The War on Terror: A Triumph of Midget Minds

I've been watching the news lately and shaking my head in disbelief. How did the US go from being the most advanced nation on earth to the levels of absurdity we see in the news these days in a matter of a few short years?

Then it occurs to me—the War on Terror is what happened to us. It has become an excuse for the most outrageous madness ever conceived by man on an ongoing basis.

If you have any intelligence at all, you have got to wonder, "who are those terrorist extremists and where did they come from?" By the same token, one wonders, "who are those bureaucrats who are constantly raising terrorist threat levels and waging war against the terrorists, and where did they come from?" Who are these fruitcakes and, more significantly, why do we give them so much importance in our day-to-day lives?

The reality is that they are two opposite sides of the exact same coin—two facets of the same brain-dead mentality. In fact, one might even wonder whether the whole war on terror is some sort of mutually agreed-upon strategy amongst all the brain-dead, unimaginative authoritarians in the world, on different sides of the aisle, to hold all the creative, imaginative, productive members of society hostage to their inane agendas.

Basically, think about it—the average terrorist is a brain-dead lowlife who is encouraged not to think for themselves and blindly to obey and follow the (insane) dictates of their superiors. Similarly, the average bureaucrat is also a mindless authoritarian, lacking in imagination or the capacity for creative thinking, and encouraged blindly to obey the authorities and follow the orders of their superiors. Frankly, I would not be surprised if, when peace finally does come to Iraq and Afghanistan, the very same people who were once terrorists for Al Quaeda and the Taliban will get hired as bureaucrats in the emerging political systems in those countries. And they will probably do just great at their new jobs—because both professions require pretty much the same mindset and mentality, namely, brain-dead lack of imagination and total subservience to figures of authority.

So the question on my mind is: "When will the rest of us finally wise up to this con game being perpetrated on us? When will the productive members of society—the truly creative, imaginative thinkers and doers—finally hold the brain-dead, unimaginative, authoritarian crowd accountable for the crimes that they have perpetrated and continue to perpetrate on the rest of us? Or do we just sit back and allow this shameful con game to continue indefinitely—terrorism on the one hand and human rights violations on the other hand?"

Horizon Cybermedia is dedicated to expanding our minds through art and culture—to awakening us from the stupor that is, apparently, sucking us into a never-ending, mindless cycle of retributive violence—and enabling us to appreciate the finer things in life.

Check out our website at http://www.explorationtheseries.com for our ongoing film series, Exploration with Uday Gunjikar. The current episode visits the Wine Country of Sonoma, CA and the next episode visits the Christian monuments in the city of Calcutta, India.

Wishing you the very best,

Uday Gunjikar,
Founder and CEO,
Horizon Cybermedia, Inc.

Networked Chaos: Mob Rule in the 21st Century

In many ways, the internet is like the American Wild West—a world of amazing possibilities and the alluring promise of overnight wealth and success. On the other hand, the West was notorious for its lynch mobs and rough justice. It was a dangerously unpredictable and unstable world in which, typically, only the most ruthless survived and innocent lives were, only too often, brutally trampled upon and destroyed.

The intoxicating freedom of information exchange and communication afforded by the internet has only brought mob rule and demagoguery to the 21^st Century—the very problems that all democratic societies have tried to combat since time immemorial through the creation of democratic institutions that seek to ensure freedom and justice to the citizens of a democratic republic, while curtailing mass hysteria and overreaction and the tendency towards demagoguery and despotism.

In the internet age, however, the reality is, all-too-often, pretty harsh, and the seamy, ugly side of life—the side that would otherwise be buried and hidden away—is given a means of access to the mainstream and emerges to the surface. It is a world of networked mob rule, which implies networked lynch mobs, networked witch hunts and networked secret societies and organizations with hidden socio-political agendas. In that sense, it is a reflection of the dangerous real world—but what makes it so terrifying is that the ease and immediacy of online communications invite us to confront the grim realities of life on a daily basis even in the intimate, secure surroundings of our homes. The same ease of access and communication that offers everyone the egalitarian promise of a voice in a networked world and age, also provides the means for the truly dangerous and evil elements of our society to gain access to the mainstream and to create a dangerous, unstable environment for all. It is an environment in which the distortion and misrepresentation of information is only too often the norm and in which minor errors and misstatements can often provoke a disastrous cascading effect that ruins innocent lives. To say nothing of the prevalence of gambling and porn sites online.

The cliché is that the internet is "self-regulating"—but the internet is a reflection of the real world, and "self-regulation" in the real world essentially means mob rule. The question is, what is the tradeoff between the freedom of ease-of-access made possible by networked technologies and the dangerous, unstable environment that it often brings about? I guess the only answer is that the internet needs to create its own institutions to ensure safety and validity of information while still enabling freedom and ease of access.

Horizon Cybermedia was started with the aspiration of becoming one such media institution on the internet frontier. We are about creating quality digital media content that does not pander to the lowest common denominator of taste and standards but, instead, aspires to quality and the highest of standards.

