History of Roman Empire is Fictitious

Christianity in its present form came into being after the eleventh century schism between the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic Church. Before that, it used to be an exclusively Byzantine affair and most of Western Europe followed pagan customs. The reason why Catholic historians fabricated the history of ancient Roman civilization was to dissociate Christianity from its Byzantine heritage.

The theory that Christianity spread into Europe, and also in Russia, from the Byzantine Empire is validated by the fact that early Middle Ages – from 5^th to 10^th century, when the Byzantine Empire reached its zenith and a split occurred between the Eastern Orthodox and the Roman Catholic churches in 1054 – are referred to as Dark Ages, whereas the period between 8^th century BC and 6^th century AD is rather ironically called Classical Antiquity.

There appears to be clear historical bias because in descending order, as we go back in time, the reliability of information reduces proportionally. Thus, the 11^th century recorded history of the Roman Catholic Church is comparatively credible, whereas Before Christ folklore transmitted mainly through oral traditions of fabulists is simply implausible.

  

Historically, on Christmas Day 800 AD, Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, forming the political and religious foundations of Christendom and establishing in earnest the French monarchy's longstanding historical association with the Roman Catholic Church.

Thus, ninth century appears to be a watershed moment of increasing proselytization of Europe to Christianity, which obviously had its impact in Britain and Germany later. After that, the influence of the Byzantine Empire, lasting from 4^th to 15^th centuries, waned and a rival power center emerged in the form of Roman Catholic Church patronized by kings of Franks and Lombards in Italy.

Evidently, Christianization of Eastern Europe and Russia is attributed to the Byzantine Empire and Western Europe to the Holy Roman Empire. Thus, the history of ancient Romans, whose empire purportedly fell in 476 AD to Germanic tribes, is nothing more than folklore and the history of the Roman Catholic Church in earnest began after the coronation of Charlemagne as the Holy Roman Emperor.

The title of Holy Roman Emperor remained with Carolingian family of Charlemagne, the ruler of Franks, up to 840, and then it passed on to Germans when Otto I was declared Holy Roman Emperor by the Pope in 962. Thus, the Frankish Empire constituted the Holy Roman Empire during the early 9^th century, and then the title was assumed by the Germanic Empire for the next eight centuries.

The Germanic decentralized phase of the Holy Roman Empire never reached the glory of the Frankish Empire under Charlemagne and his successor Louis the Pious. They adopted Latin as the official language of the Empire to forge a political identity distinct from the Byzantine Greeks.

Carolingians jointly ruled over Franks and Lombards in Italy, thus the Roman Catholic Church was under their suzerainty, which at the time was nothing more than a diocese of the Eastern Orthodox Church. During the period of the Byzantine Papacy from 6^th to 8^th centuries, the title of the Pope was equivalent to the bishop of Rome.

Although according to oral traditions, the Roman Catholic Church was founded by the apostles of Jesus, St. Peter and Paul, and was recognized by Byzantine Emperor Constantine, it’s not proved by credible history and many secular historians doubt the assertion.

In the medieval era, the theological creed of the Eastern Orthodox Church was vilified as Arian heresy by the Roman Catholic Church to establish a monopoly over Christian faith in Western Europe. Arius was a theologian of the Antioch school in Hatay province of modern Turkey in 270 AD. Most of the Germanic tribes who in the following centuries invaded the Roman Empire had adopted Christianity in its Arian form, which later transformed into German Protestantism.

It is generally claimed that Byzantine Emperor Constantine legalized Christianity and reorganized the Empire from 324 to 337 AD. Moreover, it is also alleged, albeit mistakenly, that under the reign of Heraclius (610–641), three centuries later, the Empire adopted Greek for official use in place of Latin.

Fact of the matter, however, is the Byzantine Empire wasn’t a monolith, as it had myriad dynasties of usurpers from Macedonia, Armenia etc. which spoke several East European dialects, but Latin was never introduced into the Byzantine Empire. In fact, the Byzantine Empire appears to be a continuation of Alexander’s Hellenistic Empire, as both had their arch-foes in the ancient kingdoms of Persia – Achaemenids and Sassanids.

The Justinian dynasty is generally regarded as the Golden Age of the Byzantine Empire that lasted from 518 to 602 AD. During the reign of Justinian I (527–565), the Empire reached its greatest extent after reconquering much of the western Mediterranean coast, North Africa, Italy, and Rome itself, which it held for two more centuries.

Kashmir Insurgency: The Legacy of Soviet-Afghan Jihad

A question would naturally arise in the minds of curious observers of regional geopolitics that why did Pakistan choose to wage Washington’s proxy war against the erstwhile Soviet Union in Afghanistan during the 1980s?

Was it to strengthen its defenses against India, the oft-quoted “strategic depth” military doctrine, or the fear that the former Soviet Union might make further advances into Pakistan’s western Balochistan province to reach the warm waters of the Arabian Sea?

All these geopolitical considerations might have played a part, but in order to understand the real reason why Pakistan decided to become Washington’s accomplice in the Afghan conflict, we need to understand the nature of power.

Rationally speaking, power ought to be means to achieve higher goals, but “normative idealism” is generally shunned in realpolitik, and rather than as means to an end, power is cherished as an end in itself, and it is the nature of power to expand further and to grow more powerful.

Thus, Pakistan’s military establishment did not collaborate in Washington’s “bear trap” project for any ulterior strategic goal; the objective was simply to exercise power by taking advantage of the opportunity.

In order to elaborate this abstract concept, I would like to draw a parallel between power and sex. In the grand scheme of things, sex is not an end in itself; it is means to an end, the end being the procreation of offspring.

But many hedonic couples nowadays use contraceptives and don’t consider it worthwhile to procreate and nurture children, due to economic constraints or the unnecessary effort that nurturing children inevitably entails.

Social scientists have no business offering advice or moral lessons; to each his own. But if the ultimate end for which nature has invented the agency comes to a naught, that does not per se renders the agency any less significant, instead the agency itself becomes a categorical imperative.

Thus, power is like sex; its exercise is pleasurable and its goal is further expansion and amassing more power to gratify insatiable needs of compulsive power-maniacs.

Regarding the much-touted argument that Pakistan’s military trained and armed Afghan jihadists during the Soviet-Afghan War in the 1980s as self-defense to prevent the likelihood of Soviet Union invading Pakistan’s western Balochistan province in order to reach the warm waters of the Arabian Sea, according to recently declassified documents [1] of the White House, CIA and State Department, as reported by Tim Weiner for The Washington Post, the CIA was aiding Afghan jihadists before the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979.

The then American President Jimmy Carter signed the CIA directive to arm the Afghan jihadists in July 1979, whereas the former Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in December the same year. That the CIA was arming the Afghan jihadists six months before the Soviets invaded Afghanistan has been proven by the State Department’s declassified documents; fact of the matter, however, is that the nexus between the CIA, Pakistan’s security agencies and the Gulf states to train and arm the Afghan jihadists against the former Soviet Union was formed several years before the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

Historically, Pakistan’s military first used the Islamists of Jamaat-e-Islami during the Bangladesh war of liberation in the late 1960s against the Bangladeshi nationalist Mukti Bahini liberation movement of Sheikh Mujib-ur-Rahman – the father of current prime minister of Bangladesh, Sheikh Hasina Wajed, and the founder of Bangladesh, which was then a province of Pakistan and known as East Pakistan before the independence of Bangladesh in 1971.

Jamaat-e-Islami is a far-right Islamist movement in Pakistan, India and Bangladesh – analogous to the Muslim Brotherhood political party in Egypt and Turkey – several of whose leaders have recently been hanged by the Bangladeshi nationalist government of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wajed for committing massacres of Bangladeshi civilians on behalf of Pakistan’s military during the late 1960s.

