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CONTENTS:

Preface: The Ten Lies that killed Democracy // The First Lie: Liberalism //The Second Lie: Cosmopolitanism // The Third Lie: Progress // The Fourth Lie: Freedom and Liberty // The Fifth Lie: Justice // The Sixth Lie: Open-Mindedness // The Seventh Lie: Equality // The Eighth Lie: Power // The Ninth Lie: Diversity // The Tenth Lie: a. Proving Truth, b. Destroying Truth, c. The Return from Woke to Reality

THE TENTH LIE THAT KILLED DEMOCRACY: Conclusion

by Ashok Panikkar

The Mother of all Lies: And how we took down a wondrous civilization, one lie at a time

Somerset Maugham called his autobiography ‘The Summing Up’. In it he reflected upon his life, career, and philosophy, with the kind of wit and wisdom that only comes with having lived- what I imagine- might have been a fairly satisfying life. Alas when I think about my own life, ‘satisfying’ is not the word that comes to mind.

In any case, this book doesn’t really sum up anything at all. If anything, it is a cautionary tale about the costs of societal idealism. Books like this might once have been written only by conservatives congenitally opposed to change who resisted even necessary reform. However, six decades of progressive-socio-cultural-political experimentation has forced even a dyed-in-the-wool liberal like me to say ENOUGH!

This book is an attempt to make the case that high ‘morals’ are not always good, and that excessive ‘goodness’ itself may cause intolerable cruelty. Hence, here at the end of my book, I am neither concluding nor summing up but merely leaving you, my hard working readers, with one elementary question (and a few more lies).

THE QUESTION: What does it mean to be human?

I know, I know that sounds terribly sophomoric or even depressingly ‘heavy’. Particularly when so many of us are struggling with immediate and practical matters- health, jobs, relationships or incipient political, economic chaos. But bear with me.

Years of teaching people how to ‘do’ philosophy (as opposed to ‘study’ it), has taught me that nothing gives us perspective and settles the mind as much as going back to our basic and foundational truths. These are truths or principles that guide us and we (literally) ‘base’ our lives around. For the religious these are non-negotiable and have to do with their creation myths, their God’s (or prophet’s) divinity and moral commandments. Secular truths are derived from our physical and social realities as discoverable by observation, science and reason, and hence are more susceptible to change upon discovery of new evidence.

In general, we tend to start off with clarity about our foundational truths (who we are, where we are, vision of the good life, values and goals) and over time the exigencies of daily life impose secondary values and understandings upon the original. Before long our foundational truths are obscured and long forgotten.

There’s another reason why we should ask ourselves elementary questions such as “What does it mean to be human?”. We no longer live in the same community we grew up in and most of us are transient creatures- having moved cities, states and countries several times already. With every move we have lost our foundational ‘tribes’, the people who might have reminded us of the truths that we grew up with. When we lose our tribes, we also lose the truths that they carried with them. This then is the purpose of all philosophy: not to make the ordinary complicated or to navel gaze, but to remind ourselves of why we struggle through the vicissitudes of life. To give us the ‘WHY’.

This book has focused on ten simple questions about values that are at the core of open and free societies. Ten values that we have taken for granted, reduced to slogans, and effectively turned into whoppers. Lies.

So, then, ‘What does it mean to be human?’ Let’s start with going as far back to the beginning as we can: We know that distinctly human behaviors such as cooperation and social bonding, as well as complex cognitive, social, and emotional behaviors developed gradually over 2–3 million years ago. What we today understand to be human behavioral patterns and intellectual capabilities most likely took shape only around 300,000 to 200,000 years ago. Furthermore, it was only as late as 50,000-100,000 years ago that we even got around to developing complex language, symbolic art, and abstract thought. It is important to remind ourselves that this all this development took place at a glacial pace, often over tens of thousands of years.

Once our transient hunter-gatherers ancestors became farmers and established roots, clusters of farms and farmsteads evolved into villages.

Over generations these ‘villagers’ then created what we understand to be ‘culture’, which is nothing more than a people’s specific and time-tested way of solving the problems of daily life: procuring and cooking food, mating, nurturing the young, clothing, recreating, and educating themselves.

Cultures that clustered around broadly similar geographies and evolved with similar values became civilizations. This is to say human societies (and the average person) changed very slowly and despite periodic upheavals- conquests, famines, plagues- we remained ‘human’ in just about the same way until around the end of the eighteenth century.

Sure, the Transformational Triad was already doing its disruptive thing, but grandparents continued to tell grandchildren morality tales about good fairies and evil witches, about cruel barons and wise kings. And through it all, our appreciation of the world we live in as well as society and the human mind itself changed only marginally. To those alive in the year 1700, our agrarian ancestors from 1300 or 1500 would have seemed surprisingly like them.

Then everything changed. As Hemingway said of bankruptcy (or as I would say about societal and democratic collapse), it comes “gradually, then suddenly”. Something happened around the turn of the nineteenth century that called into question everything that we’d hitherto understood to be ‘human’. Unlike previous upheavals, this time it wasn’t spurred by meteorites, ice ages, colonists, or imperialists. This devastation, the destruction of what millennia of homo sapiens had understood to be distinctly ‘human’ was almost completely the fault of the eleventh lie (more on this later).

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CHAPTERS to date:

Preface: The Ten Lies that killed Democracy // The First Lie: Liberalism //The Second Lie: Cosmopolitanism // The Third Lie: Progress // The Fourth Lie: Freedom and Liberty // The Fifth Lie: Justice // The Sixth Lie: Open-Mindedness // The Seventh Lie: Equality // The Eighth Lie: Power // The Ninth Lie: Diversity

THE TENTH LIE THAT KILLED DEMOCRACY: The Denial of Truth

by Ashok Panikkar

The Tenth Lie: There is no ONE Truth and all that passes as ‘truth’ is a social or political construct.

