The philosophical base for the American Revolution

Each revolution needs a philospohical base. Hitler had his Nietzsche, Lenin had his Marx, Gandhi had his Bhagavad Gita, French had their Voltaire and Rousseau and now USA gets its Thomas Paine.

The Rights of Man
Thomas Paine
An introductory letter to President Washington

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
George Washington
PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA SIR,

I present you a small treatise in defence of those principles of freedom which your exemplary virtue hath so eminently contributed to establish. That the Rights of Man may become as universal as your benevolence can wish, and that you may enjoy the happiness of seeing the New World regenerate the Old, is the prayer of

SIR,
Your much obliged, and
Obedient humble Servant,
THOMAS PAINE

To be or not to be ?
http://shakespeare.about.com/library/weekly/aa061500c.htm#native

Hamlet has decided to enact a play and hopes to catch his uncle flinch at the play. The waiting tortures Hamlet. He debates with himself if he should put an end to his misery by committing suicide. But he's afraid of what will happen to his soul after he commits this sin.



To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;

Should I exist ( To be ) or should I cease to exist ( not to be) ? Should I continue to suffer or end them all by sleeping forever ?


To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause:

( But what happens after suicide? WOuld we still dream ? Would this continue to torture us ? )


there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover'd country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?


Why should one bear the troubles of life, the heartbreak of love, the delay of law, the insolence os others when one can quietly end everything with a thrust of a dagger? ( bodkin = dagger, fardel = trouble, bourn = boundary ) But who knows what happens after ? Should one just bear these troubles instead of flying to much bigger ones which await us after we commit suicide?




Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pitch and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry, (95)
And lose the name of action.


This fear of afterlife makes us cowards. ( Native hue of resolution = natural courage). These thoughts prevent us from taking our own lives.

Hamlet Great Speeches 2

http://shakespeare.about.com/library/weekly/aa061500b.htm

Hamlet suspects his uncle of murdering his father to usurp the throne ( and his mother) . Though he wants revenge, He can't think of himself as a cold blooded killer. He condemns and insults himself for being a coward. He tries to work himself into a rage which then will impair his better judgement and let him commit cold blooded murder. This fails and he tries to stage a play which reenacts the crime his uncle has committed. Hamlet believes this will make his uncle reveal his crime.


But I am pigeon-liver'd and lack gall
To make oppression bitter, or ere this
I should have fatted all the region kites
With this slave's offal: bloody, bawdy villain!
Remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, kindless villain!
O, vengeance!

( I'm a coward. By now I should have slaughtered claudius and fed his intestines to the vultures )


Why, what an ass am I! This is most brave,
That I, the son of a dear father murder'd,
Prompted to my revenge by heaven and hell,
Must, like a whore, unpack my heart with words,
And fall a-cursing, like a very drab,
A scullion!

( Instead of killing him and avenging my fathers death, I'm sitting here weeping like a whore. )

Fie upon't! foh! About, my brain! I have heard
That guilty creatures sitting at a play
Have by the very cunning of the scene
Been struck so to the soul that presently
They have proclaim'd their malefactions;


( I've heard that once their crime is enacted before them, those who are guilty have been so stricken that they have confessed all )

For murder, though it have no tongue, will speak
With most miraculous organ. I'll have these players
Play something like the murder of my father
Before mine uncle: I'll observe his looks;
I'll tent him to the quick: if he but blench,

( I'll do the same for claudius. I'll get him to watch a play enacting hsi crime and observe him. If he shows signs of guilt, I'll slay him )


.... I'll have grounds
More relative than this: the play 's the thing
Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king.

Thomas Paine
Thomas paine was an English citizen. He emigrated to USA in 1775 ( at Benjamin Franklins request). So he had little part to play in ine American struggle for Independence. He later returned to Europe, supported the French Revolution, was branded an outlaw in Britain, almost executed in France, returned to USA ( At Thomas Jefferson's request) and dies a drunk and a pauper.

His misery was caused mostly by the fact he railed against the church and the Bible. And he had the knack of being at the wrong place at the right time. He supports French Revolution but was almost executed himself for not supporting the execution of the monarch. In 1776, he published Common Sense, a strong defense of American Independence from England. He joined the Continental Army and wasn't a success as a soldier, but he produced The Crisis , a collection of articles which helped inspire the Army. He provided the philospohical base justifying the American revolution, but left US soon after to Europe trying to produce a smokeless candle and an iron bridge.When he came back to US, his religious views set the populace against him that he died a drunk and a pauper.

The work chiefly responsible for the public outcry is the Age of Reason which starts as below

AGE OF REASON
by Thomas Paine

TO MY FELLOW-CITIZENS OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:

I PUT the following work under your protection. It contains my opinions upon Religion. You will do me the justice to remember, that I have always strenuously supported the Right of every Man to his own opinion, however different that opinion might be to mine. He who denies to another this right, makes a slave of himself to his present opinion, because he precludes himself the right of changing it.

The most formidable weapon against errors of every kind is Reason. I have never used any other, and I trust I never shall.

Your affectionate friend and fellow-citizen,

THOMAS PAINE

AGE OF REASON.
PART FIRST.

IT has been my intention, for several years past, to publish my thoughts upon religion. I am well aware of the difficulties that attend the subject, and from that consideration, had reserved it to a more advanced period of life. I intended it to be the last offering I should make to my fellow-citizens of all nations, and that at a time when the purity of the motive that induced me to it, could not admit of a question, even by those who might disapprove the work.

.....I believe in one God, and no more; and I hope for happiness beyond this life.

I believe in the equality of man; and I believe that religious duties consist in doing justice, loving mercy, and endeavoring to make our fellow-creatures happy.

But, lest it should be supposed that I believe in many other things in addition to these, I shall, in the progress of this work, declare the things I do not believe, and my reasons for not believing them.

I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my own church.

All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit.

I do not mean by this declaration to condemn those who believe otherwise; they have the same right to their belief as I have to mine. But it is necessary to the happiness of man, that he be mentally faithful to himself. Infidelity does not consist in believing, or in disbelieving; it consists in professing to believe what he does not believe.

It is impossible to calculate the moral mischief, if I may so express it, that mental lying has produced in society. When a man has so far corrupted and prostituted the chastity of his mind, as to subscribe his professional belief to things he does not believe, he has prepared himself for the commission of every other crime. He takes up the trade of a priest for the sake of gain, and in order to qualify himself for that trade, he begins with a perjury. Can we conceive any thing more destructive to morality than this?

Soon after I had published the pamphlet Common Sense, in America, I saw the exceeding probability that a revolution in the system of government would be followed by a revolution in the system of religion. The adulterous connection of church and state, wherever it had taken place, whether Jewish, Christian, or Turkish, had so effectually prohibited by pains and penalties, every discussion upon established creeds, and upon first principles of religion, that until the system of government should be changed, those subjects could not be brought fairly and openly before the world; but that whenever this should be done, a revolution in the system of religion would follow. Human inventions and priestcraft would be detected; and man would return to the pure, unmixed and unadulterated belief of one God, and no more.

Every national church or religion has established itself by pretending some special mission from God, communicated to certain individuals. The Jews have their Moses; the Christians their Jesus Christ, their apostles and saints; and the Turks their Mahomet, as if the way to God was not open to every man alike.

Each of those churches show certain books, which they call revelation, or the word of God. The Jews say, that their word of God was given by God to Moses, face to face; the Christians say, that their word of God came by divine inspiration: and the Turks say, that their word of God (the Koran) was brought by an angel from Heaven. Each of those churches accuse the other of unbelief; and for my own part, I disbelieve them all.

