Logical, Critical and Moral Thinking – A Personal Perspective
- I learned a lot from the students I taught.
- Now when I reflect back on those years (1988-2006, a continuous teaching period, after that, it’s sporadic), I feel more indebted to the students for engaging with me in a sustained and productive dialogue than to my own argumentative mind. Without them, there was no “Other.”
- [While teaching courses such as Economics of Education (MAEd), Environmental Education (MAEd), Discipline of Education (MAEd), Philosophy and History of Education (BEd), An Introduction to Economic Thought (BSHon), An Introduction to Political Thought (BSHon), and Economics (FA, FSc) and Philosophy (FA, FSc), and an Annual Residential Course: Ideas for a Free, Responsible and Prosperous Society (a diverse group of participants from post-graduate students to college and university teachers), since 2009 till date, I developed a methodology and the credit goes to the students and participants. I never blamed the students for anything.
اشرافیہ، ریاستی اشرافیہ اور دانشور اشرافیہ کا اجارہ کیونکر قائم ہے
اگر کوئی شخص اپنی نارمل زندگی سے اوپر اٹھ کر اشرافیہ، ریاستی اشرافیہ اور دانشور اشرافیہ کے تانے بانے کو توڑنا چاہے، ریاست اور اس کے وسائل پر ریاستی اشرافیہ کے غیر آئینی غیر قانونی قبضے کو چیلنج کرنا چاہے، دانشور اشرافیہ نے فکر و نظر کے اشاعت کدوں پر جو اجارہ قائم کیا ہوا ہے اس پر سوال اٹھانا چاہے، تو اسے تنہا کر دیا جاتا ہے۔ اس کے تصورات، نظریات اور تجزیات کو گھونٹ کر مارنے کی پوری کوشش کی جاتی ہے۔ یہ کام محض اشرافیہ، ریاستی اشرافیہ اور دانشور اشرافیہ ہی نہیں کرتی، بلکہ اصل میں یہ کام اجلافیہ، بزعمِ خود اجلافیہ کے نمائندے، اشرافیہ پسند اور اشرافیہ پرست کرتے ہیں۔
مگر اب آج سوشل میڈیا دستیاب ہے، جو کم از کم اوپر جس کا ذکر ہوا ایسے فرد کے تصورات، نظریات اور تجزیات کو تنہائی کا شکار نہیں ہونے دیتا۔ گو کہ اشرافیہ، ریاستی اشرافیہ اور …
پاکستان کے ’’دشمن‘‘ ہیں: دانشوروں کے تعصبات اور ان کے ذہنوں کا فتور
پاکستان کے ’’دشمن‘‘ اس کی سرحدوں کے باہر نہیں، سرحدوں کے اندر ہیں۔
اور یہ ’’دشمن‘‘ ہیں: دانشوروں کے تعصبات اور ان کے ذہنوں کا فتور۔
ان دانشوروں کی زنبیل میں تصورات اور نظریات تو ہیں نہیں۔ ہاں، ان کے آدرشوں کے محل محض نفرتوں اور محبتوں کے ستونوں پر استوار ہیں۔
مراد یہ کہ یہ دانشور خود کو سماجیاتی پسماندگی یا پسماندہ سماجیات سے بلند کر کے تصورات اور نظریات کی سطح پر نہیں لا سکے۔
یعنی پاکستان کی مجموعی پسماندگی کی جڑیں بیشتر اس کی سماجیات میں پیوستہ ہیں: جیسی سماجیات، ویسی سیاسیات
نوٹ: اگر پاکستان کے کچھ ’’دشمن‘‘ اس کی سرحدوں کے باہر موجود ہیں تو وہ سمندر پار پاکستانی ہیں۔ (واضح رہے یہ اشارہ صرف انصافی پاکستانیوں کی طرف نہیں، بلکہ تمام سمندر پار پاکستانیوں کی طرف ہے۔)…
رمضان میں پھلوں کی قیمتیں کیوں بڑھ جاتی ہیں؟
Defining Ashrafiya, Riyasati Ashrafiya and Danishwar Ashrafiya
Note: The following exchange took place in a WhatsApp group. The name of the objector is being withheld.
