As I am sitting down to write this blog, my predominantly Hindu family is celebrating Varalakshmi Pooja, a festival to appease the Hindu god of wealth. This delineates association between two of the most diabolical thoughts, the desire for individual wealth & theocracy. I started to wonder about this rather despicable groups of plutocrats and theocrats.

As I explored the connection between the two groups, I could see a lot of pictures emerging and how they target each of the groups to maintain power. I also realised how concepts like libertarianism are nothing more than a bad joke. These two groups not only have common traits but their philosophies are mutually beneficial.  This coalition of the morally depraved leechers has not only naturalised the disparities in the society but also justified the inequalities. so, I wanted to explore the below.

• Why has the political right has been in bed with the social right for ages?
• How do they operate?
• What does the playing field look like?
• What’s their approach?
• How to navigate through this?

It is definitely about power

As most philosophers have already said, this strictly is a game of power. This is the most obvious point. The need to have power is a fairly innate nature of humans. In the current social structure, power can be got by wealth and wealth can be retained by developing morals around the wealthy. The morals can be defined by religion through seduction and fear. Now, the only open piece of this is who should be wealthy? If the system is designed to control who can be wealthy and not let wealth distribute, then the job is done.

Over the human history, one group has used wielded of this power over others. However, not all groups have been equally ravenous. This voracity for power is a commonality between plutocrats and theocrats. They always hide behind social justice and righteousness. Both these philosophies need the power to keep people in check so that the effects of their practices can be negated.

Let’s start with the plutocrats. These people are advocates of the free-market capitalism. The popular misconception is that free-market capitalists don’t want any rules and this will drive meritocracy. This red herring is intended to distract people from understanding the actual point which is they want to power so that they can form the rules. Political Economics is a game and like any other, it needs rules. There is no game without rules and order. Hit the capitalists hard, they will be the first one to cry for rules in any society. The capitalist rulers have done this well by transferring the key portfolios to the parties of god. The key portfolios which the faith parties demand are always, education and health. They never ask for water, natural resources, mining as that requires a certain degree of expertise which isn’t in the scriptures.

Religion, on the other hand, helps capitalism by bringing in servility and credulity into the system. Religion also needs power so that the society continues to trust their myths and absurdities. Once religion has the power they create the rules through god’s will. The powerful capitalists support religious faith with their wealth. There is a strong case of mutual benefit group. You won’t find many theocrats using Mark’s gospel “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God”. Apart from the original figures of every religious cult, the subsequent ones have required money to propagate. They have supported the patronage of the wealthy as part of their mutual support group. The two key areas which the theocrats want to corrupt our education and healthcare. The former is the source of development and critical thinking and the latter develops an understanding of diseases. If they lose these two, they cannot seduce people into their system or scare them to join. This is a partnership of true evil.

The field for the power game – our social fabric

I want to deconstruct my opinions to understand the fabric better. So, I have decided to break the social structures in pyramids, with each pyramid having levels. There are two such pyramids, one economic pyramid or class pyramid and the second one is the religious pyramid. The reason these pyramids are important is that they highlight the alignment of the people and thereby their motivations. Just to be clear, these are my observations from my research and I did not go around getting statistics. There will definitely be exceptions to this. The class pyramid has the upper class or the wealthy, the middle class or the white collar earners with a steady income and the lower income earners, who do not have a steady income stream or have low-income stream below sustainable levels. The religious pyramid has the fundamentalists on top. These are people who are holding extremely strong religious views, evangelising those views or driving policies through those views. Some of them might be extremists but most of them aren’t. Then there are moderates, who believe in all the religious principles,  have faith that it is for the collective good and peace. It gives them comfort to lead their lives. The last group are the sceptics.

 

However, if we coalesce these to create a mix of our society, this is what I see.

 

Now, I will break each of these groups down and talk about which parts of the pyramids constitute this group.

Right wing Extremists

Extremism is a fringe force in most societies. The right wing extremists are generally the literal interpreters of the religious texts, who have an inclination to use force to spread the view of their favourite fiction. These people include the KKK, the Boko Haram, Al -Qaeda, Shiv Sena, Lakshar-e-Taiba etc.

Religious Pyramid: Fundamentalists
Class Pyramid: Any of the three

Left wing Extremists

Just like their right-wing counterparts, the left wing extremists take a hardline stance to implement a certain Marxist economic theory but use do it by the use of force and in general quite indiscriminately. Where they differ extremely from the right-wing group is they start as a revolution to change the state of the oppressed. They always take the name of a Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, Karl Marx or Mao Zedong to drive their ideology. However, they quickly drift into a unit which can’t get violence out of their system. The Maoists in India, the Communist forces in other parts of the world are an example of this group.

