Exact Thinking

Slavoj Žižek

2010-08-20T08:17:00.000-07:00

Slavoj Žižek is a Slovenian continental philosopher and critical theorist. Some believe that he is the most prominent living philosopher of europe, and some find him not more than a clown with an unstable and disorganised mind.

So far I have an impression that he is a pseudo-philosopher celebrity for the public, rath...er than someone with a serious academic background. His only attraction to me is his notion of "Capitalism with Asian values". He opposes the idea that capitalism in far east will lead to democracy and claims that which is emerging in China and Singapore is an "authoritarian capitalism" monster in which the link between capitalism and democracy is broken.

In this article, he explains that Iran's green movement is not a demand for pro-western liberalism, but an indication that there is a genuinely liberatory potential in Islam itself.

Before you enjoy it, good to know that he is a strong atheist too. :)

Berlusconi in Tehran - Slavoj Žižek

2010-06-24T00:06:00.000-07:00

“Loving a person is being willing to grow old with that person.”
Albert Camus - Caligula

beware

2010-04-15T11:25:00.000-07:00

Some people exhilarate you by describing you as a superman, to persuade you to do what they want you to do.

Aliens holding passport!

2010-04-13T11:15:00.000-07:00

Asia Pacific Telecommunity is going to hold its 2010 Forum of “The Policy and Regulation” in Honiara, Solomon Islands. I have been nominated to attend as the representative of my employer, however it is very unlikely that I could make it to the conference on time for some reasons.

In the beginning it took a while to locate the place on google earth, it is a very tiny island in Pacific Ocean. Then I started looking for a proper flight to get me there on time and I am yet to find one. The reaction of travelling agencies is sort of funny. To some of them, I look like a lonely explorer seeking adventure in a voyage to the middle of nowhere. I think I am their first traveler to such place, as they will most probably fail to arrange flight for such an unknown place.

But arranging ticket is not my main problem, Visa is. I talked to many of conveners of the meeting and none of them had any idea how one should apply for visa. When I checked Solomon Islands Immigration Office website, I found citizens of many countries are allowed to travel there without Visa, or they are able to get it at arrival time. I am one of the few ones who need to get visa before arrival.

I was wondering why I should be the exception, what they think about me and my country? I figured it out when I downloaded the Visa Application Form and saw the title: “Visa Application Form for Aliens Holding Passport”.

They believe I am an alien, maybe because none of my compatriots have ever travelled there. Are they expecting me on a flying saucer rather than an air craft? If I get there I will explain them that people of my country are humans not aliens, and then I try to figure out what the hell Solomon was doing there? I need to report this to my freaky boss :)

Disposable Miracles

2010-04-12T12:06:00.000-07:00

Love can relieve one’s pains, give him re-birth, blow a new beginning to his life, can make her life shiny, makes you feel enthusiastic and young, full of energy, high on life, can do miracles… but it doesn’t last more than five years. Then you return to the same point before love, but five years older.

The best thing about sex

2010-04-09T12:43:00.000-07:00

The best thing about sex is that I do not need it anymore once I’m done with it. For few moments, it looks as if I am experiencing the gap between thoughts, so-called moments of freedom. It comes to be sort of transcendental experience. To me transcendental happens when solely my own presence suffices: when the moment is so perfect that I do not need to desire exotic experiences of future.

If I should die this very moment

2009-12-18T10:20:00.001-08:00

If I should die this very moment
I wouldn't fear
For I've never known completeness
Like being here
...
All I've known
All I've done
All I've felt was leading to this
All I've known
All I've done
All I've felt was leading to this
Wanna saty right here
'till the end of time
'till the earth stops turning...

Nostalgia

2009-12-04T00:37:00.000-08:00

Nostalgia, is caused by a sense of respect to those people who have made your sweet memories. Nostalgia comes when you find yourself far from people with whom you share sweet moments of past and it intensifies when these people pass away. As a surviver, one feels responsible to cherish the memory of the dear departeds.

Being 30 years old, I am recently feeling impulses of nostalgia. I have never had such an experience before. This feeling of compassion includes not only departed ones, but also those who used to be my close friends but now they are mentally far from me. This also includes my father, who used to share pieces of wisdom with me when I was a child, and now we barely find a subject on which we both agree. And my brother, and my sister, to whom I am someone as close as a stranger.

Is this a natural effect of aging? I am wondering if this feeling will get more severe as time passes, or is it going to decline and diminish at some point? I read somewhere – maybe in Kundera’s immortality – that at a certain point, one is so old that all memories of past disappear. Death is so close that it cannot be distinguished from life. So close that one does not feel responsible any more to cherish the memory of the dear departeds: the moment of freedom from Nostalgia.

People will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy

2009-01-20T22:01:00.000-08:00

"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus--and non-believers. We are shaped by every language and culture, drawn from every end of this Earth; and because we have tasted the bitter swill of civil war and segregation, and emerged from that dark chapter stronger and more united, we cannot help but believe that the old hatreds shall someday pass; that the lines of tribe shall soon dissolve; that as the world grows smaller, our common humanity shall reveal itself; and that America must play its role in ushering in a new era of peace."