Then, during the 1970s, Pakistan’s then-Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto began aiding the Afghan Islamists against Sardar Daud’s government, who had toppled his first cousin King Zahir Shah in a palace coup in 1973 and had proclaimed himself the president of Afghanistan.

Sardar Daud was a Pashtun nationalist and laid claim to Pakistan’s northwestern Pashtun-majority province. Pakistan’s security establishment was wary of his irredentist claims and used Islamists to weaken his rule in Afghanistan. He was eventually assassinated in 1978 as a result of the Saur Revolution led by the Afghan communists.

Pakistan’s support to the Islamists with the Saudi petro-dollars and Washington’s blessings, however, kindled the fires of Islamic insurgencies in the entire region comprising Afghanistan, Pakistan, Indian-administered Kashmir and the Soviet Central Asian States.

The former Soviet Union was wary that its forty-million Muslims were susceptible to radicalism, because Islamic radicalism was infiltrating across the border into the Central Asian States from Afghanistan. Therefore, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in December 1979 in support of the Afghan communists to forestall the likelihood of Islamic insurgencies spreading to the Central Asian States bordering Afghanistan.

Regarding the Kashmir dispute, there can be no two views that the right of self-determination of Kashmiris must be respected in accordance with the UN Security Council resolutions on the right of plebiscite for the Kashmiri people, and Pakistan should lend its moral, political and diplomatic support to the Kashmiri cause; but at the same time, the militarization of any dispute, including Kashmir, must be avoided due to massive human suffering that militancy and wars anywhere in the world inevitably entail.

The insurgency in Kashmir erupted in the fateful year of 1984 of the Orwellian-fame when the Indian Armed Forces surreptitiously occupied the whole of Siachen glacier, including the un-demarcated Pakistani portion.

Now, we must keep the backdrop in mind: those were the heydays of the Cold War and Pakistan Army’s proxies, the Afghan jihadists, were winning battle after battle against the Soviet Red Army, and the morale of Pakistan Army's top brass was touching the sky.

Moreover, Pakistan’s security establishment also wanted to inflict damage to the Indian Armed Forces to exact revenge for the dismemberment of Pakistan at the hands of India during the Bangladesh War of 1971, when India provided support to Bangladeshi nationalists and took 90,000 Pakistani soldiers as prisoners of war after Pakistan’s humiliating defeat in the war of liberation of Bangladesh.

All the military’s top brass had to do was to divert a fraction of its Afghan jihadist proxies toward the Indian-administered Kashmir to kindle the fires of insurgency in Kashmir. Pakistan’s security agencies began sending jihadists experienced in the Afghan guerilla warfare across the border to the Indian-administered Kashmir in the late 1980s; and by the early 1990s, the Islamist insurgency engulfed the whole of Jammu and Kashmir region.

Here, it’s worth noting, however, that an insurgency cannot succeed anywhere unless militants get some level of popular support from local population. For example: if a hostile force tries to foment an insurgency in Pakistan’s province of Punjab, it wouldn’t succeed; because Punjabis don’t have any grievances against Pakistan.

On the other hand, if an adversary tries to incite an insurgency in the marginalized province of Balochistan and Pakistan’s tribal areas, it will easily succeed, because the local Baloch and Pashtun populations have grievances against the heavy-handedness of Pakistan’s security establishment.

Therefore, to put the blame squarely on the Pakistani side for the Kashmir conflict would be unfair. Firstly, immediately after the independence of India and Pakistan in 1947, India annexed the Muslim-majority princely state of Jammu and Kashmir in violation of the agreed-upon “partition principle” that allocated the Muslim-majority provinces of the British India to Pakistan and the Hindu-majority regions to India.

Even now, if someone tries to foment an insurgency in the Pakistan-administered Kashmir, it wouldn’t succeed, because the Kashmiri Muslims identify themselves with Pakistan. The Indian-administered Kashmir has seen many waves for independence since 1947, but not a single voice has been raised for independence in the Pakistan-administered Kashmir in Pakistan’s seventy-year history.

Secondly, India re-ignited the conflict by occupying the strategically placed Siachen glacier in 1984. Pakistan's stance on Kashmir has been quite flexible and it has floated numerous proposals to resolve the dispute. But India is now the new strategic partner of Washington against China, hence India’s stance on the Kashmir dispute has been quite inflexible, as it is negotiating from a position of strength. Diplomacy aside, however, the real victims of this intransigence and hubris on both sides have been the Kashmiri people and a lot of innocent blood has been spilled for no good reason.

Finally, another obstacle to the peaceful resolution of the Kashmir dispute is that the Kashmiri liberation struggle and militancy have been indigenized to a great extent during the last two decades. An entire generation of Kashmiri youth has been brought up in an environment of fear and bloodletting. Now, no political solution to the Kashmir conflict is possible unless it is acceptable to domestic political leadership of the Kashmiri people.

Hindu Majoritarianism and Pakistan Movement

Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan.

The prefix ‘Pak,’ which is the root of the word Pakistan, literally means clean or pure in Urdu language. Choosing the name Pakistan for their newfound country sheds light on the mindset of our founding fathers. As the readers are well aware that Hindu religion is a caste-based religion which regards people belonging to other faiths, and even low-caste Hindus, as sleazy untouchables.

The Muslims of India suffered this discrimination at the hands of the numerical majority during the British Raj, that’s why they chose the name Pakistan: the land of the clean or pure, for their newfound sanctuary. Thus, Pakistan and the oft-quoted pejorative, ‘the land of the pure,’ isn’t as much about some conceited sense of superiority as it was about redressing a historical injustice, and the demand for a separate homeland was basically a reaction to the discrimination and persecution suffered by the disenfranchised Muslims of India at the hands of Hindu nationalists.

Sociologically, ethno-linguistic groups are generally regarded as distinct nations but sometimes one’s religious sect can take precedence over ethno-linguistic identity. The Syrian and Iraqi Shias speak Arabic while the Iranian Shias speak Persian; despite the linguistic difference, during the Iran-Iraq war from 1980 to 1988, the Shia-led Baathist regime of Syria took the side of Iran against the fellow Arabic-speaking and Sunni-led Baathist regime of Saddam Hussein. After the fall of Saddam, when the government in Iraq has now been led by the Shias, the three Shia-led states have formed an alliance comprising Iran, Iraq and Syria against the Sunni-led Gulf Arab States.

Having a secular bend of mind, I personally find Sunni and Shia Muslims to be virtually indistinguishable. Although they do have a few minor theological and doctrinal differences but culturally they belong to the same religion and civilization. I have drawn attention to the Sunni-Shia conflict in the Middle East only to emphasize the importance of religion in the Eastern societies. Modern secularists regard the social aspect of religion as some outdated medieval notion, but conformity to ethno-religious identity is a visible and ubiquitous reality in our part of the world.

Now, Sunni and Shia are only two sects of the same religion, Islam, and these minor sectarian differences can make their followers forget their ethno-linguistic identities in choosing friends and forming alliances, while Hinduism and Islam are two radically different religions, so much so that many Muslims in Pakistan don’t even know what deities the Hindus worship. By uncritically imitating Orientalist historians, however, many secularists assume that the creation of a nation state on the basis of ethno-religious identity was an imprudent decision by Jinnah and the Muslim League.

Regardless, here we must try to understand the attitudes and mindsets of the British Indian leaders that why did they favour certain rallying calls and disapproved the rest? In my opinion, this preferential treatment had to do with personal inclinations and ambitions of the British Indian leaders and the interests of their respective communities as perceived by the leaders in heterogeneous and multi-ethnic societies like British India.

