Contest from Zetetica - BIM HR Club

Germany – The Pure, The superior and An Inquiry

‘The Nameless One’ is an unlikely title for Napolean. This title was given by the German philosopher Johann Gottlieb Fichte. It was borne out of dashed hopes from the French revolution. Fichte (fikh-tuh) as he is called admired the revolution and clung to his hopes in France for much longer than many of his compatriots. As late as 1799, he writes: ‘It is clear that from now on only the French Republic can be the fatherland of the man of integrity, that only to it can he devote his energies; for from now on not only the dearest hopes of humanity but even its existence depend upon its  victory’. Napolean’s crowning as emperor was the last nail in the coffin of his hopes. 

Germany was at the centre of Europe and also at the heart of humanity. It was also in an impotent state then. Under Napolean’s rule, it was often called ‘poor in deeds but rich in thought’. The extraordinary blossoming of German literature, philosophy and poetry at the close of 18^th century bears testimony to this statement. Germany did not want to triumph with sword, but with the light of knowledge and understanding. If the goal of humanity were to be reached by advancement of science, Germans had just begun to possess science and therefore one could serve the cause of humanity as a whole by serving just the German cause.  

Fichte though was not the first to espouse Germany’s destiny, he was surely the most articulate, systematic and eloquent. His argument of German being a unique race, rested first on its language. German language alone, in his view, represented a preserved history. All other European languages lost their original identity when they came in contact with Latin and assumed a superficial though glamorous form. Little wonder then that French, Spanish and Italian are called Romance languages whereas German like Greek, developed uninterrupted and contained within itself a natural force that conferred upon it a remarkable ability to handle profundity and to exercise national imagination. 

Fichte’s believed that the love of fatherland was peculiar to Germans required an entirely different order of emotional investment. Only a love of fatherland can prompt people to behold the nation as terrestrial and divine, universal and particular at the same time. It made nation as manifestation of the divine and made it exist also in the pure realm of thought thus giving it an originality of life. Germany as a country answered basic needs of people that are normally answered by religion, the desire for eternity, the impulse to leave behind a trace of oneself in this world, the need for transcendence. 

Fichte was born to a lowly though literate weaver in 1762 in Saxony and was soon patronized by a local aristocrat for his precociously gifted nature. The turning point of his life was when he stumbled upon Immanuel Kant in 1791 which in his words revolutionized his thinking. He became a leading interpreter of Kant and was invited to University of Jena. He published the masterpiece of his life, wissenschaftslehre (The Science of Knowledge) in 1794. It dealt with source, limits and objects of human knowledge. In 1810, University of Berlin is established and Fichte becomes its first Rector.

Fichte died in 1814 of typhoid fever at the age of 51. In 51 years of his life, he gave a purpose to nations of the world that the eternal and the divine may flourish in this world and never cease to become ever more pure, perfect and excellent. More significantly, he prepared Germany to play the role of the pivot on which the world will balance itself. Little wonder then that he exhorted to the germans, “If you sink, all humanity sinks with you”.

The Mind of God

Yesterday we remember well but that is not the case with tomorrow. Quite strangely and disappointingly the theories that govern our life are valid regardless of past or future and yet they do not allow us to know what is going to happen tomorrow.  If we could travel across time, probably this will be likely, but is time travel really possible? 

Who can forget the imaginative and yet depressing novel of H G Wells, the Time Machine, which takes the Time Traveler to 802701 AD. Physics and Mathematics are not silent on this topic. The most beautiful and illuminating essay comes from the greatest living physicist Stephen Hawking, titled Arrow of Time. The universe is moving from Order to Disorder, from Past to Future and is continuously expanding. These three movements and their direction are represented by Thermodynamic Arrow, Psychological Arrow and Cosmological Arrow respectively. 

A jigsaw puzzle has only one ordered state but several states of disorder. The tendency is always to be in a state with greater disorder and a special effort is needed to arrive at the complete picture, which is only one. A broken cup on the floor has greater disorder than a tea-cup on the table. This is thermodynamic arrow according to which with time, we will see greater disorder. It is difficult to say much about human memory as it relates to brain and we know precious little about it. However we do know about the functioning of a computer which can safely be assumed to be like a human brain. When data is ordered in the computer or any application is processed, a certain energy is required which in turn is dissipated in the form of heat and sound in some cases. This further increases the disorder in the universe and also implies that thermodynamic and psychological arrows are one and the same. 

The universe would have started with sudden and explosive expansion which we call Big Bang and the fragments of cosmos are scattered across the space thus forming galaxies and stars and beings like us, also increasing the disorder from the ordered state of one cosmic egg.  That disorder increases with expanding universe is not difficult to answer, given our understanding of thermodynamic arrow. The expanding universe also provides sufficient conditions for intelligent life to exist. A contracting universe is like being in a black hole where before you try to remember your past or future, you will turn in to spaghetti. 

