Our communication with Dr.Amartya Sen

Sub: Your famous theme of 'social choice' 

Respected Dr.Amartya Sen, 

Warm Greetings from a freelance Philosophic researcher from Delhi. I am part of a philosophic non-profit called 'conscience of the society' that keep its central CAUSE , ' A REINVENTED DEMOCRACY'. 

Besides the above cause, I personally was into a singular mission from my youthful years; an inquiry into the epistemological root of  ' human reason'. I, having been accepted the call of philosophy and thoughts in my life from childhood, was most baffled about how man fixes exactness of his knowledge. This question always ended up in and around man's faculty of reason ! What is this faculty ? I set-out to inquire.

After spending almost 3-4 decades on this problem, finally I have come out with the finding that faculty of reason can not be anything but man's INTERNAL SENSE ORGAN OF 'ORDER', an existential category similar to that of sight, sound and taste.  I compiled my findings in the shape of a paper, and sent to multiples of world universities, philosophical councils and professional journals, but without any result. I finally self-published this theme with Amazon.com, titled 'Is reason a sense organ? A super-mind above the known mind ? ' ( This book is Google/ Amazon.com searchable by the title) 

In the meantime, my paper titled ' IS MODERN DEMOCRACY A FAKE COIN'? ' was accepted by the 'International society for universal dialogue' (isud.org) based in Athens, Greece during June last year, and they invited to present my paper at their 9th Congress held at Olympia. The theme of the Congress was' Democracy; historical reflections and modern Transformations'. This acceptance of my thought and ideas enhanced my confidence substantially. I published my book with the same title at Amazon.com. ( title is Google/Amazon searchable) 

It is with this fragile confidence that I write this humble note to one of the most eminent minds of the age, in the field of thought, economics and polity ! 

Defining correct relation between the establishment of EQUAL MEN with its people is more primary than discussing 'social choice'

The chief purpose of this communication is to bring it into your kind notice that the very role of political establishment in modern democratic set-up is not yet defined properly, and then how can enlightened men like you and me jump to the subsequent issue of their  'social choices' ?  How can enlightened men leave such more central and primary issues such as the very identity of citizens under  governmental system of EQUAL MEN , and attend to subsidiary issues ? 

 I refer to the NOT yet fully defined role and relation of the democratic establishment and its rulers with its citizens. In democracy, people are  NOT 'subjects' like they were  in the old regimes,  but the ruler and the ruled here are at EQUAL footing !  The estates of the ruler and the ruled are but one here. 

Kings ruled on earth evoking their divine rights. When the American revolutionists opted to experiment with the old Greek system of democracy in their new land, though the great minds behind the effort cared almost everything to prevent the governmental system of people NOT to hinder the rights and liberty of citizens in the state, they had no fresh, new model of an establishment of EQUAL PEOPLE ready to adopt for their government of the people. Hence, the same old model of the POWER-STATE was adopted for the peoples own system of government too, which was a grave historical and ideological lapse !. Today, these rulers have no other model but to act and behave like their predecessors, as well as adopt the same VALUES towards the people as that of  their predecessors !

Concept of 'social-choice' presupposes an establishment that represents the collective sense of reason and wisdom of the people. Sad fact is that such a realm of collective is absent today due the presence of POLITICAL COMPULSIONS of the peoples governments, hence matters of SOCIAL CHOICE are determined by forces, energies, priorities and relevance far remote and unrelated to the plain and rational concern of social choices of a rational collective social authority ! 

As phenomenon of POLITICS is what controls modern democracies, and politics being  an art, and even a science of grabbing control over the POWER-STATES, social choices are determined by selfish agenda of political parties and its leader figures. These professional players are guided by primeval motives and energies that had been controlling the social choices of older regimes. People were merely 'state material' for the older regimes, wherein state was more central than its men. Modern democratic regimes also are  NOT different from those old regimes in those motives, and in the basic spirit of the 'ruler' and the 'ruled'.  Hence, tenets of SOCIAL CHOICES should not at all have been a major theme of study and research undertaken by the bests minds on the planet !

If I am right in my understanding of your Nobel prized paper on social choice, it was a well meant CRITIQUE about  Dr.Kenneth Arrow's theory of impossibility, a theory that said NO rational and mathematically correct conclusions could ever be arrived at, as to what a population as  a whole would want from the state. Hence, a rational 'social choice' is impossible. 

