Detecting Demagogy And Recognizing Conmen
6. DETECTING DEMAGOGY AND RECOGNIZING CONMEN
Conmen employ demagogy to derail our thinking and hijack it for their own ends. A conman is a person benefiting from an over-developed speech in his brain while suffering from an under-developed conscience. He is the non-violent version of an intelligent psychopath. Unlike his physically violent cousin the conman hurts mentally terribly in the end by misleading sweetly before. From seducers of chaste women to smooth swindlers to demagogue politicians conmen come in all shapes and forms and may look like anything from a slovenly rough sleeper to an impressively well-dressed and presented international financier to a prospective great prime minister.
We must suspect demagogy when
The suspect is too well-spoken and seems to read our mind and address our most secret yearnings and desires- mind you, this is often not because he is reading our mind but because he has some trade secrets (together with fortune tellers and stage magicians) regarding how most people’s minds tick and what most regret or yearn after. I was once consulted a seaside fortune teller, a man calling himself an expert- that was just for my research purposes. Seeing me a middle- aged man he gave me the good news that soon I was going to have a new girl friend and other similar non-sense supposed to fit a declining man clinging to youthful dreams. The fortune-teller was speaking so smoothly and persuasively.
His promises look to good to be true yet his presentation of them seem to be so simply clear and persuasive.
He frequently elicits our self-revealing responses and commiserates and promises accordingly
He sometimes resort to psychological tricks like not wanting to take up our case or money or not expecting us too trust him too soon or too fully etc., which pretensions to reluctance provokes the naïve to take a sympathetic view of the liar and perhaps apologetically stress that he finds him a nice honest fellow
Among all telltale signs of demagogy and con is talking too much too smoothly often coupled with not looking one directly in the eye. It is as if the chap is rehearsing his usual lines like an actor irrespective of whether an audience is present or not
As for the political demagogue proper he is a man of irrepressible and unstoppable speech power who criticizes everybody else in politics in unforgiving terms and promises to his audience all things under the sun including what he had only just decried in a rival. Because his speech is so smooth and hypnotic that most listeners fail to notice the self-contradiction but keep lapping up what he keeps pouring out.
We therefore need to identify possible conmen of which demagogues are a kind and avoid their capturing our minds and hijacking our thinking for their own ends.
Rule Six of Correct Thinking is making sure that our thinking is not swayed and hijacked by smooth-talking pretenders to solving all our problemn s if we give them the chance and perhaps also the obedience they say they need from us. Nobody can solve every problem of everybody else and no promises made which look to good to be true deserve a second look but only signal danger.
Political and religious rubble raisers are everywhere and the sure sign that they are conmen is that mostly immature and lost souls are attracted to them whom they then indoctrinate with extremist ideas and direct to desperate actions with little chance of success as defined and promised. In the political case the promise can be as great as the conquest of the world and in the religious as great as ruling the universe and commanding non-existent things into being.
All are too good to be true
7. BE CAREFUL ABOUT MYTHS
Manufacturing and peddling myths has always been part and parcel of controlling the minds of others- whether for better or worse.
We need myths and nothing else will do if we want to make people appreciate certain moral necessities. What is more myths need not be other-worldly to be effective. Racism, nationalism, father- or mother-landism, the working class (proletariat) or feminism… all social and political ideologies manufacture myths which deify their symbols and aims and demonize their rivals or opponents. Marxism, that supposedly the most anti-spiritual pro-material of ideologies not only based its claims on a Genesis story of its own- that all societies began as loving communistic but were corrupted and enslaved by grabbing parasitical persons who appropriated the means of production and exploited the rest of the community leaving them with starvation ratios for existence, but promises the eternal paradise of a utopian communist society in which even a state will not be necessary; and a hell into which all parasitical classes shall be consigned for extermination. In Maoist China schoolchildren were taught that their Great Helmsman (Mao) was watching and seeing them all the time and everywhere and they better behave themselves. Schoolbooks contined stories like children trapped in a burning dormitory embraced the flames and death by keeping Mao’s red little book to their bosoms and singing his praises in the face of flames. Such anachronisms are survival of the ages in which kings were deified and was supposed to watch and deal with their subjects in absentia both when alive or after death. No doubts these have been attempts to create a structured conscience in people so that they obey the rules and laws their political leaders lay down for them in order to control them.
