True Happiness

If I told you that one plus one equals two, will you ask me that on what authority to I base my conclusion on? Or, will you decide the truth of ‘two’ from the structure and content of the argument itself? Before anyone can find hope in understanding others, and in doing so understanding the reasons why certain people find happiness in what THEY do, one must suspend all bias of illusory authority and suspend judgement on all things.

We, the learned and modern class of students, know that all knowledge is a production of culture rather than a progressive system that develops its methods for finding greater truths. Students of both Anthropology and Philosophy know that all systems of knowledge can be correlated to the history which gave rise to its existence, and so no ‘truth’ is eternally recognized. Because we understand knowledge to be both contingent and relative, as in through the study of production of knowledge through history, we now see knowledge or pure truth as that which is independent of true authority. If we base all knowledge on authority, we accept that our culture – which is the very one that produces this knowledge – is superior over others.

Have you ever asked? If some person during some time period can claim his culture to be most superior over others, that if in every epoch of history some one person can do that seemingly truthfully, then why in history are there the rise and fall of Great Empires? As History has proven continuously, the conflict between the varying and ever-changing forces of production of knowledge waivers between nations like a vicious nightmare that never ceases but takes newer and newer forms all the time. That is, technology and form of corporations, regulation and order, media and political propaganda, scientific and psychiatric-medical knowledge are all mere products of historic conflicts between the forces of production of knowledge and its means of strength of one over the other. What one deems to be superior in the Roman times in religious or social ideals are considered ancient in the 21st century. We can neither determine the truth of any political or social or economic ideal without already having some bias which itself is never well-formed in proof of the rise and fall of Civilizations. We can only determine knowledge from and through itself. If we base anything on authority than on pure reason, history plainly shows otherwise.

The learned of the past assume that there is so-called social equilibrium when people of different classes come together. But why are there even classes? If we understand that each culture is equal, and that each culture has its own particular mode of production of knowledge, and that the knowledge thus produced is unique in itself and not inferior in source and produce, then classes of knowledge do not exist. Modes and forms of technology and political formation, social and economic modes of stratification and even idealized knowledge are all mere products of the social arrangements of the culture of interest. If, that culture is inferior at all, how can it persist till today? How can then there be the rise and fall of Empires throughout time? If Empires can fall and the weak become strong, no class of knowledge or authority actually exists. Social class becomes an illusion of the culture. We too know that all and each of us are naturally ethnocentric. But we never recognize the fall of empires in history. When we are ignorant, we cannot understand and comprehend pure truth. Once we understand that the social arrangements are particular to one culture, and that theirs are as superior as ours – as in the history of fall and rise of civilizations and empires – then when people of different cultures come together there can never be so-called equilibrium. Instead, there is only a blend of the modes of production of knowledge between two entities.

Also, ideas of social progression are illusory. That is because if we assume some universal social ladder exists, then we are imposing our mode of production of knowledge (or productive technology) upon other modes of productive technologies. Yet, how can one say democracy exists as the best of any worse political structure if we nonetheless persist to impose illusory authority on one mode of productive technology over the other? This is being plainly hypocritical.

If we accept democracy, that cultures are unique, that history creates and manoeuvres authority between modes of productive technologies of knowledge, that history too contains the rise and fall of total civilizations and empires, then we must be able to be relative about the true productive technologies.

To be happy, then, is to eliminate of thought of absolutism and embrace historical relativism. Also, one too must base the truth of knowledge because of what it contains rather than on the authority which insists on its truth.

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Irrationalism and its Respective Practices

Why do children know how to talk like normal adults before even knowing all the alphabets from A to Z and the formal rules of the language? Why is it that some people flourish without the aid of the educational system rather than the other way around? Why do some ‘liberal’ states thrive over other liberal ones? There are things and issues which we many a time refuse to face and answers we dare not acknowledge in light, ironically, of the so-called information age. Marketing a system of bureaucratic and deeply senseless practices to all fields of life seems so prevalent and absorbed into society that none see the light of reason. It seems that modernity is not enlightened at all.