CHAPTER 10.1: PROVING TRUTH

CHAPTER 10.2: DESTROYING TRUTH

Chapter 10.3: THE RETURN TO REALITY

This is an exceptionally long chapter and I thank you for your patience. I do hope though that a minor insight will make it worth your while: Truth isn’t complicated, society is.

Reality, Truth, and Wisdom

The bottom line is that we don’t need to experiment with the Truth.

In Malayalam there is a saying ഉണ്ണുന്ന പാത്രത്തിൽ കാഷ്ടിക്കരുത് which loosely translates into “you shouldn’t crap in the vessel you eat from”. Most species are intelligent enough to not mess around with the conditions that makes life possible. It would be foolish for humans to mess around with or experiment with the larger forces that we are dependent upon like the weather, the oceans or even the fragile ecosystem of mangroves. An intelligent species not only doesn’t experiment with the real world that sustains us, we also don’t subvert the truths we hold or tell each other about this reality. Having found the truth once, we would also try to hold on to it for ever —or until such time as we discover that we were wrong.

Reality doesn’t bend to our fashions. And truth doesn’t need upgrading with every passing political peeve, psychological trend or consumer fantasy. Funny thing, truth needs no innovation or experimentation. Unlike painting, poetry, or a new gadget, we don’t need to play around to figure out the truth. Sure, truth seeking may need some ‘imagination’, but only if our vantage point has prevented us from seeing it (as it did until Galileo used a telescope to look at the heavens) or if we have lost our capacity to think critically about the world. In the socially fragmented, urbanized and technologically mediated world that most of us live in, we have been so bamboozled that few of us are able to think critically anymore.

Truth always yields to humble discovery which is a very different cognitive process than innovation. Sure, they both rely on cognitive abilities like combining existing knowledge in novel ways, analogy, abstraction, problem-solving and intuition. However, while invention is a proactive process involving deliberate creation through combining concepts or solving problems, discovery is a reactive process of finding something that already exists, but was previously unknown. Inventing a rocket to take us to Mars or new pharmaceutical drug to cure Alzheimers involves creation, while discovering a new law of physics requires uncovering a pre-existing reality.

There is a time-honored word for inventing the truth, it is called a ‘LIE’.

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[Image: What happens when lying is normalised.]

Yesterday we learnt about the challenge to Truth from post-modernist “theorists” (Chapter 10.1: Proving Truth). Today we learn of the full-frontal assault on Truth that is putting our societies on life support (Chapter 10.2: Destroying Truth). If you haven’t yet signed up as paid, now is the moment —for this monster-length, paywalled chapter is a must read for all those that care about the future of the political West (which includes Asian democracies). The final part comes out tomorrow.

Guerre and Shalom is a bargain at just £45/$60 a year. It gets you access to the 4 serialised chapters due to be released this week (3x Ten Lies, 1x Observations from the Kitchen) as well as retrospective access to Daniel Clarke-Serret’s PAX ARABICA. Thank-you for your support.

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CHAPTERS to date (for paid subscribers)

Preface: The Ten Lies that killed Democracy // The First Lie: Liberalism //The Second Lie: Cosmopolitanism // The Third Lie: Progress // The Fourth Lie: Freedom and Liberty // The Fifth Lie: Justice // The Sixth Lie: Open-Mindedness // The Seventh Lie: Equality // The Eighth Lie: Power // The Ninth Lie: Diversity

THE TENTH LIE THAT KILLED DEMOCRACY: The Denial of Truth

by Ashok Panikkar

The Tenth Lie: There is no ONE Truth and all that passes as ‘truth’ is a social or political construct.

Chapter 10, PART 1: PROVING TRUTH

Chapter 10, PART 2: DESTROYING TRUTH

The Logic of Truth as Oppression

I had travelled ten thousand miles to learn that there was no such thing as critical thinking- unless it is in the service of historically ‘marginalized’ groups. I also learned that truth seeking was futile and that it might even be ‘oppressive’ to speak of ‘the’ truth to those who saw themselves as victims. Truth telling was war by other means. The logic undoubtedly had its attractions- especially for the congenitally disaffected. Here’s how the logical sequence goes:

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Guerre and Shalom is a bargain at just £45/$60 a year. It will get you access to the 4 serialised chapters due to be released this week (3x Ten Lies, 1x Observations from the Kitchen) as well as retrospective access to Daniel Clarke-Serret’s PAX ARABICA. Today the preview before the paywall has been extended to encourage readers to sign up as paid.

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CHAPTERS TO DATE (for paid subscribers):

Preface: The Ten Lies that killed Democracy // The First Lie: Liberalism //The Second Lie: Cosmopolitanism // The Third Lie: Progress // The Fourth Lie: Freedom and Liberty // The Fifth Lie: Justice // The Sixth Lie: Open-Mindedness // The Seventh Lie: Equality // The Eighth Lie: Power // The Ninth Lie: Diversity

THE TENTH LIE THAT KILLED DEMOCRACY: The Denial of Truth

by Ashok Panikkar

The Tenth Lie: There is no ONE Truth and all that passes as ‘truth’ is a social or political construct.

Chapter 10, PART 1: PROVING TRUTH

PROVING TRUTH
The Trinity Lyceum Boys School was reputed to be the best school in Kollam, Southern India, and I had the misfortune of studying there for a couple of depressing years from 1971 onwards.

