Sigma’s Simulacrum of Reality

Got this great book serendipitously from my uni’s library when I was trying to find a stupid textbook which were listed as ON SHELF. Put books back in the right places, people!

But I digress. Back to the topic.

The Socialsit Tradition
I’ve read a few chapters in it so far. Pity I couldn’t read more of it now since I’ve got f**kin’ exams soon.

As many people should already be aware, all strands of socialism originated from some core beliefs of Karl Marx. But because Marx only extrapolated a skeletal structure of how capitalism can be overthrown and how a socialist society would look like, he left many practical aspects of it to be fleshed out by subsequent socialism theorists.

As a result 4 widely diverging streams have emerged from Marxism.

1. Orthodox School

Karl Kautsky was the leading theorist of this school. This school is the most closely aligned school to traditional Marxism. It believes that socialism was possible only once the capitalist system reached its most advanced stage, exhausts itself, and breaks down on its own accord. He also pressed for a merger of parliamentary democracy and socialism.

2. Reformist-Evolutionary School

This is the school of socialism which I personally support. It was advocated by Eduard Bernstein and laid the foundations for today’s social democratic parties such as the Labor Party, DAP, German Social-Democratic Party (SPD), Swedish Socialist Party (SAP), etc. Bernstein rejected all forms of extra-parliamentary activities such as mass strikes or popular assemblies. He believed that to be a truly democratic socialist society, bourgeois liberal institutions should not be overturned, but instead be inherited and expanded by social democrats to make it fairer to all classes of the masses, but especially towards the working class. Therefore, this school does not believe nor advocate the imminent collapse of capitalism.

3. Bolshevik School

This is possibly the most explosive school of socialism, or ‘hot socialism’. It was formed by Vladimir Lenin and was the first socialist theory to be put into real world practice after his Bolshevik Party overthrew the Russian Provisional Government and assumed power in Russia in 1917. Based on his experience with the past repressive, pro ruling-class government, Lenin was convinced that bourgeois democracy was but a sham, an illusion to further placate the masses. Illusionary because during stable times it would be manipulate by the ruling class to instill in the masses a false sense of participation, fragile because it was not likely to survive the advance stages of imperialism and war.

It was also Lenin who devised the idea of a vanguard party. A vanguard party is a unified, centralised and flexible revolutionary organisation whose purpose was to lead the working class to overthrow the bourgeois state structure. He did not believe in the effectiveness of fragmented parliamentary parties. The pressing agenda under the Bolshevik school was not socialism - that remained in the future, but the seizure of state power in order to establish the preconditions for socialism. On the question of democracy in this model, because the Bolshevik Party represents the historical mission of the workers in their struggle to free themselves from oppression by the bourgeois elites to working class emancipation, Bolshevik power was by definition democratic.

Obviously this was proven to be mistaken. The real world practice of this model showed that the twin desires of power and wealth by top communist leaders has led them to curtail the very masses they initially relied on to assume power. This was made worse by the lack of an effective mechanism by the masses to oust bad leaders, with the only way being intra-party power struggles by other communist elites.

The truest form of real world application of this model could be seen in the former USSR and East Germany. Other variations of this model which incorporated the central concept of a vanguard party can be seen in China, Vietnam, Nepal, Cuba, North Korea.

4. The Radical-Left School

Personally to me, this is the most ludicrous stream of socialism. But it still doesn’t stop the hordes of hippie, far left-wingers from my unis and others to embrace this utopian model of society. It is basically the most radical of socialist streams and its leading philosopher was Rosa Luxemburg. This school rejected the strategic alternatives offered by Kautsky and Bernstein, and these radicals look to spheres of struggle beyond routine party and union activity. Their vision of democracy, consonant with Marx’s theme of proletarian self-emancipation, emphasised local revolutionary forms and processes transcending the limits of the bourgeois state as well as the Leninist system of ‘proletarian democracy’ in Russia. Luxemburg also did not believe in participating in parliamentary processes, since electoral victories would turn out to be hollow (since the bourgeoisie would manipulate the system to defend their interests) and would only help to stablise the faltering capitalist system. She shared Kautsky and Lenin’s predictions of the imminent collapse of capitalism. Basically, she just wants society to regress back into pre-complex societal structures and live in small, communal based organisations.

I got this cute little book from Bargain Basement Bookstore under Central Station about a month ago when I chanced upon this book for a ridiculous bargain price of $2.95. I knew then it was a sign from above that I should get it

Since I’ve read this book about a month ago, I don’t remember everything that well anymore. So bear with me.

