No questions asked

Institutions in any society are created by people; how can we agree on a social contract that is more just?

In his book, A theory of Justice, the philosopher John Rawls presents a framework to create institutions for a more equal society. Institutions in any society, as we know, are created by people. People bring their biases, due to their social status, experience and circumstances, which in turn affect the institutions they create. So how can we agree on a social contract that is more just? Rawls suggests that we should operate behind a ‘veil of ignorance’ i.e. a situation where we assume no knowledge about ourselves (gender, race, income, interests, social standing). The argument here is that we often set up rules that explicitly or implicitly benefit us, our tribes, or those who are like us. The veil would ensure that would not happen. The veil also assumes that one does not know specific facts about others, thereby stopping us from constructing laws or rules that are biased against people, professions or views that we do not like. If we make these assumptions, what kind of laws and rules would we construct? Would we still have laws that marginalise some ethnicities, prioritise men over women, or harass those whose views we do not share?

Rawls was a distinguished philosopher of twentieth century, and is cited routinely not just by political theorists and philosophers but also by courts of law in Canada, US and elsewhere. But Rawls was not the only person of tremendous intellect and a sharp mind within the last century to ask questions that help us think of who we are, and what kind of a society we want to live in. Others, including many philosophers who had lived in pre-WWII Germany and Italy questioned the foundations of a society that could bring Nazism and Fascism to power and unleash the forces of evil. Those words are still relevant today. Hannah Arendt’s work was not just relevant for Stalin and Hitler, but also a guiding force for many who were deeply troubled by Trump’s America. In the early part of Trump’s presidency, Hannah Arendt’s book Origins of Totalitarianism became a best seller — 56 years after its first publication.

We live in a time that is both unique in many ways, but also similar to others in the past where there was injustice, inequality and a failure of so many institutions. At times, it seems risky to ask questions — whether they are about thousands of young people who are missing in the country, or about who has the right to govern or interfere in political processes and who does not. There are other questions as well, about our collective system of values, our identity and what kind of a society should we build. At this time we need not just doctors and nurses, economists and entrepreneurs, scholars of science and engineering, historians and authors, but also philosophers and ethicists. We need thinkers who are able to reflect and analyse beyond the day-to-day political events, or move away from mundane prediction of geopolitics. However, we seem to be going in exactly the opposite direction. Philosophy as a subject and philosophers as individuals are viewed with an utter disdain in society. They are a subject of ridicule and mockery. Most recently the chief of staff of a former PM called one of the ministers ‘Aristotle’ — and it was not meant as a term of respect.

On the academic side, the grand HEC experiment of the recent past has had a devastating impact on social science and humanities. A metric driven approach that rewarded quantity over quality, and viewed impact from the lens of bizarre rankings over intellectual contribution, has decimated departments of philosophy across the country. What we have left are shallow media analysts who thrive on provocative positions and infotainment.

The dearth of philosophers, and the disdain towards the discipline, is all the more shameful in a country that associates itself with the thought of one of the finest philosophers of the last century, Iqbal. I often wonder, if he were around today, what would he think of us?

Published in The Express Tribune, June 21^st, 2022.

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