Except for chain-smoking septuagenarian, Mr. Thariyan, who had retired from an elite public school in Singapore, the rest of the teachers were about as intellectually curious as us teenage neanderthals. While Thariyan could bring alive his first-person’s account of the siege of Singapore- and Japan’s sinking of HMS Repulse and HMS Prince of Wales during World War 2- his colleagues might have struggled to even explain the ongoing war to liberate East Pakistan (now Bangladesh).

A few weeks into the school year, I had slipped into the kind of stupor that could only be produced by the Indian educational system- or (and this is pure speculation) opium. I was spared a lifetime of cognitive dullness only because the Physics Master taught me an invaluable lesson in rank bad thinking. Yes, you read that right, just like the Victorians (whose educational system we aped) we called our teachers “Master”.

Now don’t get me wrong, bad thinking was not an alien concept to me. Apart from our fists, my friends and I were quite adept at using every logical fallacy known to humankind to score points, silence, and beat up on each other. The architecture of our simple world was built upon hundreds of unthinking assumptions (Of course, now that Venkat is back in the Indian cricket team, we will make mince meat out of the Aussies); misconceptions (India had absolutely no poverty until the British colonized us); gross exaggerations (The Indian HF-24 fighter aircraft is so advanced that each one can shoot dozens of Pakistan’s F-86 Sabres out of the sky); and faulty logic (Mrs. Gandhi cannot lead India in war because women are not fighters). Nor were our elders much better- their reasoning powers were best exemplified by irrefutable logic such as (“Because I told you so”).

But even with such a rich heritage of irrationality, what happened in that physics class was exceptional. Mr. Clement was teaching us about potential and kinetic energy, when Arif, who was neither religious nor studious, asked him, “Master, is God ‘energy’ or ‘matter’?” Mr. Clement, a devout Catholic, should have known that faith-based explorations were best conducted in private with one’s priest- or alone with God. Instead the poor man attempted to publicly reconcile his knowledge of science with his faith in full view of us heathens.

Perhaps he thought he could save some souls. Perhaps he imagined that could teach us about the larger questions of life. Or, as is most likely, for a fleeting and unfortunate moment the poor man had delusions of being more than a test-preparation machine.

In any case, Arif had already derailed the class by asking (what was universally known as) a “deadly” question- the kind that was guaranteed to hijack the class. So much for physics, for the duration of this class we would be discussing metaphysics- a topic that gave us license to engage in flights of exquisite nonsense.

Clement, no longer just a science teacher but a spiritual guide, started explaining how God was everything all at once- matter, energy, and logos. As he got more eloquent and dug himself deeper into the mysteries of the Holy Trinity, the questions kept coming- anything to keep him talking until the bell rang. When there were still fifteen minutes to go- and feeling that the conversation was flagging- Suresh, threw out his favorite Commie trope, “But Master, Marx said religion was nothing more than a comforting myth designed to keep people from questioning authority? What do you think?” Utterly unsuspecting (that’s what pride does to you), Clement put on his best apostolic face. He allowed that this was a natural misconception in a world that had forgotten the word of God. Hinduism and Islam, he averred, might be mythical. But Christianity based as it was on the word of God, as brought to us by his Son, was THE TRUTH.

As soon as the words escaped him, the Master knew that he’d crossed a line. Even in a secular nation, to suggest that India’s two major religions worshipped false gods was to throw a cow’s head into a temple (or if you so wish, a pigs entrails into a mosque). For a Christian to say this in a classroom was nothing short of explosive. It was at best an embarrassing error of judgment or worse a firing offense. But if word of this spilled onto the streets, it might almost certainly have started a violent riot.

Clement, poor man, now needed to desperately claw it back -the minutes were ticking. Now he told us that ALL Gods, not just the Christian one, were real. “Of course they are not mythical figures concocted by over-excited cavemen. And no, the priests didn’t create religion just to fleece believers.” Thankfully for him, his back tracking worked because us heathens were innocent of any political or religious agendas. All we cared about was avoiding homework.

However, Clement’s intellectual jujitsu had stirred some life into my stupor: “But can you PROVE that God exists?”.

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CHAPTERS (to date):

Preface: The Ten Lies that killed Democracy // The First Lie: Liberalism //The Second Lie: Cosmopolitanism // The Third Lie: Progress // The Fourth Lie: Freedom and Liberty // The Fifth Lie: Justice // The Sixth Lie: Open-Mindedness // The Seventh Lie: Equality // The Eighth Lie: Power

TODAY WE DISCOVER THE NINTH LIE:

Chapter Summary: In this chapter I engage with an entirely modern fascination —that of ‘fighting’ for greater ‘diversity’ in society and its institutions. I explain how this trend emerged and why it has taken hold of the Western imagination. I also explain why it defies both common sense as well as enlightened self-interest. Most of all I show how aggressively advocating for ‘diversity’ almost inevitably harms the most vulnerable minorities in a society. As with everything else in the book, my analysis is based on examining societies (and democracies) as complex systems that operate by their own rules. Rules, I might add, that aren’t driven by the feverish desires and aspirations of individuals or groups.

THE NINTH LIE THAT KILLED DEMOCRACY: Diversity

by Ashok Panikkar

The Ninth Lie: Diversity is a net good for society and closed borders are a moral stain upon a nation.