Anyway, the Communist Manifesto (German title: Das Kapital) itself is actually just a very short booklet, consisting only of 38 pages for my copy. As everyone should already know (if not, please go back under your rock) it was written by the Germans Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in 1848. It is the underlying philosophy which guided all communist governments in the past till the present.

Basically, the Manifesto is less a comprehensive theoretical guide than a fiery, rabble-rousing short treatise rallying the masses to go against capitalism. Marx (who’s the principle theorist of Communism, as stated by Engels himself) despaired of the fact that right after the dismantling of feudalism, certain large segments of most European societies still continued to live in hardship. This time the new oppressors were a new class of capitalists. He called this class the ‘bourgeois’ and contrasted them with the ‘proletariats’ or the poor working-class.

Its famous introduction:

“A specter is haunting Europe - the specter of communism. All the powers of old Europe have entered into a holy alliance to exorcise this specter: Pope and Tsar, Metternich and Guizot, French Radicals and German police-spies.”

Marx believed that the capitalists have taken over the role as the new oppressors of the working class in place of the landed gentry and nobility class of the old. This was understandable in the context of Marx’s time, as workers then really lead wretched lives akin to semi-slavery. They were widely exploited and put to work on very dangerous tasks and workplaces as well as being paid pittens.

Marx believed that private property is the root cause of the suffering of the working-class:

“But does wage labor create any property for the laborer? Not a bit. It creates capital, i.e., that kind of property which exploits wage labor, and which cannot increase except upon conditions of begetting a new supply of wage labor for fresh exploitation. Property, in its present form, is based on the antagonism of capital and wage labor.”

Therefore, he believed that both classes cannot co-exist together and that the only way for the proletariat to free themselves from their slavery is through revolution. He felt that since the working-class vastly outnumbered the capitalists and middle-class bourgeois, the working-class should be the ruling class who would then rule to the benefit of the majority workers. He believe that the bourgeois and other privileged classes were reactionaries and would constantly seek to defend the status quo that was beneficial to them.

Quoted from the book:

“The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.”

Many people might have been told or heard that communism is supposed to be anti-religion. In actual fact, Marx hardly concerned himself with this at all in the Manifesto. There were only passing critiques of it, and even then, only on the authorities and formal organisational structures of religion which he thought also took part in subjugating and exploiting the working-class masses.

The biggest problem of the Manifesto is that it does not tell us how Marx intended his revolutions to happen and what organisational structure should be put in place of the (then) present ruling structures. Hence this is why we hear the term Marxist-Leninist. This is because Vladimir Lenin was the first leader who formulated the practical applications of communism (known as Leninism) as a complement to its theoretical elder brother of Marxism. His Bolshevik Party was the first successful communist party to seize government in the world during the October Revolution of 1917 in Russia.

Many people have argued that this omission has caused untold misery to many citizens of countries which have tried to implement communism. Other defenders of Marxism have said that all the past communist states deviated from what Marxist intended and true Marxism have not been discredited yet. They believe that communism is the ultimate system for countries since it won’t be based on the greed of the few but on collectives and sharing for the benefit of all. They just contend that the people haven’t reached a stage where this idea can work as yet.

An example of this is the common authoritarian characteristic of most communist government. Or the fact that most communist parties also had an infusion of nationalism into them. Marx never advocated the former, and was in fact very opposed to the latter. He actually envisioned workers from every nationality uniting to form an irresistible political movement that would launch proletariat revolutions around the world as a single movement.

All in all, an interesting read. Everyone should have at least read this once in order to understand what all the fuss about Marxism was about. And also to find out which criticisms of it were valid and which were not.

My book included great extra ‘before’ and ‘after’ sections in addition to the main Manifesto itself. The ‘before’ section explains what lead to Marx coming up with communism, how his society was like during his time, and the ‘’after’ section examines examples of communist states and what went wrong with them. It also debates about the continued validity of Marx’s criticism of capitalism in today’s world.

“Workers of the world, unite!”

Warning: Spoilers Alert!

And so this series finally comes to its conclusion. A little bit about the Harry Potter series and me first before I start. I first started reading this series relatively late, in 2000/2001 I think. My little brother was the first one who started on it, probably due to the hype surrounding it by then. Initially, I was wondering what the big deal was about it. After all, it’s just another children’s book, right? Yes and no. Being an avid reader, I have read a lot of books in my life so far. In terms of children books, I was wondering whether HP would be as enjoyable as stuff from Enid Blyton, Paul Jennings, or Rohl Dahl, the stuff that I’ve read when I was younger.