As it is necessary to affix right ideas to words, I will, before I proceed further into the subject, offer some other observations on the word revelation. Revelation, when applied to religion, means something communicated immediately from God to man.

No one will deny or dispute the power of the Almighty to make such a communication, if he pleases. But admitting, for the sake of a case, that something has been revealed to a certain person, and not revealed to any other person, it is revelation to that person only. When he tells it to a second person, a second to a third, a third to a fourth, and so on, it ceases to be a revelation to all those persons. It is revelation to the first person only, and hearsay to every other, and consequently they are not obliged to believe it.

It is a contradiction in terms and ideas, to call anything a revelation that comes to us at second-hand, either verbally or in writing. Revelation is necessarily limited to the first communication -- after this, it is only an account of something which that person says was a revelation made to him; and though he may find himself obliged to believe it, it cannot be incumbent on me to believe it in the same manner; for it was not a revelation made to me, and I have only his word for it that it was made to him.

When Moses told the children of Israel that he received the two tables of the commandments from the hands of God, they were not obliged to believe him, because they had no other authority for it than his telling them so; and I have no other authority for it than some historian telling me so. The commandments carry no internal evidence of divinity with them; they contain some good moral precepts, such as any man qualified to be a lawgiver, or a legislator, could produce himself, without having recourse to supernatural intervention

the full text is at http://www.ushistory.org/paine/reason/reason1.htm.
A gripping start and sure would make good reading !

Ramki - go fuck yourself for using Paine's speech and applying it to Saddam. You are a sick joke. And pre-emptively, I make no apologies for thatpersonal attack. You are twisting the words of a patriot and philosophical advocate of freedom and applying them to one of the most brutal men and regimes of the 20th century. That makes me ill. You are an opportunistic, immoral gasbag.

Hi Wardolino,

"These are the times that try men's souls."

I understand your outburst, but it is precisely this rush of blood which makes you commit errors.

Error 1: Thomas paine did not make the speech.Patrick Henry did . Thomas paine was an English citizen. He emigrated to USA in 1775. So he had little part to play in ine American struggle for Independence. He later returned to Europe, supported the French Revolution, was branded an outlaw in Britain, almost executed in France, returned to USA and dies a drunk and a pauper.

The speech I quoted was by Patrick Henry.
Patrick Henry was one of the most celebrated orators of the American Revolution. Failed as both a storekeeper and a farmer before being admitted to the Virginia bar in 1760. Won fame in 1763 after a case in which he defended the right of the colony to fix the price of the tobacco in which the clergy were paid, despite a contrary ruling from London. One of the founders of the revolutionary movement in the staid South.

The context of the speech :
Britain seeks to exercise greater copntrol over US and had already imposed military rule over several areas including Boston ( after the Tea party incident) . Patrick Henry addresses the house. Before him, speakers have advocated milder solutions to avoid war with the British. Henry calls for war.

Error :2
"They convinced me that Saddam was a monster the likes of which the world had not seen since Stalin and Hitler. He and his sons are sick sadists"

So US is waging a war against sadism now ? They'll go after all sadists of the world ? Is that what you honestly believe. If so, why wait so long ?

"Some of the Iraqis he interviewed on camera "told me they would commit suicide if American bombing didn't start"
Do you believe this ? How many iraqis have committed suicide in the last few years because American bombing did not start ?

"You just arrived," he said. "You're late. What took you so long? God help you become victorious. I want to say hello to Bush, to shake his hand. We came out of the grave.""

Why are troops not surrendering in thousands? Why are people not breaking out of the cities to welcome their saviours?

Take an unbiased look and you'll see a different story than what you believe to be true !

/I love you too !
Ramki

Hamlet's mother, Gertrude, marries her own brother-in-law, Hamlet's uncle Caludius, only two months after the death of Hamlet's father, the true king of Denmark. Hamlet recalls his mother's tender affections toward his father, believing that her display of love was a pretense to satisfy her own lust and greed. He alleges his mother's initial grief over the loss of her husband was a pretense. She cried "unrighteous tears".

In an outpouring of disgust, anger and sorrow , Hamlet looks at everything in the world as corrupted, rank and gross.

O, that this too too solid flesh would melt
Thaw and resolve itself into a dew!

( I wish my flesh would melt and I'd dissolve and be released from this agony . The use of too too is to add emphasis )
.... O God! God!
How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable,
Seem to me all the uses of this world!

( How flat the world looks to me )


Fie on't! ah fie! 'tis an unweeded garden,
That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature
Possess it merely.

( Blast it. Bad stuff ( weeds ) have filled the garden ( earth) and now pccupy it entirely ( merely = completely) )

That it should come to this!
But two months dead: nay, not so much, not two:

( How did this happen, in less than two months after my father died? )

So excellent a king; that was, to this,
Hyperion to a satyr; so loving to my mother
That he might not beteem the winds of heaven
Visit her face too roughly. Heaven and earth!

(My father was such an excellent person, so loving and gentle to my mother that he won't even allow rough winds to touch her. And what a contrast between him and my uncle ! My father was a God ( Hyperion. Father of Sun). My uncle is a beast, full of lust and base desires ( Satyr : Half man-half beast, Friend of wine-god Dionysus, and symbolically represents lust and bestial pleasures)


Must I remember? why, she would hang on him,
As if increase of appetite had grown
By what it fed on: and yet, within a month --
Let me not think on't -- Frailty, thy name is woman! --

( My mother appeared to love my father so much ! She'd cling on to him as if what she eats just increases her appetite for it. But within a month of his death, see what she has done --- Let me not even think about it. )

A little month, or ere those shoes were old
With which she follow'd my poor father's body,
Like Niobe, all tears: -- why she, even she --

(She followed my fathers body, all tears like Niobe (Queen Niobe boasted children were lovlier than the Gods. The Gods slew her children and turned Niobe into rock. Yet her tears still flow from the rock. ) Such a grieving woman has committed this act before the shoes in which she followed my fathers body have become old,


O, God! a beast, that wants discourse of reason,
Would have mourn'd longer--married with my uncle,
My father's brother, but no more like my father
Than I to Hercules: within a month:


Even a beast which lacks intelligence would have mourned longer than my mother has ( Beasts have no concept of sorrow as they exist in the present) . But she has gone ahead and married my uncle, who's as much like my father as I am like Hercules ( Hercules is a superhero and Hamlet looks upon himself as a worm )

Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears
Had left the flushing in her galled eyes,
She married. O, most wicked speed, to post
With such dexterity to incestuous sheets!
It is not nor it cannot come to good:
But break, my heart; for I must hold my tongue.


Even before the salt of her false tears have dried, Even before the redness ( flushing) has left her eyes, she has entered the incestuous bed with indecent haste. It is not going to end well. It breaks my heart, but I must remain silent.

Shylock reiterates why he wants his pound of flesh > For pure and simple revenge. Look at the way he justifies it !

".. if it will feed nothing else,
it will feed my revenge.

He hath disgraced me, and
hindered me half a million;
laughed at my losses,
mocked at my gains, scorned my nation,
thwarted my bargains, cooled my friends,
heated mine enemies;

and what's his reason? I am a Jew.
Hath not a Jew eyes? hath not a Jew hands, organs,
dimensions, senses, affections, passions?
fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons,
subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means,
warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as
a Christian is?

If you prick us, do we not bleed?
if you tickle us, do we not laugh? if you poison
us, do we not die? and if you wrong us, shall we not
revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will
resemble you in that.

If a Jew wrong a Christian,
what is his humility? Revenge. If a Christian
wrong a Jew, what should his sufferance be by
Christian example? Why, revenge. The villany you
teach me, I will execute, and it shall go hard but I
will better the instruction.