Religious Pyramid: Skeptics
Class Pyramid: Any of the three

Neo-Liberals / Libertarians

These are the people who will fight against racism, fight for individual liberty, fight for marriage equality, legalisation of drugs and at the same time fight for free market enterprises, privatisation and elimination of the state from public affairs. These are the followers of Adam Smith and David Ricardo. They believe social welfare schemes prevents collective human development and somehow individuals through free markets will magically work. The high profile examples for this are the Jeff Bezos and Peter Thiel on the business side or Rand Paul on the political side.

Religious Pyramid: Predominantly Skeptics, some moderates
Class Pyramid: Predominantly upper middle class, some upper class

Leftist Corporate sellouts

These are people who claim to the on the left but have been bought over by the special interest groups and lobbies. They are for women’s rights, minority rights, human rights but are on the side of corporate powerhouses. They want to have government intervention through private partnerships in the fields of Health Care, Education. We can see them fight against climate change but not against wall street intervention. These are mostly educated upper middle class who are working at big corporations. The high profile examples of this group include Barrack Obama, Hillary and Bill Clinton, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. These are also people who feel staying left is incorrect and generally, prefer to call themselves commonsensical.

Religious Pyramid: Moderates
Class Pyramid: Predominantly middle class

Social, progressive Democrats

These are people who believe in the democratic system, a welfare state, economic redistribution and capitalism with controls. They are not against Capitalism but do not want it to have a free run. They want the government to run for the benefit of everyone. They are keen on key government initiatives like health care, education and transportation to be available to everyone. They are keen on maintaining individual liberties and are big proponents of human rights and equality. They are vocal against the growing income and wealth inequality and the rampaging private corporations. People like Bernie Sanders, Jeremy Corbyn, Elizabeth Warren, famous linguist Noam Chomsky, economists like Thomas Piketty and Mark Blyth are examples of this group. Most of these people are well educated social activists.

Religious Pyramid: Predominantly Skeptics, some moderates
Class Pyramid: Predominantly middle class, some upper class and lower class

The ugly coalition (Free market capitalists + Theocrats)

This group is Conservative party of every country in the world. They use fear and seduction to gain power and control everyone. They form a big percentage of the tip of both the pyramids. The attributes you see with these people are

• Trickle down economics – Tax breaks for the rich
• Get Government out of Health Care & Education
• Restrict civil rights to the minorities under the pretext of individual liberties and freedom of religion

Religious Pyramid: Predominantly Fundamentalists
Class Pyramid: Predominantly middle class, some upper class and lower class

Average Working Class

This is the group of the commons. People who work to earn income and sustain a living. These are people who do not possess any special power like extraordinary intelligence, wealth, access to privileged information. They are affected deeply by the policy changes, outsourcing, increase in bills. This is the average consumer who is scared of automation taking away their jobs.

Religious Pyramid: Predominantly Moderates, some fundamentals, some sceptics
Class Pyramid: Lower class and Middle class

Religious Reformers

These people want to take the principle of God, clean up the religion and use it to reform the society. They are smart enough the understand the issues but still have to believe the existence of a supernatural. They believe in a God but they do not despise people of other faiths or atheists. I put people like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, Dr. Cornel West, Raif Badawi etc in this list.

Religious Pyramid: Moderates
Class Pyramid: Lower class and Middle class

Theocratic Supremacists

This is a fringe group of people who are economically quite social but are extremely theocratic. The Hamas, people like Steve Bannon etc fall into this category. They want to create a welfare state only for their religion and state. As much as this group is a fringe they are one of the deadliest threat to civilisation, as they will affect pluralism, cultural evolution and individual liberties.

Religious Pyramid: Fundamentalists
Class Pyramid: Upper Class

Understanding the players in the game

The game is all about who rules the average working class group. The average working class will never be economically right if they fully understand what it means. This is how the society looks like for the Ugly Coalition.

