Philosophizing: don't bother, there are others to take care of

To my understanding, philosophizing is embedded in human nature. Every person tries to make sense of one's existence, and, as such, one tends to philosophize. Professional philosophers or/and persons having no job other than philosophizing provision readymade philosophies to people. And there are the ideologues who seek to monopolize the business of philosophizing and insist on the use of their one-time product forever. People generally fall for them as they can avoid the pain of exercising their minds. And people must avoid this pain, makes the biggest enterprise in the world. 

Niraj Kumar Jha

The Leap Forward: The Need of Thinking the Necessities of Times

The pandemic made the world leap forward in the direction it was moving. Among other things, now we see that a person is more isolated and self-centered. After the crisis is over, the normal would be new in the sense that people would rely less on their community and even on family and more on public services. Life and more so death would be more mechanical, aloof, and secular and correspondingly less organic, communal, and ritualized. 

There are aspects, positive and negative, about the dynamics: for instance, real sociability has ebbed over time but at the same time we have a virtual world to socialize in a non-intrusive fashion. Moreover, the earlier sociability had this unsavory aspect that happiness of some was always at the cost of less happiness of some others. 

The foundational shifts would bring in inevitable changes and one should instead of bemoaning the loss of the old ways of life should think of the necessities of times. And the most important thing needed is the maximum rationalization of the order. It would translate to, in the context of the argument here, the seamless availability of services, hasslefree and cheating free. 

Thinking the new is the critical need of the times. 

Niraj Kumar Jha

Religion v the Right to Philosophize

Philosophy imposed is religion. A piece of philosophy served with the sword, articulated in captivating rhetoric, propagated and practiced by exemplary conviction and dedication, put across through magical performances, or passed on by mixing moral value with cock-and-bull stories, imposes itself on people. Philosophy must remain a personal tool of making sense of existence. Personal autonomy must be recognized and respected with this right to philosophizing. Denial of this right is unjust and the breeding ground of so many ills. 

Niraj Kumar Jha

Education: the Endeavour

Education is the toughest of the human endeavours. Things you have to beat, you know, include among others your genetic coding and the language that makes you express yourself. And this is why it is very rare that we encounter an educated one. 

Niraj Kumar Jha

The Post-university Age: A Hypothesis

The university system, as it prevails today, emerged in the medieval world and outgrew its age to become the fountains of the modern age. They emerged as adjuncts to the churches but developed to take away the main job of the churches – the education. They also moved from the domain of the Pope to the that of the King, and became the main agency of the state for disciplining the subjects. Today, with the technologies (ICT), education is about to shift to the corporations; the big corporations, or the public limited companies, would be the imparter of required skills and also the guardians of public morality. The universities would exist as churches do but education would move closer to the people, to their closer ownership. 

Niraj Kumar Jha

The Ideological Peril

Ideologies, no matter how crude or sophisticated they may be, give credibility to our existential phantasies. And this is their anavoidable charm and we try to buttress those wild thoughts with our agency and material constructions. Overall, these deny reality, degrade real human beings, distort our agency, and make our life more miserable than the original from which we wanted to escape. 

Niraj Kumar Jha

The Shishupal Moment

Is there a transcendental mechanism of divine justice? The believers vouch for this. One may doubt this but the reality is no different even if it is viewed from a secular perspective. Persons or peoples commit wrongs and they have to pay for that; here I am talking about the phenomenon beyond the legal mechanism which societies devise for ensuring justice. And here it is not meant to explain the plight of people suffering disasters or calamities, natural or not so. Some people have the leeway; they go on doing so for say ninety-nine times, but it comes to them finally as Shishupal faced his nemesis at the hundredth time. Sometimes, it is delayed further and actually the descendants have to face the consequences of the misdeeds of their ancestors. Is it justified? The answer is not despairing as this happens only when a person willingly remains part of the heritage, that is, the person remains embedded in the legacy and thereby the person also carries the liability for the punishment. How does this happen? The existential reality is all about inter-connectedness or interdependence and though all exist as separate entities but as parts of a greater whole. Our consciousness is shaped by our personal experiences, as we can make out apparently, but it also carries inputs from our genetic coding and so many unknowns inform our consciousness, that is to say that our consciousness works as an agency of collective consciousness, transcending immediate time and space, too and it applies to species other than the human beings. All persons and their collectives act and these inevitably invite responses. If somebody commit wrongs, he may avoid the consequences but things keep on accumulating and these come back. Here is another issue, other than this obvious one, which is the intent of this post to underline. That is an act may have intrinsic merit or demerit, irrespective of what we mean by it or propagate it to be, or what the persons other than the doers perceive it to be or believe it to be and that intrinsic virtue or vice leads to corresponding consequences. And if one has to avoid the undesirable results of his doings, the person must look up to science than to the unexamined received moral precepts However, the things do not work so neatly or accurately but we see the happenings at broader scale and we get the idea of this phenomenon.

Niraj Kumar Jha