Portia talks to Shylock on the virtue of mercy. Shylock is not moved. And Portia later finds a way to turn the tables on Shylock.



The quality of mercy is not strain'd,
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath: it is twice blest;
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes:

'Tis mightiest in the mightiest: it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown;
His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;

But mercy is above this sceptred sway;
It is enthroned in the hearts of kings,
It is an attribute to God himself;
And earthly power doth then show likest God's
When mercy seasons justice.

Therefore, Jew, Though justice be thy plea, consider this,
That, in the course of justice, none of us
Should see salvation: we do pray for mercy;
And that same prayer doth teach us all to render
The deeds of mercy. I have spoke thus much
To mitigate the justice of thy plea;
Which if thou follow, this strict court of Venice
Must needs give sentence 'gainst the merchant
there.


The sheer joy of living comes through in this poem

Through every fibre of my brain,
Through every nerve, through every vein,
I feel the electric thrill, the touch
Of life, that seems almost too much.

Longfellow


And this one seems apt when I see it just after watching our bowlers being murdered and now stare at a huge total ot 360 to win in the world cup final against the Aussies.

Winners don't quit

When things go wrong, as they sometimes will,
When the road you're trudging seems all uphill,
When the wickets are low and the runs are high
And you want to smile, but you have to sigh,
When care is pressing you down a bit,
Rest! if you must - but never quit.

Life is queer, with its twists and turns,
As every one of us sometimes learns,
And many a failure turns about
When you might have won if you'd stuck it out;
Stick to your task, though the pace seems slow-
You may succeed with one more blow.

Success is failure turned inside out-
The silver tint of the clouds of doubt-
And you never can tell how close you are,
It may be near when it seems afar;
So stick to the game when you're hardest hit-
It's when things seem worst that YOU MUSTN'T QUIT.


And the 'most famousest' of them all...

Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him. The evil that men do lives after them; The good is oft interred with their bones; So let it be with Caesar. The noble Brutus hath told you Caesar was ambitious If it were so, it was a grievous fault,

And grievously hath Caesar answer'd it. Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest-- For Brutus is an honourable man; So are they all, all honourable men-- Come I to speak in Caesar's funeral. He was my friend, faithful and just to me. But Brutus says he was ambitious; And Brutus is an honourable man.

He hath brought many captives home to Rome, Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill. Did this in Caesar seem ambitious? When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept Ambition should be made of sterner stuff Yet Brutus says he was ambitious; And Brutus is an honourable man.

You all did see that on the Lupercal I thrice presented him a kingly crown, Which he did thrice refuse. Was this ambition? Yet Brutus says he was ambitious; And, sure, he is an honourable man.

I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke, But here I am to speak what I do know.You all did love him once, not without cause What cause withholds you then, to mourn for him?

228 years to the day....

The Speech Saddam should have delivered a week back


" It is natural for man to indulge in the illusions of hope. I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided; and that is the lamp of experience. I know of no way of judging the future but by the past. And judging by the past, I wish to know what there has been in the conduct of the Americans for the last ten years to justify those hopes with which gentlemen have been pleased to solace themselves and the house? Is it that insidious smile with which our petition has been lately received? Trust it not; it will prove a snare to your feet. Suffer not yourselves to be betrayed with a kiss. Ask yourselves how this gracious reception of our petition comports with those war like preparations which cover our waters and darken our land. Are fleets and armies necessary to a work of love and reconciliation? Have we shown ourselves so unwilling to be reconciled that force must be called in to win back our love? Let us not deceive ourselves. These are the implements of war and subjugation - the last arguments to which Superpowers resort.

I ask you, what means this martial array if its purpose be not to force us to submission? Can gentlemen assign any other possible motive for it? Has America any enemy in this quarter of the world to call for all this accumulation of navies and armies? No, sir, she has none. They are meant for us: they can be meant for no other. They are sent over to bind and rivet upon us those chains which the Americans have been long forging. And what have we to oppose them? Shall we try argument? We have been trying that for the last ten years. Have we anything new to offer upon the subject? Nothing. We have held the subject up in every light of which it is capable; but it has been all in vain. Shall we resort to entreaty and humble supplication? What terms shall we find which have not been already exhausted? Let us not, I beseech you, sir, deceive ourselves longer. We have done everything that could be done to avert the storm which now coming on. We have petitioned - we have remonstrated - we have supplicated - we have prostrated ourselves before the United Nations , and have implored its interposition to arrest the tyrannical hands of the Americans. Our petitions have been slighted; our remonstrances have produced additional violence and insult; our supplications have been disregarded; and we have been spurned, with contempt, from the foot of the throne. In vain, after these things, may we indulge the fond hope of peace and reconciliation. There is no longer any room for hope. If we wish to be free - if we mean to preserve inviolate those inestimable privileges for which we have been so long contending - if we mean not basely to abandon the noble struggle in which we have been so long engaged, and which we have pledged ourselves never to abandon until the glorious object of our contest shall be obtained - we must fight! I repeat it, we must fight!! An appeal to arms and to the God of Hosts is all that is left us!

They tell us that we are weak - unable to cope with so formidable an adversary. But when shall we be stronger? Will it be the next week, or the next year? Will it be when we are totally disarmed, and when a American marine shall be stationed in every house? Shall we gather strength by irresolution and inaction? Shall we acquire the means of effectual resistance by lying supinely on our backs, and hugging the illlusive phantom of Hope, until our enemies shall have bound us hand and foot? Sir, we are not weak, if we make a proper use of those means which the God of nature hath placed in our power. Three millions of people, armed in the holy cause of liberty, and in such a country as that which we posses are invincible by any force which our enemy can send against us. Besides, we shall not fight our battles alone. There is a just God who presides over the destinies of nations, and who will raise up friends to fight our battles for us. The battle is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave. There is no retreat, but in submission and slavery! Our chains are forged, their clanking may be heard on the plains! The war is on us - let it come!! I repeat it, let it come!!!

It is in vain to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, peace, peace - but there is no peace. The war is actually begun. The next gale that sweeps from the North will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!"

.Inspiring and insipid war speeches

Winston Churchill on the eve of Battle of Britain

"........ Battle of France is over. I expect that the Battle of Britain is about to begin. Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilization. Upon it depends our own British life, and the long continuity of our institutions and our Empire. The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us.

Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this Island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science.

Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, 'This was their finest hour.'

Winston Churchill - June 18, 1940

An insipid speech by Franklin Roosevelt, declaring war on Japan

The best part of the speech reads

"No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people, in their righteous might, will win through to absolute victory.

I believe that I interpret the will of the Congress and of the people when I assert that we will not only defend ourselves to the uttermost but will make it very certain that this form of treachery shall never again endanger us.

Hostilities exist. There is no blinking at the fact that our people, our territory and our interests are in grave danger.

With confidence in our armed forces, with the unbounding determination of our people, we will gain the inevitable triumph. So help us God."


Contrast this with the famous " Give me liberty or give me death speech"

Patrick Henry, was one of the most celebrated orators of the American Revolution. Failed as both a storekeeper and a farmer before being admitted to the Virginia bar in 1760. Won fame in 1763 after a case in which he defended the right of the colony to fix the price of the tobacco in which the clergy were paid, despite a contrary ruling from London. One of the founders of the revolutionary movement in the staid South.

The context of the speech:

Britain seeks to exercise greater copntrol over US and had already imposed military rule over several areas including Boston ( after the Tea party incident) . Patrick Henry addresses the house. Before him, speakers have advocated milder solutions to avoid war with the British. Henry calls for war. His speech was never recorded and has been reconstructed from memory.



