Ideology of Power

There are many reasons why one would kill oneself. Many, if not all, stem from this root – (1) the feeling of worthlessness. A symptom of the pervasive disconnect between ‘aspiration’, in the most general sense of the word, and ‘reality’ is this niggling sense of despair and melancholy that could alternatively be understood as a ‘feeling of worthlessness’. The simplicity offends some; it suggests to others that it is a problem easy to overcome. It bears noting, however, that if the world we live in, with its myriad technologies, cannot easily grapple with this most insidious emotion, then perhaps a simple solution is nowhere in sight at all. (2) Perhaps looking at this from a solution-oriented perspective betrays a misunderstanding of people caught in the web – it may not be a ‘problem’ they want to solve. For them, suicide might even be a completely rational solution to apparently irresolvable conundrums. It is emotional distress weighed up against, and overwhelming, the capacity ...

Contemporary politics has been rocked by the advent of ‘fake news’ and the relentless circulation of ‘alternative facts’. One cannot help but mention Donald J. Trump, loved and worshiped by some, yet hated and scorned by others; his election made liberal use of the penchant to believe whatever was said authoritatively, regardless of the truth, with little attempt by voters to discern the veracity of any piece of information they were fed. This perception of Trump by his votaries, as the final authority on fact, was only buttressed by the vitriolic backlash of the mainstream liberal media, who became so blatantly skewed in their representation of Trump and (more importantly) of his supposedly racist and supremacist popular supporters that it only served to ossify their obduracy. I do not claim that Trump falsified and sensationalized a narrative and imposed it singlehandedly on his unthinking entourage; rather, while the statistics presented seem no doubt cherry-picked and exag...

It is obvious that different individuals have different and sometimes widely varying predispositions to taking certain perspectives. Such perspectives have given rise to categorizations of people as 'Optimists' and 'Pessimists'; it is almost a given that optimism is considered a crucial deciding factor in the success, happiness and even longevity. Overweening optimism, however, often blinkers a person to the pitfalls of life. The straightforward answer that optimism is always better than pessimism needs greater thought.

M uch ado has been made about freedom in the past 70 years since the world emerged from the tragic conflagration of World War II. The relations between countries, dictated by the New World Order that emerged then, still reigns today, reflected and observed in multifaceted international issues, through massive financial crises and in the grating conservatism of international institutions, which have acted more as guarantors of Western hegemony than as impartial custodians of the international interest. The 'Freedoms' we are fed and consequently influenced to praise are derived from Western, or more specifically American, values. Due to the relentlessly pervasive iterations of the Western way of life portrayed on every media platform imaginable, every country must be willing to cede at least some cultural or spiritual authority to the West, no matter how authoritarian. This is inevitable given geopolitical realities, but more importantly also because of its almost universal reson...

In the course of a life, one always manages to find certain recurring personalities. Whether influenced by the familiar rhetoric espousing liberty or rejecting its teachings, more people than ever seem committed to vociferous argument. It is unclear whether this is symptomatic of a Western litigiousness or a mere consequence of the knowledge revolution (courtesy of the Internet), but the clamour is undeniable. Where political correctness holds sway, people argue that they lack rights, that rights are contravened and that they have been victimized every which way. This argument is reiterated until people no longer think it, they believe it. This belief spills over into cultish behaviour, and sometimes morphs into zealotry. Such people argue to be given certain rights or success on a silver platter for no other reason than that they feel they deserve it. This is the excess of self-confidence that one is liable to find today. Yet the lessons of History teach us that balance - the abi...