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CHAPTERS (to date):

Preface: The Ten Lies that killed Democracy // The First Lie: Liberalism //The Second Lie: Cosmopolitanism // The Third Lie: Progress // The Fourth Lie: Freedom and Liberty // The Fifth Lie: Justice // The Sixth Lie: Open-Mindedness // The Seventh Lie: Equality

TODAY WE DISCOVER THE EIGHT LIE:

Chapter Summary: In this chapter, Ashok takes a crack at the idea of Power. His contentious stance is that rather than power being oppressive, the powerful (except for sociopaths) are exceptionally responsible people whose primary interest in power is to use it to get things done. He warns that the idea of sharing power, as in a democracy, is an exercise fraught with existential danger to society. It presupposes that those who now possess this shared power will also have the responsibility to use it for the larger good of the family, organization or state. Most interestingly, he views minority power in a democracy as being procedural, which is to say coming from the norms and rules of the democratic processes itself. This, he says, is not sustainable, given that this power, not being based on real or substantive power (which comes from having control of resources), lasts only as long as procedural power exists. As soon as the genuinely powerful decide that democracy isn’t working for them, they can withdraw this shared procedural power.

THE EIGHTH LIE THAT KILLED DEMOCRACY: Power

by Ashok Panikkar

The Eighth Lie: Power is an instrument of oppression and the powerful should be forced to share it with the rest of us

Tales from the Jungle

In 3C, just as the recess bell shrieked gratingly, a little tyke Chandru (T.K. Chandramohan) threw himself head first onto the reigning bully Richie (Richard Mascarenhas), catching him totally by surprise. Around the same time, in the senior section, Ashraf in 9D struck a fierce left hook to momentarily stun the school boxing champion Kenny Alvarez.

At the Infant Jesus High School, recesses were nasty, brutal and mercifully short. It was a time for settling scores, regaining honor and reinforcing boundaries. Kids who couldn’t have lasted twenty seconds in these battles egged on those who could represent them, their gladiators and champions. Thereafter, for months and even years, these battles were lyrically narrated by breathless boys who told tales of valor, pride and pain over and over again, until new kids spurred by exceptional adolescent growth spurts and new grievances unseated erstwhile toughies whose growth had stalled upon entering mid-adolescence.

Like crowds at a rowdy Greek Agora or in a Roman Colosseum, little boys instinctively knew that the fights that took place out of the withering gaze of our class teacher Mrs D’Souza —in empty classrooms, playgrounds, and stinking toilets. They were even more important to their education than grades. It was survival training. It was boot camp.

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This week we have featured many high achievers from Tom Tugendhat MP to Canada’s Chris Alexander. We have been honoured by their articles and we thank them for their contributions. Unfortunately though, not everyone in this world who merits recognition and financial success has been so lucky.

DC-based Ashok Panikkar is an exceptional mind with incredible insights on the failings of democracy. He has always been genuine truth seeker, rebelling against Indian tradition and American Washington groupthink where Truth tells him that he must. He has paid for his choices. Like a modern day Prophet Jeremiah, he has been condemned to unemployment due to his breach with progressive shibboleths in the name of Truth. He is currently struggling to find even menial employment.

If Truth means anything to us, we must financially support those who are condemned to the pit by vainglorious Judean Kings and the modern Washington self-righteous. We must support Truth in a world of hollowed-out words so that the glory of the Anglo-West (which includes India) may be regained. That means supporting Ashok. There is no point crying for Vincent Van Gogh and then letting his modern descendants suffer in vain. There is no point complaining about lies and then ignoring those at the coal face. It is for this reason that I ask you subscribe today. All earnings from this chapter will be divided between Ashok and myself, a fellow unemployee (so do select the “Patron” rate if you can).

Finally, Ashok’s brilliance is recognised by so many. In a coincidence which defies the laws of probability, fellow Guerre and Shalom guest writer Vaishnav Sunil was Ashok’s neighbour in India (a country of 1.5 billion people!). Imagine the odds. Vaishnav told me:

“Excited to see you and Ashok collaborating. He was our neighbor when I was 15 and my first job was doing data entry at his conflict resolution firm, while being in awe of his ability to think and articulate.”

SO PLEASE SUBSCRIBE TODAY!

It’s the 2 year anniversary of Guerre and Shalom! As a special birthday present, subscriptions are set at a ridiculous £35/$47. This offer is until TOMORROW ONLY. Don’t miss out. If you wish to contribute more, please select the Patron / Founder Member status.

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PREVIOUSLY FROM “TEN LIES THAT KILLED DEMOCRACY”:

TODAY WE DISCOVER THE SEVENTH LIE:

Chapter Summary: In today’s chapter Ashok takes on one of the most powerful shibboleths of the modern era —that of Equality. While admitting its value as an aspiration for any humane society, he worries that perhaps we have carried it too far. An unhealthy obsession with equality and equity, he writes, has shifted us away from our unique civilizational attributes (coming out of the Transformational Triad) of intellectual and creative excellence. Without this emphasis on excellence we would not have been able to create the modern, liberal, diverse and meritocratic West. He warns that the more we tolerate bad ideas and encourage poor thinking (in the service of equality), the more we will destroy natural talents, diminish honest striving, and eventually destroy our civilization.

THE SEVENTH LIE THAT KILLED DEMOCRACY: Equality

by Ashok Panikkar

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The Sixth Lie: In a real democracy everybody is equal.

Devora Blum taught sociology at a small liberal arts college and often talked about her important work with at-risk youth in cities. “Kids that hang around at street corners are not necessarily gang members,” she would inform her attentive audiences. “Everyone who deals in drugs is not violent,” her voice getting more excited. “And most importantly, we shouldn’t be criminalizing possession of soft drugs. After all it is society that has denied these young people a childhood.” She combated the dangerous stereotypes about what the rest of us called “inner-city” kids (she hated the term).