I hope it will not be thought disrespectful to those gentlemen, if entertaining, as I do, opinions of a character very opposite to theirs, I shall speak forth my sentiments freely, and without reserve. This is no time for ceremony

Should I keep back my opinions at such a time through fear of giving offense I should consider myself guilty of treason toward my country and of an act of disloyalty toward the majesty of Heaven



Mr. President it is natural for man to indulge in the illusions of hope. I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided; and that is the lamp of experience. I know of no way of judging the future but by the past. And judging by the past, I wish to know what there has been in the conduct of the British ministry for the last ten years to justify those hopes with which gentlemen have been pleased to solace themselves and the house? Is it that insidious smile with which our petition has been lately received? Trust it not, sir; it will prove a snare to your feet. Suffer not yourselves to be betrayed with a kiss. Ask yourselves how this gracious reception of our petition comports with those war like preparations which cover our waters and darken our land. Are fleets and armies necessary to a work of love and reconciliation? Have we shown ourselves so unwilling to be reconciled that force must be called in to win back our love? Let us not deceive ourselves, sir. These are the implements of war and subjugation - the last arguments to which kings resort. I ask gentlemen, sir, what means this martial array if its purpose be not to force us to submission? Can gentlemen assign any other possible motive for it? Has Great Britain any enemy in this quarter of the world to call for all this accumulation of navies and armies? No, sir, she has none. They are meant for us: they can be meant for no other. They are sent over to bind and rivet upon us those chains which the British Ministry have been long forging. And what have we to oppose them? Shall we try argument? Sir, we have been trying that for the last ten years. Have we anything new to offer upon the subject? Nothing. We have held the subject up in every light of which it is capable; but it has been all in vain. Shall we resort to entreaty and humble supplication? What terms shall we find which have not been already exhausted? Let us not, I beseech you, sir, deceive ourselves longer. Sir, we have done everything that could be done to avert the storm which now coming on. We have petitioned - we have remonstrated - we have supplicated - we have prostrated ourselves before the throne, and have implored its interposition to arrest the tyrannical hands of the ministry and Parliament. Our petitions have been slighted; our remonstrances have produced additional violence and insult; our supplications have been disregarded; and we have been spurned, with contempt, from the foot of the throne. In vain, after these things, may we indulge the fond hope of peace and reconciliation. There is no longer any room for hope. If we wish to be free - if we mean to preserve inviolate those inestimable privileges for which we have been so long contending - if we mean not basely to abandon the noble struggle in which we have been so long engaged, and which we have pledged ourselves never to abandon until the glorious object of our contest shall be obtained - we must fight! I repeat it, sir, we must fight!! An appeal to arms and to the God of Hosts is all that is left us!

They tell us, sir, that we are weak - unable to cope with so formidable an adversary. But when shall we be stronger? Will it be the next week, or the next year? Will it be when we are totally disarmed, and when a British guard shall be stationed in every house? Shall we gather strength by irresolution and inaction? Shall we acquire the means of effectual resistance by lying supinely on our backs, and hugging the illlusive phantom of Hope, until our enemies shall have bound us hand and foot? Sir, we are not weak, if we make a proper use of those means which the God of nature hath placed in our power. Three millions of people, armed in the holy cause of liberty, and in such a country as that which we posses are invincible by any force which our enemy can send against us. Besides, sir, we shall not fight our battles alone. There is a just God who presides over the destinies of nations, and who will raise up friends to fight our battles for us. The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave. Besides, sir, we have no election. If we were base enough to desire it, it is now too late to retire from the contest. There is no retreat, but in submission and slavery! Our chains are forged, their clanking may be heard on the plains of Boston! The war is inevitable - and let it come!! I repeat it, sir, let it come!!!

It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, peace, peace - but there is no peace. The war is actually begun. The next gale that sweeps from the North will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!"


Patrick Henry 1775


Indira Gandhi

On the crisis in East Pakistan

"I believe that it is not the task of any one country to say to another what they should do." (Washington, D.C., November 5, 1971)

War Speeches

A decent speech by a lieutenant before taking his troops into the Iraqi war

"We go to liberate not to conquer. We will not fly our flags in their country. We are entering Iraq to free a people and the only flag which will be flown in that ancient land is their own. Show respect for them.

"Iraq is steeped in history. It is the site of the Garden of Eden, of the Great Flood and the birthplace of Abraham. Tread lightly there."

"You will see things that no man could pay to see and you will have to go a long way to find a more decent, generous and upright people than the Iraqis.

"You will be embarrassed by their hospitality even though they have nothing.

"Don't treat them as refugees for they are in their own country. Their children will be poor, in years to come they will know that the light of liberation in their lives was brought by you."

Another great speech on the eve of battle is conjured up by shakespeare, the St.Crispen's day speech.( in Henry the fifth )

Henry V is inside France, seizing Calais and other French towns. His troops are weak from dysentary and from hard fighting and want to return home. French troops move between Henry's troops and Calais, preventing them to return to England.

Henry relies on his peasant footmen and peasant longbow archers. French relies on its elite aristocratic heavily armoured knights. British troops are scared looking at this "wave of steel" and King Henry talks to them . Henry wins, gets the french princess, secures peace with France but dies of dysentry soon after (1422)

Over to the speech :


WESTMORELAND. (The Kings cousin, wishes for more men to fight)

KING.No, my fair cousin;
If we are mark'd to die, we are enough
To do our country loss; and if to live,
The fewer men, the greater share of honour.

( If we are gonna die, lets minimise England's loss by not having anymore men, If we are gonna win, lets maximise our honour but not having more men with us)

God's will! I pray thee, wish not one man more.
By Jove, I am not covetous for gold,
Nor care I who doth feed upon my cost;
It yearns me not if men my garments wear;
Such outward things dwell not in my desires.
But if it be a sin to covet honour,
I am the most offending soul alive.

( I dont want any more men. Not because I lust after gold, or because I grudge feeding them, but what I covet is honour)

..... wish not a man from England.
God's peace! I would not lose so great an honour
As one man more methinks would share from me
For the best hope I have. O, do not wish one more!

( I don't want any more men to share this honour with me)

Rather proclaim it, Westmoreland, through my host,
That he which hath no stomach to this fight,
Let him depart; his passport shall be made,
And crowns for convoy put into his purse;

( Tell our men to leave, if they don't wish to fight. I'll give him money and ensure a safe passage )

We would not die in that man's company
That fears his fellowship to die with us.
This day is call'd the feast of Crispian.

( I do not want to die in the company of cowards)
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when this day is nam'd,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.

( Today is St.Crispen's day and those who fight and live will have every reason to be proud of whenever St.Crispen's day is mentioned)
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say 'To-morrow is Saint Crispian.'
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars,
And say 'These wounds I had on Crispian's day.'

( On St. Crispen's day, while feasting with neighbours, they will proudly show their scars and tell their tales to their neighbours)
Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot,
But he'll remember, with advantages,
What feats he did that day. Then shall our names,
Familiar in his mouth as household words-

( This day will be remembered and our deeds will be remembered and go down in legend )

... This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remembered-

We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,

( Whoever sheds his blood with me today, irrespective of how lowly he might be becomes my brother)

This day shall gentle his condition;
And gentlemen in England now-a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.

(Those who fight with us today, automatically becomes 'Gentlemen" . But the 'Nobility" and "gentlemen" in England, who have not fought with us today, will curse themselves for not being here and hang their heads down in shame while people talk about those who fought here on St.Crispen's day )

Grains of Space and Time

In the Planic scale ( after Max Planck ) atoms and normal time scales are huge. As huge as sun is to an atom and as huge as a nano second is to the age of the Universe.

