मूर्खता नामक गुत्थी

यहाँ मूर्खता का संदर्भ सामुदायिक हितों को लेकर विचार हैं। अनेक विद्वान अधिकतर को मूर्ख समझते हैं और और कई उन्हें ही मूर्ख मानते हैं।गुत्थी यह है कि विद्वान के रूप में प्रतिष्ठित लोग भी एक-दूसरे को मूर्ख समझते हैं।

मूर्ख कौन है? कैसे पता चले?

मेरी समझ यह है कि मूर्खता नाम की कोई चीज नहीं है। यह सम्मानपूर्ण परस्पर संवाद की प्रवृत्ति का अभाव है। जिनमें यह प्रवृत्ति नहीं है, विद्वान होने के बावजूद उनकी मानसिकता दोषपूर्ण है।

नीरज कुमार झा

Safety

Security of life is why we associate as a state and fund the government. Implicit in this concern is the protection of property and liberty, as these are needed for making human life possible.

The rest of the legitimate jobs the government performs are derivatives of this raison d'etre role of the government. And, beyond whatever the government does is undue interference in the social and personal affairs.

We ask for other things and put our lives in peril because of leftist indoctrination, or brainwashing.

Niraj Kumar Jha

Humanism Deficit

Humanism is essential to being human but for humanity, its realisation remains a far cry. Civilizations and communities took centuries or millennia to be aware of the human essence. And there remain those who still prevail, completely oblivious of their essential selves.

The present is an intense phase of the struggle between these two starting points of existential cognizance, humanism and transcendence, including the latter's secular variants. This is the root cause of many conflicts between civilizations and nations and within them.

Niraj Kumar Jha

महानता

बहुत से लोग महान होने का भ्रम पालते हैं और उनसे भी अधिक विशिष्ट होने का। महान होने की भावना विशिष्टता की भावना का अतिरेक है।

 
यह तथ्य है कि सभी विशिष्ट हैं लेकिन यह भी तथ्य है कि यह विशिष्टता नहीं है।

लोग विशिष्ट होने के उपरांत भी अपनी विशिष्टता के प्रदर्शन के लिए प्रयासरत रहते हैं और उस विशिष्टता के लिए मान्यता चाहते हैं। दूसरे शब्दों में, जयकारा की कामना रखते हैं।

वास्तव में यह दोषपूर्ण ज्ञानमीमांसा के द्वारा आरोपित अपूर्णता का बोध है। ऐसे अपूर्ण लोग अपनी अपूर्णता के अनुपात में दूसरों के लिए संकट बनते हैं।

नीरज कुमार झा

Citizenry and Economic Growth

India is an economic powerhouse. The billion-plus citizenry fuels the momentum. Its further rise vis a vis other great economies is imminent. The point is to infuse more speed and quality into the process. All those genuinely concerned about their self-interest and general interest must talk about and demand ever greater ease of doing business and making the economy internationally competitive. Most of the socio-political problems which beguile and trouble us would go away without being noticed if we can raise the GDP growth rate to double digits. The activities generated by such a movement would engage most people in a very productive and creative relationship.

A respected business leader has raised concern about the unchecked population growth and obliquely spoke in terms of praising the 'emergency' years, tragically. It must be widely known that it is poverty which causes disproportionate population growth and it is not vice versa. Population rise is a matter of concern only for the reason that it pressures ecology, and for no other reasons as they are highlighted. It is a big youth population at this period, the demographic dividend, which is making India an economic powerhouse.

Niraj Kumar Jha

God's Abode

If you can empathise, 

it is you who is blessed.
You are His abode;
do not look for Him anywhere else.

Niraj Kumar Jha

The State of Democracy

Technology has built up highly functional and super-efficient democratization infrastructure. Despite that global democracy is sliding, even developed Western countries are no exception.
What may be the reason for that?

Medieval forces, or forces emerging during the age of unreason and hordes, had, in fact, DNAed their barbaric reflexes into a great number of people. The DNA still determines the beliefs of a sizable portion of the global population. They are also using the same infrastructure.

A secondary reason is that Western countries have a dual approach to democratic values. They deploy the most heinous stratagems to undermine democratic possibilities elsewhere. They practice democracy within their race only. Challenging is now for them to prevent things from boomeranging.