The reality of the mind of the child is that, like any other living thing, it is always in constant need to adapt to its environment in order to suit its own needs. If they need water, they learn methods for showing others that they need it. Other times they attempt other kinds of techniques to request for food or attention. Do we need to teach the child what crying means by crying in front of it so that it remembers how to cry? No! If you were a parent, and you agreed that you have to cry many times in front of the child so that your child remembers how to cry, you are a complete idiot! If you can remember at all, your child cries probably because noise is the only thing which can wake you or anything up. In fact, it knows that when your face is facing hers, and she makes any noise, your facial expression automatically changes ever so slightly or greatly – a sign of response. So, when it is in its own room, and no one is there, it understands that its loud cry will correlate to high response rate from the parent. Again, do parents have to repeatedly act in front of the baby, one being parent and the other as the baby, to show it that crying loudly will bring the parents’ attention to it? Obviously not! These are small examples that relate to human nature, and that is the act of autonomous learning. You don’t need to repeat things in front of them before they puke all that that they see from you. They learn by their own means because they want things done to suit their own needs! And that is a fact of all living things!

Yet, despite this blatant example of real life experience of parents all around the world, the educational system advocates the act of repetition as the means of learning rather than the constant motion of intellectual inquiry as the true form of learning.

Have you ever thought how children learn to swim? The reality is that throughout the whole process, small mistakes are corrected and showed why other techniques don’t work. The child learns not by repetition, but by learning that closing the gaps between the fingers and pushing that hand backwards in the water creates greater force for stronger propelling. The child need not learn the full vocabulary of what I said, but simply the feel of it. The child automatically correlates closed fingers with swimming faster to beat his peers. It’s as simple as that.

If the educational system were so perfect, and we all know children learn to talk before learning the written version or its official rules, then all children will excel because it uses the natural method of learning. In reality, this is not the case. Humans, like all other living things, remember certain things because it serves them a certain purpose. It is precisely not the case with constant, meaningless, and senseless repetition.

The market of irrationalism seems closely bound to the by-products of a capitalist society. People are aiming to cut costs. So they have senseless programs which promote repetition as a theme of learning – like a robot doing the same task over and over again. They identify this to be a certain system of discipline, so that the child can be taught obedience through discipline and be good as such. It reduces manpower and effort or stress from teachers having to handle certain mischief as the computer keeps children stuck to the screens. The child is only amused by the cartoons and inserts whatever answers because some cute cartoon senselessly appears in correspondence to the ‘right’ answer. Again, it is interesting that children already know how to speak sentences when in school they are told to fill-in-the-blank. This all sounds ridiculous to me.

It is ironic that the polity of modernity is full with political ideals which structure themselves in so deformed a manner that it resembles only differing disciplinary polities aimed to structure all forms of oppression into the public so that a new kind of hidden mental-monarchy is formed. Some might argue that the Enlightenment has its effects still running in modern society. Yet, the forms of economic and social classism, racial comedies, isolated ethnic groups, and special laws on security, are all part of an implicit design of hidden oppression cloaked under the word ‘democracy’. It is interesting that where ‘democracy’ holds, we nevertheless witness all the mentioned horrific acts which come never close to their polity’s idealized spoken form of freedom of the people. There may be human rights, but there are also special internal security laws against them which give the government special privileges over individual freedoms.

It seems that people are so accustomed to being lied to by their own sovereign power that they are misguided on many issues which are, in fact, most closely to the heart.

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Failure and on the Improvement of the Disciplinary Society

Thanks to Michael Foucault, who is my current idol in revolutionizing the main framework of philosophy both in theory and practise, I have realized this. Perfect societies, following from other philosophers like Marx, necessarily evolve the function of discipline from a source of centralization to a naturally diffused but individualized form. Discipline in the end multiples forces but individualizes them by the specific calculation, definition, and concentration of individuals. While each individual is unique to certain tasks by virtue of natural capacity, the aggregation of finely calculated talents forms an efficient society so that discipline becomes both diffused into society and finely tuned to each different individual. It must be absorbed systematically. The irony, however, is that many Asian societies have not the natural capacity to formulate an agenda of systemic reform for the utter absorption of discipline into society.