“We cannot call ourselves a developed democracy, or a civilized people, unless every child is given an equal share of our prosperity. Given what these kids have suffered, they are entitled to our empathy and the same opportunities that others have—we owe them this.” We were in awe of her. She was working with the most vulnerable people in the most troubled parts of American cities. She was not just a professor- she was an activist- which in the Boston of the mid-nineties put her in the same category as “Goddess”.

Then, one day, she ran into Justin Wong at a friend’s house. Justin was a pale, nerdish fellow who looked as though he had been locked up in a cellar with his computers and was let out only on rare occasions just to irritate the rest of us. “So, tell me,” Justin started mildly enough, “why aren’t these kids in school, and where are their parents?” Devora, sensing an opportunity to educate, explained how systemic injustice kept generations of Black folk in poverty, and how the daily trauma of being Black in America prevented their parents from being present in the lives of their young. Justin listened, “Hmm… Hmm… but then, how do you explain that other people like, for instance, Chinese Americans, have been able to push themselves up economically?” he asked. Devora was a cat toying with a mouse, “Ah, Justin, you can’t really compare African Americans with ‘Asian’ immigrants, can you now?” She smiled indulgently, “Because, after all, you didn’t come here as slaves. You have no idea of the trauma that generations of African Americans have experienced, even after emancipation, since your family had no such history.”

Justin looked like a mouse cornered, hesitantly replying that his family wasn’t privileged. His ancestors were recruited to build the transcontinental railroad on the West Coast when few others were willing to do this dangerous work. They died in droves, were treated like slaves, paid lower wages, and lived in the very underground tunnels that they were constructing, because only the white workers got tents. Sensing another opening, Devra said triumphantly, “But let’s face it, you are light skinned- almost white. How can you even know what it’s to be black. Property values don’t come down when your family moves into the neighborhood.”.

Justin Wong sighing, apologized to her and everyone else in the room. “I am sorry if I have offended you, or African Americans. You are quite right, I don’t know what it means to be Black. But I also know it’s not fair to compare relative victimhood.” With great deference, he now faced her, “All I’m trying to say is that my people never, really, had it easy. Like African Americans, our schoolchildren were also subject to segregation. Moreover, while African Americans were emancipated after the Civil War, in 1882 the federal government passed the Chinese Exclusion Act, which prevented us from becoming citizens. This act also banned my people from even entering the United States and was repealed only in 1943.”. Then looking straight at her, he said, “If we could overcome all of that, why can’t African Americans?”

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BLURB: What if we have completely misunderstood what it means to live in free and open societies? What if we have neglected the very liberal systems that gave us our freedoms and rights? What if the decline of democracies is not because of Trump, MAGA, the Right-Wing, Orban or Modi, but our own ignorance of democratic vulnerabilities? The TEN LIES THAT KILLED DEMOCRACY comes out of three decades of designing, repairing and sustaining democratic communities and organizations in the USA and elsewhere. Over 12 chapters you will receive a whole new (and genuinely radical) understanding of what liberal values really are— and how we can protect them.

PRICE: As per Guerre and Shalom policy, all new publlished book chapters are are behind a paywall. Where the author is someone other than the editor, there is a 50-50 split. So if you subscribe to Guerre and Shalom from one of Ashok’s chapters, Ashok will receive 50% and Daniel will receive 50%, giving you the right to to this Substack’s material for the entire year.

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The last chapter can be found here:

Today, in Chapter 6, Ashok speaks of the sixth lie: OPEN-MINDEDNESS. Enjoy.

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Chapter Summary: Who invented Open-Mindedness anyway?

Yes, I know children are naturally open-minded, after all they don’t know enough to be closed to new ideas. But adults, those who know what they’re doing and have responsibilities, why would they keep an open mind, especially about the things they already know for a fact? For that matter, why would any successful leader of a well-functional society be open to new ideas, unfamiliar people, dissent or diversity, any of which could be disruptive to their smooth functioning?

There is nothing about being open-minded that is necessary or useful in evolutionary terms. A species adapts to changing conditions over thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of years. The great civilizations that existed for hundreds of years did so by figuring out what worked and ruthlessly sticking with it. If we are to talk about the benefits of open-mindedness, we should look at how that has worked for humans throughout much of our history, not just in our constantly changing modern era.

In this chapter, I argue that even as I have personally been aggressively open-minded, and consider the trait (and value) vital for critical thinking and creativity, I fear that its virtues have been significantly overestimated and even misunderstood.

THE FIFTH LIE THAT KILLED DEMOCRACY: OPEN - MINDEDNESS

by Ashok Panikkar

The Sixth Lie: Open Minds Must Never be Closed

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In the attached podcast, made courtesy of Mr and Mrs AI from the Google LM Notebook Deep Dive Network, the guests discuss Ashok’s text, pull out the main themes and - hopefully - give you the itch to sign up as paid and read the book in full. Enjoy and I’ll see you the other side of the paywall.

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CHAPTERS (to date) available exclusively for paid subscribers:

Book Launch: Ashok explains why you should read his book.

Preface: The Ten Lies that killed Democracy

The First Lie: Liberalism

The Second Lie: Cosmopolitanism

The Third Lie: Progress

The Fourth Lie: Freedom and Liberty

The Fifth Lie: Justice

The Sixth Lie…..coming next week.

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The Guerre and Shalom Publishing House is also currently serialising the following books for paid subscribers:

PAX ARABICA

PURE JEWISH ANGER: A post-10/7 poetry anthology

Books coming soon(-ish) from the Guerre and Shalom Publishing House:

a) “Observations from the Kitchen” by Richard Neat

b) “Jesus at Babi Yar” by Eli Kavon

c) “United Nations on Trial” by Shlomo Levin

To read these works and to be considered for publication, you will need to sign up as a paid subscriber.

