Monday 23 July 2012

Which ideology II?

The lack of indifference in choice by people is something which sometimes puzzles me. Continuing from my previous post, people are sometimes content in being indifferent in opinion on many matters of mutual concern. Is such indifference a sign of modernity and advancement of human civilization or it's just a situation waiting to explode into full blown conflict whether it's physical or just a battle of mindsets. Why is that the indifference has led to full blown conflict including civil wars in certain areas while in some areas that isn't the case? That's a good question. But the situation were people "delegate" decision making to others and simply choosing suboptimal choices offered to them on a platter forms a basis of the answer required. What could be the perfect civilization which can be created? That's a difficult question to answer and of course in the context of this post on how people make different decisions it is going to be impossible to establish some sort of consensus.

There is a lot of literature out there on decision making but at this moment none still has been the cut above the rest. Current "dominant" theories around seem to be based from early western philosophies influenced by the likes of Hume Wittgenstein, Kant et al but why should we be constrained into such philosophies which up to now (considering the so-called modernity and advancement) haven't been the silver bullet? There is a rich source of philosophy from Africa, Asia, Latin America etc. which has unfairly been ignored not because these philosophies have failed but because of other exogenous reasons which have got nothing to do with philosophical superiority. A major reason why ideas from the so-called "third world" have been ignored has to do with intellectual imperialism of western ideas over those of the rest of the world. This led to the unsuccessful application of these ideas without considering the local cultures, languages and geographies. But you find some people in these developing countries supporting these western philosophies. I'm not saying all western thought is bad but what I'm saying is that the ad hoc implementation is the problem.

 It boggles my mind that long ago great scientists and intellectuals were deeply rooted into philosophy but these days this isn't the case. Aside from professional philosophers, the only still involved in active philosophy are politicians, lawyers, economists and other social scientists. There isn't much originality out there with the so-called "prominent" ones just reciting what others have done before (which to my opinion isn't great work). So why have scientists taken a back seat? That's a good question. Long standing theories and works in science are backed up by logic and there shouldn't be anything which prevents scientist today from being active ion philosophy. Scientists who are gaining headway in areas requiring active philosophy these days are mathematicians and statisticians. From finance, economics and even political polling, these guys are holding it up. Therefore in this time of world crisis a lot of question need to be answered. A new mindset is needed indeed.

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