At the Planic scale, both space and time are not continuous, but grainy. Theory of relativity assumes space is continuous and efforts are on to produce a grainy theory of relativity.

The grainy universe is a consequence of Heisenberg's uncertainity theory.

Looking at Planck time:

Light, travelling over very long distances, would have to spread out a bit if there was any uncertainty in time . So measure the spread and you know the uncertainity and the graininess of time.

No Limitation except limitation of Imagination

A rich multiplayer game in the 80's? Is it possible ? Yup. There is no limit to creativity !

Yes ! Multi-player game was successfully created, which ran off a floppy disk on a Atari! Read more about the father of AOE, Civilisation and Everquest

In 80's, Dani Bunten created M.U.L.E. ("Multiple Use Labor Elements") . In this game you use these stubborn electronic beasts to help you develop a plot of land and make money. It used the Atari 4 joy stick interface to let players cooperate and compete in an artificial economy. Designers still rave about it.

Her game philosophy was

1. You should be able to personalize your game; there
2. Keep the features down, and let players concentrate on human psychology, not game detail.
3. No amount of A.I. would ever, ever match the richness of play you could get from other human players

Shw was suffering from advanced lung cancer in 1997 and wrote ".... if there is one thing I want to do before I die it is to re-do MULE for a modern audience."

For her, computer amd gaming were just a tool for a richer human interaction. Her most quoted maxim: "Nobody on their deathbed said, 'I wish I'd spent more time with my computer.'"

What a lady !

Shias and Sunnis

Shias are the largest breakaway sect from Islam, split from the main body over the question of " Who should suceed the prophet ?" Shias believe the prophet appointed Imam Ali, his son-in-law as his successor.

The Shia prayer( Shadah- Declaration of faith) reads "There is no god but Alláh, Muhammad is the Messenger of Alláh, Alí is the Friend of Alláh. The Successor of the Messenger of Alláh And his first Caliph."

Ali, known as Imam Ali was the cousin of the Prophet, husband of his daughter Fatima, father of Hassan and Hussein and the second person ever to embrace Islam. The term Shia is the shortening of Shiat Ali or partisans of Ali. Shias believe the caliphate belongs only to direct descendants of Prophet.

Sunnis consider this as a corruption of the Quran and claim Ali had no divine sanction whatsoever.

The prophet died in 632. Abu Bakr ( prophet's father in law ) ruled for two years, Umar for 10 years and Uthman for 12 years. Ali became the caliph after Uthman was murdered at prayer. Ali was opposed by Aisha, wife of prophet and daughter of Abu Bakr, who accused Ali of sheilding Uthmans killers. Ali fought with her forces, defeated them and forced her to withdraw from public life.

Uthmans cousin Muawiya Ummayad , governer of damascus refused to recognise Ali till Uthman's killers were brought to justice. In a battle Ummayad's soldiers stuck verses of Quran to the ends of the spears and Ali's supporters refused to fight them . Ali later made peace with Muawiya, which shocked his supporters, so much so that one murdered him. Ali's rule lasted just 5 years.

Muawiya declares himself as the Caliph and Ali's elder son Hassan accepts a pension so as not to stake a claim. He dies within a year, allegedly poisoned. Ali's younger son Hussein patiently waits for Muawiya's death to stake his claim to the caliphate. He has to wait for 19 years. But Muwaiya's son Yazid declares himself as Caliph. Hussein marches against him, hopelessly outnumbered and gets slaughtered at Karbala ( In Iraq) . Hussein's infant son Ali survived and continued the line. Yazid forms the Ummayad dynasty.

Muslim world was split into those who accepted obly Prophet's direct descendants as caliphs ( Shias ) and who did not ( Sunnis)

So for Shia's Ali is the first caliph, whereas for Sunnis. he is the fourth and last caliph.

The direct line of Prophet Mohammed disappeared in 873 when the last "Imam" Al-Aksari disappeared at the age of four. After waiting for a few centuries for his return, the shias passed on the spiritual power to the Ulema, a council of 12 scholars who elected a supreme Imam. Ayatolalh Khomeni was a Shia supreme Imam. Supreme Imam is very much like a pope and is considered infallible. Sunnis do not have a supreme leader.

Shias place an emphasis on martyrdom and suffering as exemplefied by the Ashura, where during a 10 day period they mourn the Battle of Karbala with a wailing imam whipping up a frenzy of tears and chest-beating. Karbala assumes great significance in Shia affairs. They pray always at Karbala symbolised by the small round piece of karbala mud they bend and touch with their foreheads while praying. The massacare is mourned by songs of lament called Aza's which sends believers into fits of mourning.

90% of the muslim world is sunni. Shia majority exists in Iran and in Bahrain. Pockets are Shias exist in Iraq and Saddam has placed numerous restrictions on them ( No barefoot march to Karbala, no lamentations on the Karbala massacare etc ) Hizbollah, the only Arab group to record victories against Israel is shia. WIthin Shia, there are various sects . Some recognise 12 Imams, some only seven or 5 Imams.

Sunnis follow the sunna ( Traditions). Shias dismiss them as apocryphal.

Both Shias and sunnis accuse each other of corrupting the Quran.

For Sunnis, God is infallible( ma'soom) and for shias, God and Imams are infallible

Muta or permission for temporary marriages exist among shias. Shias are permitted to renounce their religion temporarily to save their skin ( Taqiya) and believes the following verse of the Quran permits them.

"If anyone is compelled and professes unbelief, with his tongue while his heart contradicts him, to escape his enemies, no blame falls on him because God takes his servants as their hearts believe"

Sunnis believe Muta is adultery and Taqiya is sheer cowardice.

The tyranny of words
Words tend to compartmentalize and stifle to conformity. Every word acquires the bagge of culture and tradition and instead of serving as shortcuts for ideas and communication, they acquire a meaning all by themselves and convey meaning different from what is intended. The medium frequently becomes the message.

This prevents us from looking beyond words into the underlying ideas.

If we need to uncover the true nature of words, and discover different ways of looking at things, we need to break their shackles and relate them to fields they apparently have no connection with. In many cases we see they fit well, giving us proof of their 'tyranny'.

For example, let us take a look at the word 'Painting' and try to discover the core idea by taking it to fields it is generally not used with.

Poetry is painting with words. Paintings are poetry in color. Cooking is painting with flavours, textures and tastes.

Lighting is painting a space with light. Architecture is painting with materials. Software is painting with code. Books are painting with ideas.

No we get a glimpse of a broader picture of of the word painting.

Baruch Spinoza 1632-77

An excomminucated dutch Jew who fled portugal fearing the inquisition, an excellent lens grinder , he had a great influence on Germal philosophy.

Most of his works were published after his death as he advocated pantheism.


His works include A Treatise on Religious and Political Philosophy , Ethics,Political Treatise, Treatise on the Improvement of Understanding, Letters, and Hebrew Grammar.

Metaphysics

Spinoza’s brings to philosophy the rigor of mathematical proof. Spinoza believes the mind and body are two different aspects of a single substance, which he called alternately God and Nature.

The universe is a single substance, capable of an infinity of attributes, but known through two of them: physical extension( body ?) and thought( mind ?). God is not the creator of a Nature beyond himself; God is Nature in its fullness.


Ethics
What is 'Good?" " whatever gives us pleasure"

All of Nature, share a common drive for self-preservation. So anything which helps us to survive is virtuous.

What is free?
To be free is to be guided by the law of one’s own nature.

