising their voice against extremism stand isolated with threats of being killed.Neither the army nor the political parties’ wishes to back them, why!Its simple because it is not a big enough reason and the people in general are insensitive to this issue.

A few weeks ago I went to watch Aamir Khan’s latest movie “PK”. There is a scene when Aamir Khan goes to the railway station’s platform to receive his friend Sanjay Dutt and suddenly a bomb explodes killing many the very instant. Aamir Khan survives and as he sits in a shock … numb, I heard a roar of laughter rising from over 300 seats. The disturbance and shock of the scene itself died that very instant and the disturbance and shock coming from the crowd’s reaction took over and slapped my consciousness. I was disgusted of the people I was watching the movie with. How Roman could we be and how inhumane we were I cannot express.

The movie “Bol” was released in 2011, and “PK” was released in December 2014. In last three years over 50,000 people have lost their lives as a result of terrorist attacks, but their loss of lives has only added humour to our lives mocking their pain and tragedy either through our silence or through our pro-Taliban approach. Yes, this is who we are, we laugh at the loss of lives and nothing matters to us. The religious extremist mind-set has sucked sanity and sensitivity out of us. The few raising their voice against extremism stand alone to be opposed by 20 million people who laugh at the loss of lives and eat popcorn on it. They come out of the theatre without being bothered about their insensitivity proved not to be silent spectators they are bred to be.

The graphic images on the television showing blood stains, bullet holes, and wounded children yet again failed to kindle humanity among us. It’s going to be a month in a few days since the Peshawar attack on APS, nothing has changed, people can still sleep, Lahore High Court continues to free more accused terrorists, while others roam freely, we can laugh at the effectees, or simply forget their suffering,although the majority condemned the attack but they did not condemn the attackers.Yes they were Taliban but just not humans rather a mind-set that we all share shamelessly without a conscious analysis. The darkages and the Roman culture still relates us, violence still stands as the highest authority challenging and ridiculing humanity in the name of religion or beliefs. What would make a difference is empathy for humanity, or we can continue to spread bloodshed and laugh at it as well as get entertained by the death of others. This is what we will pass on to our generations with a similar violent abstract belief depicting extremism. Killing in the name of God or entertainment we should not differentiate rather just realize or may even feel bad about as humans so we could be more sensitive to humanity.

The social turmoil of getting labeled in my beloved city Lahore

As a professional we get to follow certain rules, the dos and don’ts that, we may also know as a job description. When we move in towards our professional goal/s we also get a designation that is who we are recognized as a person in a professional sphere. Moreover we get the similar treatment based on our labels that we may lose once our daily shifts come to an end. But the society that I belong to doesn't believe in working-shifts coming to an end; our labels continue to speak for ourselves till we either end up believing in the labels as our whole truth or we become friends with the labels upon us, quoting it as a social norm. Either way in Lahore it is getting difficult for individuals like me to think and see themselves beyond labels that we get on our never ending shifts.

My society shares a trait that makes people impatient and intolerant towards anything and everything that is 1. New to them, 2. Doesn't go with their limited or unlimited mindset, which is why we believe in judging everything based on our little exposure to the people with similar mindset. Yet we enjoy calling ourselves as liberals, progressive, open minded people living a life that developed countries can never achieve and we should be proud of our denial.

In my Muslim Punjabi Educated society it is not the appearance, language, understanding, exposure, brought up or academics, that puts a label on me but it is mere one thought that; “I know better than everybody around me” who is what and what is what. Yes we are born genius and we get challenged whenever we see a person wearing black we would label him a Shiite, a women in jeans is no doubt a slut, a women in burka is the most pious person around us, and a women holding a cigarette is a bad mother/wife/women and should be killed if she dares to smoke publically, a guy without a job is stupid and doesn't work hard enough, a man with a beard will always be wise and the wisdom grows as the inches add up to the length of his facial hair. This is what we know and some prerequisites that we grow up with under ordinary circumstances like average school, average parents and an average job.

We all are aware of it, we might even sarcastically criticize this turmoil with humour, despair or ignorance, yet we don’t do much to change it. Once our work shifts end, we continue to socially kill ourselves by accepting the labels we get and our only survival falls on not becoming a resistance to the chain that recruits another person with a mindset of a born genius who knows it all. I am not the person who has a solution to this noble cause don’t judge me like that, I'm just a guy who brought this up on a blog. The words I speak are not my own.