Right wing Extremists: These people can be used to spread the fear of god, continue to instil credulity and servility in the system. However, they have to be kept at arm’s length as they might divide the society.
Neo-Liberals/Libertarians: These people fall for the greed of money. These are ivy league educated people, who can be seduced by neo-spiritual movements.
Leftist Corporate Sellouts: These people are the fake opponents who are needed to ensure that the working class get a fake sense of choice. They will never rock the boat.
Socialists, Progressive democrats: These people have grown out of grass root development programs. This population has to be minimised and in the long run, such programs which create them should be eliminated.
Left wing extremists: This is a self-destructive group. These people can be controlled by the use of military and by instilling fear of communism all across the society.
Religious Reformers: This is a group to worry about. Dr. King wasn’t assassinated when he was fighting for the rights of the blacks, but he was killed when wanted to fight against the class system in the US. This group are generally the target of violence from the right wing extremists.
Theocratic Supremacists: This group is again a partner group which gets used wisely. They are used by the rich to get the working class continue to be interested in the party of the god and also keep them divided by race, religion, nationality etc.

 

 

So, as marked above, the target group for the coalition is the group of the working class, corporate sellouts and neo-liberals. As long as they control this group through money and religion, they will continue to remain in power. With time they can move the axis more and more to the right.

What’s the strategy?

This is truly a game where the intent is to remove the rules to gain power. The democratic is looked at as hindrance as they add rules to the game. Now that we understand the arena, the game and the target persona, let’s move forward to look at the steps taken by this coalition to stay in power.  In order to do that we need to understand, what will make the working class move towards the left or be more informed. There are three key areas which will move the working class more towards the left. They are

• Education
• Empowerment of women
• Economic Certainty
  • Steady flow of sustainable income
  • Ability to save and in the process accumulate wealth
  • No fear of untoward expenses like healthcare
  • Will create unity, pluralism and culture of sharing growth

So, here is the strategy as I see it being employed.

Keep people ignorant

Education provides knowledge and knowledge drive rationale. Religion needs believers and capitalism need a steady supply of human labour at the bottom of the pyramid who are ready to do anything for little to nil cost. The plutocrats who want to run the society through markets as a ‘free enterprise’ want the people to believe it is for their good. Religion has to eliminate education to suppress critical thinking. Who in their full sanity will believe any of the below?

1. Earth is 5000 years old
2. We are descendants of Adam and Eve, who were created in the image of God
3. There was a monkey god with his army ruling a kingdom with a human god ruling another one next to him
4. A Prophet flew to heaven on a winged horse
5. There a god of knowledge who needs you not to think for yourself and is married to the god of creation

Adolf Hitler, a dictator of the worst order had a division of power agreement with the Church. He gave the Catholic Church complete control over education in Germany and in return had the Christian Democrats will stay out of politics to give him control over the state.

This is why they always attack education. Anytime a conservative government gets to power, you will see two policies.

1. Reduction in investment in private school
2. Development of faith-based schools under the pretext of balanced education

Both these corrupt generations of people by destroying critical thinking and scientific questioning.

Naturalise the status quo through entitlements

Recently Donald Trump Jr took a dig a socialism on Twitter. This tweet epitomizes the rather disturbing notion of socialism and the entitlement people feel about their wealth. Does it take special skill to be born son of a rich spoilt dad? Most people on the right would defend this through what I called entitlement theories.

Here are the popular right wing entitlement theories.

• People are rich because God wanted them to be rich.
• Being poor is God’s punishment for your sins.
• Being poor is a test by God to see if you are still faithful.
• I am rich because I worked hard.
• I have the right to have my wealth to myself and give it to my children.
• You are poor because you are lazy.
• No one asked you not to be wealthy.
• Women are meant to do this as per the scripture.
• God doesn’t like homosexuals.

Someone, not being wealthy is either made a punishment of God or a result of laziness. The sense of entitlement to their capabilities, inheritance, and achievements is a very common trait in humans, without understanding the context of that entitlement. The naturalisation of the liberal economics or commonly referred to as the fiscal conservative is the biggest success of the neoliberal movement. It justifies the entitlement towards individual success and a reverence of wealth in this form. There is no acknowledgement of the genetic advantages gained through centuries of well-being, education and accessibility to opportunities created by inherited wealth. The argument for entitlement of inheritance and the free market are not only mutually exclusive but also grossly contradictory. However, for the proponents and admirers of these theories, it is for some reason not visible.

Keep people divided

“Divide and rule” is a very very old method used by ruling class over the population. The scriptures give a way to discriminate against women and the homosexuals. Most scriptures also legalise slavery. The Hindu scriptures promote division through caste system. In the modern era, we have added race, ethnicity and nationality have been added to the mix. So the scriptures have done with work for creating the divide. However, in order to rule, they need tension between the parties. Economic uncertainties will create those tensions. If there are economic uncertainties which are morally justified by their faith, then the tensions will grow naturally. As long as there are tensions within the working class, the ruling class will continue to flourish.