But I quickly came to discover that the HP series is very different than those other children’s books. For starters, a very appealing ‘world of magic’ has been constructed in the HP series. Secondly, HP doesn’t wear protective gloves when talking about love, family breakdown, betrayal, evil and deaths, unlike the much more innocent books by other children’s book authors. All this, combined with terrific and memorable characters and well a constructed narrative arch makes this series a truly enthralling read.

Even though I started late, I quickly snapped up The Philosopher’s Stone, The Chamber of Secrets, The Prisoner of Azkaban, The Goblet of Fire, The Order of the Phoenix, and The Half-Blood Prince in quick succession. The more I read the series, the better it became for me. The first few books do cater to the younger audiences more, but things get noticeably darker and grimmer as the series progressed, which was just fine by me.

On a final note about the whole HP series so far, I would just like to say that my favourite book of the series would be the Order of the Phoenix (even though in retrospect, it lacked a strong plotline as evident in the movie version, but in the book, the rich characters, their backgrounds, and the cute and awkward romance aspect of it more than compensates for that), followed by the Deathly Hallows. My least favourite would have to be Half-Blood Prince, which in retrospect did serve a purpose of fleshing out Voldermort’s past as part of the whole series, but as a stand-alone book, it has the weakest plot and mystery of all of them.

Now, on to Deathly Hallows (DH). Was working when it first came out, so I had to run away from every bloody idiot who flipped to the last chapter of it and went around telling others whether Potter survived or not. Luckily, I managed to avoid any spoilers until I got the chance to read it myself. Although by then I had kinda suspected that Potter lived, since nobody had yelled out “Potter died!” yet. I was actually more interested in Snape’s loyalties than Potter’s probable death.

Being the ‘purchasing-averse’ bookworm that I am, I had devised a plan where I would keep hitting Borders to read the DH there. After about 3 sessions of this (each lasting about 3 hours), I finally finished the book yesterday with my $29.95 intact. Take that Rowling!

DH starts out like a direct continuation to the HBP. It is also the most different book of the seven, in that it doesn’t revolve around Hogswarts and it doesn’t dabble in much of Rowling’s trademark comedic teen love or humorous moments anymore. Instead, it shows how the magical world has been taken over by Voldermort and his Death Eaters. Every enemy of the Death Eaters are either on the run, captured, or in hiding. Harry, Ron and Hermione then starts on their quest to find and destroy all 6 of Voldermort’s Horcruxes. After a brief reprieve from the doom at the beginning of the book in the form of a wedding between Lupin and Tonks (two of my favourite Order characters), the trio then go on their crazy Horcrux quest. The reason why I liked OotP better than this book was due to the DH’s middle part. It dragged on too long with nothing much happening. It was mostly just Harry getting flashes from Voldermort while hiding in the middle of forests with Ron and Hermione.

After you get through that though, the fun reaally starts. I really like how Rowling’s characters are not just strictly good and evil. Many of them are sort of in the grey area. This was first evident in how she revealed Harry’s father to be not much more than a popular bully, but which unlike Draco and such, one who ultimately had a good heart. In this book, Dumbledore gets this treatment when his back story was told. Similarly, Snape gets even more airtime and his motivations for joining the Order is finally revealed. And I must say that I’m really satisfied with it since it was really believable and fits well with Snape’s character. Snape is revealed as a complex and ultimately tragic character. He helps Potter not really out of the noble aim of ridding Voldermort, but out of his personal reasons. Luckily for Potter and Dumbledore, those reasons coincide with the destruction of Voldermort.

I also liked how Rowling managed to explain and resolve almost every mystery in the whole series. She explained the connection between Harry and Voldermort wonderfully, and in a way even fulfilled the speculations that Harry had to die. The chapter ‘The Forest Again’ was truly touching in which Potter marched to his destined appointment with death with his loved ones. And the blood-letting during the Battle of Hogswarts was great. Rowling bravely exposed to children the consequences of war, which ultimately was the death of young lives. The death of characters such as Fred, Tonks and Lupin was sad. Lastly, I personally enjoyed the epilogue set 19 years forward. It gave us a nice glimpse of how Harry’s life has gone on. I quite liked the Harry+Ginny and Ron+Hermione pairings, but we were given lots of hints that who would get together with who anyways throughout the series.

