Hunger strike

There are days when I despair that no matter what one does, nothing is going to change. Manning and Wikileaks threw light on some serious wrongdoing. It got nowhere. Occupy happened. And then was promptly forgotten. Children got mown by gunfire. Did nothing to move the lawmakers. It is so easy to be cynical. What a hopelessly doomed world we live in!

And then hopelessly doomed prisoners remind me that perhaps all is lost but one must still act. Hunger strike by the Guantanamo prisoners brings the most powerful man on earth, the President of the United States to admit that Guantanamo was a "lingering problem that is not going to get better" and "we need to close it".

Now I know, words come cheap. Pres. Obama  hasn't said or done anything about it for 4 years instead choosing to "look forward". Nobody expects him to succeed in closing Guantanamo. Hell! he couldn't pass gun control after New Town.

Still, it moves my heart that these 100 people, held without trial (most of them cleared for release years ago), forgotten by the world, left to die in a no man's land have shown such bravery.They deserve to be heard, to be remembered. We have failed them and we should be sorry. I know I am.

Update: Andrew O'Hehir has a brilliant piece about it in Salon.  As he puts it, "(the hunger strike) has shamed Obama and forced America and the world to face “one of his most glaring failures."

Intelligent cinema

What is an intelligent movie? I had this long discussion with a friend of mine on what I perceived as dearth of intelligent cinema coming out of the Tamil film industry. And how watching a much-touted film like Enthiran or Vishwaroopam is painful. I couldn't quite boil down a definition of what makes a film quote unquote intelligent, because saying something like "the film was so intense that it moves you" is too abstract. Perhaps in the famous words of Supreme Court Justice Stewart, "i know it when i see it".

One of the definitions that I found online is that a movie is considered intelligent, when the idea is new. Another definition was that intelligent cinema is that which entertains and provokes a mature viewer to reflect on what they saw, long after the film ends--extending the entertainment value. Someone else suggested something worthwhile and lasting which will impact the audience and remain with them and form a part of their collective memory.

One could argue that there is no such thing as intelligent cinema but this would probably entail that a Vijay flick is then just as good as a Kamal film. I don't see a lot of people accepting that. Or one could argue that we don't 'need' to have intelligent cinema. That is a whole other argument (that I will deal with separately). Mind you, nobody is arguing that we shouldn't have any escapist entertainment capers. I liked Gilli as much as the other guy. My argument is that we could do with some smart films. Not many. Just a few.

And if there isn't consensus on what intelligence is, let's substitute it with terms like innovativeness, inventiveness.

It is not controversial to say that nothing in at least the last 25 years in Tamil  cinema has pushed the frontiers of film-making. Not even 'Hey Ram', which is a pretty decent flick. The problem is that directors like Maniratnam, Kamal or Shankar pretend that their movies are somehow 'different', 'historical' or 'profound' or 'pushing boundaries' when they are none of those. They balk at making anything that hasn't been already made a million times.  I'm perfectly happy for them to come out and say that I am not in the business of making intelligent films but let's not pretend that they are making the Metropolis. 

Kamal for instance complained that he won't get an Oscar because there is an Indian sensibility and the West doesn't get it. He won't get an Oscar because he is just not that good. It is like the Olympics. You may be the unrivalled National champion but you don't even get to run in the Olympic finals because you are running a full minute behind the top athletes. (I actually pity Kamal the actor - he just doesn't have a good screenwriter or director to bring the best out of him). It is not just a matter of taste.  I have more respect for a person like Vijay or Vijaykanth who has no pretensions of intellectual fortitude.

And I can't stress this enough - I am not calling people dumb. Quite the opposite, I believe people are not stupid but are treated as such by film-makers who think something is too high-brow or as some idea as too difficult for an average person to understand. It is these so-called 'good directors' that say I could totally make a world-class film if only I didn't have to consider the B and C-centres, that make the argument that people are too dumb for intelligent films. And my beef is with sophisticated film-goers in India who have lowered their expectations so much that even a smattering of 'sense' from a director is lauded as the next best thing since sliced bread. This is what allows film-makers to produce films that are for the lowest common denominator without even having to justify it or pay a price for being so mediocre.

My point is that some film-makers, despite commercial constraints that are just as true everywhere as they are in India, do not shrink from doing the smart thing. I am not talking about the Terrence Malik and Jean-Luc Godard kind of art-house independent films. I am talking multi-million dollar summer blockbusters. I am talking of typically juvenile franchisees like the Batman and James Bond becoming deep and well-rounded films and still earning truckloads of money. Inception is another example of a mainstream blockbuster being incredibly smart. Yes, we want someone to make "American Pie-25" or "Die Hard 18 - This time is the Hardest", but we can also be certain that there is someone out there who will make the next 2001: A space odyssey.

There is literally no Indian Woody Allen. No present Indian director is making films remotely on the same level as Chris Nolan or Aronofsky, no screenwriter is writing as well as Charlie Kauffman. There is nothing written that matches 'Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind'.

Perhaps we have to admit - we are just not capable of it.

Update: While we are at it, can we get a Tina Fey and a Steven Moffat

Subversion

There is a beautiful video on the web of John Cleese and Michael Palin talking to some religious folk who were offended by Life of Brian. The Monty Python of course were considered subversive for mocking Jesus and Cleese points out that they don't mock Christ, or religion in general except to say that people should make up their own mind. Watch it on youtube if you get a chance. It is just brilliant. 

A friend had posted this video on Facebook. And someone had commented that "You seem to dispise (sic) Christians and Christianity. It's kinda like hitting a little kid cause u know they won't hit u back or won't inflict much pain back."