You have argued in your paper that ' Arrow's powerful impossible theory invites 'engagement', rather than resignation'. The examples you have cited to show the inadequacy of typical social research to measure poverty merely on the basic of income level was brilliant; a person may have higher income, but if he has a family member with Kidney failure, and under expensive dialysis, he may be more deprived than the poorest of poor in the community by all standards ! 

Your example for showing the falsehood of 'reported state of deprivation' was also brilliant; you wrote : ' the socially cultivated sense of contentment and serenity may even affect the perception of morbidity and illness'...you quoted the example of Kerala, where people are more educated, and aware of a better degree of health and morbidity standards. 

Modern democratic establishments does NOT represent the sacred, rational realm of the collective of man 

But, as I have attempted to convey above, the very issue of 'social choice' becomes null and void when there exists NO rational body of the collective of man today,  who could take up social choice issue in its genuine, rational sense and meaning. The 'realm of the 'collective of man' today stands abducted by professional groups and men, whose political interests, priorities and goals are what determine their 'social choice' task, than any social welfare, or human development oriented agenda. Hence, urgent attention of men like you who are engaged into such genuinely non-existing sub-realms of socio-economic-political reality should shift their attention towards the more primary issues of fixing the very realm of collective of man into a really rational, genuinely democratic and humane body. This is the crux of what I am trying to convey to you.

Prof.Christopher Vasillopulos ( Easter Connecticut State University, deptt. of history,philosophy and political science) wonders in his key note address during the isud.org's 9th Congress at Olympia: 'Canpolis-animals exist in the power-states? . . .Can the nation-state subordinate its concerns of national security, and its instruments of wealth, power, coercion, indiscriminate violence, and aggressive war, and become instead become an arena for the promotion of friendship and happiness ?'

Though we have such genuine anguish from the part of many eminent men today, our age is generally ignorant of the real danger the near anarchic 'realm of collective' that poses to the future  of human societies.  Prof. Christopher's concluding remark is apt to describe this situation: ' To date, however, the ability, or even he desire to restrain the power-state has not been sufficiently general to give our ruling elites pause'. 

This realm of collective is what controls, determines, and influences all other realms of man's life. When this all controlling realm is left to the whims and fancies of unscrupulous men and groups, and this danger is NOT in the general awareness of the mainstream reason or intelligence of mankind, how can we the men of mind and light remain mute witnesses ? 

Now the threat of world going back to the old type of regimes of Kings and his likes is remote. The threat is that of the collective realm of man being captured by tyrants and autocrats in the name of DEMOCRACY. As you would agree, present  rogue regimes like  Pakistan, North Korea etc are also claiming themselves as DEMOCRATIC !Hence, there is an urgent need for the  influx of new myths, new values and new definitions for modern age's man's realm of collective. 

This communication is specifically to appeal to you, one of the few personalities  who could grew to the level of a human institution and stature, with a ready and willing audience in the world to listen to you , and take note of what you say and express, to hint to the world about the above grave danger of the world that we live in ! A thousand books that people like us write and publish won't get the relevance of  what you say in the public sphere !  

Besides you, there are also few other men and groups who are equally potential in deviating the age's attention to its great vacuums; like Dr. Noam Chomsky, the Elders Community ( a forum of such eminent people like Arch-Bishop Tuto, Jimmy Carter, Kofi Annan, Ela Bhatt etc.) My specific appeal to you is to share the above concern with those above referred, and discuss remedies. It would be the most rational action that would go a long way in changing the world for better, from your part !

I attempted to convey to the Elders community  the dire need of reinventing democracy so that lives of men could be reinvented on the planet. They wrote back with a statement from Jimmy Carter; ' "Where we feel a vacuum in the world, where there's a need that can be filled by us uniquely, that's when we decide to take on an issue." 

I replied them that there won't be any greater vacuum than the present vacuum of a genuinely sacred, rational realm of the collective of man today, to lead mankind into universal peace and happiness !

The general impression of openness and transparency in the world artificially created by media 

The 24x7 stories and debates at the public sphere through tv and news papers about our democratic political realm has succeeded in creating a general sense of openness and transparency about the current state of goings in the world. But is so smartly hidden that, only the ones in political and corporate power are aware of the real energies that in work in modern world, and its directions. To illustrate the veracity of this claim needs much more larger a platform and context than this brief e-mail interaction. I request you to share the said theme at my blog posts, from links: http://closedmodernworlddespitedemocracy.blogspot.in/

http://archaeologiesofthefuture.blogspot.in/

 The most vicious aspect of modern world in all respect is the existence of the institution of modern media, with their sole professional job of making interesting STORIES out of everything that happens in the world ! When men and events are reduced to mere news-worthy stories and features, just for the sake of it, unmindful of the necessity of leading mankind into sane and sober intellectual directions, the story of wilderness of the age becomes complete ! This exercise is handled by ordinary journalism graduates with inadequate historical, intellectual or moral knowledge about the world, mankind's civilizational needs, or the danger of creating such a synthetic world for peoples consumption. 