How do we arrest this flow?

The collusion between the theocrats and the plutocrats is not that much of a secret. However, it is a question of how do we overcome this rampaging force to prevent civilisation from regressing. Here are my thoughts.

Joint activism between progressives and religious reformers to do the following.

1. Eliminate money from politics and ensure it stays that way for generations
2. Invest in public education, and make education scientific, secular and free
3. Join hands with the workers to create unions. Ensure there are minimum wages which will provide sustainable living
4. Work on steps which will eliminate economic uncertainties
   1. Public and free healthcare including mental health
   2. Developmental programs for women’s education and health
   3. Make employers focus on re-skilling and training employees
5. Promote free speech and let the bigotry come out, instead of arresting it
6. Re-structure tax system
   1. Tax inheritance and wealth to fund public programs
   2. Income across the board should be taxed, with the high-income earners taxed more
   3. Eliminate loopholes for the rich and the corporates

Religion is a favourite toy for people and as the late Christopher Hitchens put it, it will continue to remain their favourite toy till they fear death. We cannot eliminate it but have to keep it out of the public sphere. In order to do that, it is important to invest in developing critical thinking, development of people over a sustained period to see the impact of this ghastly system erode. It is a multi-generation promissory note and something we owe to the future of our civilisation.

As a child growing up in India, I loved attending wedding ceremonies of my family friends and relatives. It had everything that a child loved, new clothes, amazing food and a venue to play. As years passed by I started getting uncomfortable with the prospect of attending weddings. It required me to have uncomfortable conversations with people who didn’t respect my private space. Finally, as I understood what an Indian wedding involves, I believe it is a religious propaganda event with lots of financial ramifications.

India is a land of multiple religions and each religion has various sects. However, it doesn’t change the underlying culture of all these people. The deep-rooted cultural, racial, gender and class biases still remain. So what is applicable to one is truly applicable to the other. Further, secular weddings or court weddings as they are referred in India are genuinely rare. Here are the observations of the draconian impacts of these weddings.

Tradition

The traditions behind marriages are deeply disturbing. The tradition of weddings is equally callous. All of a sudden everyone around you starts to pick up a position in your life. The society feels the right to feel privileged. The traditions range from identifying dates which suit everyone, inviting hundreds of people in person, purchasing gifts for everyone, preparing for a 3-day event and above all dealing with sissy fits of people I generally refer to as “irrelevants” in the marital life. Then comes the traditions associated with religion, satisfying the priests who perform the wedding and invoking god in almost all aspects of it.

Social Pressure

There is a very high degree of social pressure in ensuring that your son gets married by the time he turns 28 or your daughter gets married by the time she turns 25. Sadly, the words used by even parents in this context is ‘saleable age’. It is very common to hear parents say, “everyone is asking me why I am not getting you married”, “you will not get options if you cross this age”,”no one will want you, you will be too old”. The social pressure turns parents into beings you truly despise.

The wedding is where the social pressure literally peaks. The event thrives on inducing jealousy, vitriol and fear. The common themes are

1. I want to do all this for everyone to see  – Inducing jealousy in others
2. I want to do this as someone else did it – I have been made to feel jealous
3. I have to do this as people around me expect to do – I fear the result if I don’t meet everyone’s expectation
4. I have to do this otherwise everyone will speak badly about the wedding – I have experienced or seen people experience this vitriol

So, invariably people who are conducting the wedding are forced to meet all these unrealistic social expectations.

It’s all about procreation

One cannot get through a wedding without people advising the bride and the groom about procreating. Most Hindu weddings are a segment where prayers are said for effective procreation. In crude terms, it is about praying to god to give you sexual powers. In Muslim and Christian weddings, the priest or imam gives advice on the sins of contraception. It never ends. In a year or two, if you don’t have a child, the entire society pitches in. They psychologically burn you down with feelings of remorse and regret. It starts off by making you feel inadequate and moves to shaming.  I always maintain god and society are two entities which always wants a share in your bedroom.

Here are the common points you will hear from the most disingenuine people around you.