Religions, Islam included also resort to myths for the same purpose. In the case of Islams we believe the myths (mutashabihat) to be accurate and proper symbolization of spiritual realities and necessities simply because Islam’s dogmas and commandments compare very favourably with the conclusions rational, objective and conscientious thinking. That there is Allah and He is One cannot be bettered in representing the intelligence, order and unity all existence jointly display and that Allah is loving and kind as well as just agrees only too well with the overall contented and pleasurable lives most animals lead most of the time. Bad experiences are both exceptions and servers of contrast and improvers of appreciation of the pleasurable majority. For example hunger increases manifold the satisfaction from a meal that follows it while too long a hunger is saved by eventual loss of appetite and diminishing of suffering and death. Animals are endowed by extraordinary degrees of Stoic resignation while men can control and diminish his suffering by moral and spiritual consolations which may turn into triumphant and blissful witness of the Divine. Because nobody has a guarantee of plain sailing all his life it is very advisable that religious faith is cultivated in all to any level each is capable of.
Similarly Islam’s commandments agree only too well with health, hygiene, social responsibility and high morality and sociability in general. In Islam people are not hurt for arcane reasons (like burning the widows of a dead husband together with him so as to transmit all to heaven or avoiding a life-saving blood transfusion for religious reasons and suffering a child die a perfectly avoidable death. Nor does Islam regards a single anointing of a man as enough and life-long purity and forbid taking a bath for life lest the holy oil is washed away. It cannot tolerate a man smelling like a cesspit, skin disintegrating with decomposing filth and hair matted with dirt and nails adjusting their own lengths by breaking and crumbling ur inches away from their roots. All such silly and unhealthy things afflicted many religions and ordinary believers have been routinely abused and imposed upon by priesthood- which Islam has been the first and last religion to abolish.
We must not also confuse religious myths with lies. Myths like Islam’s are ‘true myths’ which means valid symbolic or metaphoric representations of moral and spiritual realities and necessities informing civilized human life. Yes, Allah is but as He knows Himself no human being can know Him. He therefore inspires His prophets to describe Him in terms we can understand- in terms of power, in terms of intelligence, in terms of mercy and justice etc.. all of which we know and appreciate most. The same with paradise. The idea is based on infallible reward for doers of good. But how this assured reward will be given us, only symbols and metaphors help. When we mature up spiritually as we should we gradually come to glimpse the real nature of the reward promised which proves to be beyond all descriptions and expectations suppliable to and conceivable our present minds. To that effect the Messenger of Allah sws said “Allah has prepared for His obedient servants in Paradise what no eyes have seen, what no ears have heard of and what no imagination ever conceived”. So another rule.
Rule Seven of Correct Thinking is recognizing that in moral and spiritual matters use of myth, symbol and metaphor are unavoidable but it is equally important not to swallow any and every myth but look and judge by any objective verification of their claims and conscientious justifications of their visible results.
Islam is the only fully true religion not because we wishfully think it to be so but because its dogmas satisfy the implications of intelligence, order and kindness displayed in nature which culminate in ours and its commandments can always be shown to promote good and prevent evil- provided the Prophet’s own interpretation and practice of it is adhered to and his convincingly implied shift towards more lenient and enlightened attitudes and practices are recognised and taken on board.
So we must not be misled by claims that all religions are same or that Islam can be dropped and supplanted by ever-changing attitudes and practices of secular populations and their governments. Islam is adaptable and responsive to all changed circumstances and so long the best genuine interests of the humankind is served all re-interpretations of it remain not only acceptable but are desirable.
However what Islam will never allow is doing harm to any innocents and what it will always enjoin is giving benefit to all who need and deserve. Some things may change in human society but most will remain same forever. Central to all good is becoming and being one’s best towards all at all time and this is called piety and this is all what belief in and love of God means when peeled from all veils and symbols.