So, it is crucial that men like you intervene with your God given special status in the world, by hinting at the need of creative ideas for our 'realm of collective' of man. A mere hint would serve the purpose of a trigger; men of mind and thoughts would pick-up the tip, and start thinking on the need. 

Reason has two distinct functions; 

1) Its mechanical function of assessing through the existing premises, evidences in-front of it, and arriving at conclusions and inferences 

2) The more creative, SPECTRUM function; ie. reason's ability to give out new avenues, possibilities, sub-ideas of every ray of the chosen subject. It is a function yet unknown to mankind, though man was using it for centuries together. This special faculty of REASON was instrumental for all the inventions, creative ideas, and origin of new institutions in the world, that man had wrongly attributed to his intellectual power. 

This SPECTRUM faculty of man's reason, when applied to human existence in general, its bottom most tenets and paradigms would be reveled to enlightened minds. From this point, master premises emerge, or even could be formed as to what human societies need for its sustainable development and overall happiness and prosperity in the world. All his sub-strata of existence, like that of his political, educational, economic, social etc. realms should necessarily be ensured its logical compatibility with the earlier shown MASTER PREMISES, tenets and paradigms. Stand-alone political, social, economic ideas that can not linked with the base master-premises should never be allowed to apply, or spread in societies. Such a strict intellectual, social, political and economic base notion would prevent holocaust like ideas from emerging in the world as stand alone ideas ! Bases upon such master-premises for mankind and human civilization, threat of future world wars also could be contained and restricted, with ,massive, one voice public opinion. People like you must enact your historical role in the mainstream, by introducing these MASTER premises, and enlighten the world as a whole. 

Voices of isolated individuals like me is often treated as 'freak' voices, whereas when the same thing when emerges from the mouth of people like you, it gains sudden global relevance ! 

If you are unclear as to what I have attempted to convey in this communication, kindly respond to me, so that I could continue explaining to any extent.

I apologize for sending you such a long, unsought mail, but such subjects has no other route to communicate ! What this communication handles is mankind's future. 

I have a blog post that attempts to explain the concept of man's 'sacred realm of collective' that democratic establishments must be representing to its people, at link: http://anewtheoryondemocraticestablishment.blogspot.in/

With all respects and high regards, 

( We neither received any reply, not even an acknowledgement from Dr. Sen)

Sent during 2014

  

   

Does the spirit of Magna-carta alive today in the desired form and degree?

Our communication with the Sr.Journalist Sh. Prasannan at 'THE WEEK' magazine, June 7th issue 

( Magazine link: http://week.manoramaonline.com/cgi-bin/MMOnline.dll/portal/ep/theWeekSectionView.do?tabId=13&programId=1073755753&BV_ID=@@@)


Subject: Prasannan's cover story ' A chartered flight to liberty' , June 7th,2015 issue :

 Does the spirit of Magna-Carta alive today in the desired form and degree?

From: "Abraham Joseph"<ajoseph1@rediffmail.com> Sun, 31 May '15 12:21a

To: "prasannan@theweek.in"<prasannan@theweek.in> and others


Dear Prasannan,


Warm greetings from 'conscience of the society', the non-profit initiative at NCR,
( National capital region of Delhi) that stands for philosophical research into freedom, reason, mind and polity !

Appreciate you for bringing out this important and very relevant cover-story on Magna-Carta treaty, the first document in human-history that introduced the concept of Freedom, outside the Royal family. Your story was so exhaustive, that it read more like an extended history of Great Britain.

Though it seems your intention behind writing the said cover story was to highlight the 800th anniversary of the great Treaty, and its role as a great base for many of the important documents on freedom in the world like constitutions of many nations, including that of India, it naturally and automatically brought-out some very central facts about the eternal plight of man for genuine human-freedom !


It brought-out a fact that ( though indirectly) freedom and rights are very fragile propositions when Power
( Royal or otherwise) is present as an over-riding influence. ' Trial by law' and similar prescribed formalities remain mere rituals when Power is present in the scene as a real, all overriding force !