1. “Do you have any good news?” – like any news other than having a baby is not a good one.
2. “You have to ensure your blood line continues” – they never say why.
3. “Someone has to take care of you when you get old” – this is the most selfish and possibly immoral reason to have a child
4. “Life is all about sacrifice” – This comes from people who would not have sacrificed a breath.
5. “Did you check with a doctor?” – these are people you should think of never talking again.
6. “I know a good astrologer” – these are people too dumb to give you advice.
7. “I want you to have a child, it will complete you” – These are narcissists. Their happiness depends on your behaviour,  so they essentially want control over you.

Dowry

The dowry is the most despicable part of the Indian wedding.  Dowry refers to the transfer of wealth from on side to the other, predominantly from the bride’s side to the groom’s side. There are multiple theories on the origins of this ugly practice. The neo-spiritual leaders want to project like this is a malice developed by the Britishers to rule India.  While it is definitely true that Britishers exploited the inherent differences, it is a very inaccurate statement to make. I definitely want to write about the impact of the British colonial rule in India but attributing dowry to them is extremely evasive and unreal. The transfer of wealth and inheritance to the groom is a very ancient practice in Hindu culture going with references and justification in Manu Smriti – the code of Hindu ethics.

There are three types of this which are happening in the modern world.

1. Groom’s family demanding dowry
2. Bride’s family thrusting it
3. Transfer of wealth happens with neither party thinking about it in great detail

The first and the most common one is where the groom’s side of the family lay out a set of demands. I have personally witnessed this cringe-worthy, outrageous and inhumane act. It always starts with the senior most member of the family and in most occasions a deeply religious crack head initiating these proceedings. Any humanist watching this will feel a deep sense of discomfort and anger. You can compare this situation to a hostile boardroom negotiation for a takeover, just that this involves trading humans. The worst part of all is when both sides end up thanking the initiator for mediating the proceedings.

The second one is increasingly becoming common among middle-class people in cities. The families have developed this need to showcase their love by forcefully handing over wealth. Since it is done under the name of love, it is a difficult point to refute. However, if one digs a level deep this point collapses like a house of cards. This is not done for love towards their daughters but love for themselves, the needs to be seen as loving parents. If you look at it, what is the love if giving something to your daughter which she doesn’t need or in most situations will never need.

The third one is a wealthy class behaviour but is increasingly being seen in upper middle-class families. They don’t even realise or question it. The bride’s family gives, both the bride and the groom don’t feel uncomfortable with it. It has become innate.

If we investigate the propagation of any social malice, we can see a pattern here. The three points give us the idea of how this evil has evolved to a state where it has become part of the system.  If polio doesn’t get eradicated and everyone is affected by it, no individual will ever know the concept of walking properly. That is the state to which dowry is going in India.

Religious laws

While most cultures in the world have made it a norm for the girl to lose her identity after marriage, the Indian culture takes it to a new level. The primitive minds of the scum who came up with the religious rules were very careful in embedding deeply disturbing concepts after giving girls a semblance of liberty.  Some of the horrific concepts you will hear quite commonly are below.

• Kanya Dhan: This practice is not just immoral and disturbing but is to me the fabric which binds this entire society of credulity and servility. It means charitable donation of an unmarried (I think it can be substituted for virgin) daughter. It is an act of registering a transfer of deed.
• Husband is equivalent to god: The phrase ‘pati parameshwar’ is very often heard not just in real life but also in movies. It is often given a good connotation signifying the importance of treating husband as god. While I do agree that both god and husband need not be treated with reverence, that is not the context where this phrase is used.  The girl is expected to submit to will of the husband. This comes up irrespective of the religious background. It requires the girl to surrender her critical faculties and get treated like a slave.
• Pativrata: The girl is always respected being loyal to her husband and accepting him irrespective of his behavior. The concept of  chastity and loyalty is reserved only to the girl, while her husband is not measured on that. It is quite understandable considering a sizable majority of the country worships the mythological figures Rama and Sita. Rama even going by the books was a cruel and irresponsible husband, while Sita is a submissive, loyal wife. She doesn’t stand up for herself till the last line of the last book, post which the epic ends.

In summary, the well documented and rather celebrated Indian weddings are nothing more than shows for the rest of the society. This pompous exhibition much like what happens in Vatican, covers up the underlying filth, lies and deceits. As a person who has experienced it, I strongly feel it should be ripped off and replaced with simple acts which acknowledges mutual love and respect. As I went through his horror personally, that is what I kept telling myself. I am happily in a relationship with my wife but that happiness stems from our love for each other and the fact that we have overlooked the meaning of the event completely.