What is bondage ?
It is in being moved by causes of which we are unaware because our ideas are confused.

He carries on the body-Mind thought further by proposing All thinking is action, and all action has its accompaniment in thought. What accounts for action is not an agency (the will) beyond the intellect, but ideas. Ideas are active and move us to act; an absence of action may be accounted an absence of insight: knowledge, virtue, and power are one.

Political Philosophy

Spinoza shares a lot of beliefs with Hobbes, but differs in some key areas.

Right derives from power, and the contract binds only as long as it is to one’s advantage. Hobbes believes advantage lies in satisfying as many desires as possible, for Spinoza advantage lies in an escape from those desires through understanding.

Hobbes does not imagine a community of individuals whose desires can be consistently satisfied, so repression is always necessary; Spinoza can imagine such a community and such consistent satisfaction, so in his political and religious thought the notion of freedom, especially freedom of inquiry, is basic.

St. Thomas Aquinas 1225 -- 1274

An italian nobleman,Became a monk when he was 17 thus infuriating his mother who tracks him down from place to place and later kidnaps him, taking him back to their castle from where he escapes after 2 years.

He was credited to have magical powers. He believed in the power of the evil eye used by old women who had an association with the Devil. His argument that heretics should be burned was later used to justify the burning of witches.

The major works of Aquinas are the Summa Theologica and the Summa contra Gentiles

In the Summa, he 'proves' the existence of God

Aristotle 384BC -- 322BC
A student of Plato, and the guru of Alexander the Great, his writings represent a prodigious output over a vast array of subjects including logic, metaphysics, ethics, politics, rhetoric, poetry, biology, zoology, physics, and psychology.

Most of his work survived as lecture notes or students' textbooks.Some of his works were Metaphysics, Nicomachean Ethics, Politics, Poetics, De anima and the Organon

Great Philosophers
Socrates 470-399 B.C Greece
Greek philosophy

The Socratic method, is to get one to define concepts as Good, EVil, justice, etc and cite contradictions from the responses, exposing the ignorance of the responder and motivate deeper enquiry into the concepts. Socrates claimed he did not have 'answers', only questions.

He probably believed that all wrongdoing is based on ignorance, that no one desires bad things; and that it is worse to do injustice than to suffer it.

He was condemned to death on charges of impiety and corruption of youth He was immortalized in Plato's dialogues. His influence spread deep into western philosophy.

Plato 427 -347 B.C. Athens
Greek philosophy / Platonism Republic;
Had the finest of education and fell in love with the Socratic method and became a disciple. He immortalized Socrates socrates in his
"Dialogues' on various subjects like courage, common sense piety, friendship, virtueetc. All the works have socrates exposing the fallacies of arguments about the concepts discussed.

In his "Republic" Plato draws up an outline for a utopian state.
Socrates is the main character in the Republic, and discusses what is justice and what it means to the individual and the city-state.

In his later work The Statesman, he concludes that the best type of city-state would be the one in which the expert is given absolute authority with no hindrance to his rule from laws or constitution.


Aristotle 384 -322 B.C. Macedonia
Dialogues; On Monarchy; Alexander; The Customs of Barbarians; Natural History; Organon, or The Instrument of Correct Thinking; On the Soul; Logic; Rhetoric; Eudemian Ethics; Physics; Metaphysics; Politics; Poetics

Epicurus 342 -270 B.C.
Greek philosophy / Platonism / Epicureanism To Herodotus, dealing with physics; To Menoecus, dealing with ethics and theology; To Pythocles, on meteorology

Marcus Aurelius 121-180 Rome
Roman Empire Pagan / Cynicism / Stoicism /

Saint Thomas Aquinas 1225-1274
Catholic Summa Theologica; Summa Contra Gentilres; Disputed Questions; On Divine Names; On the Book of Causes

Francis Bacon 1561-1626
Anglican New Atlantis; The Wisdom of the Ancients; Colors of Good and Evil; Sacred Meditations; Confession of Faith; Things Thought and Things Seen; History of Life and Death

Rene Descartes 1596-1650
Catholic (Jesuit) The Search after Truth; Rules for the Direction of the Mind; Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting the Reason; Meditatios on the First Philosophy; Principles of Philosophy; The World; Geometry; Treatise on Man; Dioptric

Baruch Spinoza 1632-1677
Amsterdam, Netherlands Judaism; later pantheism Short Treatise on God, Man and His Well Being; Treatise on Religion and Politics; Metaphysical Thoughts; The Calculation of Chances; Ethics

John Locke 1632-1704
The Reasonableness of Christianity; Letters on Toleration; Two Treatises on Government; Essay Concerning the Human Understanding; Thoughts on Education

Voltaire 1694-1778
Letters on the English; Candide; The World As It Goes; Zadig

David Hume 1711-1776 Scotland raised Protestant;
Treatise of Human Nature; Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion; Four Dissertations: The Natural History of Religion, of the Passions, Of Tragedy, Of the Standard of Taste; Inquiry Concerning the Principles of
Morals

Kant 1724-1804
The Critique of Pure Reason; The Critique of Practical Reason; The Critique of Judgment; Metaphysic of Nature; Metaphysic of Ethics; Religion within the Limits of Pure Reason

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel 1770-1831 Germany
Protestant
Science of Logic; Phenomenology of Spirit; Aesthetics; Philosophy of Religion; Philosophy of Art; Philosophy of Mind; Philosophy of Right; Philosophy of History; History of Philosophy; Encyclopedia of Philosophical Science; Life of Jesus

Arthur Schopenhauer 1788-1860
philosophically atheist and anti-rationalist; among religions, preferred Hindu mysticism The World As Will and Idea; On the Fourfold Root of Sufficient Reason; On the Will in Nature; The Art of Controversy; The Two Fundamental Problems of Ethics

Ralph Waldo Emerson 1803-1882
Nature; Essays; Representative Man; The Conduct of Life; Letters and Social Aims; The Oversoul; The Natural History of the Intellect; Duty; Truth; Beauty and Manners; Literary Ethics; Journals; Poems; Many Days and Other Pieces

Herbert Spencer 1820-1903 atheist; "scientific philosophy" Principles of Sociology; Principles of Ethics; The Theory of Population; The Universal Postulate; Man versus the State; First Principles

Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche 1844-1900 raised Protestant; later pagan-atheist-Nietzscheist

German, Aspiring musician, Stammerer deeply influenced by Schopenhauer and the anti-semitic Wagner( Whom he later quarrelled with) , a chronic sufferer due to headaches,

Logic is the antithesis of art. Socratic pursuit of knowledge was wrong as life's purpose was in suffering, not learning (Schopenhauer's belief >> Will motivates human action and clash of people's wills creates conflict. Conflict causes suffering, which is the purpose of life).

His fascination with Tragedy and human suffering and his love for tragic music gave rise to his first book " The Birth of Tragedy From the Spirit of Music"

In History, Nietzsche argues the quality of life was not to be determined by assessing a standard of living of the general population, but by assessing the product of the intellectual giants. Two more years of Goethe's life, Nietzsche argues, would have proved more beneficial to humanity than would numerous, relatively unimportant lives.

Later,he renounced Schopenhauerian and Wagnerian ideals and argued that good and evil were not opposites but extremes of one motivating force, He argued that the will is rooted in survival and pleasure.

In his later work, he shocks by describing figures as Socrates and Christ, as suicidal martyrs.

He lambasts Christian fundaments by arguing morality is being used by christians as a repressive tool for establishing social conformity.

"The surest way to corrupt a youthis to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently." He called for humanity to overcome conventional morality .