A leader whose ambitions are limited only to his own ethnic group would rally his followers around their shared ethno-linguistic identity, but politicians who have larger ambitions would look for common factors that unite diverse ethnic groups, that’s where the role of religion becomes politically relevant in traditional societies.

It suited the personal ambitions of the Muslim League leadership to rally their supporters around the cause of Islamic identity, and it benefited the political agenda of the Congress leadership to unite all Indians under the banner of a more inclusive and secular Indian national identity in order to keep India united under the permanent yoke of numerical Hindu majority.

However, mere rhetoric is never a substitute for tangible actions, no matter how noble and superficially appealing it may sound. The Indian National Congress right from its inception was a thinly disguised Hindu nationalist party that only had a pretence of inclusive secularism, that’s why some of the most vocal proponents of Hindu-Muslim unity, like Jinnah and Iqbal, later became its most fierce critics, especially when Gandhi and his protégé Pundit Nehru took over the leadership of Congress in 1921.

Moreover, while I concede that the colonial divide-and-rule policy was partly responsible for sowing the seeds of dissension amongst the British Indian religious communities, but generally most outcomes cannot be understood by adopting a simplistic and linear approach that tries to explain complex socio-political phenomena by emphasizing a single cause and downplaying the importance of other equally significant, albeit underestimated, plurality of causes.

Islamic nationalism in British India had as much to do with the divide-and-rule strategy on the part of the British colonisers as it was a reaction to exclusionary Hindu majoritarianism. As I have described earlier that different rallying calls are adopted as political agendas by politicians to rally support for their individual ambitions.

Looking at the demeanour of ‘Mahatma’ Gandhi and his aspirations of being a Hindu saint and a messiah, did he look like a secular leader by any stretch of imagination? But he chose the rallying call of secularism because it suited his personal ambitions and the interests of Hindu community which he really represented.

Finally, every political rallying call has its express wordings but it also has certain subtle undertones. It is quite possible that some Westernised Congress leaders might have genuinely believed in the ideals of secularism and pluralism, but on the popular level of the traditional Indian masses, the Hindus of British India coalesced around Congress not because of its ostensible secularism but due to its undertones of Hindu Raj. A fact which has now become obvious after the election of an overt Hindu nationalist, Narendra Modi, to the premiership of India 70 years after the independence.

Metrosexuality and Family Values

Bilawal Bhutto's selfie with Paris Hilton.

In the light of my limited experience with the Western culture, I have come to realize that a fully functional family is hard to find in the modern Western societies. Coming across a functioning family unit is more of an exception than a norm in the Western culture.

Most Western women with whom I have interacted are generally divorced, single mothers who are raising their children all by themselves; while the men folks either don’t get married at all, or even if they do get married under some momentary impulse or infatuation, they tend to leave their wives and kids behind them and either run away with their newfound girlfriends or they are otherwise non-committal in their relationships.

Although this behavioral infidelity can be found in both genders but it is much more prevalent in metrosexual men of modern societies. Since women are physiologically built to raise children and since they occupy a comparatively insecure position in male-dominated cultures, therefore they generally take their relationships seriously.

Unlike the traditional Eastern societies which are family-centric, the Western societies are mostly individual-centric. Reductive individualism and runaway hedonism might sound theoretically alluring but this unnatural state of affairs cannot last for long.

Birth rates all over the Western world are already dwindling, and in some countries, population growth rate is in negative. There was a time that population growth rate in Europe was so prolific that the Europeans had to colonize Americas and Australia to settle their surplus population. But now, the only thing sustaining their population growth rate is not their natural birth rates but the immigration of people from the developing world to the Western countries.

The institution of a fully functional family is the cornerstone of a healthy society and if the social environment is not conducive to the development of such a pivotal institution, then there is something fundamentally wrong with our social axioms.

Marriage is basically a civil contract meant for the purpose of raising children and family; and if one of the partners leaves the other midstream, it creates an unmanageable burden on the other partner (generally women) to raise children single-handedly. Sweeping such serious issues under the carpet that affect every individual and family on a personal level by taking an evasive approach of ‘see no evil, hear no evil’ will only exacerbate the problem.

Individualists generally posit that an individual holds a central position in society; the way I see it, however, being human is inextricably interlinked to the institution of family. The only things that separates human beings from the rest of species is their innate potential to acquire knowledge, but knowledge alone is not sufficient for our collective survival due to excessive and manifest intra-special violence in the form of conflicts and wars. Unless we have social cohesion -- which comes from love, compassion and empathy -- we are likely to self-destruct as specie.

The aforementioned empathy and altruism, however, are imparted by the institution of family, within which spouses love each other and their children, and in turn, children love their parents and siblings. This familial love then transcends the immediate environs of family and encompasses the entire humanity.

Thus, without the institution of family, there will be no humanity, or individual, in the long run. In order to reap the fruit of love, one first needs to sow the seeds of love. One cannot expect to raise loving and caring human beings with authority and teaching alone, only the institution of family has this unique gift of teaching love by practicing love.

Although family life in the Eastern societies isn’t as perfect as some of us would like to believe, but they are traditional societies based on agriculture-era value systems. Industrialization and consequent urbanization is the order of the day. These rural societies will eventually evolve into their urban counterparts.

My primary concern, however, is that the modern paradigm that we have conjured up is far from perfect in which divorce rates are very high and generally mothers are left alone to fend for themselves and raise their children single-handedly; consequently, giving rise to a dysfunctional familial and social arrangement.

Paradoxically, some social scientists draw our attention to the supposed ‘unnaturalness’ of the institution of family and the practice of polygamy and polyamory etc. in primitive tribal societies, but if we take a cursory look at the history of mankind, there have been two distinct phases of cultural development: the pre-Renaissance social evolution and the post-Renaissance social evolution.

Most of our cultural, scientific and technological accomplishments are attributed to the latter phase that has only lasted for a few centuries, and the institution of family has played a pivotal role in the social advancement of that era. Empirically speaking, we must base our scientific assumptions on proven and verifiable evidence and not some cock and bull stories peddled by self-styled anthropologists.

Regarding the erosion of the institution of family, I am of the opinion that it has mainly been the fault of the mass entertainment media that has caused an unnatural obsession with glamor and consequent sexualization of modern societies.

Regardless, modern liberals generally are educated and pacifist people. They abhor violence in all its forms and manifestations; so much so that they are appalled by the mere thought of murder, even if it is justifiable and legally sanctioned execution such as capital punishment. Some of the more ‘tender-hearted’ sorts go even a step further and give up eating meat by becoming vegetarians, whether as a matter of moral principle or for reducing weight is anybody’s guess.

I find it curiously intriguing, however, when some ‘bleeding heart’ liberals blatantly violate their own sacrosanct tenets by endorsing the practice of feticide in the form of abortion. What moral high-ground do they have despite their revulsion at capital punishment and animal slaughter when they endorse the gruesome practice of killing unborn babies?

Finally, it would be unfair to lay the blame squarely on the Western culture. The reason why people shy away from getting married and raising children has partly been the doing of modern economics. Industrialization and capitalism have created an unnecessary burden on the lives of individuals and families in modern times. The agriculture era used to be a labor-intensive epoch. Back then, a household with large number of children used to be a boon because the manpower was utilized for cultivation and farming.

After the industrial revolution and consequent urbanization, however, most of the physical labor is being performed by machines. Thus, the cost of raising and educating children in the post-industrial societies outweighs their utility and benefits, that’s why many middle-income families keep the number of children to a bare minimum to avoid financial burden.

Moreover, it has also been the preferred state policy of many Third World countries with large populations and meager resources to restrict the number of children to a minimum in order to reduce the burden on their developing economies, such as the one-child policy of China and the two-child policy of India and Pakistan.