"To those leaders around the globe who seek to sow conflict, or blame their society's ills on the West--know that your people will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy. To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history; but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist."

Excerpts from Obama's Speech on Inauguration Day

Temptation of Hereafter

2009-01-09T22:29:00.000-08:00

I used to have a sweet grandmother until last Monday when she died at the age of almost 100 years old. She was a very beautiful lovable old woman who lost her husband some fifteen years after marriage. She brought up her orphans – including my father – all by her own in their small village inflicted by famine and poverty. Although she was uneducated, she often uttered touching pieces of wisdom. My father has been always proud of her mother and says: “She is an uneducated sage”. My grandmother was proud of her son too. The son who never forgot her and traveled every month from Tehran to see her, help her, take care of her and not let her feel lonely and forgotten.

However my grandmother would not remain alone and forgotten if my father did not pay her the routine visit. She was like the doyenne of her neighborhood and neighbors enjoyed her companionship. Hundreds of people attended her funeral and mourning ceremony. Her last days were beautiful and her life ended with glory.

Her oldest son, my only uncle, is mentally retarded. He is very awkward while speaking and nobody enjoys his companionship. The only one who really took care of him was my grandmother. Maybe my grandmother was the only person by whom my uncle experienced some sense of compassion in his retarded mind. And now after her death, my uncle is experiencing the bitter sense of loneliness.

How lonely my uncle looks after death of his mother. I remember in the cemetery, where people stood around the grave after burring my grandmother. My uncle stood just above the grave and cried but nobody cared. I remember for one moment I did not see anything but my mentally retarded uncle and his regrettably awkward crying. In that moment, my father appeared in the scene: “I will never leave you alone” he whispered in my uncle’s ear. Maybe my father feels that he is not educated enough to impress me, but he did. My father is neither educated nor sage. We disagree with other on many things. But he has a very compassionate heart and I am proud of that.

Sweetness of human relations tempts me to believe in a peaceful hereafter not inflicted by famine and poverty. Wherein my grandmother kisses his son for devoting himself to his mentally retarded brother. Wherein my uneducated father who cannot impress his son joins his mother again to enjoy her companionship.

Mass Metamorphosis

2009-01-04T06:22:00.000-08:00

Couple of weeks ago, we went to “Rhinoceros” theatre play with friends. The play is written by Eugène Ionesco and the performance was directed by Farhad Ayish in Tehran City Theatre. I liked it.

It is a simple show of how easily people can metamorphose into animals. It was an attempt at revealing the pattern of people’s mass metamorphosis: when people start denouncing their routine lives and praise glory of some greater good or sort of collective power and finally end up with turning into Rhinoceros, a symbol of bestial power. The play is often considered as a response to the sudden upsurge of Communism, Fascism and Nazism during the events preceding World War II.

Do we have such experience in Iran?
Yes, after the Islamic revolution of 1979. However the ruling discourse in Iran’s case was neither Nazism nor Communism. It was Islamism, the idea of Islamizing Iranian’s social and individual lives. The utopia depicted by this theory is Islam’s universal governance, wherein the citizens are treated as Servants of God rather than free individuals. The Islamic Republic of Iran is the pilot project of bringing God’s kingship to earth. Hence the mass metamorphosis here was turning into dogmatic servants of God. This looked very awkward in the beginning but the idea very soon propagated all over the society. Religion and ideology overcame human relationships. Many fathers executed their sons on charge of being communists. Many parents contributed the government to indoctrinate their children not to question red lines of Islam and Quran. And the outcome of this historical mass metamorphosis of Iranians is today’s totalitarian regime which even wants to control the way people dress.

On Gaza's Crisis

2009-01-04T01:59:00.000-08:00

Settling the clash between Palestinians and Israelis is a severe challenge of today’s world, but the solution of course is not reading the history from the point that suits benefits of one side. That is what both sides of the battle are doing. Israel has attacked Gaza because of rocket attacks from Gaza into southern Israel by Hamas militants. Hamas had shot those rockets to break the blockade. Israel had blockaded Gaza as a response to terrorist attacks organized by Hamas inside Gaza. Hamas organized attacks to retaliate....

One can simply see the absurdity of this regression when there is no result other than making citizens and innocent children victims of futile retaliations.

I am not a politician but I find religion and racism at the center of this tragedy. Those who feel compassion for Gaza’s children because they are Arabs or Muslims are potential racists and their compassion will eventually perpetuate the disaster.

We condemn Israelis’ murder of Gaza’s defenseless citizens as well as Hamas’s terrorist attacks on Israelis. We believe that Gaza’s children are as innocent as Israeli children. We identify humans by their humanity. Not by their religion nor race.

Shariati, The Superficial Depth

2008-12-17T16:12:00.000-08:00

“Mysticism, Equality, Liberty” is Shariatist version of French famous slogan “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity” which heralded the age of modern humanist values after the French Revolution. Replacing “Fraternity” by “Mysticism” was not because they contradicted each other. “Mysticism” had to be added somewhere to satisfy Iranians long obsession with religion: the realm without which life lacks depth and remains a transitory superficial childish game. Yet, to avoid wordiness, “Mysticism” kicked “Fraternity” out and sat prior to “Equality” and “Liberty” to look like a modern concern.