Check us out online at http://www.explorationtheseries.com for our ongoing film series, Exploration with Uday Gunjikar. The next episode takes the viewer to the city of Calcutta, India and to a tour of the amazing Christian monuments of the city.

Wishing you the very best,

Uday Gunjikar,
Founder and CEO,
Horizon Cybermedia, Inc.

Foresight: A Clarification

In a prior blog post, I talked about demythologizing Hindu iconography in an attempt to try to get to the core of what the symbols or icons of the culture represent and, thereby, to clarify their originary meaning. This deserves further explanation, so here goes:

My ideas as stated here would probably be considered controversial in the world of Hindu academia, but I'm not going to make any attempt to address any such potential controversy. Also, I'm speaking pretty much as a layman in the field of cultural anthropology, so I make no claims to expertise or qualifications in the field—I'm only stating my ideas as I see them purely from a layman's perspective.

Basically, looking back at the last several centuries of Hindu culture, I think that the original sense of what the iconography and mythology represented has been lost, perhaps even distorted and corrupted, by thousands of years of cultural aggregation and, possibly, miscommunication. So icons representing certain ideas originally have very possibly been distorted over time to represent something completely different thousands of years later. Myths, originally conveyed via an archaic oral tradition, were probably only first written down several centuries following their original composition, so that the original stories constituting the myths were probably distorted over time and came to include several additional fables and folklore that were missing from the original work. It would probably be an academic exercise in and of itself to attempt to extract the original mythology from the subsequent add-ons, and I'm not about to take on that enterprise given my own limited expertise in the field!

However, the point I made in the prior post was about the Hindu icon of the "third eye" and what it came to represent over time as opposed to my interpretation of what it probably signified originally. The point I made was that in present-day Hindu philosophy, the "third eye" represents clairvoyance or psychic abilities or the mind-expanding effect of hallucinogenic substances and narcotics. However, I think that this meaning is a corruption of what it probably originally signified, way back in the beginning of Vedic Indian history.

"Reverse-engineering" backwards to what might originally have been the Vedic culture in whose milieu the war of Kurukshetra was probably fought and, subsequently, recounted in Sanskrit verse, I think that the symbology of the "third eye" and the tilak or mark on the forehead probably represented something closer to simple foresight on the battlefield. One has to keep in mind that the philosophy articulated in the epic poem The Mahabharata was linked with a martial context—a philosophy of the battlefield, in which the mentor tries to motivate his pupil into war. So it seems to me to make sense that the iconography of the "third eye" should fit into this context—rather than referring to mysticism or clairvoyance, as a superficial reading might suggest, it seems to make more sense to me that it refers to the ability to foresee or anticipate the enemy's moves on the battlefield and react accordingly, as a product of years of intensive skill and training.

Think of a Grandmaster chess player and their ability almost to read their opponent's mind and foresee their moves several moves in advance, strategizing their own game accordingly. Or think of the expert swordsman or fencer, and their ability to foresee and foreshadow their opponent's moves ahead of time and react almost instantaneously, even preemptively, on occasion. Or think of the highly skilled and experienced matador, and their ability to foresee and anticipate the brutish movements of the bull and react accordingly before zeroing in for the kill. Or think of the highly trained and experienced athlete and their ability to anticipate and out-think their opponent on the field or court. Again, this ability comes from expertise in one's skill and from years of training and experience. It's not really a psychic ability, but, rather, the ability to view circumstances holistically and to respond proactively based on an unconscious extrapolation into the future (I hope that makes sense).

I think that that's closer to what the iconography of the "third eye" probably represented in its original form and it became corrupted over time into representing something quite different, namely clairvoyance or mysticism. However, if one strips away the distortions that have accrued over centuries and returns to original core of the mythology, I think the context reveals the original meaning of the myths and icons much more vividly and clearly. However, I must note, that this is all hypothetical—in no way do I have the academic credentials in the field to back up my statements! All I can say is that such a reading of the myths and icons makes sense to me!

Myths and icons are a fascinating subject in and of themselves, and the puzzle of getting to their originary meanings is a worthy subject of study, because they meant so much to the cultures they sprang from, and continue to mean a lot to the society of the present day. I guess it is a worthwhile effort trying to understand exactly what they represented back when they were originally conceived and how their meaning might have changed or transformed over time.

Horizon Cybermedia, as a part of our ongoing film-making project, attempts to make sense of the mass of cultural icons that have come down to us over the ages from bygone cultures and civilizations. Rather than dismiss them offhand, I think it is a worthwhile effort to try and understand them and the histories associated with them. Meanwhile, do check out our website at http://www.explorationtheseries.com for our ongoing film series, Exploration with Uday Gunjikar.

Wishing you the very best,

Uday Gunjikar,
Founder and CEO,
Horizon Cybermedia, Inc.