8. LOGIC IS NOT ENOUGH; THE DRAWBACKS OF PHILOSOPHY
Prophets had always rivals in philosophers and religion in philosophy. Not that all who came to be known as a prophet was one or all religions they taught were true religions. Any clever guy can set up shop as a prophet and peddle his theology and make his demands on people. Even in this age we have self-styled prophets walking the earth and talking about their visions and revelations and sometimes are even making great numbers of converts. But they either give the game away by growing too big for their boots and demanding and getting servility and taxes from their followers which they use for unabashed luxury and often debauchery as well and most end up exposed and disgraced. Some others are so deranged that they promise settlement on other planets or order mass suicides of their followers as a pre-condition of salvation. A true prophet of God is one who preaches reason and moderation in everything, high yet practicable morality and proves his claim to being a savior by living a saved life- saved from pride, dishonesty, injustice and cruelty; a life of humility without humiliation and dignity without assuming airs. A prophet is a comprehensive example how each and everyone of us can live the most decent and morally successful life imaginable as well as practicable. Thus was Muhammad sws the last and most universal of them. Certainly so were Moses and Jesus (upon them be peace) when divested of silly myths supposedly augmenting them and prejudices projected in them.
We have had far more philosophers than prophets and by modern standards proper philosophers date from the ancient Greeks. They were of basically two kinds- mystic philosophers and fully rationalist philolosophers. Of course many mixed somethings from
both sides.
The prototype of mystic philosophers was Pythagoras (6. C BC) who founded an ascetic and highly moralistic religious community in Crotone, Italy and developed both mystical ideas and traditions as well as making great mathematical discoveries. Their astronomical discoveries anticipated the heliocentric model of the planets nearer us . From this distance in time he looks like a prophet but in Greek mold and he influenced all mystic philosophers of classical times. The proptotype of rational philosophers is Thales, who libed about the same time as Pythagoras. He learned astronomy from Babylonians and menstruation from the Egyptians and brought them and developed them further within the Greek world. Later mystic philosophers include Plato (5-4 C BC) and his later follower and reformer of his thoughts Plotinus (3. C) who developed the emanation theory of the universe from God which theory influenced some muslim philosophers and Sufis. Plato’s star pupil Aristotle and 45 years younger was on the rationalist side and was the greatest encyclopedist of the classical age. Greeks and later their pupils the Romans produced many great philosophers whose theories ranged from religious deistic world models to secular and atheistic. Materialism and atheism is certainly Greek in origin as far as historical records show and after a long period of semi-hiding and suppression during the heyday of Christianity they increasingly came into the open once more during the Enlightenment as from the 17th C. and replaced religious faith in Europe as the more prestigious mentality.
But old or new all philosophy depend on logic which is usually a very sound guide to arriving at technically sound conclusions. Who can deny that if A is equal to B as well as C then B should be equal to C. But this is a technical conclusion. In the real world beings are not as pure and as simple as A, B and C. Who can say that John with an IQ of 100 is equal to Jack with an IQ of 130 simply because they are of the same age, for example? Or even when they graduated from the same school with the same marks? Equation of two things nears absolute equality when the things are simpler and simpler, like to drawing pins from the same box or two can openers from the same production line. Philosophers waste a lot of time by speculating about intangible and/or immeasurable and often hypothetical things which are so plastic and arbitrary that each philosopher can weave his own yarn with them. “Is virtue or knowledge the more important?” for example. Ten philosophers will come up with ten answers with their different explanations and valuations because concepts like virtue and knowledge can be given no exact definitions and no exact relationship which everybody can agree. They both are intangibles and cannot be measured in any units or quantity.
Secondly philosophical deduction is based on definitions and assumptions. Since each philosopher is free to define his concepts as he sees fit or assume premises as he pleases no amount of logical processing can make them arrive at the same conclusions. Let us take a very simple example: Will a thorough wash make a reddish piece of wood whitish or not? If we assume or believe that the color comes from a paint applied to the wood we can hope to wash it of. But another person may think that the color naturally belongs to the wood itself and it can either cannot be washed off at all or it has to be torn into millions of fibers and the natural dye in them leached out. All supposedly deep philosophy is like that. Beliefs or assumptions pre-determine the conclusions even if the philosopher must take each and every step of deduction. What is more that epitome of logical and rational thinking, namely mathematics, is equally capable of arriving at wrong conclusions simply by making a wrong assumption at the beginning. Suppose that we do not know that water also can evaporte entirely to become a gas (steam). From our knowledge that a liter of water expands say 1 in a thousand per degree of temperature we may logically calculate that at 101 degrees Celsius it will expand by about 10%. But in actual fact it will expand into a volume many times over because it will boil off into steam and fill a whole room. You see, assumptions cannot be guaranteed to be valid even in physical science unless we can test them. Therefore physical calculations however exact and rigorous they may be prove totally worthless when the assumption they were based on is found to be not true. Many scientific and medical and economic errors are caused by wrong yet good looking assumptions which are somehow difficult to test. If logical processing of data in physical matters is so vulnerable to error what about speculations about ultimate things like God, death or virtue? Therefore
Rule Eight of Correct Thinking is not to trust reason and logic alone when beliefs or assumptions forming their base are untested or unproven whether the question is scientific or philosophical. Which means do not take seriously scientists and philosophers who speculate on matters they are not competent and experienced in. For each question go to the expert and try to go to the bottom of the matter whatever it takes. If you cannot do that suspend judgment and do not follow anybody blindly simply because he claims merits or powers you cannot verify. Only faith is excepted but that is a matter for the heart and not the rational mind. The heart may have its reasons. But you still must be very very careful before you commit yourself to any matter of the heart.