I found that DH had the most allegories of real life events. Voldermort to me looked like a Hitler, and his preoccupation with purebloods akin to Hitler’s desire for a pure Aryan race. Voldermort also hates mudbloods, which was also similar to Hitler’s irrational dislike of non-Aryans such as Jews and minorities in Germany. The constant theme of mudbloods vs purebloods could also be seen as Rowling’s plea against racism. Other things I’ve picked up on were the Death Eater’s totalitarian regime being akin to Hitler, Stalin or Mao’s.

All in all, a good book, and a great series overall. I was glad to have read all of them. Unlike other children’s stories, the HP series is complex, rich and mature. It’s actually more of a teen/young adult series than a strictly children’s series, especially from book 5 onwards.

HP and the Deathly Hallows: 4 stars
HP series overall: 4 and 1/2 stars

Wanna introduce a terrific book that I’ve read. It’s called ‘Taking The Red Pill: Science, Philosophy and Religion in The Matrix’, edited by Glenn Yeffeth and introduced by David Gerrold. I found it one day while up on Level 7 ‘South-East Asian’ section of my uni’s library. Don’t ask why…

Anyways, this book is a terrific read for any Matrix fans out there (I’m one myself ). It’s a collection of short, intellectually stimulating essays written by a variety of authors. They range from sci-fi writers, economists, academic philosophers, scientists, to religious authorities.

They explore The Matrix in a variety of contexts, comparing the similarities between our present reality with that presented in The Matrix, revealing the possibilities that Neo could be a metaphor for Jesus or The Buddha, and so on. You get the picture.

Although I’d rate all of those articles in it as good, I had a few favourites. Here they are:

1. Was Cypher Right? Part II - Lyle Zynda

Zynda, a philosopher, explores what is so bad about Cypher’s choice in reentering the Matrix. Isn’t enjoying juicy steaks and being a famous person a better way to live one’s ‘life’, compared to wearing tattered clothes, eating dribbly, tasteless food, while risking one’s life day in and day out going against the Machines? Does being in the ‘real’ world as oppose to a simulated one, that big of a deal, since our minds can’t differentiate between them?

3. Artificial Intelligence, Science Fiction, and The Matrix - Robert Sawyer

Bestselling sci-fi author Robert Sawyer takes us on a fascinating trip in explaining sci-fiction’s long-held fascination with AI. He talks about many famous sci-fi works, including ones from William Gibson, Huxley, Assimov, 2001: A Space Oddessy, and more, and how they viewed AI through the times.

4. Glitches In The Matrix… And How To Fix Them - Peter B. Lloyd

This is an interesting dissection of the loopholes in The Matrix.

5. Why The Future Doesn’t Need Us - Bill Joy

Bill Joy, chief scientist for Sun, horrifies us with the potential darker side of technology. Can the evolution of technology gradually reduce humans into mere ‘cattles’? By deciding on all the important choices, thus rendering us with nothing else to do?

6. Are We Living In The Matrix? The Simulation Argument - Nick Bostrom

Yale philosopher Nick Bostrom considers the possibility that we might be living in the Matrix right now. This happens to be my favourite among these favourites listed here. By the end of his discourse, you’d start thinking that his proposal might no be as far-fetched as you had first thought.

So go grab a copy of this fascinating book now and check it out for yourself! One of my best reads for the year.

Just felt like writing down a list of my all time favourite books. Some might be literary classics, some not, and some are pretty obscure. But heck, I like them all

When I was in primary and high school, I enjoyed reading those English boarding school books. Then I got hooked on fantasy novels thanks to my mum. In between, I’ve always had a thing for sci-fi books. And in my late teens, politics interests me greatly.

So here they are, in no particular order:

1. The Deathgate Cycle, by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman

Forget Tolkien (the most boring fantasy trilogy ever…), this is my favourite fantasy series. It consists of 7 books in total. The story revolves around the Sartan and Patryn races, sworn enemies, both most almost demigod in nature. Below them are the humans, elves and dwarves, all of which populate 4 vastly different worlds. After escaping from the Labyrinth, a huge magical prison which the Sartans kept their Patryns nemesis for centuries, a group of Patryns starts ploting their vengence. Their plan involves the manipulation of those 4 worlds and their inhabitants, and it sets off a chain of events which would forever change their universe, and reveal hidden truths about the true nature of things. The first 4 books are on the 4 worlds, while the last 3 brings the characters and events from those 4 worlds together towards the final climax.

2. Hercule Poirot mystery novels, by Agatha Christie

Agatha Christie is truly the queen of crime mysteries, and I love almost all of her novels involving Hercule Poirot, the brilliant and fascinating Belgium detective. Set in England, Poirot, the self-proclaimed best detective in the world, constantly solves the most complex of crimes with his amazing deductive powers, with the help of his ‘little grey cells’.