Current Asian frameworks stereotypes without the full use of modern tools of psychiatry and scientific knowledge and implements otherwise harsh but useless tactics against defaulters of the system. The system, however, is designed not to multiply forces, but instead to homogenize it, such that no greater use of special or differing element within can become improved and multiplied for the whole. It produces good results, but not systemic improvements. What is the point of claiming the success of some schools when the system cannot make attempts to individualize the academic curriculum of individuals to cater to their special needs? Or what is the point of claiming to advocate free speech when individuals are silenced by the presence of a system of hierarchy? Or what is the point of claiming political fairness when all unpleasant events encountered by opposing parties coincidentally coincide with major reform to the system decided upon by the main controllers of the government? Or what is the point of claiming national status in improving financial grades in the economy when the poverty index has not changed significantly? There is systemic failure in any case.

Foucault talks of a system which individualizes for the purpose of multiplication. Every individual must be subject to the psychiatric and scientific system of analysis so that after being observed, defined, calculated, differentiated, and improved, the individual becomes useful and each and all combined together multiplies into a force which is stronger than a force of homogeny.

Suppose we talk of the educational system. If we are to implement a disciplinary educational system, a perfect one, these are to be its characteristics. Students must be bilaterally subject to both knowledge-acquiring and constant surveillance. The constant surveillance has bilateral functions and may exist in different forms. While it creates space for constant analysis, rationalization and experimentation, it also preserves the authority of surveillance over the individual. Surveillance however need not be personal, but instead architectural and social. Consider that of the prison. Compare the initial forms wherein individuals are tucked into nicely fitting spaces such that these spaces do not allow for unnecessary movements to the modern asylum where prisons face a central space. While a guard may stand and observe individuals existing in the older version of prison, he may not get to see all things at once and so considerable movement is needed always. However, when the gates of prisons face a central region and space within the prison is given for the prison to move around, a guard can at one glance observe not simply the presence of prisoners. One can observe the movements of individuals, their speech, and their tendencies. The body becomes a tool for observation rather than a mere spec in a pile of sand. And in noticing their mind through their bodily movements and behaviour, the observer can individualize punishments so that each individual becomes fearful for the system knows and acts upon their mind and body. This is where psychiatric analysis comes in. We may speak to them in certain ways, or infiltrate their favourite spaces or hobbies – depending on the uniqueness of each individual – so as to instil a kind of discipline which is both individualized but multiplied. It is multiplied because since all can be seen in a glance, surveillance does not become physical but represented in the very structure and design of prisons. If the educational, political and social system implements this newly defined system of the disciplinary prison, forces shall be multiplied indefinitely. That is, going back to the topic of the disciplinary educational system, the individual’s studies and social behaviour forms a portfolio to work with so that one may systematically determine a form and structure for him or her. Each individual is studied psychiatrically so that punishments and rewards are individualized in accordance to the psychological tendencies and flaws of the individuals. Also, each individual’s capacities in differing fields are individualized so that while in certain subjects he studies at a higher level when proven capable of doing so, others he remains at the previous level or lower also when proven so. In addition, each student is subject to random surveillance so that the collective studies of qualified professionals can formulate a more likely-to-be suitable agenda to work with each individual specifically. Everything is subject to human rationalization – even the human mind itself.

The light side of all this is this. Freedom comes not from being un-disciplinary, but instead from knowing that everything is formulated in accordance to your own circumstances. There is no frustration since everything is being calculated and defined for you. Freedom is felt when one is allowed to pursue that which is personally performing and suited well to the individual. The disciplinary structure uses a systemic autonomy to form a society of multiplied forces. Asian societies are useless in this area unfortunately.

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