Objection by Someone:
Never understand this elite bashing. Are these old Marxists in new garb? Are we bashing success? Do we want communism?
Reply by KA:
Kindly pen down your (anti-) thesis and then anyone may counter it. I will do.
Objection by Someone:
Pen down what. I don’t fight ghosts. No one defines elite. They just talk of this socialist concept. Any one with money is elite
Reply by KA:
No, having money is not an essential feature of the Ashrafiya. Those who use word Elite may mean something else. In English, the equivalent of Ashrafiya is Aristocracy.
Objection by Someone:
Ok so what is elite capture. Where does it not exist.
Reply by KA:
In short, Ashrafiya was already there (subcontinent, monarchs, nabobs, etc). The state was already there. It …
Kristalina Georgieva, MD IMF proposing nothing new but slaughtering of the goose
That’s something unprecedented. Probably never ever any head of the IMF came forward to publicly propose what the government of Pakistan needed to do. But such is the plight of a perennial borrower. Yes, a borrower, and not a beggar, as the taunt always goes. Obvious that beggars are not required to return the alms they are given, though they may not be welcome next time. Loans must be returned, and with interest and sometimes compound interest. Otherwise, bankruptcy or the forfeiture is the fate. Or the default and the international isolation and economic and political consequences concomitant with it.
The other day Managing Director of the IMF Kristalina Georgieva urged the Pakistani government to tax the rich and after withdrawing the subsidies from the rich divert them towards the people who really need it. [See Dawn, February 19, 2023]
Her words are: “Number 1 – tax revenues. Those who …
Hereditary politics is neither right nor wrong
Time and time again, the issue of hereditary politics finds limelight in the electronic and social media, and in the newspapers. For this or that reason, an intellectual or a political analyst, or a politician himself causes a stir.
Now when Maryam Nawaz Sharif, daughter of M Nawaz Sharif was made senior vice president and chief organizer of the PMLN, Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, a veteran politician of the same party resigned from the post of senior vice president and criticized the hereditary politics. He told the press he had already apprised MNS about his resignation in case she was given a top post in the party.
Thus, the debate on hereditary politicians got triggered this time. Like so many other issues, the issue of hereditary politics is also used to denigrate the politicians. That’s an old habit and has been nurtured over the decades by the establishment, its proponents and …
Let the establishment clean their Augean stables first
The umpteenth time, a nationwide electricity blackout happened on 23 January. It was told, after keeping the system switched off during the night when they tried to switch it on, it did not. However, whatever was the fault, electricity supply started restoring after 15 hours.
The same is the case with democracy in Pakistan. The democracy grid remained switched off for about four years, until the moment darkness engulfed the power grid itself. Then the staff in charge invited the technicians to switch it on and reconnect it to the constitutional grid. It did not. Democracy is still in an off-mode.
It was all behind the scenes when the technicians were called out to reconnect the system to the constitutional grid. And it was only on 27 October (2022), six months after a successful No-Confidence-Motion against the Imran Khan government in April, that an official declaration to the effect was …
Miftah Ismail’s politics and economics
Note: A version of this article was published in The Friday Times.
This is merely a cursory review/critique of politics and economics Miftah Ismail has lately been doing.
Miftah Ismail is expressing his differences with the PMLN top leadership openly and in a challenging manner, and as he was fired from the ministership of finance about four months ago unceremoniously, he is rightly in the news. (His defiance must be appreciated unconditionally.) On 15 January in two sessions of the ThinkFest in Lahore, his talk clearly represents his views.
In the first session, the question under discussion was: Are Politicians the Real Problem of Pakistan? He said, leave out the years there had been martial laws. Also, whenever politicians were in the government, they were not allowed to rule peacefully and there were Dharnas (large sit-ins) by Tahir-ul-Qadri, Imran Khan, and …
Shock Therapy to Reset the System
Note: A version of this article was published in the Friday Times.
Project Imran Has Necessitated Shock Therapy For Pakistan’s Politics
Top leadership of the PMLN failed to convince Asif Ali Zardari to boycott the 2018 general elections together. Zardari was of the view they should not leave the political field open and uncontested. He cited PPPP’s boycott of elections in 1985 that they still regret.