10. THE CYBERNETIC PRINCIPLE
‘Cybernetic’ means- goal oriented. Certain systems are so designed that both their inner workings and their reactions to their environment help to keep them on track towards a selected goal or goals. All living beings are cybernetically designed and their two prime goals are first survival and second reproduction. To that end they seek food, avoid irritants and other harms, repair damage caused to them, keep stores of water and nutrients to see them through any famine and do everything possible to promote their chances of reproduce themselves. Taking lessons from them man invented machines with increasing sophistication to serve his purposes the most recent examples being robotic machines from guided missiles to self-controlling automatic industrial systems like a chemical plant’s central control panel buzzing with lights, alarm sounds and hundreds of self-correcting instruments. A car’s electronic injection system is another example of artificial cybernetics which, unlike in a carburettor and choke system, keeps the engine running at correct revs no matter the engine temperature.
But the most advanced and sophisticated cybernetic system known to us is ourselves, or rather our nervous system. On top of being a perfect robot man also seems to have a genuine free-will in the matrix of a consciousness. Unlike artificial robots whose goals are chosen by man and are in fact man’s own goals programmed into a machine the human robot chooses its goals within itself and executes the necessary manoeuvres both at conscious and unconscious forms and levels. For example while feeding himself he is helped by both his conscious desires for this food or that as well as the automatic arrival of appetite and satiety. This dual and complementary control system operates also in our thinking processes.
So, if a person feels that he must believe in or prove something he needs to prove this goal will determine both how his conscious deliberations will proceed as well as how his unconscious mind will pick and choose from among the facts and fictions supplied to it. It is like the following experiment. Suppose that we put on a sheet of white paper fifty red spots which when connected in the shortest way possible depict a triangle, another set of green spots which outline a square and still another set of blue spots which outline a circle- all three set of spots superimposed on the same area so that the whole looks like a random collection of spots in three colors. Now suppose that three persons, each wearing a pair of glasses which only allow the red, the green and the blue light respectively to pass through them. The first person shall only see the red spots whose outline depict a triangle and nothing else. Similarly the second shall see only a square and the third a circle. So, from a whole set of facts each shall only see what his spectacles allow.
That is why a number of people having different interests or beliefs may can sit down and argue and offer proofs for ages that only their views are true and only their claims are genuine. Even when any of them grants a point the other is making his cybernetics (single-minded pursuit of his goal) prevents him from appreciating and admitting the conceded point’s full worth. Instead he plays it down or undervalues it so that the result he wants will not be affected much. Only the most self-insightful and conscientious man can show the courage and virtue to give full consideration and weight to arguments and evidence presented by his adversaries and admit and lead the rest also to admit the full and fair picture all arguments and evidence forces on a good and fair mind. This one is either a born spiritual genius blessed also with very high intelligence (like the Messenger of Allah sws) or one pure soul who did enough to advance spiritually to enable him to beat his ego and see things the selfless universal way. I dare say most education should aim at to produce such men and women who will see through themselves and steer clear of any selfish unjust desires and acts they detect in themselves and help others to do the same as far as possible.
Only these are human adults (Rashidoon) in the full sense and those who unconsciously dwell in and talk and act from their unreformed egos are morally and spiritually infants despite their physical adulthood. Such cannot think much further than their selfish agendas impose on them and to get their way they will not hesitate too much to employ any means which comes handy and they think they can get away with its use.
