being capitalist or socialist

Reading a book on history of conservatism in America, I feel that the reason for someone to agree with Socialism or it's opposite- Capitalism is purely circumstantial. If one sees Socialism in his past, then he tries to revolt and put personal freedom in front. On the other hand, when one is withered with the power-driven society, then the way to revolution is mostly about forming communities and sharing the benefits. In our times, of course there is a sort of convergence between the two tendencies, even though is not uncommon to see either of the extremes in media. I think all civilizations have had a dualism of some kind ; the particular case of capitalism and socialism is indeed the most remarkable of them all. The causes of two world wars in last century might seem to be rooted in racial strife or manic dictators, but they probably have had more to do with the conflict between these two economic philosophies.

I recently learned about the book "Road to Serfdom" by Hayek, an Austrian economist, who along with others in the Austrian academia who have had limited freedom during the war years, equated socialism with totalitarianism and claimed that authoritarianism is inherent in socialist ideals. In the back-drop of failing socialist policies in Europe and later due to the failure of Stalinism in USSR, the works of Hayek influenced many neo-liberals in America.

Ottoman Empire

I have recently started reading about Ottoman Empire. As usual taking notes on the way.

-The basis of Ottoman rule in Albania was a feudal military system of landed estates, called timars, which were awarded to military lords for loyalty and service to the empire

पाणिनि

पाणिनिविरचितव्याकरणपुस्तकपठनम यत्नम करोमि|

http://www.archive.org/details/ashtadhyayitrans06paniuoft

Taiping Rebellion

Religion in China has always been a mystery to me. It is hard to find a neutral and comprehensive account of modern China. The exoticism in most of the books on contemporary China doesn't appeal so much to a non-westerner like me. I think that due to lack of free media, the massive language barrier and the unwillingness of Chinese people to discuss current events on the country, it is somewhat difficult to have a general sense of religion in China. The official theory of "no-religion" in China didn't sound very much plausible to me. Having grown up in India I do think that "not having a religion" doesn't necessarily mean a lack of religious conviction. In fact most of the societies that were conquered (and partly humiliated) by West at some point have witnessed radicalization of the "religion" to some extent. An interesting event is the Taiping Rebellion. This was a religious movement but ironically enough was suppressed by the Western forces. It seems like the feudal system of China had given in to the Western forces. The Qing rulers having been of Manchu origin (most of the Chinese people are of Han origin) might have helped quite a bit in getting support for a rebellion against the rule. It is hard not to compare this with the 1857 sepoy mutiny in India. It happened about the same time and was in some way a repercussion of the new Western control. It is remarkable that in India, the rebellion was initiated by sadhus - a group of religious people who could never have been supported by the Moghul ruler (Muslim). But still the mutiny was later headed by a Moghul ruler. In other words, the mutual opponents had united against the Western forces. Most Indians seem to have had little trouble in considering the Western forces as their enemy. In the Chinese context this would be similar to Qing and Hans attempting to unite against the British. However the "mutiny" can hardly be compared with the Taiping rebellion. The mutiny was neither as widespread nor as deeply entrenched in society as the Taiping revolution. About 20 million people are known to have died in the rebellion. The fact that the rebellion was started by someone who wished to be a part of the civil (imperial) services alone suggests that China was indeed being governed much better than India and that China's was a much more integrated society unlike India, where Muslim rule never influenced the rural Hindu population. It is not surprising that the Taiping rebels had clear ideas of governance after dislodging the Qing rule.

For those reasons, the rebellion does seem more similar to Russian revolution. When the feudal Tsar system had failed to govern the country and was losing wars in foreign excursions (Japan) the Bolsheviks party emerged and attempted to overthrow the Tsar rule. The difference of course is that there was no Western interference in Russia. Chinese "Gordon" defeated the short-lived government of the Taiping rebels. It took more than a decade to wipe out the rebels. The other major difference is the unique religious nature of the rebellion. The fact that a "foreign" religion was used to root out a feudal system is quite remarkable. The rebels were primarily Hakka ( a migrant newcomer group among Hans) and Zhuang and both were economically disadvantaged. Christianity definitely has had the appeal to the common people. Chinese case would've been no different. That Christianity wasn't seen as a foreign religion suggests that the differences between Eastern and Western religion were either not obvious or immaterial to the average people in China. In modern China, only about 10 % of the total population is atheist. Confucianism is deeply entrenched in Chinese society. As things were Buddhism was an inquiry and skepticism to Confucianism. For the most part things are still the same. Only 3-4% of Chinese are Christians. The ancestral worship and spirit-worship might be widespread but such ritualism is accepted both by Christians and Buddhists alike in modern day.

