Let me go down to dissect
every ludicrous thought behind the scene
as I rupture thoughts flooded with debris
of the unspoken virtues of our envy
we live our reality
through the sermons of the dead
into the land of such fallacies
our children are born as ghosts, plundered
on rage of nations over nations
we are people,
we forget at times such as these
where is the form in the formless?
where is the color in the colorless?
distinctions separate you and me
yet we build on the mathematical society
where my cause is the effect on we
in our eagerness to plead our sanity
to our unborn
wars bygone, wars go on
the sounds of the bombs are silent now
there is noise within me
let us breath the air of peace
where is the soulful journey?
wrapped in cloaks, “knowledge”
there is no bigger devil I see
in the name of serendipity
I am you are we are nothing but just lazy
Monuments of our times
Stranded between the paths
Of prayers, appeals, beliefs, morality
We are no heroes
Heroes don’t live
to see themselves succeed
lets not build this family
into vengeful gun trotters
living on the street
listen, listen closely
I hear screaming
The shouts of the children
We once were to be
Lets let them out of the misery
Of practicality
Of partiality
of the illusions of superiority
let them breathe free
let our children speak
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Monday, January 10, 2011
The Cuckoo Clock
Of all forms of emotions I must feel
Guilt is where
Righteousness finds its plea
My morality is
When such plea justifies belief
As I become me
From a child’s folly
Towards the mirage of
The illusive emancipation
Of a boy; who as a man is deceased
Between causality and
Actions of responsibility
It is I who breathes
Slowly into manhood and mortality
Riches and the glitterati
The more I think I begin to wonder,
If any of it all seems to be me
Over and again as experiences tell
Stories revealed
Notions of the meandering stream
Engulf the silence of the mysterious dream
Of all forms of emotions
Realizations scream
The more I grow the smaller I feel
More I gain poorer I seem
An ageless child
As a man deceased, I
Guilt is where
Righteousness finds its plea
My morality is
When such plea justifies belief
As I become me
From a child’s folly
Towards the mirage of
The illusive emancipation
Of a boy; who as a man is deceased
Between causality and
Actions of responsibility
It is I who breathes
Slowly into manhood and mortality
Riches and the glitterati
The more I think I begin to wonder,
If any of it all seems to be me
Over and again as experiences tell
Stories revealed
Notions of the meandering stream
Engulf the silence of the mysterious dream
Of all forms of emotions
Realizations scream
The more I grow the smaller I feel
More I gain poorer I seem
An ageless child
As a man deceased, I
Sunday, January 9, 2011
Thought of the Day
Given the sense of reality I must
Find the degrees of construed vision
As formations of experiences attach me
To the wonders of reminiscing
The gentle strokes of moments bygone
Reoccur in captions within dreamy eyes
Such attachment finds me restricted
Faces must change as reality recreates
Emotions remain constant
Of learning from those in the past
The present reveals a pattern
A wondrous I smiles at me
What if then was no different to now
And now remaining a mere projection to
Thoughts subdued
I must learn …
For notions of eternity only last momentously
I must conceive
For the truth bestowed on me lasts an eternity
Find the degrees of construed vision
As formations of experiences attach me
To the wonders of reminiscing
The gentle strokes of moments bygone
Reoccur in captions within dreamy eyes
Such attachment finds me restricted
Faces must change as reality recreates
Emotions remain constant
Of learning from those in the past
The present reveals a pattern
A wondrous I smiles at me
What if then was no different to now
And now remaining a mere projection to
Thoughts subdued
I must learn …
For notions of eternity only last momentously
I must conceive
For the truth bestowed on me lasts an eternity
The Linguist
Through words one might find solace
Within experience as the glitterati
As I sense the outside through
parameters of limited knowledge
between unity and subjectivism, the bridge
misled towards constricted forms
Their perishable fate becomes me
lest we tread on the path of devotion, selflessly
a fearlessness stride takes contours
within my own being,
in shape less journey
I am not blaze of my actions
Becoming them instinctively; finding
I am nothing but a dream
A dream where the only dear one seems me
Where I is the center point reality
The darkness of such roads lead into
An infinite
Not one that sets free, not in union
But into
the wilderness of exasperation needs
confounding and restricting
my solace in words is impermanent
every now and again to find newer ones