Stephen Hawking was born in Oxford on 8^th January 1942, 300 years after the death of Galileo and is today considered to be the greatest scientific thinker since Newton and Einstein. He studied physics at Oxford University and pursued graduate and doctoral studies at Trinity Hall, Cambridge. He did not do very well in his early education at Oxford and at a point of time had to undergo an oral examination. His physics tutor Robert Berman remarked about the examination “And of course the examiners then were intelligent enough to realize they were talking to someone far more clever than most of themselves”. 

Stephen Hawking was unlucky to get ALS or Motor Neuron Disease. He is now almost completely paralyzed and communicates through a speech generating device. He frequently posed questions to himself, what do we know about the universe and how do we know it? Where did it come from and where is it going? Did it have a beginning and what happened before then? What is the nature of time, will it ever come to an end? These questions bewildered him and he wanted to make sense of what he saw around him. He is currently working towards creating a Grand Unified Theory that explains everything. He believes that if he is able to find it, it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason and then, we would know the mind of God.

A Victorious Submission

"If we are victorious in one more battle with the Romans, we shall be utterly ruined”, said Pyrrhus in 280 BC after their war against the Romans. A victory that brings enormous losses of life and limb and property and leaves little to cheer about is called Pyrrhic victory.  One such victory happened long time ago, when one of India’s greatest Kings, Ashoka, waged a war against the kalinga. This victory was to create a new ideal for Kings to live up to and today, more than two thousand years later, there are only handfuls in the world history who can claim to be treated at par. 

Victory makes us rejoice and defeat, pensive. With King Ashoka, it was just the opposite. As he went through the battle ground and the cities, he saw only corpses and burnt houses and uttered the famous monologue:

What have I done? If this is a victory, what's a defeat then? Is this a victory or a defeat? Is this justice or injustice? Is it gallantry or a rout? Is it valor to kill innocent children and women? Do I do it to widen the empire and for prosperity or to destroy the other's kingdom and splendor? One has lost her husband, someone else a father, someone a child, someone an unborn infant.... What's this debris of the corpses? Are these marks of victory or defeat? Are these vultures, crows, eagles the messengers of death or evil?

And something changed in him, and with him changed the course of India. He abandoned warfare in the full tide of victory. He embraced the tenets of Buddhism and devoted himself to the spread of Buddha’s teachings. His messengers went far off places like Syria, Egypt, Macedonia, Cyrene, Epirus and also to Burma, Siam and Ceylon. Everywhere an appeal was made to mind and the heart and yet it was only an appeal and there was no compulsion. He showed respect and consideration for all other faiths and proclaimed in an edict ‘All sects deserve reverence for one reason or another. By thus acting a man exalts his own sect and at the same time does service to the sects of other people’. We hear a similar voice again almost one thousand years later in India, the voice of Akbar. Indeed it was the voice of India. 

Ashoka the Great was born in 304 BC to King Bindusara in Pataliputra, now Patna. He was grandson of Chandragupta Maurya. He became King in 274 BC and his reign lasted till 232 BC. His empire stretched from Afghanistan to Assam, Myanmar and Bangladesh, from Central Asia to Tamil Nadu. This has been the largest spread of Indian empire ever. Neither the Mughal Empire nor the British Empire was as big in administrative influence. And nothing of it changed, when he took to the path of love and renounced war. Ashoka died in 232 BC after ruling strenuously for forty one years. Of him H G Wells says in his Outline of History:

Amidst the tens of thousands of names of monarchs that crowd the columns of history, their majesties and graciousness and serenities and royal highness and the like, the name of Ashoka shines, and shines almost alone, a star. From the Volga to Japan his name is still honored. China, Tibet and even India, though it has left his doctrine, preserve the tradition of his greatness. More living men cherish his memory today than have ever heard the names of Constantine or Charlemagne.

And There Was 93

 

The shortest correspondence in history is said to have been between, the famous French poet, novelist and philosopher, Victor Hugo and his publisher Hurst and Blackett in 1862. Hugo was on vacation when Les Misérables was published. He queried the reaction to the work by sending a single-character telegram to his publisher, asking "?". The publisher replied with a single "!" to indicate its success. Victor Hugo is also the same person who said, “To learn to read is to light a fire; every syllable that is spelled out is a spark”. Today his works are a part of the curriculum of most schools across the world. He is chiefly known for his works like “Les Miserables” on social injustice and “The Hunchback of Notredame”, a moving story set in 15^th century Paris, of a gypsy girl, Esmeralda and the deformed bell ringer, Quasimodo, who loves her.  However many of his less known works are of equal if not surpassing merit and deserve equal acclaim. 