I am surprised by this response for I can't imagine a  universe in which Christianity is a poor little kid who won't hit back.  

My friend pointed me to a lecture of Yuri Bezmenov, a former KGB guy who defected to the west and spoke about KGB subversion tactics. He kinda made the point that the modern faithless culture is a product of these KGB tactics. According to Yuri, religion and other pillars of western civilisation are being discredited and subverted by communist propaganda. Yuri is a clever clever man and yes nations can be brought down by propaganda and disinformation... but man! he is odious. For instance, he argues that equality is un-natural, social security makes the country weak, individuals should be allowed to work for 2 dollars instead of join a union that wants to fight for 3. Why do you need 3 dollars in the first place... learn to be satisfied with 2. Things like that. 

At the least, could it not be argued that Berzmenov is actually doing the KGB subversion when he is in the west giving these lectures. Because now instead of saying Eureka! I have an idea... All men are created equal, you say, Oh wait a second. Am I thinking that or am I made to think that. You are constantly second guessing every thing you think, wondering if this is a judo move of the KGB to subvert your nation. Berzmenov has succeeded then to sow doubt, made you reconsider every thought old and new. It is not a double-cross... it is a triple cross. 

As for religion being subverted by secularist stooges of the Soviet Union, I would argue that religion is not being subverted so much as being the subverter. Organised religion is and has been the means of subversion. The Roman empire embraced Chistianity as a tool of their designs. Even in modern history, the loss of native culture and religion has been by the subversion orchestrated by colonial powers, oftentimes under the cloak of the church. i am reminded of Achebe's Things fall apart and Arrow of god. Agree with me or not on the subversion, you will have to accede that they are still a very powerful institution. They are neither innocent nor helpless. If anything one could probably compare the Church to  a grumpy 80 yr old with a cane. It would be a more appropriate picture of the church than a runt with a runny nose. And you can honestly say "Don't pick on that poor old man. It is disrespectful"  

Māyā and the theory of radical skepticism

In the classical Hindu schools of thought that deal with epistemology, various sources of knowledge are identified. The primary sources are perception, inference, and testimony. Other processes have also been identified but are either reducible to one or more of the widely accepted sources such as perception and inference or are considered not truth-conducive. The Cārvāka materialist school was one of the proponents of Skepticism. They recognized perception as a knowledge source but not inference nor any other candidate. Inference depends upon generalizations which outstrip perceptual evidence. Cārvāka claims that no one can know that. That which we take to be the result of a genuine inference may turn out to hinge on a fallacy. Similarly, testimony is also no good since it presupposes that any speaker would tell the truth and thus is subject to the same criticism of lack of evidence. For this school, our only channels of knowledge are our sense perceptions. Everything else, they contended, is only inference which is not always reliable. Like Hume, they attacked inductive reasoning, questioning our logical right to extrapolate from what we know to be true, and generalize on the basis of particular observations. A different kind of skepticism that is broader in scope is not restricted to questioning inference alone. Perception, it is pointed out can also mislead us, given that the perceptions are dependent on our senses. It is clear that information acquired through our sense organs is not always a hundred percent reliable since the senses can create illusion, whether optical, auditory, olfactory, gustatory, or tactile. Given that our sensory perceptions are determined by the kind of bodies--cerebral physiology--we happen to possess, all human knowledge is ultimately a function of our brain chemistry. No matter what or how the external world of reality is, the phenomenal world--as Kant was to remind us centuries later--is different from the noumenal world. This leads us to the conclusion that what we call objective knowledge is actually species-subjective.

Radical skepticism is one of the many kinds of philosophical skepticism, which pertains to the idea that knowledge is quite likely impossible. A radical skeptic maintains that all of our beliefs are subject to doubt, the most famous illustration of this being the Brain-in-a-vat hypothesis (BIV). In popular entertainment, the BIV hypothesis is best depicted in the film The Matrix. The film encourages one to imagine that our lives and the reality that we perceive are a computer generated simulation. Since it is impossible to know the difference between a reality that is real and a reality that is “the matrix” with absolute certainty, we can suppose that we cannot really “know” that our reality is in fact real.

This radical skepticism has often been compared to the Hindu and Buddhist philosophical concept of 'māyā '. The concept of māyā , or illusion of knowledge has been variously defined by the different schools. Shankara, for instance, expounded on the idea of māyā as the appearance which veils the true nature of things. In his famous analogy, the ignorant person mistakes a rope for a snake. Gaudapada treats life as a waking dream, and contends that world exists only in the mind of Man. This illusion, called māyā , gives rise to forms which need names, thus offering our minds a semblance of objective reality. Many philosophies and religions seek to "pierce the veil" of māyā in order to glimpse the transcendent truth from which the illusion of a physical reality springs.

While the Advaitin maintains that Māyā is the veiling of the Cosmic Spirit or Brahman, and the epiphany realisation of this fact is the road to nirvana or salvation, I wish to give a slightly different interpretation. I posit that māyā is not a veil to be pierced but the intrinsic impossibility to know anything about the world around us. Radical skepticism seems excessive, and critics are right to point out that we can't live as skeptics in our normal lives. It may well be impossible to ever refute radical skepticism but struggling with the issue helps illuminate the nature of knowledge itself.             

References:

1.                 http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/epistemology-india
2.                 http://www.utm.edu/staff/jfieser/class/120/6-knowledge.htm
3.                 http://www.hinduwebsite.com/maya.asp                      

       p.s.- This is an assignment that I submitted to Coursera for my Introduction to Philosophy

What can fiction do that can’t be achieved by neuroscience?

The texture of consciousness is the language of literature, not the data of science.

Robert Burton