Approaching the end of our future

Happy New Year,
But what does a new year means?
we are simply a bunch of strangers, in a world we never made . . .
and each of us is "no more free than a slave crawling North on the deck of a ship sailing South" (thanks to Sartre).
. . . for the next stop is clear and near:
the shores of ourselves
where we have to wander overland
into a borderless non- existence . . .
(a thought from the last day of 2007)

http://picasaweb.google.com/dedynhidayat

Merry Christmas for a friend

Merry Christmas!Nollaig Shona Dhuit!Kellemes Karácsonyi Ünnepeket!Joyeux Noël!Feliz Navidad!Buone Feste Natalizie!Fröhliche Weihnachten!Ajmel altehani bemonasebt almīlad wa helol alseneh aljedīdah!I’d Miilad Said Oua Sana Saida!Krismas ki subhkamna!

Though we do not travel the same path
May those warm and bright lights
Guide us all along our journey home
To the same old house of our greater soul
(X-mas day, 2007)

On the ideology of neoliberalism

Like communism, neoliberalism too, promotes its own utopia, an idealized classless society where every human being has equivalent capacity to become enterpreneur , and where there is a level playing field on which individuals compete in line with the logic of market rationality. Neoliberalism -- which market fundamentalists such as Margaret Thacher, and the late Daniel Singer, among others, memorialized as TINA, There Is No Alternative (to "market dictatorship") -- conceals a moral standard which is inherently tainted by victim-blaming ideology; its social compassion (if any) for the poverty-related human suffering is never free from smug questions such as: Why don't they try hard enough to participate in the market? Why wouldn't they learn the logic of the free market ? Why should we be expected to pay for their failures and suffering? (December, 23, 2007)

Jakarta under neoliberalism

Excerpt from Paul Treanor http://web.inter.nl.net/Paul.Treanor/neoliberalism
. . . as you would expect from a complete philosophy, neoliberalism has answers to stereotypical philosophical questions such as "Why are we here" and "What should I do": We are here for the market, and you should compete. Neo-liberals tend to believe that human exist for the market -- not the other way around: certainly in the sense that it is good to participate in the market, anf that those who do not participate have failed in some ways.

In personal ethics, the general neo-liberal vision is that every human being is an entrepreneur managing their own life, and should act as such

. . . then a world will come into existence in which not just goods and services, but all human and social life, is the product of conformiy to market forces . . .

http://picasaweb.google.com/dedynhidayat

On God and Jokes

God is a comedian artist who sits back after the day of creation. All God does now is "paring his fingernails" (thanks to James Joyce), watch us, and kill us when we stop joking. For that very reason, we must never, ever stop joking, everyday, even on holidays too, till the day we die. Yet, do not ever run nor hide from God, and become atheists -- 'cause atheists have less holidays ... (December 1, 2007)

God is a comedian, playing to an audience too afraid to laugh (Voltaire)

On Presidential Candidate

Today is an era in which every Presidential candidate declares unconditional war against the greatest of evils and the the worst of crimes: poverty.

Yet, make peace with neoliberalism seems to be high on the agenda of every newly elected President during the first days in the office.

http://picasaweb.google.com/dedynhidayat/TheFutureInBlackWhite

On Political Jokes

Breaking News:

SBY Postpones Thinking about Economic Development until 2009.

Unofficial Borrowitz Report, Nov. 27, 2007: Saying that it was too early to assess whether the nation's economic condition is improving, President SBY said today he and all of his economic team would postpone thinking about economic development until 2009 after his reelection.

Political jokes is society protecting itself against the insanity of politics and politicians

On Trusting

Never trust
any philosophy which is too grave to laugh,
any ideology which is too proud to weep,
any religious faith which does not bow before humanity
( . . . with an apology to James Joyce)

On Remembering the Past

Let today embrace the past
with remembrance,
for the struggle of society against the evil of power
is the struggle of memory against forgetting . . .

On Market Fundamentalism

Market fundamentalists believe that "the market" is the best guiding instrument by which society should allocate its scarce economic resources and organize their economic lives to achieve a state of never-ending economic growth. "Market is God and economic growth is gospel . . . therefore leave things to the market"
Those fundamentalists always argue that "the market" is simply out there -- outside society, outside history, neutral in front of any power interests`. It's a natural and inevitable social fact which can be called as objective mechanism to allocate society's economic resources

The question is: Where did "the market" come from?