In one of the most interesting incidents in your story, wherein Edward-11 was killed by his wife Isabella by inserting a red-hot poker into his anus, a 'trial of law' had also took place !


Edward-111 also killed his mother's lover, of course after a similar ritual of a 'fair-trial' !


Then your story confirms that, though the Tudor King-Henry-X111 did not ever listen to parliament, the parliament ' did not dare to question him'! Means, when Power is present, tenets of rights and freedom stand null and void, or melt !


The heroic story of Sir Thomas More also was same. Even at death, he could only recite the tenets of freedom and rights, but they could never save his freedom, or life !

During Charles-1's time, both the parliament and the King had to take arms to settle the question of Freedom and rights ! Both the groups evoked the name of 'parliament' while fighting for supremacy ! It should remind us the trend of present day, wherein every political party, and even totalitarian regimes like in Communist China evoke 'PEOPLES' name when indulging in power-wars to capture the thrones, or for unleashing oppressive acts upon real people ! Peoples’ name or brand is falsely taken to avail power in their name, but to use it against him in actual act of governance ! It is the greatest fraud and self-deception of our times !

Your story clearly teaches readers another silent lesson: rights and freedom act like dew when Political or other power is present. Rights and freedom turns REAL for people, only as a 'mercy', or as chance 'weakness', or chance sense of MORALITY possessed by some ‘chance’ RULERS, at chance periods in the history of nations!

In real and concrete sense, rights and freedom are still NOT different from that in those antique days of Kings and autocrats, because, even today in modern democracies like in India, rights and freedom of common-citizens has to seep through with great-difficulty, the corridors of POWER that still remain as the chief fuel of modern DEMOCRACY !

It will always remain my luck ( the citizen’s luck) if I escape an encounter with Police during my life time, similar to my luck of not turning a direct victim of the POWER-tactics of a tax official ! If I remain a rights- activist, or a Muslim, or a Maoist ideologue, chances of such LUCK will turn half or even zero !. See the struggle for rights and freedom undertaken by Irom Sharmila of Manipur, since 2000 ,for the abolishment of the AFSPA ? ( Armed Forces Special Power Act ) She had to abandon her normal life under our welfare state, as she had to remain under home-arrest and forced nasal feeding ever-since she had started her protest !

Where is the relevance of Magna-Carta or its influence in the modern world ? If you caught talking against any reputed leader, whether it is Jayalalitha in the Southern state of Tamil Nadu where citizens treat her as semi-God, or Modi in Delhi, their cronies and devotes will see to it that you will get behind the bars for sure !

You mentioned in your story that, Coke was able to ' stir the minds of people' through his writings in 1634 , when newspapers were absent. Today, there is 24x7 printed and electronic media outlets are there to STIR the minds, but do our media STIR, or even remind people about the above calamity of FREEDOM and RIGHTS getting melted and VANISHED in the presence of Political-Power ?


They (The media) have turned partners in the business of power, with the assigned task of 'manufacturing consent", as clearly explained in our blog: http://mediaandcontentrelevance.blogspot.in/

Dear Prasannan, I politely appeal to you to utilize the convenient means already available at your disposal ( this magazine column) to write more and more, and again and again on the evil of keeping POWER as the fuel for running govts of EQUAL -MEN ! If mankind get-rid of the necessity of POWER as the fuel of RULING over people, which is the prime cause of all human violence as described at our blog: http://understandinginflationinanewlight.blogspot.in/, world could achieve a PARADIGM-shift in her intellectual, social and even spiritual direction !


Could we ever think of allowing people to enter inside the shops to pick-up their merchandise and pay later at counter till a few years ago ? See, how naturally people could adapt to FREEDOM, and behave responsibly in our uncountable Malls these days ? Think of the days wherein to meet the urgency of even for Rs.100/ -we had to approach the instant gold-loan companies a few years ago, before Credit cards have become popular. Credit cards were a similar revolution in 'believing' in the responsibility and sense of dignity of men; now, people responsibly avail such credit, and repay with equal sense of responsibility !

With govts. not infected with the mythical political Power urge, one day, similar citizen responsibility could be expected and envisioned ! Please see our blog, what should a true democracy represent to people, at link: http://anewtheoryondemocraticestablishment.blogspot.in/

Prasannan, kindly plan a cover story on FREEDOM of citizen vis-a-vis Governmental-power soon !

warm regards,

Abraham Joseph

www.conscienceofthesociety.com