"The Christian resolve to find the world ugly and bad has made the world ugly and bad," he contended. He was against Christianity, though not against christ. " In truth there was only one Christian and he died on the cross"

He claims Christianity had twisted Christ's teachings into a repressive and humiliating code and is responsible for the masses of docile, conformist lackies. He claims Selfishness is true altruism ( The invisible hand of the market ?)and that one actually helps one's neighbor by helping oneself.

His Magnum Opus is Thus Spake Zarathustra, where he argues the will to power as the basic motivating force of human action. The will to power is the will to overcome one's weaknesses and embrace difficulties, both moral and social. To overcome one's failings is to become the overman ( Superman).

Crafted in Bible-like verse ( conceived as an alternatve to the New TEstament ) Thus Spake Zarathustra tracks a 30-year-old hermit who abandons his solitude to preach the will to power to the masses. "God is dead," Zarathustra announces. "I teach you the overman." He proclaims man a mere bridge to the overman, who is superior for having overcome weaknesses and inhibitions.

In Beyond Good and Evil: Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future he rips conventional morality and argues conventional morality as slavery derived from Christianity as a repressive code reinforcing conformity by fostering stupidity and humility. "Madness is rare in individuals," he contended, "but in groups, parties, and ages it is the rule."

In his later book On the Genealogy of Morals), talks about the nature of good and evil, the essence of guilt, and the meaning of Asceticism discusses the failings of Christian morality.

On Moralism

He traces the history of moralism and argued that it derived from systematic repression, not altruism. The concept of goodness was used by Christian morality as a means of encouraging conformity and selflessness. Christian goodness was thus, for Nietzsche, antithetical to the will to power.

On Guilt
He sees it as a manipulative tool of repressive Christianity. He called guilt a dictating force towards conformity and inhibition and alleged that it was even destructive within its Christian context, for it caused the internalization of supposedly negative feelings cruelty, aggression and thus congested the soul. For Nietzsche, guilt was an almost tangible liability.

On Asceticism
He portrays Christianity as a sadomasochistic, ultimately self-destructive order and argues the will to morality would end up as will to nothingness.

In How One Philosophizes With a Hammer) Nietzsche blasts Christianity as humanity's blunder into conformity and stupidity. "Is man merely a mistake of God's?" "Or God merely a mistake of man's?"

He mocks humanity's seemingly limitless capacity for self-abasement through inhibitive social constructs. "I mistrust all systematizers," he asserted. "The will to a system is a lack of integrity." His greatest fury was against German culture and Aryanism. "German spirit : for the past 18 years a contradiction in terms." He brands German philosophy and art as hopelessly mediocre and mocks the nation's alleged mania for cleanliness and obedience and ridiculs the notion of Aryan racial purity. For Nietzsche, the German people's will to live in such a vile state proved that the country had "deliberately made itself stupid."

In the Antichrist, he calls for all humanity to overcome the degradation of organized religion.

In Ecce Homo, an account of his life and work he has chapters provocatively titled "Why I Am So Wise" and "Why I Am So Clever," he "Why I Write Such Good Books," In the final chapter, "Why I Am a Destiny," he claims that he would someday be associated with the obliteration of Christianity and the rise of the overman. He called himself "the first immoralist" and the "annihilator par excellence" and declared, "I am by far the most terrible human being that has existed so far; this does not preclude the possibility that I shall be the most beneficial."

Soon after he started experiencing deliriums and became insane, dying
soon after. His sister distorts and plunders his writings so effectively, she is nominated to Nobel prize on Literature. She later befriends Hitler and turned Nietsche archives into NAzi propaganda.

1872 The Birth of Tragedy
1873 David Strauss, the Confessor and the Writer
1874 Schopenhauer as Educator
1874 The Use and Abuse of History
1876 Richard Wagner in Bayreuth
1878 Human, All Too Human
1882 The Gay Science
1883 -- 1885 Thus Spake Zarathustra
1886 Beyond Good and Evil
1887 On the Genealogy of Morals
1888 The Case of Wagner
1889 Twilight of the Idols
1895 Nietzsche contra Wagner
1895 The Antichrist
1901 The Will to Power
1908 Ecce Homo

William James 1842-1910 New York City, New York raised by a free-thinking mystic; pluralistic The Principles of Psychology; Human Immortality; The Will to Believe and other Essays in Popular Philosophy; Talks to Teachers on Psychology and to Students on Some of Life's Ideals; The Varieties of Religious Experience; A Pluralistic Universe; The Meaning of Truth; Essays in Radical Empiricism; Some Problems in Philosophy

Henri Bergson 1859-1941 born Jewish; skeptic and atheist while young; later idealist and believer in Elan Vital Creative Evolution; Time and Free Will; Matter and Memory; Mind-Energy; Laughter and Metaphysics; The Perception of Change; The Meaning of the War (of 1914)

George Santayana 1863-1952 Spain devout Platonist-Catholic-Atheist
Lucifer, a Theological Tragedy; The Sense of Beauty; Interpretations of Poetry and Religion; The Life of Reason, in five volumes: Reason in Common Sense, Reason in Society, Reason in Religion, Reason in Art, Reason in Science; Three Philosophical Poets; Winds of Doctrine; Egotism in German Philosophy; Skepticism and Animal Faith; Platonism and the Spiritual Life; The Realms of Being; The Last Puritan; The Realm of Truth; The Realm of Spirit; Persons and Places; The Middle Span

On Philosophy
philosophy - philos, loving + sophia, wisdom

Psychology is speculation. It attempts to answer the immeasurable, unknown entities. Those which fall outside the realm of science. Frequently, the previously immeasurable entities become measurable and quantifiable with the growth of human knowledge. Here speculation disappears and science takes over.

By the way, most great scientists make lousy philosophers. Philosophy like any other discipline needs a great deal of work to master. So a good scientist does not become a good philospoher any more than a good plumber becoming a good philosopher.

Certain eternal questions like What is the purpose of it all ? What is 'Good' and 'Bad' are likely to lie forever in the field of philosophy.

Philosophers have been manfully wrestling with the following class of problems from time immemorial.



Aesthetics
What is beauty? What is Art ? How do beauty and art relate to life ?

Epistemology
- What is knowledge? How does it originate ?Is knowledge infinite ? Is knowledge a creation of the senses? Are we living in a Age of Empires game ? Can I be certain of anything?

Ethics - How should we live ? Is there anything called 'Good or Evil ?"

Logic - Are thinking, language and reality understood logically ?


Metaphysics - What is Being? What is reality ? Is there such a thing as the 'real world'? What is it made of ? Are unobservable entities real ? Is there a God? Do we have free will? Do we have a soul? Do our lives or the universe have a meaning?

Political Philosophy - Are there Good and bad government ? Is there a difference between wars and terrorist acts? What is political freedom? What is Social justice? What is the individuals place in society?

Philosophy of Mind - What is a mind? How does it relate to the body ? What is ‘I’ ? Is self-deception possible?

The Vedas.

Many Hindus fondly believe Vedas existed from time 'immemorial'. Some liberals are comfortable with dating them at around 6000 BC. The logic seems to be "The older, the more mystical they become" This unfortunately does not stand up to scientific scrutiny.
Scholars generally agree the Rig Veda, the mother of all Vedas can be dated to around 1200 BC

Support comes from the following facts :

Historians have enough evidence to support the theory that migrant Aryans from Iran composed the vedas

PArts of Rig Veda bear close resemblance to the Avesta which is dated to around 800 BC
In 1907 of the names of the Indian deities Mitra, Varuna, Indra, Nasatya,was found in an inscription dated 1400 B.C. found in Asia Minor. The phonetic form suggests the Indians and the Persians were still one people, linguistically. Scholars believe this also suggests a gap of two centuries for the separation of the Iranians, their migration to India, and the commencement of the Vedic literature.