Shariati has manifested his so-called mysticism in “Descendent”, “Dialogues of Loneliness” and the series of “Desert”. In his perspective, life at the first glance is absurd and disgusting. He finds sex, career ambitions and everyday civil lifestyle very primitive, ordinary and animal-like. Somewhere in his “Descendent”, he blames employees seeking promotion and ridicules them for having such an insignificant life and cheap goal. And the only elixir he finds to transform filthy nature of human and redeem him/her from suffering is “Faith”.

However, Shariati’s “Faith” is such a vague concept. It is a mixture of Mohammad, Imam Ali, Sartre, Marx and some other irrelevant people. His only art is likening compassion of Sartre to Mohammad’s and righteousness of Marx to Imam Ali’s. His “Descendent” is an immature attempt to make up a holistic book. It is immature, because a book cannot be holistic simply by including names of the first men in history – Adam and Eve – and the last ones: Marx and Sartre. The reality of his “modern interpretation of religion” is just putting modern names next to religious saints.

There is no mysticism in Shariati. His so-called mystical writings are nonsense uttered by a negative anti-life mind. It is all confusion; however he has continually tried to hide this negativity and confusion behind words like justice, faith and transcendental ideals.

Unfortunately his discourses widely appealed to 1970’s Iranian religious students, those who were studying in western-style universities but opposed Shah’s modernization project. Youngster revolutionaries whose concern was neither “Liberty” nor “Equality”, but wiping all aspects of american consumer lifestyle off the society and replacing them by transcendental Islamic values. They became founders of Iranian model of Islamic fundamentalism whose Egyptian model had already formed some twenty years earlier.

Mankind is very vulnerable to unclear ideas and dogma. Negative approaches to basic aspects of life will lead to dogma in a quest for deeper meaning of life. Do not trust people who do not celebrate sex and earthy love. Do not follow world-views which preach absurdity of promoting livelihood. Those who encourage you to quit ordinary life and pursue some greater good in Heaven have minds not evolved beyond their teenage obsessions.

English Fukuyama vs. Persian Fukuyama

2008-10-20T01:47:00.000-07:00

On October 13th, an article from Francis Fukuyama was published in News Week titled “The Fall of America, Inc.”. The article was highlighted in Tehran governmental dailies, however the title was deliberately mistranslated: “Collapse of Western Civilization”. The same day, Iran Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, made a speech for the masses and remarked that recent worldwide financial crisis is the beginning of downfall of western liberal democracy. “Marxism proved its absurdity after implosion of the Soviet bloc twenty years ago, and today the world can hear cracking bones of Capitalism skeleton one after another.” he cited. The metaphor is implying bankruptcy of investment banks which started in Wall Street and continued in Europe and other parts of the world. This crisis looks to anti-Americanists like a dead-end for liberal democracy which they have been anticipating, while liberal-democrat commentators note that Wall Street meltdown marks the end of an era within Capitalism context, not the end of Capitalism itself.

Fukuyama is from the latter group. He is the author of “The End of History and the Last Man” in which he argued that the progression of human history as a struggle between ideologies is almost at an end, with the world settling on liberal democracy after the end of the Cold War. However, since 2002 he has been trying to distance himself from the neoconservative agenda under the Bush Administration, citing its overly militaristic basis. His criticisms of America’s militaristic interventions in the name of promoting democracy are enthusiastically reflected by Iran state controlled media. The Persian version of his last analysis of the global financial crisis sounds like a retreat from his famous doctrine of “The End of History”.

In the original version however, there is no implication of diminishing liberal democracy. It only argues that consequent to Wall Street meltdown, American ideas and advice will be less globally welcome. Fukuyama explains that most important export of America is its ideas and two fundamentally American ideas have dominated global thinking since Reagan’s presidency. The first one was the idea of minimal governments, tax cuts and deregulation agenda. The second was America as the promoter of liberal democracy around the world. He likens these ideas as two important brands of “America Inc.” which have lost faith of the market after the financial meltdown. He believes that Reagan’s transformative movement, which was a pragmatic response to the excess of welfare states of 1980s, lost its way and ended up with today’s financial crisis when became an unquestionable ideology. Along with this crisis, he remarks, a certain vision of capitalism has collapsed. That outdated vision is Reaganism with its deregulation mantra. However, Fukuyama believes that America can still restore its brand as its rivals’ models – Chinese and Russian – do not appear to be competitive.

Along with China and Russia, Islamic Republic of Iran has been trying to challenge the west in all aspects since 1979. It introduces Islam as a complete system of morality, justice and governance, whose laws and principles should be the sole basis of governance and everything else in life. After the implosion of Soviet bloc – the event which is extremely propagandized to have been prophesied by Khomeini much earlier – Iran’s Islamic government propaganda machine foresees imminent downfall of liberal democracy and obsolescence of its western style of life. In Islamic Republic’s discourse, the world is destined to embrace the message of Iran’s Islamic Revolution as its only savior. A message which has culminated with a 30% rate inflation, oil-dependent economy and extreme social class divisions after 30 years of experiment.