Gender Identity as a Social Construct

The distinction between male and female genders is based less on their physiological traits and more on their respective mindsets. These mindsets, in turn, are a product of social expectations of behavior in a cultural milieu. It is expected from male members of a society to behave in a supposedly manly fashion and it is similarly expected from female members to act in a purportedly feminine manner.

But this emphasis on binary distinction of genders in a rural-agrarian setting served a purpose: the division of functions between male and female members, where women were expected to do housekeeping and nurturing children, while it was expected from men to produce food for the family. Although this distinction is still maintained, to a lesser or greater extent, in urban and industrialized societies, but a distinction based on division of functions is a hypothetical imperative: as means to achieve certain ends and not an end in itself.

Moreover, it would be normative to contend that in primitive tribal societies, women had the same social status as men. The nomado-pastoral and agricultural eras were the age of hunting-gathering, farming and strenuous physical labor, and it is a known fact that women are physically a weaker sex, that’s why we have separate sports and athletics events for men and women.

Women attained the status of equality after the onset of industrial revolution and a shift to mechanized labor, when the focus shifted from physical labor to intelligence and information; and when it comes to cognitive faculties, women are just as intelligent as men, if not more so.

Notwithstanding, instead of taking a binary approach to classification of genders, modern feminists now favor to look at the issue from the prism of a whole spectrum of gender identities. The way I see it, it should not be about being manly; rather, it should be about being human, which is the common denominator for the whole spectrum of gender identities.

When we stress upon manliness, it’s not manliness per se that we are glorifying, but the presence of feminine attributes in the socially-elevated male gender is something that we, as agents of patriarchal structure, frown upon. But such machismo is not a natural order of things, because more than the physical attributes, the rigid segregation of genders is a product of social constructions that manifest themselves in artificial cognitive and behavioral engineering of male and female mindsets.

In our formative years, such watertight gender identities and their socially-accepted attributes are inculcated in our minds by assigning gender roles, but this whole hetero-normative approach to the issue of gender identity is losing its validity in a post-industrial urban milieu, where gender roles are not as strictly defined as they used to be in the medieval agricultural societies.

More to the point, what are the virtues that are deemed valuable in women separately from the ones that are deemed desirable in men? If meekness, diffidence and complacency are disapproved in men, then why do we have double standards for separate genders? Self-confidence, assertiveness and boldness should be equally encouraged in both genders without discrimination.

However, the dilemma that we face is that the mindsets of individuals and gender roles are determined by culture, but if the society itself is patriarchal and male-dominated, then it tends to marginalize and reduce women to a lower social status. Therefore, a social reform is needed which can redefine "virtue" and the qualities that are deemed valuable in human beings should be uniform and consistent for both genders.

Regardless, if we study the behavioral patterns in the animal kingdom, a tigress is as good a hunter as a tiger; in fact, the females of most species are generally more violent than their male counterparts; because they fight not only for food, but also to protect their offspring. But how often do we find a violent woman in human history and society?

Excluding a handful of femme fatales like Cleopatra, bold women are a rare exception in human history. Thus, even though by nature, women are just as assertive and violent as men, but the patriarchy-inspired nurture and male-dominated culture have tamed women to an extent that they have unlearnt even their innate nature.

Two conclusions can be drawn from this fact: first, that it’s always nurture and culture which play a more significant role in determining human behavior compared to some far-fetched concept of essential human nature; and second, that essentially human nature is quite similar for both genders, it’s only the behavioral process of social construction of gender identity that defines and limits the roles which are deemed proper for one gender or the other.

Additionally, regarding physiological distinction between male and female genders, evolutionary biologists are of the opinion that such differences only have a minor importance. Even if we take primary reproductive organs, for instance, clitoris is regarded as a rudimentary penis in females and nipples in males are regarded as rudimentary breasts, a fact which proves beyond doubt that specialization of male and female reproductive organs is merely a mechanism to keep genetic material unimpaired by preference for meiosis division over repetitive and harmful mitosis reproductive division.

Moreover, it is generally assumed about males that due to the presence of testosterone, they are usually more aggressive and competitive than females. If we assess this contention in the light of global versus local character traits theory, however, testosterone only promotes a specific kind of competition: that is, competition for mating. When it comes to competing for food, however, males and females of all species exhibit similar levels of aggression and competition.

Therefore, it would be reductive to assume that the distinction between male and female attitudes and behaviors is more physiological and hormonal than it is due to the difference of upbringing and separate sets of social expectations of behavior that are associated with the members of male and female sexes.

Finally, there is no denying the fact that testosterone is primarily responsible for secondary sexual characteristics in the males of all species. Through the process of natural selection, only those males that have succeeded in mating are able to carry forward their genes, which proves that males with higher testosterone levels do have a comparative advantage in competition for mating, but its effect on attitudes and behaviors of animal species, and particularly in human beings with their complex social institutions and cultures, is tentative and hypothetical, at best.

How Orientalism pitted Hindus against Muslims in India?

Jinnah and the Mountbattens.

The most outstanding feature of Islam is its history; if you study Islamic history, you would come to realize that Islam did not spread by force alone, it was the superior moral appeal of its peerless ethics that won the hearts and minds of medieval masses. For instance: Mongols conquered most of the eastern lands of the Islamic Empire during the thirteenth century, however, the Muslims of those lands did not convert to the religion of the conquerors: that is, the Mongolian Shamanism. Instead, the conquerors adopted the religion of the vanquished, i.e. Islam. Not only the Mongols, but several Turkish tribes also voluntarily converted to Islam. Such was the beauty of Islamic teachings and its sublime moral appeal in ancient times.

During the medieval times, when Europe was going through an age of intellectual and moral regression, Islamic culture thrived and flourished under the Abbasids, Ottomans and Mughals. Muslims ruled over India for more than six centuries; despite that, at the time of the independence of India and Pakistan in 1947, Hindus outnumbered Muslims three to one (there were only 100 million Muslims in the population of 400 million Indians in 1947). That’s how tolerant and inclusive Islamic culture was back then. By comparison, the Red Indians of America and the Aborigines of Australia were reduced to a tiny minority of those continents after the European invasions.

The Sultanate of Delhi and the Mughal Empire were regarded as benevolent rulers by ancient historians. But when India was conquered by the British Empire, their Orientalist historians deliberately propagated the myth of supposedly “savage and rapacious” rule of Muslims in India in order to sow the seeds of dissension between Muslims and Hindus. In the nineteenth century, the newly established British education system in India deliberately portrayed Muslim rulers of India as marauders, rapists and looters in order to malign them. By contrast, the British rule in India was portrayed in a positive light: that the British Empire built roads and railways and established schools, colleges and hospitals in India.

If we were to compare the British and Muslim rules in India, the Muslim rulers at least resided in India and shared their wealth and fortune with their subjects. The British rule, on the other hand, was a foreign rule; the affairs of the state were run by viceroys and governors on the behalf of the monarchs of England who resided thousands of miles away in London. A small number of European colonizers in India treated their subjects as untouchables; they traded raw materials for pennies and sent finished goods back to the Indian market with huge profits, thus enriching themselves and the British Empire.

Up until 1857, the Hindus and Muslims of India were united enough to rise up in arms together against the British colonizers under the nominal command of the last Mughal emperor, Bahadur Shah Zafar. But after that, the British education system introduced by Lord Macaulay in India entrenched communal divisions and made it virtually impossible for Hindus and Muslims to understand each other, even though both religious communities were the victims of exploitation of foreign rule.

