Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Politicians, deeds and real planetary considerations

This blog post is a strange assortment of many different ideas, responses and a jumble of analytical and even non-analytical ideas that flirt the boundaries of "good" v/s "good-looking" and science v/s reality. So pardon the apparent brownian motion that the floating part of my brain indulges in.

I am starting to feel that there is a fine difference between "action" and "deed". Marriage is an institution started by humans. The deeds committed by the politicians are in no way a reflection of how the society operates. I wouldn't necessarily widen the scope of a political dynasty and it's deeds to be attributable to the overall performance of a national system. The moment you start questioning their performance based on their deeds, you start to realize there are many political leaders and well-regarded scholars around the planet that were popular in public life, but however had an outrageously "immoral" execution of their private lives. Perhaps certain centers of the brain or neural system are strangely in proximity, that create such tendencies. Have we done a clinical or even psychological analysis of this behavior. Perhaps that's what makes us human.

Is, to be human, to be perfect? The truly flawless, perfectionist exists in the imagination or in the movies. The fact that we screw up, is not because we are NOT Gods, but because we are just a bunch of sophisticated logic which may still have bugs. It's not that machines are more predictable about their malfunction. It's just that the patterns of human malfunction are a lot more complex and probably predictable in non-linear, polynomial or even polynomials with imaginary exponents.

Would an alien know the difference between good and bad? How would they define abuse of environment? Would our knowledge and control over our nature and environment give us more liberty to plunder it. Would our scientific advancement in terms of mastering the basis of life or even synthetic life, give us the license to re-invent environment itself or manipulate our existential dependencies on them? What exactly would constitute responsible "living" in a planetary system of NGC-58 that supports alternate forms of life.

That brings us to the next question. What is life really? Why can't I blame a dining table of larceny? Why is gambling unheard of in the ant colony? And why is it legal for birds to drink and fly? Or is it? Does it even matter? Is there such a thing as a good-looking tiger or peacock? And do hummingbirds become mean and nasty ever?

The three sensations of "pain", "pleasure" and "itch" are in close proximity in our brain. Is there a reason for this? Or is this the reason why we sometimes create rapists, murderers and lovers in our society, all depicted in movies as frequently the same character that commits these "crimes".

Now, there are two questions:

1. Do we judge politicians based on what they did in their private lives, or public lives or both?

2. Do we attribute their success or failures in execution while on job, to our ability or inability to elect or not elect an appropriate leader?

Now, my answer to the first question is, that I usually don't judge the success of any political leader's public life based on anything other than the actions they perform while executing their position as a leader or President of the country. Now this is complicated when their private lives get public. Another point ... human desires have no walls around them. I don't think religion or culture or any legacy plays an important role when humans have a physical or mental desire to seek pleasure. While this is common in animals, we tend to draw lines around morality when it comes to humans. The question I ask: Did all the Gods marry? What did Jesus do? What did Krishna do? When I start thinking about these fundamental questions, is when I like to tune out of this all together.

My answer to the second question, it is definitely our responsibility to ensure good alternatives available at the top when we go voting at the booth. It's always hard to choose between two evils. I don't think I ever saw a flawless candidate on the presidentential ticket in the world history that I have lived with.

The planet, to me is now more important than the deeds of the politicians I have helped elect. It really doesn't matter anymore who runs a nation and what they do. What matters is what we as a human kind can do to reverse the climate changes and prevent ourselves from being self-annihilated by moody tyrants.

People like Al Gore and Michio Kaku have encouraged us think about the big picture. They have asked us to look beyond politics, beyond wars, beyond economies, beyond power and beyond wealth and instead look at the basis of life and existence itself. In this bigger scheme of things, we have demonstrated a very poor ability to grasp that.