pacifying my insecure mortality
I become a sensory machine
An active source of infinite reactivity
Fed through experience
The light within me is veiled, through
An image of the self
Built within a narrative extensively
Trying to please the need of my ego
I am nothing now
but a conductor it seems
Merely gratifying an egotist’s needs
I am in search of solace
Wondering whether or not
I am in the right place
As the moment passes
I am no more a dream of senses
I am awake –
As the fear of
What might become of me trenches
Within experience as the glitterati
As I sense the outside through
parameters of limited knowledge
between unity and subjectivism, the bridge
misled towards constricted forms
Their perishable fate becomes me
lest we tread on the path of devotion, selflessly
a fearlessness stride takes contours
within my own being,
in shape less journey
I am not blaze of my actions
Becoming them instinctively; finding
I am nothing but a dream
A dream where the only dear one seems me
Where I is the center point reality
The darkness of such roads lead into
An infinite
Not one that sets free, not in union
But into
the wilderness of exasperation needs
confounding and restricting
my solace in words is impermanent
every now and again to find newer ones
pacifying my insecure mortality
I become a sensory machine
An active source of infinite reactivity
Fed through experience
The light within me is veiled, through
An image of the self
Built within a narrative extensively
Trying to please the need of my ego
I am nothing now
but a conductor it seems
Merely gratifying an egotist’s needs
I am in search of solace
Wondering whether or not
I am in the right place
As the moment passes
I am no more a dream of senses
I am awake –
As the fear of
What might become of me trenches
Roundabout Thee
Questions I ask
myself now and again
for the tussles
of the incongruous thoughts
mysteriously stir
the origin of peace within me
as the soul writes its own destiny
I victoriously move towards
the destruction of thee
Chances as I plead
Such that I must perceive
resolve
To destruct indeed
Quite an anomaly of resolutions
I see
For every one such made
Harder to keep
But resolutions that keep me astray
are none
but ones that seem to agree with me
thus far what I encumber
although none I want to keep
bound in the paradox of action, see
forever a debt I receive
clusters of learning fill with abundance
the knowledge I once seeked
as my knowledge grows
I discern what lies in me, my belief
The colossal loss of
As I see
Helplessly create a rift between
I who once was thee
In complications of the static
Clouding, a thoughtful void
I lose sight of me
As much as I seek
There is winter within
The garden I once filled with thee
It is my concern
In such action bound as I breathe
The voice of you occurs
And disappears in me
Lest I speak
I am the origin
of an amalgamation
Construed by fiction of me
I am a wanderer
Losing and finding
My path roundabout thee
myself now and again
for the tussles
of the incongruous thoughts
mysteriously stir
the origin of peace within me
as the soul writes its own destiny
I victoriously move towards
the destruction of thee
Chances as I plead
Such that I must perceive
resolve
To destruct indeed
Quite an anomaly of resolutions
I see
For every one such made
Harder to keep
But resolutions that keep me astray
are none
but ones that seem to agree with me
thus far what I encumber
although none I want to keep
bound in the paradox of action, see
forever a debt I receive
clusters of learning fill with abundance
the knowledge I once seeked
as my knowledge grows
I discern what lies in me, my belief
The colossal loss of
As I see
Helplessly create a rift between
I who once was thee
In complications of the static
Clouding, a thoughtful void
I lose sight of me
As much as I seek
There is winter within
The garden I once filled with thee
It is my concern
In such action bound as I breathe
The voice of you occurs
And disappears in me
Lest I speak
I am the origin
of an amalgamation
Construed by fiction of me
I am a wanderer
Losing and finding
My path roundabout thee
Thursday, November 25, 2010
Objectivism
Note to reader:
The following post is a continuation of a series of posts on this blog entitled "The Distinction Between Morailty and Ethics". Please refer to the previous posts for my overview of other moral disciplines, namely: Socratic Ethics, Relativism, Subjectivism & Humean Subjectivism. For a short introduction to the distinction between morality and ethics, please go here.
Objectivism
Objectivists consider moral beliefs and judgements to be the product of our critical responsiveness to, and rational reflection on, our experience of what is worth our attention, care and respect. Our venture in practical reasoning when deciding what is worth desiring or having or doing or being.