Regarding the notion peddled by the Orientalist historians that Muslims or Islam were somehow foreign to India, we need to settle on the definition of nativity first. If an Indian settles in the US, for instance, how would you define such a first generation immigrant? Since he was brought up in India and subsequently migrated to a Western country, therefore such a first generation Indian-American would have more in common with Indians than Americans, as such. But how would you identify the children of an immigrant who have been brought up and educated in the West? The second generation Indian-Americans, for all practical purposes, would be more American than Indian in their outlooks.

Similarly, although I concede that the invading armies of Muslim rulers from Central Asia, Afghanistan and Iran were foreign to India; but once they settled in India, made Delhi their seat of governance, intermarried and gave birth to Indian children, then how come the descendants of such benevolent rulers be labeled as foreign invaders? Excluding a few odd adventurers, like Mahmud of Ghazni, who had his seat of government in Afghanistan but plundered the wealth of India by conducting raids on Somnath, the Muslim rulers of India, particularly the Sultanate of Delhi and the Mughal Empire, were as much native to India as the Hindu and Sikh rajas and maharajas.

Notwithstanding, the only true sociological definition of nation is ethno-linguistic group. The concept of modern nation state, particularly in multiethnic federations like India and Pakistan, is an artificial construct which is predicated on nothing substantive but on myths, fables and symbols. Rather than monolithic communities, the Hindus and Muslims of India were more parochial and tribal in character.

The astute Orientalist historians of British India debunked the myth of six centuries’ old Muslim rule in India by calling them “marauders” and substituted it with the fables of the pre-Christ Maurya Empire in order to forge and reify Hindu identity against Muslims. The primary concern of impoverished Indian masses was to earn bread and butter for their families. The metanarratives of Hindu and Muslim nationalism were taught by the British rulers, Hindu elites and Muslim ashrafiya to their subjects in order to distract and exploit them.

Here, let me clarify that I am not giving a free pass to the Muslim rulers of India. Their rule must have been as tyrannical as any other undemocratic, elitist rule throughout the history has been. I am only contending that the Muslim rulers were deliberately singled out and vilified in order to sow the seeds of dissension between the two communities.

After all, if the British rulers who resided in England and ruled over India can be hailed as saviors who built roads and railways and established schools, colleges and hospitals, not by academics but by common Indian citizens, then why can’t the Sultanate of Delhi and the Mughal Empire that ensured peace and stability in India and built architectural wonders in Delhi, Lahore and Agra be granted a similar level of deference?

By the British divide-and-rule policy in the Indian context, it is generally assumed by Indian historians that the British rulers used the Muslim minority against the Hindu majority by giving the former preferential treatment, separate electorates etc. but the fact is often overlooked that the British imperialists in equal measure used the Hindus against the Muslims by vilifying the latter’s culture, rule and religion.

Moreover, the partition of Bengal on religious lines in 1905 was another classic instance of the British divide-and-rule policy through demographic change. In this case, the British imperialists cleverly partitioned the Hindu-majority Bengal province into the Muslim-majority East Bengal and the Hindu-majority West Bengal. As a consequence, the Hindus felt aggrieved and launched a mass movement against the partition; the Raj obliged the Hindus by accepting their demand of reunifying Bengal in 1911 which created a sense of alienation and deprivation among Muslims.

This time around, however, despite unifying the province along linguistic lines, at the same time the British rulers split up Bihar and Orissa province to the west and Assam province to the east; thus, reducing the initial Hindu majority (pre-1905) that included Bihar, Orissa and Assam, in favor of Muslim majority (post-1911) in the reunified Bengal. Additionally, the British rulers also devised separate electorates for Muslims in 1909; thus, pitting one community against the other which had lived peacefully for centuries before the arrival of British in India.

Finally, rather than cultivating inclusive Indian nationalism that would glorify Hindu, Muslim and Sikh identities and histories in equal measure, the British rulers maliciously nurtured exclusionary Hindu and Muslim nationalism in order to divide the communities and prolong the British rule. As several contemporary Indian historians have contended that Muslim nationalism in India was a reaction to exclusionary Hindu nationalism.

The political leadership of India was the product of British education system that forged artificial identities and entrenched communal divisions, therefore it was not possible for them to rise above their communal prejudices and work for the betterment of all Indians as a nation. This self-serving, divide-and-rule policy by the British rulers and their Hindu, Muslim and Sikh collaborators eventually led to a carnage and mass exodus of people on the eve of independence the likes of which history has seldom witnessed.

Factors Responsible for the Erosion of the Institution of Family

Benazir Bhutto, Hillary Clinton and their children.

In the light of my limited online experience with the Western culture I have come to realize that a fully functional family is hard to find in the Western societies; they are more of an exception than norm. Most Western women with whom I have interacted are generally divorced, single moms who are raising their kids all by themselves; while the men folks either don’t get married at all, or even if they do get married under some momentary impulse or infatuation, they tend to leave their wives and kids behind them and either run away with their newfound girlfriends or they are otherwise non-committal in their relationships.

Unlike the Eastern societies which are family-centric, the Western societies are mostly individual-centric. Reductive individualism and runaway hedonism is all fine but this unnatural state of affairs cannot last for long; the birth rates all over the Western world are dwindling and in some countries the population growth rate is negative. Only thing sustaining their population growth rate is not their natural birth rates but the immigration of skilled work force from the East to the West.

The institution of a fully functional family is the cornerstone of a healthy society and if the social environment is not conducive for the development of such a pivotal institution then there is something seriously wrong with our social axioms. Although I reckon myself as a social scientist but the specialty of family and relationships is certainly not my cup of tea, therefore, I will leave this issue as an open question that needs to be mulled over. Denying the climate change and global warming, however, will lead us nowhere.

Regarding the civil unions and domestic partnerships whether or not they are arranged under the title of “marriage,” that’s just the difference of semantics, not the substance. My contention relates to the longevity of such relationships and the reciprocal duties of the partners. A marriage is a civil contract meant for the purpose of raising children and family; if one of the partners leaves the other midstream, it creates an unmanageable burden on the other partner to raise the children single-handedly. Sweeping such serious issues under the rug that affects every individual and family on a personal level by taking an evasive approach of “see no evil, hear no evil” will further exacerbate the problem.

Notwithstanding, individualists generally believe that an individual holds a central position in the society; the way I see it, however, being “human” is inextricably interlinked with the institution of family. Only things that separates humans from rest of the animals is their innate potential to acquire knowledge, but knowledge alone is not sufficient for our collective survival due to excessive and manifest intra-special violence; unless we have social cohesion which comes through love, compassion and empathy, we are likely to self-destruct as a specie.

That empathy and altruism, however, is imparted by the institution of family; within which spouses love each other and their children and in return children love their parents and siblings. That familial love then transcends the immediate environs of the family and encompasses the entire humanity, thus, without the institution of family there is going to be no humanity or individual in the long run.

Although the family life in the Eastern societies isn’t as perfect as some of us would like to believe, but those are traditional societies based on agriculture era value systems; industrialization and consequent urbanization is the order of the day, those rural societies will eventually evolve into their urban counterparts. My primary concern is that the utopian paradigm that we have conjured up is far from perfect in which the divorce rates are very high and generally mothers are left alone to fend for themselves and raise their children single-handedly, and consequently giving birth to a dysfunctional familial and social arrangement.

Moreover, some social scientists draw our attention to the supposed “unnaturalness” of the institution of family and polyamory et al in the primitive societies but if we take a cursory look at the history of mankind, there are two distinct phases: the pre-Renaissance social evolution and the post-Renaissance cultural evolution. Most of our cultural, scientific and technological accomplishments are attributed to the latter phase that has only lasted for a few centuries, and the institution of family has played a pivotal role in the social advancement of this era. Empirically speaking, we must base our scientific assumptions on the proven and visible evidence and not some cock and bull Amazonian stories.