Indo-Aryans brought with them the religion of worshipping nature in the form of Mitra, Varuna, Indra. They glorified cult of fire and of Soma and the art of composing religious poems in several metres, as a comparison of the Rigveda and the Avesta shows.

These hymns was to propitiate the gods by praises accompanying the offering of ghee poured on the fire and of the juice of the Soma plant.

The earliest Rig veda hymns seem to have been composed exclusively by exclusively composed by different families of a hereditary priesthood. They were handed down by memory, not by writing, as writing came into India by around 700 BC. The collections of these family groups form the core of the Rigveda.

At around 600 BC, after around 700 years of the composition of the earliest hymns, scholars applied to the vedic text certain rules of Sandhi which polished up the text ( vowels are either contracted or changed into semi-vowels, and a is often dropped after e and o). Soon after this work was concluded, extraordinary precautions were taken to preserve the form of the vedas.

After writing came into India at around 700 BC, The Pada or text form of vedas was compiled and it listed down numerous versions, listing down various ways of reciting the hymns. Works called Anukramanis ('Indexes'), listed from the beginning to the end of the Rigveda the number of stanzas contained in each hymn, the deities, and the metres of all the stanzas of the Rigveda.

These precautions ensured the text of the Rigveda has been handed down for 2,500 years with almost no corruption. This is no mean achievement and has no parallels in any other body of literature.

The Rigveda consists of around 1000 hymns, approx ten stanzas to a hymn. The shortest hymn has only one stanza, while the longest has fifty-eight. The Rig veda would look as thick as a Michael Crichton novel.

It is convenient to divide the Rig Veda into ten Mandalas( Cycles) or 'books' and Suktas ('hymns' ) This indicates the manner in which the collection came into being. This is the system scholars use in referring to or quoting from the Rigveda.

Books 2 to 7 are homogeneous in character. This implies these are composed by members of the same family as each of them is similarly divided into groups addressed to different gods.

Books 2, 8, and 10 were not composed by a distinct family of seers, as their groupings are not by Gods but by the composers. Book 9 stands separate with all its hymns addressed to one and the same deity, Soma.

In the Family books, the first group of hymns is invariably addressed to Agni, the second to Indra, and those that follow to gods of less importance. The hymns within these deity groups are arranged in the descending order based on the stanzas.The family books are arranged in an ascending order of the hymns each have. The second Book has forty-three, the third sixty-two, the sixth seventy-five, and the seventh one hundred and four hymns. These form the nucleus of the Rig veda.

Some additions to these family books arose later. The eighth book is like the family books as being in the main composed by members of one family, the Kanvas; but it differs from them in not beginning with hymns to Agni. Its metre is also different. It also has lesser hymns than the 7th book.

The first part of Book 1 (1-50) is in several respects like Book 8. Kanvas seem to have been the authors of the majority of these hymns; their favourite metre construction is again found here; and both collections contain many similar or identical passages.

It is still unclear why a part of the Kanva hymns became Book 1 while the rest became book 8.

The ninth book is a collection of hymns addressed to Soma. None of the family books contain a single Soma hymn. However, by the writing style, it can be seen that the soma book was composed by authors of the same families as those of Books 2 to 7. So it is logical to assume that all the soma hymns were removed from Books 1 to 8 and formed as a separate book.

The tenth book is later in origin than the other book as its authors were familiar with them. It also lists some hymns of the old which were 'lost' or overlooked in earlier collections. We also see the introduction of magical conceptions.

The rig vedic hymns were written 900 years before Panini codified sanskrit grammar(in 300 BC) .

The Rig veda exhibits a much greater variety of forms than Sanskrit does.It differs a great deal from classical sanskrit. Its accent, like that of ancient Greek, is of a musical nature, depending on the pitch of the voice

All hymns of the RV without exception are metrical. They contain on the average ten stanzas, generally of 3/4 or 5 verses or lines ( Pada)

The line forms the metrical unit, usually consists of eight, eleven, or twelve syllables. A stanza is, as a rule, made up of lines of the same type;

There are about fifteen metres, with about seven very common ones. The most common are the Tristubh (4 x 11 syllables), the Gayatri (3 x 8), and the Jagati (4 x 12).

Cook book glossary defined in the form of The Devil's dictionary

Example :
Risoto >> Means rice in Italian. An important term for the chef to know as he is most often judged by how many foreign names he drops than what he cooks. And important for the amateur cook too as he can conveniently rename his botched up fried rice as Risoto and no one will be the wiser. Also see Sushi, Basmati

Sushi >> If you have added too much water to your rice dish and have made it all clumpy and sticky, here's a easy way to save it. Just call it sushi. Japs for some weird reason like their rice sticky ( and expensive) .

Pulao >> If you have added too little water and the rice is not yet fully cooked, just call it plain pulao. A pulao ( Indian rice dish) is supposed to have separate grains.

This trick of renaming botched up reciped to exotic foreign names is one of the easiest tricks you need to master.

The DEvil's cook book
Cooking for cynics
The guaranteed no-fail cookbook
My first cook book
Boiled water chef's cookbook

Making Indian Bread

Almost all Indian breads are made from Atta( Whole wheat flour), refined wheat flour (Maida), Chickpea flour (Besan), or Corn flour (Makki),

Atta is divided into
Hard wheat ( Requires healp of yeast to break it down. Most breads, Indian breads made from this. ( high in gluten, protein)
Soft wheat. Used to make biscuits, pastries etc,
Durum > Used for pasta ( high in gluten, protein)
Proteins support fermentation.

Naan
250 g Atta
30 ml natural yoghurt
5 ml salt
115 ml lukewarm water

Naan is made in a tandoor, but you can achieve a simar effect with two unglazed tiles inside your oven and preheating them. The space between them simulates a taandoor.The temperature inside a tandoor is around 600 F.

Method
Place flour, yoghurt and salt in a mixing bowl. Mix in water, a little at a time, using your hands. Add just enough water to make a soft, slightly sticky dough. Knead lightly for 30 seconds, then place in a greased bowl.

Missi Roti
a) 1 1/2 cup Atta
b) 1/4 cup Kadalai mavu (Besan)
c) pinch of salt.
d) 2 Tablespoon of butter.
e) 1/2 cup warm water.

Mix dry ingredients and sift. Knead in butter. Knead using warm water. Let stand about 1 hour. Heat a flat griddle. Make a ball about the size of a golf ball (1" diameter). Roll it in to a 6" diameter flat round pancake

Kulcha
a) 2 cups soft-wheat flour (Maida)
b) 1 cup Atta
c) 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
d) pinch of salt
e) 1/3 cup Ghee
f) 1/2 cup yogurt Dahi
g) 1/4 cup warm water

Step 1: Sift dry items a) through d)
Step 2: Cut the butter in the flour well
Step 3: Knead in yogurt.
Step 4: Continue kneading with warm water.
Step 5: Let stand about six to eight hours at room temperature.
Step 6: Make a ball about 2" diameter and roll it out about 7" diameter. Heat a griddle to medium heat. Cook on the griddle about two minutes. Turn over, it should be lightly brown. Cook another minute or so. Kulcha is ready. Optionally, butter the bread on one or both sides. Serve hot.


Naan >> Recipe 2

Naans are supposed to be moist and thin.

a) 1 pinch of dry yeast
b) white sugar
c) cup warm water
d) egg, beaten or Yogurt or milk
f) salt
g) Atta
h) cup Ghee
Mix them, allow them to rise and bake them.