The matter was brought to the leadership of the PDM, but tables couldn’t be turned, and consensus regarding not boycotting the elections prevailed.
After that PMLN had a huddle to discuss whether to boycott the elections or not in their individual capacity. They knew for sure they wouldn’t be allowed to win. They had cogent evidence neither the establishment nor the courts were ready to listen to them. They feared they were doomed. Despite all the odds and omens going against them, the ‘doves’ …
طاقت کا اصول اور خانہ جنگی
A Charter of Economy for the People
Note: An edited version of the following article was published in the Friday Times on 20 January, 2023.
The continuing debate on a charter of economy was initiated by two of the largest political parties, PPPP (2011) and PMLN (2015).
But the civil society of Pakistan has taken the lead. A financial daily, Business Recorder, and an autonomous research organization funded by the government, PIDE, are contributing substantially and meaningfully to the debate.
The BR Research essentially focuses on the regulatory environment, and PIDE lays stress on the policy and sectoral sides of the economy.
A host of other economists and columnists, too, have done their bit or best. Some have charted it in detail what needs to be done in the longer and shorter terms, yet others what is to be done in the first place or gradually. Some write-ups have …
The state economy has failed itself and is trying to fail the civil economy also!
The state economy has failed miserably. It is collapsing under its own weight. And the debris is falling directly on the already-much-dented civil economy.
In case the state makes it happen, as it is trying to put all the burden of its own failures on the civil economy, that would be catastrophic.
And that would unleash a domino effect like situation and may cause anarchy and lawlessness in the society.…
Radical situations require radical solutions
The Essence of Economics
Living happily ever after economics
Almost all the economists and the state economists especially have a painting hanging at the back of their minds that displays a dream of living happily ever after against which they do their economics.…
Now listen to me!
Now instead of writing, I am posting my talks on various issues regularly on my YouTube Channel: Dr Khalil Official
Join the Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVSq4e_xHkgqoWAJ3swq6Eg
جو بائیڈن نے کیا غلط کہہ دیا؟
…
Rules for a Conversation
Note: Here conversation means any serious exchange of ideas between two or more persons.
Nothing in any manner has any reference to any person whosoever.
As I am interested in ethics also, by observing what usually happens in conversations at various fora from a chat between a few friends or acquaintances to a large organized meeting to various WhatsApp groups, I have tried to form and compile a number of rules that may help a productive and mutually beneficial conversation to pleasantly take place.
The following rules may serve in lieu of an ethics of a conversation.
- If someone considers a person not a free agent, there is no point in talking to and arguing with him. That’s the first prerequisite of any conversation.
- Not every comment is an invitation to debate. Even if it appears so, sometimes let it go unanswered, unrefuted. The heavens is not going to fall.
Two fears
One friend sent this excerpt from Oswald Spengler:
“This machine-technics will end with the Faustian civilization and one day will lie in fragments, forgotten — our railways and steamships as dead as the Roman roads and the Chinese wall, our giant cities and skyscrapers in ruins like old Memphis and Babylon. The history of this technics is fast drawing to its inevitable close. It will be eaten up from within, like the grand forms of any and every Culture. When, and in what fashion, we know not.”
Here is what I wrote in response:
I don’t know whether such doomsaying predictions have any basis in the dynamics of our society or not, but one thing quite evident from the prism of history is that humankind elevated itself form a very violent state of affairs to a comparatively peaceful state and of course it’s due to certain rules that they bound …
نظام ِفکر پہلے یا نظام ِاقدار پہلے
کیا کوئی نظام فکر نظام اقدار کے بغیر وجود میں آ سکتا ہے؟
اقدار پہلے ہیں، نظام بعد میں۔
یہ معاملہ بھی خود ایک قدر کی حیثیت رکھتا ہے۔
مثلاً شائستگی کو ملحوظ رکھنا پہلے ہے، سچائی کا اظہار بعد میں۔
لہٰذا اقدار مقدم ہیں، نظام متاخر۔
سو غور کیجیے آپ کا نظامِ فکر یا جس نظامِ فکر پر آپ یقین رکھتے ہیں، وہ اس ترتیب پر پورا اترتا ہے یا نہیں۔…