Regarding the erosion of the institution of family, I am of the opinion that it is primarily the fault of mass entertainment media (like Hollywood) that has caused an unnatural obsession with glamor and the consequent sexualization of the modern societies. However, I have not studied the anthropological and sociological evolution of the institution of family in any detail; my area of interest has been in the role played by the institution of family on the nurture of the individuals, and in that regard techno-scientific progress alone cannot ensure the survival and well-being of individuals in the long run; unless we are able to rear individuals who, along with intelligence and knowledge, also possess love, compassion and empathy; and such sentiments cannot be taught in schools and colleges, which makes family an indispensable social institution necessary for our collective survival and progress.

Immigration and Normative Science

Imran Khan, Jemima Goldsmith and Diana.

There are two contrasting styles of debating an issue: those who prefer the normative arguments, and those who choose the descriptive arguments. Most pop intellectuals nowadays adopt the former approach, but the truth unfortunately is generally bitter.

Let me admit at the outset that I do understand that race relations are a sensitive issue in the Western countries; especially when millions of skilled and unskilled immigrants from the Third World countries flock to the economically prosperous developed countries every year to find a better future for themselves and their families.

However, instead of bending over backwards and demanding from the natives of their host countries to be more accommodating and totally non-communal, the immigrants need to understand that migration is not the natural order of societies.

In order to elaborate this paradox by way of an analogy, when we uproot a flowering plant from a garden and try to make it grow in a different environment, sometimes it works but sometimes it doesn’t; depending on the adaptability of the plant and the compatibility of the environment. If you want to change the whole environment to suit the needs of that particular uprooted plant, such an unrealistic approach may not be conducive for the native flora and fauna of those habitats.

The right way to tackle the migration problem is to discourage it by reducing the incentive for the prospective immigrants to permanently abandon their homes, families and communities to find a better job in a foreign country and a radically different culture, where they would be materially better off but socially isolated and desolate.

Therefore, in order to minimize the incentive for immigration, we need to revamp the global economic order which makes the rich nations get richer and the poor poorer. Once the relative imbalance of wealth distribution between the developed and the developing world is narrowed down then there will be no need for the people of one region and culture to relocate to another, except on a temporary basis for education, traveling and cultural exchange.

Notwithstanding, throughout our anthropological evolution, from our nomado-pastoral, hunting-gathering phase to the golden era of agriculture, the humans never lived as individuals, but as social groups, clans and tribes. The ‘individual’ is only an artificial modern construct that has been conceived to suit the needs of the industrial economies.

Individuals must have intellectual autonomy and freedom of investigation and information for obvious reasons, but individualism as an ideology with complete disregard for our innate social nature only nurtures lost souls who sometimes find solace in existential acrobatics and sometimes in drug addictions.

More to the point, there is an obvious difference between a Chinese and an American: a Chinese speaks Mandarin while an American speaks English; they don’t understand each other, because they can hardly communicate with each other due to the difference of language.

Now if the difference among people on the basis of language is duly accepted and appreciated with the naked eye, then we should try to understand that under the sociological microscope the cultural ethos and social values of two or more radically different cultures don’t always blend seamlessly.

Humanism only implies that we should be just and fair in our approach: that is, we should try to understand that foreign people and cultures also have their legitimate material, moral and social needs and aspirations; instead of imposing our Orientalist ‘vision’ on them, we should let them choose and facilitate and expedite their choice and vision.

The human mindsets, attitudes and behaviors are structured and conditioned by their respective cultures and environments. A person born and bred in Pakistan or India generally has more in common with the people of the subcontinent.

For instance: when the first generation of Indo-Pakistani immigrants relocate to the foreign countries, they find it hard to adjust in a radically different culture initially. It would be unwise to generalize, however, because it depends on the disposition and inclination of the immigrants, their level of education and the value-system which they have internalized during their formative years.

There are many sub-cultures within cultures and numerous family cultures within those sub-cultures. The educated Indo-Pakistani liberals generally integrate well into the Western countries; but many conservative Pakistani and Indian immigrants, especially from the backward and rural areas, find it hard to adjust in a radically different Western culture. On the other hand, such immigrants from the underprivileged backgrounds find the conservative societies of the Gulf countries more conducive for their individual and familial integration and well-being.

In any case, the second generation of immigrants, who are born and bred in the Western culture, seamlessly blend into their host environments; and they are likely to have more in common with the people and cultures where they have been brought up. Thus, a first generation Pakistani-American is predominantly a Pakistani, while a second generation Pakistani-American is predominantly an American, albeit with an exotic-sounding name and a naturally tanned complexion.

Notwithstanding, the rise of Trump in America, the Brexit in UK, the anti-immigration protests in Germany and the ‘Burkini’ ban in France (which was subsequently overruled) is the manifestation of the underlying sentiment against the policymakers’ normative approach towards the issue of immigration, which generally harms the interests of the working classes of the developed countries.

Therefore, instead of offering band aid solutions, we need to revise the prevailing global economic order; and formulate prudent and far-reaching economic and trade policies that can reduce the imbalance of wealth distribution between the developed and the developing nations; hence, reducing the incentive for the immigrants to seek employment in the developed countries.

Finally, let me confess that I am somewhat insensitive to the issues of racism and discriminatory attitude that the immigrants suffer at the hands of the white supremacists. Actually I am someone who is acutely aware of the reality of the Third World: that is, laborers pulling carts like animals; construction workers doing backbreaking work under the scorching sun; the children of the Afghan refugees working as scavengers in the streets of Pakistan; and all in all a subhuman condition in which the majority of the Third World’s population has been condemned to labor.

Moreover, it’s a fact that we, as individuals, don’t like to revamp our deeply entrenched narratives even when such narratives have conclusively been proven erroneous, because our minds are incapable of radically transforming themselves, especially after a certain age. Despite being a mystery of gigantic proportions, the human mind still has its limits, especially the minds of grownups are highly cluttered.

The reality is always too complex to be accurately conceived by the mind. Our narrative is only a mental snapshot of the physical reality that we have formulated to the best of our humble abilities. But since our minds are quite overloaded, therefore, we generally tend to adopt linear narratives; and try to overlook the deviations and contradictory evidence as mere anomalies (selective perception and confirmation bias.)

Additionally, our minds also adopt mental shortcuts, or heuristics, to ease the cognitive load while making a decision. To instantiate this concept, Pakistan has numerous problems: like, poverty, social injustice, religious intolerance and patriarchy, to name a few. My individual narrative, however, has mostly been predicated on the social justice aspect; but I do acknowledge and appreciate the tireless efforts of the dedicated social activists who are doing commendable work in other areas too.

Gender Identity in the Light of Evolutionary Biology

Benazir Bhutto and Asif Zardari.

The distinction between genders: masculine and feminine, is more of a social construct than it is an immutable physical division. A tigress is as good a hunter as a tiger. But the complexity of human existence is very different from all other species. We, as social beings, have developed advanced social institutions and culture.

The distinction between males and females is based less on their physiological traits and more on their respective mindsets. And these mindsets, in turn, are an outcome of social expectations of behavior in a cultural milieu. It is expected from the male members of a society to behave in a manly fashion; and similarly it is also expected from the female members of a society to act in a supposedly feminine manner.

But the emphasis on this binary distinction in a rural-agrarian society served a purpose: the division of functions between the male and female members; where the females were expected to do housekeeping and nurture the offspring. This distinction is still maintained, to a lesser or greater extent in an urban and industrialized society. But a distinction based on the division of functions is a hypothetical imperative: as means to achieve certain ends and not an end in itself.

Moreover, it is erroneous to assume that before the onset of monotheistic civilizations, women were somehow equivalent to men. That was an age of hunting-gathering, agriculture and strenuous physical labor and it is a known fact that women are physically a weaker sex, that’s why we have separate sports and athletics events for men and women.