3. A Teenage Textbook, and A Teenage Workbook, by Adrian Tan

A truly laugh-till-you-almost-die hilarious Singaporean book! One of my firm favourites. The premise is also set in a school. It tells the story of the lives of a bunch of Singaporean JC (Malaysia - Form 6, Australia - Years 11 and 12) students and the funny antics that they get involved in. An auction to find out what their Principle’s middle initial E., stands for, anyone? Teriffic book, and IMO, the best Singaporean books I’ve read.

4. Sphere, Michael Crichton

I’m kinda a fan of Michael Crichton, since I like his fast-paced sci-fi writing style. In his whole collection, Sphere is my favourite. Read in all in 3 hours flat in the car from JB to KL, was how good it was. A group of scientists are sent down underwater to investigate a strange spherical alien artifact which landed there. What mysterious powers does it have? How will it affect them? What will happen to them?

5. First Among Equals, Jeffrey Archer

I’m a big fan of Jeffrey Archer! Absolutely love his style of writing! So grandiose, and most of his books have an epic feel to it. This book was basically my first introduction to the Westminster parliamentary system and the inner workings of politics. It cronicles the lives of four ambitious young men, 2 Labourites and 2 Tories, in their quest to snare the highest prize on offer, the office of the Prime Minister. Rest assured that there will be backstabbings, betrayals, alliances, love, and tragedy along the way. You can’t help but start rooting for your favourite character. Mines Simon Kerslake, a Labour Party MP

6. Magician trilogy, Raymond E. Feist

If you prefer your fantasy yarns to be more swashbuckling in nature, then Raymond E. Feist’s books are the ones for you. It tells of the journey of Pug from a young and not very talented apprentice magician into the world’s most powerful one, amidst a backdrop of war. A portal has opened up in Pug’s world, and the Tsuranis, a noble and tradition-bound race of warriors (modelled after the Japs) are determined to conquer his world. Terrific characters.

7. Kane and Abel, Jeffrey Archer

Another book from my favourite author. This time, it’s about 2 vastly different men, one from a privalleged upbringing, the other, a Jew fleeing from the Nazis, and how their respective lives collide. Both ultimately became the world’s biggest and richest media tycoons. Again, epic style of story-telling. Nice.

8. To Kill A Mokingbird, Harper Lee

A literary classic. A story about race discrimination during the Depression in the USA, and the injustices that results from it, as seen through the eyes of 8-year old Scout Finch. A black man is accused of raping a white woman in a small Southern town of Maycomb, Alabama, even though he’s disabled and incapable of doing so. Scout’s father, a lawyer, decides to defend him, and proceeds to become ostracised from his society, as well as being accused a traitor to his race. The gentle writing style of Harper Lee adds to the joy of reading this classic American literature.

9. I, Robot, Isaac Asimov

Sci-fi books by Isaac Asimov are a very different sorta beast. His novels aren’t really good stories per se, they’re more like scientific explorations of his unbreakable Three Laws of Robotics, which safeguard’s human’s safety from their robots. Typically, his short stories are about implausible situations which arises, that seems to contradict his three laws, and the subsequent logical explanations for it which show that those three laws were still not violated. This compilation, is IMO, the most intriguing and interesting of his whole lot. Prepare to put your scientific thinking caps on!

10. Blood of Kerensky: Lethal Heritage, Blood Legacy, and Lost Destiny, Battletech, by Michael A. Stackpole

I almost forgot to put this trilogy in! I was (and still am ) a big fan of the Battletech universe. There are a line of good PC games based on that, called the Mechwarrior series. It’s a fascinating sci-fi universe where different empires, called Houses, battle it out to gain political power, planets, and wealth using giant robots called Mechs. This trilogy cronicles the first appearance of the Clans. These Clans consists of humans who went into exile from the Inner Sphere (the known universe) for centuries, disgusted by the continued self-destruction and decay of the Inner Sphere inhabitants, and they rebuilt a differing social structure in their new homes, based on a rigid caste system, which breeds extraordinarily skilled Mechwarriors and produces very advance Mechs. These Clans are leading an invasion of the Inner Sphere, with the aim of retaking control of it. Outclassed, outgunned, and outnumbered, the desperate Inner Sphere inhabitants must put their differences aside and band together in order to repeal their invaders. High quality novels, and even better if you’re a fan and are familiar with the Battletech universe.