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CHAPTERS (to date)

Book Launch: Ashok explains why you should read his book.

Preface: The Ten Lies that killed Democracy

The First Lie: Liberalism

The Second Lie: Cosmopolitanism

The Third Lie: Progress

The Fourth Lie: Freedom and Liberty

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Summary- Justice (pun intended):

In this chapter I write about the eternal problem of delivering justice, particularly in a liberal democratic society. I show how democracy, an imperfect and unwieldy system at the best of times, is riddled with contradictions and dilemmas. For instance an objective and egalitarian legal/ judicial system has to coexist with a political system that is based on popular (majority) sovereignty. So what happens when the majority or a vocal minority is upset with the delivery of justice? What happens when human subjectivity overrides legalistic objectivity? Finally I ask: are we expecting too much when we expect perfect justice?

I argue that justice is an ephemeral idea and that perfect justice will always be aspirational. Given our human limitations we would be better off treating it as the art of the possible —as we do politics.

To sneak behind the paywall and see all new serialised book chapters from the Guerre and Shalom Publishing House, don’t forget to subscribe today! Annual Paid Subscriptions are very reasonably priced at £45/$60.

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THE FIFTH LIE THAT KILLED DEMOCRACY - JUSTICE

by Ashok Panikkar

The Fifth Lie: Justice for some is justice for none.

Mr. Jacob was a man of high standards, and he was singularly unimpressed by my middling scholastic and sporting performances. Despite or perhaps because of this, I remained in awe of him and wanted to be in his good books. This made what happened between us even worse.

Even as an eleven-year-old with two years in boarding school and seven in the Indian educational/penal system, I was already acutely conscious of the vulnerabilities that came from being terminally dark-skinned, poor at math, and all-around weird. Hence, despite my obvious limitations, I worked hard to please teachers in at least one arena. I was infuriatingly punctual for my classes.

On most days, it took me 15 minutes to make the trek to the school from my family’s home, which was picturesquely situated at the bottom of the Ambalamugal valley and out of sight from the Cochin Oil Refinery’s chimney stacks. However, if forced to take my siblings to school with me, it took the better part of half an hour. Every morning my mom and the domestic help engaged in a high stakes battle to get my younger siblings, eight and six, ready for school. If they were running particularly late, she would drive them over to the school. Many was the day that our two-door sky-blue Standard Herald with my mom at the wheel would come tearing into the school driveway with the three of us inside just as the morning assembly was winding down, to the disapproving looks of the teachers and administrators.

On that fateful April morning, I was ready and almost out of the door by 8:15 am, well in time to exchange a few comic books with friends and to make it comfortably for the 9:00 am morning assembly, when my mom yelled, “Take the children with you.” My protestations were ignored as she directed a few home-truths in my direction about being scruffy, bad at math, and a lousy older brother. Realizing that I had missed the opportunity to make good my escape, I shuffled around and fretted, whining volubly about being late, missing the assembly, and pissing the teachers off. Just as we were about to leave, my brother needed to use the bathroom—once again—which put to rest any chances of me being on time and thus sealed my fate.

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BLURB: What if we have completely misunderstood what it means to live in free and open societies? What if we have neglected the very liberal systems that gave us our freedoms and rights? What if the decline of democracies is not because of Trump, MAGA, the Right-Wing, Orban or Modi, but our own ignorance of democratic vulnerabilities? The TEN LIES THAT KILLED DEMOCRACY comes out of three decades of designing, repairing and sustaining democratic communities and organizations in the USA and elsewhere. Over 12 chapters you will receive a whole new (and genuinely radical) understanding of what liberal values really are— and how we can protect them.

PRICE: As per Guerre and Shalom policy, all new book chapters are behind a paywall. Where the author is someone other than the editor, there is a 50-50 split. So if you subscribe to Guerre and Shalom from one of Ashok’s chapters, Ashok will receive 50% and Daniel will receive 50%, giving you the right to to this Substack’s material for the entire year.

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PREVIOUSLY…:The previous chapter of “Ten Lies that killed Democracy” can be found here:

TODAY, in chapter 4, Ashok considers the relationship between freedom and stability. He ends by making the following, somewhat controversial, claim, namely that “The more stable the society, the less the individual freedoms. The more the freedoms and political liberties, the more unstable the society”. His reasoning is fascinating, but will you agree? Sign up as paid to find out and be sure to leave your comments and questions at the bottom.

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“The Fourth Lie: The more free we are, the happier we will be.”

by Ashok Panikkar

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The democratic citizen’s version of Matthew 16:26, “For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” should read, “What is a citizen profited, if he gains freedoms, and lose his own society?”

Ashok Panikkar

DEMOCRACY FORTNIGHT HAS BEGUN!! The previous chapters of Ashok’s new book can be found here, here and here. To sneak behind the paywall and see all new serialised book chapters from the Guerre and Shalom Publishing House, don’t forget to subscribe today! Annual Paid Subscriptions are very reasonably priced at £45/$60.

To date, there have been 380 editions of Guerre & Shalom. I can categorically state that this chapter by DC-dwelling Ashok Panikkar is by far the most important text you will have read here (or perhaps elsewhere on Substack). Please subscribe and spread the message.

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Chapter Summary:

For around 150 years the ancient civilizations of China, India and Europe watched spellbound as the USA, the new kid on the block (a veritable parvenu), strived with extraordinary idealism and seemingly infinite resources to create a prosperous and democratic country. What differentiated the USA (and later the West) from the rest of the world was the unprecedented open and free (liberal) societies that they established, and within which they thrived.