Women attained the status of equality after the onset of industrial revolution, mechanized labor and then the beginning of “The Information Age,” when the focus shifted from physical labor to intelligence and information; and when it comes to cognitive faculties, women are just as intelligent as men, if not more so. Thus, blaming organized religions for sexism and misogyny in the medieval times is a bit unfair; the subjugation of women in that era had more to do with divisions of functions based on economics than religious beliefs, as such.

Regarding matriarchy, I believe, that it was a fringe phenomena; though, matri-lineage might have been a norm in some primitive societies but matriarchy -- the rule of the women -- was only an exception in the age of physical labor for the abovementioned reasons.

Additionally, while I agree with the feminist view that in egalitarian societies the role of women is just as important as men’s, if not more so, considering that they perform the pivotal job of raising children and families; however, I generally shun taking a normative approach towards scientific facts, because the treatment of disorder depends on the correct diagnosis of the problem. Romanticizing the past and singling out pieces of uncorroborated evidence that conforms to our preconceived biases will serve no other purpose than self-deception.

In the primitive tribal societies women, as a weaker sex, were treated as slaves and personal chattels. The organized religions gave them rights and the status of mothers, wives, sisters and daughters. The modern feminism dates back only to the First World War when most of the male labor force in Europe either perished or became incapacitated for labor; it was only then that the force of circumstances necessitated the “liberation” of women and they began performing duties which were previously the sole prerogative of men.

Moreover, retrospectively applying modern standards to the millennia old social systems is very unfair; in their time the organized religions contributed to elevating the status of women. In modern times a rethink is definitely needed to bring about parity in the status of men and women but we must not underestimate the role played by the organized religions for the empowerment of women in the ancient times.

Notwithstanding, instead of taking a binary approach to the classification of genders, the modern feminists now favor to look at the issue from the lens of a whole spectrum of gender identities. The way I see it, it should not be about being “manly,” rather, it should be about being “human,” which is the common denominator for the whole spectrum of gender identities.

When we stress upon manliness, it’s not “manliness” per se that we are glorifying, but the presence of feminine attributes in the socially-elevated male gender is something that we, as the agents of patriarchal structure, frown upon. But such machismo is not a natural order of things, because more than the physical attributes the rigid segregation of genders is an outcome of social constructions that manifests itself in the artificial social engineering of the male and female mindsets.

In our formative years such gender identities and their socially-accepted attributes are infused in our minds through the technique of gender “Othering,” but this whole heteronormative approach towards the issue of gender identities is losing its validity in a post-industrial urban milieu, where the gender roles are not as strictly defined as they used to be in the pre-modern traditional societies.

More to the point, what are the virtues that are deemed valuable in women separate and distinct from the ones that are deemed desirable in men? If meekness, diffidence and complacency are disapproved in men then why do we have double-standards for separate genders? Self-confidence, assertiveness and boldness should be encouraged in both genders without discrimination.

However, the trouble is that the mindsets of the individuals and gender-roles are determined by the society, but if the society itself is patriarchal and male-dominated then it tends to marginalize and reduce women to a lower status. Therefore, a social reform is needed which can tweak with the definition of "virtue" and the qualities which are deemed valuable in human beings should be uniform and consistent for both genders.

Regardless, if we study the behavioral patterns in the animal kingdom, the females of most species are generally more violent than their male counterparts; because they fight not only for food but also to protect their offspring. But how often do we find a violent woman in the human history, or society? It’s a very rare exception. Thus, by nature women are just as violent as men; but the patriarchy-inspired nurture and the male-dominated culture have reduced them to an extent that they have even unlearnt their essential nature.

Two conclusions can be drawn from this fact: firstly, that it’s always the nurture and culture which plays a more significant role in determining human behavior compared to some far-fetched concept of essential human nature; and secondly, that essentially human nature is quite similar for both genders, it’s only the behavioral process of social construction of gender identity that defines and limits the roles which are deemed proper for one gender or the other.

Additionally, it is generally assumed about males that due to the presence of testosterone they are usually more aggressive and competitive compared to females. If we assess this contention in the light of global vs. local character traits theory, however, testosterone only promotes a specific kind of competition, i.e. competition for mating. When it comes to competing for food, however, as I have mentioned before, that males and females of all the carnivorous species exhibit similar levels of aggression and competition.

Therefore, it would be reductive to assume that the distinction between male and female attitudes and behaviors is more physiological and hormonal than due to the difference of upbringing and different sets of social expectations of behavior that are associated with the members of male and female sexes.

Finally, there is no denying of the obvious fact that testosterone is primarily responsible for secondary sexual characteristics in the males of all species. Through the process of natural selection only those males that have succeeded in mating were able to carry forward their genes, which proves beyond doubt that males with higher testosterone levels do have a comparative advantage in the competition for mating, but its effect on attitudes and behaviors of animal species, and especially the human beings with their complex social institutions and cultures, is tentative and hypothetical, at best.

Postmodernism: A Realm Beyond Renaissance Humanism

Hillary Clinton and Benazir Bhutto.

There is a marked difference between scientism, or the scientific worldview, which is an ideology and the empirically-proven science. Karl Popper addressed the demarcation problem between a scientific worldview and science proper (empirical and verifiable science.) When it comes to verifiability, I agree, that Popperian falsifiability inadequately addresses the problem, but that doesn’t means that every unscientific hypothesis should be given the credibility which has been reserved only for science proper.

Take biological evolution for instance: natural selection is a scientific fact; it can be said about speciation that it is a logical extension of natural selection; but how can we designate ‘primordial hot soup theory’ regarding the origins of life as science? There are obvious shortcomings in the scientific worldview (ideology), and instead of humbly accepting those shortcomings the hegemonic scientism wants to muzzle all dissenting voices.

I won’t get into the whole Big Bang science fiction because humans haven’t yet set foot out of the solar system, not even on Alpha Centauri which is our nearest star, and we are pontificating about the origins of the universe. What is dark matter and dark energy which comprises over 95% of the total mass of the universe? What are quarks made up of, packets of energy or photons maybe? From the infinite to the infinitesimal, we don’t have a slightest clue that how does nature works. Just by reverse engineering some of the wonders of nature, we like to think that science has reached the zenith of knowledge.

Let’s get to the easier questions of biology instead: the scientists biggest achievement so far have been the formation of organic matter from inorganic matter (urea.) The difference between organic and inorganic compounds is inconsequential; the real challenge for science is to address the difference between organic matter and the formation of first protein (amino acid), DNA and more importantly a living organism (a cell) with all of its myriads of structural and physiological wonders.

Notwithstanding, how does science explains human consciousness? So far, the scientists have not been able to overcome the astounding mind-brain dichotomy, which has created an unbridgeable gulf between cognitive science and neurological science. Neurology is a part of medical science while psychology is an indefinable sphinx between biological and social sciences. The mind does the thinking while the brain gets infected by Alzheimer’s and Parkinsonism: that is, the syllabus of neurology as a branch of medical science.

Teaching biological evolution in the public schools, without teaching the valid criticism on the theory of evolution and its corollary, the scientism, is like brain-washing the children: “Teach a child a religion and you indoctrinate him, teach him many and you inoculate him.”

Coming back to the topic, postmodernism is a belief in the subjectivity of existence; a post-human condition; and a context-based empirical, as opposed to ideological, approach to the social and moral issues.

All the latest moral theories like virtue ethics emphasize the importance of affect/emotion over reason. It is unfortunate that liberalism derives its moral inspiration exclusively from rationalism. Utilitarian maxima for instance: the greatest happiness for the greatest numbers. But it reductively defines ‘happiness’ in simplistic pleasure-pain equations.