Niraj Kumar Jha

Foreign Epistemologies

There is no Third World left with the collapse of the Second World but Thirdworldism survives as an epistemological category, or to say more appropriately, as an epistemological crisis.

First World is about working knowledge first-hand. The First World generated knowledge by itself and used those systems to benefit.  Second World worked on noxious trash generated in the First World, but, independently.

The Third World got knowledge systems from the first two Worlds and treated them as holy doctrines. These doctrines do not address their realities but they tried their best to concoct their realities to fit those doctrinal frameworks.

More tragically, when they try to indigenize their operating epistemology, they make their traditional doctrines mirror those foreign epistemologies they wish to replace.

Niraj Kumar Jha

FIRE to Hire

Generating jobs is a tricky national economic challenge. The economy grows because of the infusion of more sophisticated technologies, but it hardly leads to more jobs.

There are ways to tackle the crisis but here is one out of the box. It is FIRE: Financial Independence, Retire Early. FIRE is a global movement involving people trying to get financial independence sooner, so they can retire early.

They earn and save aggressively initially and after building a corpus they largely live on their saved money and assets. The movement is also catching up in India. If this movement crosses a threshold, it will create vacancies faster and financially independent retired people will boost the economy by continuously generating demand.

Lower taxes on earnings and savings, lower inflation, and general security may greatly strengthen the FIRE movement and naturally, there would be more jobs for younger people.

Niraj Kumar Jha

Devising Self-test

One must devise and continuously upgrade a test to check whether one's thoughts are good or bad, appropriate or mistaken, and substantial or frivolous. Hardly, anybody risks calling one an idiot if one is ignorant of what the person should know. I must be aware that my idiocy harms the social good on which my personal good depends. In fact, nobody has a right to be irresponsible in their expressions as no expression is without consequences.

 
Niraj Kumar Jha

Human Dignity and Democracy

Respect for human dignity is the essence of democracy. If you care for your dignity and believe in human dignity, you do everything possible to sustain, strengthen and refine democracy.

People often confuse democracy with its form and remain oblivious to its essence. A true democracy finds its operating procedures. Even actors, often highly acclaimed for their contributions to upholding and promoting democracy, and electors have limited roles.

It is the two intertwined values, rationalism and humanism, that generate the essence, i.e., the general respect for human dignity.
It is a historical process by which these values get embedded in the human mind and the race evolves into a democratic commonwealth.

Now the question comes what led to and sustains democracy in India? Primarily it is the Sanatana Dharma. The Dharma has a fair mix of concerns for noumenal and phenomenal. It cares both for the earthly and the heavenly. At times it prioritises the collective but mostly brings individuals to centre stage. Most importantly, it very unambiguously asks for reliance on self-intelligence. Unlike all religion cum philosophical enterprises, the Sanatana had high compatibility with modernism. Europe which happened to have birthed modernism had rejected its religion to embrace modernism. Let me remind here that humanism and rationalism are also the core values of modernism. It is modernism which evolved into democracy.

Modernism realises itself through systematic administration and free enterprise, i.e., bureaucracy and capitalism. Bureaucracy should not be confused with feudalism-fused pubis order of patronage. It is about managing both public and entrepreneurial affairs. Capitalism brings the spirit and substance of democracy into a society and bureaucracy makes it operational. The unavoidable features of the whole enterprise are efficiency, economy, and accountability.

What we can do to strengthen democracy, which remains a fragile order globally?

For this, we must recognise the merit of individualism and have faith in their faculty and agency. But we would be able to do this only by doing something else.

Here comes the role of education, to speak more precisely, of pedagogy. The nation must spend more on STEM. And secondly, we must let educational institutions evolve autonomously. The collegium of academics alone should have the responsibility of running an institution, preferably with self-funding.

Niraj Kumar Jha

Mobiles: A Perspective

Nothing is without its flipside and internet-connected mobile phones cannot be an exception. The crucial fact is that this instrument has revolutionised life. Nothing in the history of humankind has empowered all and sundry even in a remotely comparable way as mobile phones have. It has raised too many out of poverty too. As a business tool, it has helped even the poorest ones. Most critically, it is a great support to lonely people. It is not that mobiles make people aloof; the fact is that most people hardly have any company as they are uprooted and unaccepted. Mobiles provide company to these unlucky people.

 
Niraj Kumar Jha