In the matter of correct thinking it appears that looking for all facts that bear on an issue and recognizing their full role and worth fairly and objectively is a very difficult job for most people- in fact well nigh impossible. As cybernetic systems their under-developed minds is so crippled and paralysed in so many areas of responsible altruistic behavior that unconscious to them their minds picks and chooses from among the facts presented to it in order that its previously made up decisions look justified. This unconscious mistake is made by both top politicians and top professors simply because, although their academic intelligence level (IQ) is very high their spiritual intelligence level is low. This second distinction has to do with our values and world view.
Your values are what are genuinely dearest to you and eventually they determine what you want from life. A man whose top value is Allah cannot feel happy until and unless he feels in his bones that Allah is pleased with what he is doing while a man whose top value is his selfish material interests will not stop kicking, protesting and fighting until and unless his will is executed. A good mothers greatest value may be her child and she accordingly cybernetiacally adjusts all her life to ensure that her child gets the best possible deal in life. If she is not also Godly enough (i.e., loving Allah at least equally) she may commit many acts of injustice to serve the believed interests of her brat. For when a child becomes an idol for its mother to whom all can be sacrificed that child becomes and can be called a brat. Nobody else’s child can challenge it but its mother shall attack and beat off the challenge no matter how justified the challenge was in the first place.
Mind you, this is what nationalism, the darling of our age is all about. Each nation dotes over its own members when it comes to international relations and all sorts of selfish and unscrupulous acts are proudly justified as being ‘in the national interest’. A great historian once said that “international politics consists of unjust and unscrupulous acts disguised behind moralistic window dressings”. Perhaps nothing can better illustrate this sordid fact than the Arab-Israeli dispute which sucks in many other parties (mostly USA) in its cesspool of hypocrisies and other immoralities. Both sides are talking at least as much rubbish as sense are punished for it and both will eventually end up as punished as they deserve. Only a Godly dialogue of spiriual adults from both sides can solve this problem provided the infants on both sides defer to the adults negotiating on their behalf. All bitter disputes are like that. So the last rule may now be stated.
“The Ninth and Last Rule of Correct Thinking is that you should train and improve your mind spiritually so much that you will be able to value Truth and Justice (ALLAH) more than anything else and as a result will take all the pains to find out all the facts of a matter and into account all the rights of parties involved and then pass a judgment so full and fair that anybody with any goodwill will see it that way. Others may or may not accept it. It may even go against your original claims if any. But believe me it will be the best judgment and Allah may well enforce it in this world on your behalf will certainly reward it handsomely in the next.
TYRANTS IN GENERAL AND HIDING AMONG MUSLIMS
All Praises be to Allah the Most Sublime and blessings and peace be to our master Muhammad and on His House and Companions. May Allah in His Infinite Kindness guide us to all truth and bless us with understanding and piety. Amen.
DEFINITION OF A TYRANT
By a tyrant we mean a person who is irresistibly attracted to an ideal about attaining and retaining as absolute a power as possible on other people. The pleasure the person calculates to be caused to him by the possession of the power itself is far more important than the business he will conduct by the exercise of the power. His intended business for contextualising his exercise of power may range from committing professional crimes to running a country or movement, whether secular or religious movement. Any business compatible with his knowledge and talents will do for what he actually wants is the power itself more than anything else.
PSYCHOLOGY OF A TYRANT
Often a tyrant is someone with a psychological lesion either due to a defective gene inherited from parents or caused by early childhood traumas especially in the hands of cruel parents or other authority figures. To this of course must be added the would be tyrant’s own deliberate choices which all human beings have to make. As for the genetic causes the chief is descent from a himself tyrannical parent or such grandparents. Because kingdoms are often founded by tyrannical warrior types this typology often ran in royal families who often married their children into other royal families. Sexual coupes with similar genes often produce offspring even more pronounced in the qualities the genes dictate for better or worse. Today’s royal families being a shadow of the past may not have too many tyrannical offspring, as these families are declining their children are increasingly having to do with partners from non-royals. Similarly tyrannical tycoons breed similar children together alongside with more normal; after all tycoon families often interbreed. The same for crime families etc.