Liberalism, as I explained in an earlier chapter, was a movement that privileged individual reason and autonomy, and stood steadfastly against moral certainty and social orthodoxy. However, at some point liberals decided that in addition to being free and protecting their own minorities, they also wanted to save the whole world and everyone in it.

For the next few decades, this need to develop, change, and transform the world became an obsession, especially amongst the educated elite. The more they invested resources to correct every possible flaw in their own society and those abroad, the more they also gave up on classical liberalism. Which, after all, was nothing but a skeptical and rational mindset —a way of looking at the world shorn of traditional / cultural biases and prejudices. Their enthusiasm for improving the world pushed them towards embracing what we think of today as progressive activism. Progressivism is what you get when you marry liberalism with moral certainty.

The immense ‘progress’ on every front- cultural, social, economic- has taken a toll of society, the nation and the modern world itself. So much so, many are left wondering if the USA (or Germany or the UK) can even survive as a nation. In the rush to change and transform every imperfect institution, rule and norm, the very foundations of American society seem to have come close to being destroyed. In this chapter, I explore the implications, costs and consequences of liberalism, including its natural corollary progress.

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THE THIRD LIE THAT KILLED DEMOCRACY - PROGRESS

by Ashok Panikkar

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Chapter Summary:

In this chapter, I will present the origins and the mindset of a class of cosmopolitan people that I fondly refer to as the Cosmopolite. Cosmopolites tend to be urban, very adaptable and highly educated, but not necessarily wealthy. Many are, as they themselves say in rueful jest, over-educated and under-employed. Regardless, what they all have in common is a shared sense of aesthetics and political values. I will also gently suggest that they are not as tolerant, open-minded or liberal as they imagine themselves to be.

The Cosmopolite could only have been created by globalization and the kind of dense urban centers that brought in people from all over the world. This kind of environment resulted in the development of a very particular kind of person who could survive and thrive in places (and amidst people) that they had no previous connection to. As we will see, this is an unusual kind of existence.

Having changed countries myself five times, and having lived in far too many cities to count, I consider myself a bona fide Cosmopolite. However, having grown up in the small towns of Kerala throughout the sixties and seventies, I also know something about how the rest of the world lives.

Let me say that it takes enormous effort and skill to move to a new place and to try and build connections outside of the traditional markers of identity, such as land, family, race and religion. This makes the Cosmopolite an exceptional being, who has the power to transform not just her own life, but even challenge what it means to live as an individual and a social being.

THE SECOND LIE THAT KILLED DEMOCRACY - COSMOPOLITANISM

by Ashok Panikkar

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The Second Lie: The Cosmopolitan is a tolerant, open-minded, and liberal being.

Vivek was a schoolmate, and we had much in common. We mostly read the same books, played the same sports, and listened to the same kind of music. Being academically brighter than I, he went into Engineering, while I went all over the place. We also had something else in common—we were both emphatically urban, and for Indians of our generation, very Westernized. We were most at home in cities, safe from the probing eyes of neighbors and disapproving elders. While I spent much of my twenties and thirties in Bangalore, he lived in Mumbai shuttling around the suburbs, moving from bachelor pads to better apartments, and dating a bunch of attractive, modern Indian women. By his late thirties, he had an opportunity to go abroad to work with a multinational company, so he broke his lease, wished his parents well, amicably ended his current romantic relationship and moved to a suburb in Houston, Texas.

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In this 6 minute podcast, Ashok introduces himself to the Guerre and Shalom Community and tells us why you should start reading his newly released text (if you haven’t started already). It’s an excellent, professionally-produced video which raises the key questions, highlights the main issues and the points the way towards the philosophy that guides his work.

To access the Ten Lies that killed Democracy, you will need to become a paid subscriber (or patron). Should you “subscribe” from this post or one of Ashok’s chapters, the proceeds will be shared equally between the editor (ie me) and the author; and you will still get access to all of Guerre and Shalom’s material for a year!

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THE TENTH LIE THAT KILLED DEMOCRACY

by Ashok Panikkar

CONTENTS:

Preface: The Ten Lies that killed Democracy // The First Lie: Liberalism //The Second Lie: Cosmopolitanism // The Third Lie: Progress // The Fourth Lie: Freedom and Liberty // The Fifth Lie: Justice // The Sixth Lie: Open-Mindedness // The Seventh Lie: Equality // The Eighth Lie: Power // The Ninth Lie: Diversity // The Tenth Lie: a. Proving Truth, b. Destroying Truth, c. The Return from Woke to Reality // Conclusion: The Mother of All Lies

Last week we read the preface. Today Ashok, founder of MetaCulture and Village Idiot Studios, dives into the First Lie that killed Democracy, namely that liberalism is an unadulterated virtue. Having spent an entire morning reading and editing this masterpiece, I can tell you that becoming a paid subscriber is well worth your time and money. This work - just the first chapter may I remind you - will transform how you think about Indian conservatism, European early modern history and the nature of today’s American liberal democracy. Ashok praises the life-affirming virtues of liberal thinking from Kerala to California, but warns us how it may contain the seeds of its own decline….

BOOK BLURB: What if we have completely misunderstood what it means to live in free and open societies? What if we have neglected the very liberal systems that gave us our freedoms and rights? What if the decline of democracies is not because of Trump, MAGA, the Right-Wing, Orban or Modi, but our own ignorance of democratic vulnerabilities? The TEN LIES THAT KILLED DEMOCRACY comes out of three decades of designing, repairing and sustaining democratic communities and organizations in the USA and elsewhere. Over 12 chapters you will receive a whole new (and genuinely radical) understanding of what liberal values really are— and how we can protect them.