Market fundamentalists simply ignore the fact that "market" is socially constructed.
Yes, "market" is always a social construction, in the sense that its construction involves interactions and interplay among various social groupings which is characterized by assymetris of power and resources distribution. As long as they do not have equal power or economic footings, their interaction and interplay will take place in an "unlevel playing field", and the socially constructed market will represent the interest of the dominant group.

. . .

Market fundamentalists fail to see any correlation between neoliberal free market
and poverty, human misery, and "natural" disasters.
If they acknowledge the link between neoliberal market and poverty, they tend
to explain that it's because we are "not free market enough".

On Whether God Takes Side

What if God is an artist who sits back after creation and "paring his fingernails" ?


With a seemingly never-ending series of deadly conflicts, wars, human failures, and natural disasters, this is the season when one tends to think about God. I came across a nicely written article that may stimulate your thought. Enjoy it:

God is not on my side. Or yours
Roger Rosenblatt on whether God takes sides

BY ROGER ROSENBLATT
Time, Sunday, Dec. 09, 2001

This is the season when one tends to think about God (if one thinks about God at all), and I would like to offer the opinion that God is not thinking about us. Or if he is (I'll stay with he), one has no way of knowing that--unless, of course, one is like Mohamed Atta, who had a pathological view of faith, or Jerry Falwell, whose mind is Taliban minus the bloodlust. This week the Taliban leader, Mohammed Omar, may be wondering how tight he is with God, after all. In September he was certain that God rooted for our extinction. Now, with the surrender of Kandahar, the mullah may be shopping for a more competent deity.
"A fanatic," said Finley Peter Dunne's Mr. Dooley, "is a man that does what he thinks th' Lord wud do if He knew th' facts in th' case." On the other hand, there are folks like me who are fanatically uncertain about what God is thinking. I believe in him, all right. But I do not believe that he is on our, or any, side in wars or that he oversouls his way through the trees or that he presides over my bowling game.

The essential act of faith, it seems to me, is wonder--a sort of involuntary fascination in awe. By awe, I do not mean the act of seeking, either--the quest one hears a lot these days in the affectionate recollection of George Harrison's My Sweet Lord. I don't believe in seeking, and I don't believe in finding.

Most religions make awe difficult, because they are concerned with ideology, uniformity, loyalty and favoritism--not the most useful tools for those who choose to live in mystery. One says that he respects someone else's religion, but it is like saying he thinks someone else's children wonderful. Similarly, if one prays for gifts and protections, one must naturally assume that God micromanages the universe for the advantage of particular believers. If, however, one sees prayer as what theologian Paul Tillich called "the great deep sigh," prayer becomes an act of unconscious adoration. Religion becomes more generous and modest. Even the Gospels were written "according to," which was a way of saying "as I see it."

One would like to think that God is on our side against the terrorists, because the terrorists are wrong and we are in the right, and any deity worth his salt would be able to discern that objective truth. But this is simply good-hearted arrogance cloaked in morality--the same kind of thinking that makes people decide that God created humans in his own image. (See the old New Yorker cartoon that shows a giraffe in a field, thinking "And God made giraffe in his own image.") The God worth worshiping is the one who pays us the compliment of self-regulation, and we might return it by minding our own business.

So indefinite is my idea of God that I do not even connect it to morality. It is pleasant to believe that God wants us to behave well, and that if we do, we may be making those choices that he hoped for when he let us alone. Then again, we may not. What if God is who James Joyce said he is in Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, one who sits back after creation "paring his fingernails"? The idea is hard to swallow, which is what makes faith equally confounding and thrilling.

In practical terms, it might be quite upsetting to learn God's opinion on such issues as human cloning, abortion, school prayer, capital punishment, conservation, nuclear weapons, starvation, disease and an excessive number of Krispy Kremes. Where has God been since 1973 regarding the New York Knicks? I'd like to know. If one wants proof that God does not side with someone who merely invokes his name frequently, take point guard Charlie Ward (please).

This whole business of knowing God's devices is particularly nettling to us modern scientific Americans, who have assured ourselves that we are capable of knowing everything. But it is always interesting to see how knowledge, no matter how fundamental or revolutionary, discloses as many mysteries as it unravels.

Theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer made his way to America from Nazi Germany at the outbreak of World War II but then decided to return to his country to join the Resistance. He participated in a failed attempt to assassinate Hitler, and was caught, jailed and hanged. Bonhoeffer addressed this question of knowing with the example of a rose. He said that science allows us to grasp nearly everything about the composition of a rose because we have learned so much about pollination, photosynthesis and so forth. And yet, he said, once we have done all that analysis, we still ask, What is a rose?
Hitler had a different question. "Who says," he asked, "that I am not under the special protection of God?"