Virtue ethics posits that morality is based neither on consequentialism nor on any deontological principle. More than the consequences of an action, it concerns itself with how that action reflects on the ‘moral character’ of the individual?

Human beings are moral beings, which means that they have a hard-wired sense of justice. I won’t get into the nature-nurture debate. By nature human beings are merely tabula rasa. It’s our nurture and culture which makes us moral. And the most important social institution which infuses morality into an individual is the institution of family.

Like I have said earlier, morality is based less on reason and more on affect/emotion. Reason falls well short, the best it can come up with is: reciprocal altruism, which by definition isn’t ‘altruism’ at all, since altruism implies self-sacrifice and without it, it is merely selfish reciprocity. Hence the importance of affect/emotion.

All morality is based on love, compassion and empathy. And what is the fountainhead of love? It is the institution of family which infuses love in its members: love between parents and children and siblings; and this love then transcends the immediate family and encompasses the entire mankind.

Liberals aren’t immoral people per se, but the reductive rationalist-materialist approach which they take towards morality is highly fallacious. And the erosion of the institution of the family and its values is one such example.

Liberalism, as an ideology, was an outcome of industrialization and the consequent urbanization. Conservative values are closer to the agricultural era values of a rural-agrarian milieu. Both conservative and liberal values have their pros and cons, but separately neither of them offers us a comprehensive system of morality. Therefore post-modernism strives to blend both traditional and liberal values to weave a new moral fabric which can address all of human needs and aspirations.

Notwithstanding, until we put the theory to the test of practical life, we cannot be certain of its practicality; and I believe that this defect has primarily been the undoing of liberalism, because its values are more theoretical than practical, as such. Regarding the blending of modern and traditional values, however, we do not have to invent anything new, we only need to integrate the older time-tested elements into the new model of morality.

Since the Renaissance Humanism onwards, we have taken an essentialist approach towards these issues: that all traditional values are bad and all modern values are good; a rationalistic hegemony which derives everything from deduction and rarely from induction and observation.

There are two kinds of traditionalisms: unconscious traditionalism and deliberate traditionalism. Deliberate traditions were a set of values which were devised during the agricultural phase of social evolution for the wellbeing of the individual and for the social cohesion of the group. While unconscious traditions were certain beliefs and superstitions which developed spontaneously without any conscious design and they were more harmful than beneficial, as such.

A better socio-moral model should retain the time-tested and empirically-proven deliberate traditions and eliminate the harmful traditions. Obviously preferences change over time in the light of new discoveries; some of the deliberate traditions may also not meet the requirements of the modern times. But while devising a new model, it should be kept in mind that an empirically-proven fact must always take precedence over any theoretically-derived reform: the onus lies on the reformer to prove beyond doubt that the suggested reform is an improvement on the original tradition as it is.

Regardless, it is also a fact that most social/moral values are basically ‘survival instincts’ but here we must keep in mind that they are the survival instincts of social groups, not individuals. Human beings are by nature social beings. Throughout our history we lived in social groups. During our nomado-pastoral phase, we survived not because of our physical superiority over all other species, but because of our intelligence and social cohesion. We were pack-hunters who were far more innovative than any other known specie, which gave us a comparative advantage in the race for survival.

All I am trying to say is that an individual is important but he is only secondary to the group, and ‘collective survival instincts’ which includes empathy and altruism for the fellow beings, must be an integral part of the comprehensive new system of morality.

Here let me clarify that I  am not against individual autonomy; it’s only when the individual self-interest collides with the collective interest that we face a dilemma. In such a scenario, in my opinion, collective interest must prevail over individual interest. But how does ‘collective interest’ is interpreted entails different approaches. A democratic collective interest, that reflects the aspirations of the masses, is essentially different from how it is interpreted in the autocracies. Supposed “collectivism” under autocracies have made it such a slur that people now shy away from using the term in their discourse.

In the light of my limited online experience with the Western culture I have come to realize that a fully functional family is hard to find in the Western societies; they are more of an exception than norm. Most Western women with whom I have interacted are generally divorced, single mothers who are raising their children all by themselves; while the men folks either don’t get married at all, or even if they do get married under some momentary impulse or infatuation, they tend to leave their wives and kids behind them and either run away with their newfound girlfriends or they are otherwise non-committal in their relationships.

Unlike the Eastern societies which are family-centric the Western societies are mostly individual-centric. Reductive individualism and berserk hedonism is all fine but this unnatural state of affairs cannot last for long; the birth rates all over the Western world are dwindling and in some countries the population growth rate is negative. Only thing that is sustaining their population growth rate is not their natural birth rates, but the immigration of skilled work force from the traditional Eastern societies to the modern Western countries.

The institution of a fully functional family is the cornerstone of a healthy society and if the social environment is not conducive to the development of that fundamental institution, then there is something seriously wrong with our social axioms.

Regarding the civil unions and domestic partnerships, whether or not they are arranged under the title of “marriage,” that’s just the difference of semantics, not the substance. My contention relates to the longevity of such relationships and the reciprocal rights and duties of the conjugal partners. A marriage is a civil contract meant for the purpose of raising children and family; if one of the partners leaves the other midstream, it creates an unmanageable burden on the other partner to raise the children single-handedly.

Although, I don’t have statistics but my assumption is that in the Eastern societies the divorce rates are less than 10% while in the supposedly advanced Western societies they are well in excess of 50%. Sweeping such serious issues under the rug, that affect every individual and family on a personal level, by taking an evasive approach of “see no evil, hear no evil” will further exacerbate the problem.

Notwithstanding, individualists generally believe that an individual holds a central position in the society; the way I see it, however, being “human” is inextricably interlinked with the institution of family. Only things that separates humans from the rest of the animals is their innate potential to acquire knowledge, but knowledge alone is not sufficient for our collective survival due to excessive and manifest intra-special violence; unless we have social cohesion which comes through love, compassion and empathy, we are likely to self-destruct as a specie.

The aforementioned empathy and altruism, however, is imparted by the institution of family within which spouses love each other and their children, and in return children love their parents and siblings. That familial love then transcends the immediate environs of the family and encompasses the entire humanity, thus, without the institution of family there is going to be no humanity, or individual, in the long run.

Although, the family life in the Eastern societies isn’t as perfect as some of us would like to believe, but those are traditional societies that are based on agriculture era value systems; industrialization and consequent urbanization is the order of the day, those rural societies will eventually evolve into their urban counterparts. My primary concern is that the utopian paradigm that we have conjured up is far from perfect in which the divorce rates are very high and generally mothers are left alone to fend for themselves and raise their children giving rise to a dysfunctional familial and social arrangement.

Additionally, some social scientists draw our attention to the supposed “unnaturalness” of the institution of family and polyamory etc. in the primitive societies, but if we take a cursory look at the history of mankind there are two distinct phases of cultural development: the pre-Renaissance social evolution and the post-Renaissance cultural evolution.

Most of our cultural, scientific and technological accomplishments are attributed to the latter phase that has only lasted for a few centuries, and the institution of family has played a pivotal role in the social advancement of that era. Empirically speaking, we must base our scientific assumptions on the proven and visible evidence and not some cock and bull Amazonian fairy tales.

Regarding the erosion of the institution of family, I am of the opinion, that it is primarily the fault of the mass entertainment media that has caused an unnatural obsession with glamor and the consequent sexualization of the modern societies.

To sum it up, techno-scientific progress alone cannot ensure the survival and well-being of individuals in the long run; unless we are able to rear individuals who, along with intelligence and knowledge, also possess love, compassion and empathy; and such sentiments cannot be taught in schools and academies, which makes family an indispensable social institution which is necessary for our collective survival and progress.