PRICE: As per Guerre and Shalom policy, all new published book chapters are behind a paywall. Where the author is someone other than the editor, there is a 50-50 split. So if you subscribe to Guerre and Shalom from one of Ashok's chapters, Ashok will receive 50% and Daniel will receive 50%, giving you the right to all our Substack material for the entire year.

Subscribe now

THE FIRST LIE THAT KILLED DEMOCRACY - LIBERALISM

by Ashok Panikkar

Chapter Summary:

Around the age of 13, my parents took us on a family pilgrimage to one of the holiest of Hindu temples in Tirupathi. Instead of undergoing a spiritual awakening, it killed my faith in organized religion. This experience forced me to embark on a clumsy quest to make sense of the world outside of the framework handed down to me by my people and Indian society.

It would be fair to say that my quest was a meandering and confused one. I made every mistake in the book and a few creative ones of my own— before I stumbled upon liberalism. In this chapter, I want to give you my version of the story of liberalism as I have studied and experienced it. This chapter will trace Western civilization’s journey over a historically minuscule span of 300 years, as it quite fortuitously discovered (or invented) individual autonomy, creativity, reason and science to create democratic societies. I will present the key historic movements that enabled the United States to become a vanguard of liberalism, shape the West and transformed the world.

CHAPTER SUBHEADINGS: The First Lie: Liberalism is an unadulterated virtue // Missing out on Patriarchal Privileges // My Free Thinking Years // Incredible India! // Historic Freakshow // Ancient, Non-Western and Indigenous ‘Democracies’ // Transformational Triad // Renaissance // Reformation // Enlightenment // Capitalism and Enlightenment // The City as a Hub // Meritocracy // The American Experiment // What made America different // America’s Greatest Innovation // Head-Spinning America

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THE FIRST LIE:

The First Lie: Liberalism is an unadulterated virtue

By prioritizing individual rights and freedoms and placing restrictions on society’s and the government’s powers (or as I presumed my parent’s and teacher’s powers), Liberalism came across to thirteen-year-old me as the most attractive of political philosophies. What made this lie so irresistible was that it put me back at the center of my universe, which had been mine by rights until my kid sister came along when I was two and a half.

When I first encountered Liberalism, it sounded like an atheist’s version of heaven. At that age, I was already discovering the pleasures of my half-baked attempts at creativity and the dramatic effects of even my clumsy and elementary reasoning on adults— who were often stumped by my questions.

By privileging the questioning mind, by promising equality before the law, and most importantly, by giving ordinary people the right to decide how we would be ruled, the idea of Liberalism blew me away. In the Kerala, India, of the late sixties, it sounded too good to be true.

Decades later I realized that it might, indeed, have been too good to be true. Many Liberals, impatient at the slow pace of change have crossed over from gentle, reasonable and skeptical Liberalism into ardent Progressivism and even aggressive Social Justice Activism. Both these movements, stirred as they are by the inequalities and injustices of the world, focus on the fair distribution of existing resources rather than on producing wealth and increasing the size of society’s pie. In fact, both are deeply antagonistic to capitalism, which is popularly viewed as a merciless dog-eat-dog system that lacks empathy and compassion. While I was never enamored by capitalism, reason and logic didn’t allow me to indulge in dreams of a perfect life under communism or socialism either. I was skeptical of any economic system that was based on plucking the fruits rather than the planting and nurturing of fruit bearing trees.

However, my greatest grouse against Progressivism and Social Justice Activism is that they have quite unforgivably replaced inquiry, skepticism and critical reasoning for moral certainty. Having had my fill of orthodoxy, growing up and knowing a little something about the horrors of totalitarian regimes, I was naturally suspicious of any movement (Communism, Fascism, Islamic fundamentalism) that not only purported to know all the problems and where they came from, but what the solutions were. In an increasingly complex world this seemed to me to be not just arrogant, but inexcusably ignorant. Moreover, not that it was a deal breaker, but I found their language and tactics to be aesthetically distasteful— given that more often than not they leaned towards the emotional, reactive, irrational and dismissive.

Like any self respecting philosophy being open to being challenged, genuine liberalism is rightly challenged by authoritarians, progressives and populists who worry that an emphasis on individual rights will make people selfish and self-centered. As I will explain there is much to that criticism— even if like everything else, liberalism is not monolithic and there can be many different interpretations of it.

However, at its core liberalism is a philosophy that seeks to protect individual dignity and autonomy over that of the compulsions and sensitivities of the group or the state. As a political philosophy, it was particularly reassuring to me because it told me that my mind, my ideas, and my needs counted and were just as important, if not more than those of society. How could any budding egotist not love it?

Before I tell you why I call liberalism a lie, I must confess that I have not only held onto this lie all my life but have lived with it joyously (and even aggressively). Even as I write this chapter, I confess that I love this lie and even giving it up over time, even if in bits and pieces, kills me.

Being a misfit in the Victorian rote-learning based Indian educational system, I instinctively understood the idea of serfdom and servility. Unlike my academically talented or well-adjusted peers, I felt trapped by the lessons, homework, teachers and even my mom, whose affections ebbed and flowed based on the grades I brought home. I was a mess of hormones and reactivity who yearned for purpose and meaning as a child, which in the India of the late Sixties and Seventies required blind compliance to the EFEI (Extended Family/Education/ Industrial) complex. Inquiry and questioning brought me nothing but trouble at school and at home.

Missing out on Patriarchal Privileges

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Today is quite a day. An important turning point in the dreams of this publication. For today, the Guerre and Shalom Publishing House has the honour of welcoming Ashok Panikkar to serialise his new book — a work decades in the making. Over the coming 12 weeks, every week, Ashok will present a new chapter of his g…

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