pilaf

I used to think that the similarity of words pilaf and Hindi Pulao is because of a recent exchange of recipes from the East. But apparently rice was grown in the central Asia when it was imported from South Asia in ancient times. The Muslim traders returned to South Asia what we know today as Biryani. The modern Hindi word pulao comes from Sanskrit pulaaka (which means a lump of rice, ref. A Sanskrit-English dictionary , Monier-Williams).

The word pilaf is found in Turkish, Greek, Armenian and some other Central Asian languages.

Tony Judt

I just started reading the book - Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945 which I had been referred to by New York Review of Books. The book is very well written. It has the fluidity of a fictional work and yet the objectivity of a journalistic text. The author, a well-known historian, does acknowledge his own perspective in the description of events since 1945.

I am learning things that I had no idea about and I am so overwhelmed that I am compelled to taking notes. Here are a couple of facts that I think are interesting to note.

1. The book talks about the thirty-year war. The scale and extent of this war and the consequent deprivation of the involved states make it seem no less devastating than the First world war.

2. Stalin is know to have ordered shooting of 23,000 Polish officers in Katyn. He later blamed it on Germans.

3. The civilian losses exceed military losses significantly except for UK and Germany.

4. The war casualties were massive but there was a lot of damage also caused by lack of supply of food. Greece to my knowledge was not a major participant in the war. But it did seem to have suffered a lot of lateral damage. A third of its population for example suffered from trachoma in 1945. Pollution through industrial had shot up the infant mortality. In the British zone of Germany the number was about 25%.

5. Hitler's Nazi pogrom needs to be understood in the backdrop of the Reich. Nazis had expelled 750,000 Polish farmers from West to East in order for the ethnic Germans to return to the volksdeutsche. The soviet union moved more civilians during the war. The trend was reversed after the war, with Stalin having kept his promise he made in 1941 - that he would return Prussia back to Slavs where it belonged.

One reason why the author thinks the movement of people was at much larger scale is the failure of League of Nations. They governments were careful not to rely on changing boundaries (like they did in WWI) but instead depend on moving peoples.

says a new yorker

The world is denigrated with this game of power that I see everywhere now. I am starting to feel a bit of suffocation. Partly because of disinterest and partly because of initial failures make me feel a bit emaciated now. I feel the suffocation in my soul caused by withdrawals and half-hearted attempts. I don't and cannot blame individuals for that because it is my own tendencies that have caused my failures and withdrawals. This outlook of a power game that I see to have developed is only a consequence of my own discernment and judgment. There is a certain part of me that considers this game to be natural and to be the truth itself and yet there is this part that makes me withdrawn, jaded and having lost in this game. I wish more often if it was easy for me to be normal and be willing to play the game or be completely oblivious to the existence of the game. It is not the sorrow of having lost that I feel. Instead there is a certain guilt, sometimes felt that of having abused alcohol in the past, and having abused self-indulgence at other times. Nothing changed this rather morbid view of the world where everyone is a predator or a prey. There are no emotions, purposes and feelings; everything is a struggle for materialist and acquisitive rewards. There is nowhere you can attach yourself to. There is nobody who you can truly trust to be yours. You want to go everywhere and be everywhere but you really belong nowhere.

It should be probably be a relief to discover that I am not the only one to feel that way. But then if you really don't take optimism that seriously, even discovering other people like yourself supports the tendencies of withdrawal. To flock with your own type and to derive normal pleasures from the same class of people makes you feel having become the part of the classification process and the perceived hierarchy. I tend to reject the need of consolation by trying to become part of one community or some other. When you don't believe in a larger goal and a larger world, there doesn't seem any reason to be fulfilling responsibilities of a smaller group of people. The acceptance of lack of a larger goal only makes your own existence more meaningless. I think this is where the feeling of emaciation might emanate from. What is the right way to deny this game? I find refuge in believing in that it is not through withdrawal or denial but by endearment and creativity. For those who see ideas as separate from reality and in turn hold on to ideas more than material acquisitions the only way to exist is to seek means to realize the ideas one holds on to. This should not create a distance from reality but rather create a close connection with it.