For Objectivists morals are beliefs and judgements for which we can give reasons and about which we can argue and be mistaken. As long as an individual or communal judgement or belief implies the question, 'This is so isn't it?', it involves a distinction between how things really are and how we might (subjectively) like them to be and so invites agreement or disagreement- it is an objective belief or judgement.
For instance, many Australians now look upon their past treatment of the Indigenous people of that country as shameful. They do so because they have come to recognize that Aborignes are not a barbarous people who are barely human, but a people with rich cultural life who are as fully human as any other people. This recognition, says the objectivist, is a matter of a deeper understanding and appreciation of the Aboriginal way of life that includes emotional responses, such as being moved by the Aborignal sense of the land as sacred. It is not just a matter of blind feeling like loving the taste of peanut butter. Nor is this a matter of a change of social convention that can be explained in sociological terms. Those Australians who now see this past treatment of Aborignal people as shameful are implicitly asking: 'this is how things are, isn't it? Our response to Aborignes in the past was contemptuous, wasn't it?' Such questions invite our critical reflection on which response is appropriate to such aspects of our history. As a Pakistani, one might be faced with the same revised reflection upon matters such as Gendercide in Bangladesh (previously East Pakistan) or, the treatment of minorities in the country. An objectivist Pakistani may very well wonder what a more serious response to the predominant shallow and bigoted one is. This critical reflection may very well lead to the question: what is the moral truth of the matter here?
However, one can always use the idea of truth as an objectivist in a more restricted sense that is consistent with relativism - some traditional hindus, for example, might say that ' true honour' requires that a woman who is unfaithful to her husband be killed by the husbands relatives. (But we might still reject the claim that this is 'true honour', just as the west came to reject the view that the practice of duelling in Western Society was truly honourable.)
So Objectivists hold that they can be mistaken in their moral beliefs just as humans were once wrong in their belief that the earth is flat. Traditional Hindus who practice honour killings and Suttee are mistaken in their moral judgements. And what we believe now to be morally correct might turn out to be wrong after further reflection. Humans at large once believed slavery was morally justified, but now we accept that we were wrong in our view.
Hence for Objectivists, there can be moral knowledge and moral facts just as there can be scientific knowledge and scientific facts; and our moral understanding can develop (not simply change) just as our scientific understanding can. So our moral understanding of the evils of racism has developed over the course of the last few centuries - we have come to a deeper appreciation of the humanity of different races and women as well as a deeper appreciation of how they can be wronged.
...My next post will cover objections to Objectivism.
The following post is a continuation of a series of posts on this blog entitled "The Distinction Between Morailty and Ethics". Please refer to the previous posts for my overview of other moral disciplines, namely: Socratic Ethics, Relativism, Subjectivism & Humean Subjectivism. For a short introduction to the distinction between morality and ethics, please go here.
Objectivism
Objectivists consider moral beliefs and judgements to be the product of our critical responsiveness to, and rational reflection on, our experience of what is worth our attention, care and respect. Our venture in practical reasoning when deciding what is worth desiring or having or doing or being.
For Objectivists morals are beliefs and judgements for which we can give reasons and about which we can argue and be mistaken. As long as an individual or communal judgement or belief implies the question, 'This is so isn't it?', it involves a distinction between how things really are and how we might (subjectively) like them to be and so invites agreement or disagreement- it is an objective belief or judgement.
For instance, many Australians now look upon their past treatment of the Indigenous people of that country as shameful. They do so because they have come to recognize that Aborignes are not a barbarous people who are barely human, but a people with rich cultural life who are as fully human as any other people. This recognition, says the objectivist, is a matter of a deeper understanding and appreciation of the Aboriginal way of life that includes emotional responses, such as being moved by the Aborignal sense of the land as sacred. It is not just a matter of blind feeling like loving the taste of peanut butter. Nor is this a matter of a change of social convention that can be explained in sociological terms. Those Australians who now see this past treatment of Aborignal people as shameful are implicitly asking: 'this is how things are, isn't it? Our response to Aborignes in the past was contemptuous, wasn't it?' Such questions invite our critical reflection on which response is appropriate to such aspects of our history. As a Pakistani, one might be faced with the same revised reflection upon matters such as Gendercide in Bangladesh (previously East Pakistan) or, the treatment of minorities in the country. An objectivist Pakistani may very well wonder what a more serious response to the predominant shallow and bigoted one is. This critical reflection may very well lead to the question: what is the moral truth of the matter here?