Victor Hugo was born in 1802, two years before Napolean came to power.  He was taught by his father, who was an army general, to admire Napolean.  After his parents were separated, he was brought up by his mother in Paris. He attended Lycée Louis-le Grand and soon started writing poetry. His style was lyrical, rich, intense and full of powerful sounds and rhythms, and although it followed the bourgeois popular taste of the period it also had bitter personal tones. His most ambitious poem was "Et nox facta est," ("And There Was Night"), a study of Satan's fall. The poem was never completed.

Quatre-vingt-treize (93) was his last published book and many regard it as comparable, if not superior to his other renowned works.  In Quatre-vingt-treize, he recreates the special atmosphere of The Convention, which was the third parliament assembly during the French Revolution. The Convention lasted from 21^st September 1792 to 26^th October 1795 and is generally identified with “The Reign of Terror” however it also was a lofty spectacle that appeared on the horizon of mankind and it was Victor Hugo who could understand it as the culminating point in history. He writes in 93, “In this caldron, where terror bubbled, progress fermented. Out of this chaos of shadow, this tumultuous flight of clouds, spread immense rays of light parallel to the eternal laws, - rays that have remained on the horizon, visible forever in the heaven of the peoples, and which are, one, Justice; another Tolerance; another, Goodness; another, Right; another Truth; another Love. The Convention promulgated this grand axiom: ‘The liberty of each citizen ends where the liberty of another citizen commences”- which comprises in two lines, all human social law. 

Victor Hugo went into a shock, when his daughter Leopoldine passed away in 1843 and could not write anything for almost a decade. Charles Dickens was to go into a similar shock later in history at the death of his daughter. Victor Hugo's death on 22 May 1885, at the age of 83, generated intense national mourning. He was not only revered as a towering figure in literature, he was also a statesman who shaped the third Republic and Democracy in France. 

On his death, he left a set of five sentences as his last will to be officially published:

I leave 50 000 francs to the poor.

I want to be buried in their hearse.

I refuse funeral orations of all churches.

I beg a prayer to all souls.

I believe in God.

See Me, See Us, See Around

What happens around us can be of great interest if we were to observe closely. A man walking on the street with a limp, the teacher with his spectacles sitting his nose, random story of unusually verbose taxi driver, loud speech of the neighborhood politician, blaring songs celebrating festivals, a glamorous actress donning the large hoarding at the street corner, old buildings setting the backdrop are some of the observations that can give a humdrum life, a touch of drama and romance. The ability to observe is natural to children and as we grow older, we tend to lose this ability. The famous experiment of Plato, where he keeps a child secluded in a room till his adulthood and then lets him out to observe the world, talks of the wonder that the man feels towards the Sun and the moon, towards trees and rivers, towards day and night and towards fellow human beings. This bewildering variety is experienced as he looks at them for the first time and is awestruck by their sudden appearance. The impact is heightened since he has the understanding of an adult but experiences of a child.

On 9th June 1870, when Charles Dickens died at the age of 58, he still was like the Plato’s child grown into a man, his power of observation as keen and strong memory as unfailing as ever. He observed both persons and things both keenly and fully even as a child. His recollections of his own life and people around him come to life in most of his works most vividly. In David Copperfield, his memory of infancy takes the following shape: “The first objects that assume a distinct presence before me, as I look far back, into the blank of my infancy, are my mother with her pretty hair and youthful shape, and Peggotty with no shape at all, and yes eyes so dark that they seemed to darken their whole neighborhood in her face, and cheeks and arms so hard and red that I wondered the birds didn’t peck her in preference to apples.”

Charles Dickens as a child experienced both comfortable luxury and a sharp descent from that status into despairing poverty. His visits to the pawnbroker’s shop for selling his books and household furniture to prevent starvation and later his experiences of being a worker at the Blacking factory at the age of 12 were hard and unforgiving. All these incidents made severe impact on his small, sickly and weak body and left even deeper scars on his sensitive and impressionable mind.

Modern psychologists have invented the term “arrested development”. It signifies a state in which owing to some great shock in childhood or youth, or to prolonged error in nurture and education, the growth of the mind is stopped short before maturity, though the body continues to develop normally. This phrase exactly fits Charles Dickens. Like Peter Pan he never grew up and this was doubtless due to the shock of blacking warehouse. His mind remained brilliantly adolescent to the end of his life. He retained throughout his life, every characteristic of adolescence: extraordinarily keen powers of observation; the vivid ‘picture’ memory of childhood; a childish gusto in all he did; the adolescent habit of setting himself impossible tasks. All of his life, he never lost the tender affection of childhood nor its trustfulness nor its feeling of inferiority and dependence. He continuously longed for home and love and someone to comfort him. He never forgot how to laugh nor how to cry. Mr G K Chesterton described the childhood phase of the life of Charles Dickens’ as ‘A lost child can suffer like a lost soul’. In no words could the essence of his tragedy be more truly expressed.