As for the tyrannical tendency caused by a trauma the traumatic experience may be caused by the excessive insults and violence of a parent or somebody else in authority. It may also have a genetic component; but even without a genetic component the nervous and psychological damage caused by living under the tyrannical and punishing control of an authority figure can derange the mind of the sufferer and convert him, among other possible results into a tyrant himself. Then he goes out to avenge his hurts by proxy, by transmitting his terrible experiences to others through inflicting similar pains he had once suffered. In some societies or neighbourhoods violence and unkindness is endemic and therefore many young individuals having grown in such a society or neighbourhood may develop the same tyrannical habits as a defence and compensation mechanism in their adult lives. If one cannot develop such traits sometimes he has to fake them to gain acceptance in an environment full of tyrants big and small. A friend told me “Unable to become a tyrant in a period of my secondary school age childhood when I was living in not too distinguished quarter of a frontier society where thuggery was more or less the youth culture I felt I had to fake that inflated image of a confident thug in order not to be seen different and victimised. I just pretended but excused myself from joining a pack by ‘explaining’ that I was a ‘lone operator’. I was respectfully left alone.
INTRODUCTION
Since at least the times of caliph Uthman’s RA a strain of tyranny appeared among Muslims and has time and again visited and savaged the Muslim community and polity. Simply put fanatical thugs began to appear and organise themselves into conspiratofrial armed parties intent on fighting governments to impose their ideas of Islam on the community.
By objective standards the reign of Uthman RA was as successful and brilliant as Umar’s RA. Conquests went on unabated, even the feared rival nomadic warriors the Turks were beaten and conquered in their Central Asian homeland and revenue and spoils of war flew in from all over the provinces like massive floods and poverty in Arabia itself was becoming a thing of the past and especially Mecca and Medina were becoming well built, well populated prosperous towns. At the same time though, political discontent was spreading among those kinds of people who seem to be always on the lookout for causes for complaint and ways for grabbing political power with the ostensible aim of putting things right. Uthman RA stood accused of nepotism by them in that in his appointments to high
office his clan members the Umayyads were grossly unfair; what is more these Umayyad appointees stood accused of impiety in general and corruption in particular. According to his critics Uthman RA was not paying adequate attention to criticism levelled against him and in fact among his other critics were some of his peers among the sahaba, like Ali RA for example. The likes of Ali though were far more lenient in their criticism on top of being his well wishers. For his part Uthman RA, a usually silent and reclusive man not so good with words or self defence but only too good in compassion and generosity, did not do enough to explain himself let alone ‘mend his ways’ as his critics saw it. Lastly, it was a fact that rising of the Umayyads and their likes (i.e., worldly able yet piety-wise humbler persons) had already began under the Prophet sws himself who took care to reward objective talent despite spiritual weakness among those who joined him as his fortunes began to rise after the Hudaibia truce. Umar RA himself, despite his critical views about some worldly-wise but spiritually unimpressive late joiners basically followed the Prophet’s sws policies and Umayyad candidates did quite well under him.
Both sons of Abu Sufyan, namely Muawia and Yazid, all almost last minute converts, were given high positions in the provinces as were other Umayyads. Mind you, the Prophet sws was a supreme realist- and that not as despite his spiritual lights but instead because of it- and as a supreme realist knew that it was better to attract to and keep high talent at the service of Islam instead of leaving them in the service of enemies of Islam. At the expense of repeating ourselves, such people were administrative talents who could only be ignored at the expense of Islam’s objective success like more conquest and administrative competence and discipline.
It was only when Ali RA came to power after Uthman RA that piety took precedence over talent, for Ali RA was too pure and too otherworldly a man to see political realities as clearly as his predecessors. To his side were attracted all the best spiritual greats among the surviving sahaba like Ammar RA and Selman RA while the likes of Muawiya were alienated. Even ibn Abbas, a cousin of Ali RA, was exasperated at times with Ali’s RA idealism. In fact as time went on more and more defected from Ali’s camp. Some went over to Muawiya RA as a better paymaster while others took arms against Ali RA. Among these armed resisters were sahaba no less than Aisha RA, Talha RA and Zubair RA. In short, Ali’s RA stars in the affair of caliphate were from the beginning not propitious in a worldly sense and as a result he saw no day of joy in this matter both before and after his election to the caliphate. So were the beginnings the first serious political strife in Islam.