However, one can always use the idea of truth as an objectivist in a more restricted sense that is consistent with relativism - some traditional hindus, for example, might say that ' true honour' requires that a woman who is unfaithful to her husband be killed by the husbands relatives. (But we might still reject the claim that this is 'true honour', just as the west came to reject the view that the practice of duelling in Western Society was truly honourable.)
So Objectivists hold that they can be mistaken in their moral beliefs just as humans were once wrong in their belief that the earth is flat. Traditional Hindus who practice honour killings and Suttee are mistaken in their moral judgements. And what we believe now to be morally correct might turn out to be wrong after further reflection. Humans at large once believed slavery was morally justified, but now we accept that we were wrong in our view.
Hence for Objectivists, there can be moral knowledge and moral facts just as there can be scientific knowledge and scientific facts; and our moral understanding can develop (not simply change) just as our scientific understanding can. So our moral understanding of the evils of racism has developed over the course of the last few centuries - we have come to a deeper appreciation of the humanity of different races and women as well as a deeper appreciation of how they can be wronged.
...My next post will cover objections to Objectivism.
Humean Subjectivism
Note to reader:
The following post is a continuation of a series of posts on this blog entitled "The Distinction Between Morailty and Ethics". Please refer to the previous posts for my overview of other moral disciplines, namely: Socratic Ethics, Relativism &; Subjectivism. For a short introduction to the distinction between morality and ethics, please go here.
Humean Subjectivism
"The hypothesis we embrace is plain. It maintains that morality is determined by sentiment. It defines virtue to be 'whatever mental action or quality gives to a spectator the pleasing sentiment of approbation', and vice the contrary. We must acknowledge that immorailty is no particular fact or relation, which can be the object of the understanding, but arises entirely from sentiment of disapprobation, which, by the structure of human nature, we unavoidably feel on the apprehension of barbarity or treachery." David Hume - (Inquiry into the Principles of Morals, Appendix 1)
For the 18th century Scottish Philospher cum Economist cum Historian- David Hume- moral beliefs and judgements were expressions of an individual's feelings attitudes, desires or preferences. However, he also thought that people from all cultures share common feelings, desires and preferences. That they were outraged by cruelty to children, they desired health and sanity and they preferred peace to war.
The problem with the Humean view that we share common sentiments is that if there are existent, certain moral rights or wrongs that we seem to share amongst us, no matter who we are; if every community is for example, outraged by cruelty to children, then how do we explain certain African tribes practicing female circumcision?
The following post is a continuation of a series of posts on this blog entitled "The Distinction Between Morailty and Ethics". Please refer to the previous posts for my overview of other moral disciplines, namely: Socratic Ethics, Relativism &; Subjectivism. For a short introduction to the distinction between morality and ethics, please go here.
Humean Subjectivism
"The hypothesis we embrace is plain. It maintains that morality is determined by sentiment. It defines virtue to be 'whatever mental action or quality gives to a spectator the pleasing sentiment of approbation', and vice the contrary. We must acknowledge that immorailty is no particular fact or relation, which can be the object of the understanding, but arises entirely from sentiment of disapprobation, which, by the structure of human nature, we unavoidably feel on the apprehension of barbarity or treachery." David Hume - (Inquiry into the Principles of Morals, Appendix 1)
For the 18th century Scottish Philospher cum Economist cum Historian- David Hume- moral beliefs and judgements were expressions of an individual's feelings attitudes, desires or preferences. However, he also thought that people from all cultures share common feelings, desires and preferences. That they were outraged by cruelty to children, they desired health and sanity and they preferred peace to war.
The problem with the Humean view that we share common sentiments is that if there are existent, certain moral rights or wrongs that we seem to share amongst us, no matter who we are; if every community is for example, outraged by cruelty to children, then how do we explain certain African tribes practicing female circumcision?
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