Thread.

The problem with "Rationalism" as a philosophy is that it's founded on arguments based on direct or first-order problems.

Let me explain. https://twitter.com/BhagwaErwin/status/1279766319844360193

Let's say that there's a village ruled by 1 zamindar & 40 peasants.

Every year once harvest is done, the peasants are minded to celebrate & feast with drink & fun. They wear nice clothes, make plans to visit city fair.

Zamindar never allows them to do this.

The Zamindar is taller & stronger than them. He's also more quick to anger & violence.

While the peasants are still recovering & weak from the hardwork of harvest, he comes and whips them until they go to work on the long low wall built around the village & the river embankment.

The villagers are rational people.

They can see the use of the embankment, & would gladly work on it so that any floods don't harm them.

The wall confuses them.

"But the wall is too low to keep away thieves. Jackals can climb over it. Raiders will come anyway. Why bother?"

The Zamindar has no fucking idea.

He whips them & has the wall built because that's what his father did before him, & his father's father did before him, & so forth since the first Ishkvaku kings ordered the first plough to be made.

So he yells at them & brandishes his whip

The peasants work hard for a month.

By the time they can go to the fair- the best deals are done, the best artisans have sold their fares, the performers are tired.

In general, their experience is much diminished. Apart from that, they've lost valuable time.

During one such trip, they meet a communist from the University who tells them about Rationalism.

They attack the zamindar & his family, kill a few guards, & drive him away to seek refuge from his cousins over the hill.

Thus Peasant Farm is created.

Everything goes well at first.

The peasants relax more, they have more free time, they are more motivated. They can farm, they can go to the fair, they are at peace.

Then- the demon who sleeps in the hills overlooking the valley wakes up as he always does every 27 years.

The demon is a boar demon. It is short in height but ferocious & has power over boars.

The peasants think boars are weak & stupid animals. They believe them to be little more than pigs. They mocked the zamindar for hunting & killing such minor pests & painting it as achievement.

But since the Zamindar has left, the boars have grown feral & vast.

The Boar-demon rallies them.

In the distant past, an old Brahmin had sanctified the wall & ordered the Zamindar's many-greats-father to keep it in order or the protection will fail.

The Wall is in ruins now.

The boars tear through the crumbling ruins of the wall at ease.

They trample & eat crops. The boar-demon hunts the girls &, by magic, turns the children into boars.

Peasants, in terror, shelter in the ruins of the Zamindar's Citadel. But they lack discipline to fight back.

Eventually Boar-demon feels sleepy again. He leaves.

Boars stay.

They gorge themselves on crops & have accrued a taste for girl-flesh & child-flesh.

Peasants begin to fight & kill a few, but they are many in number & too many to drive back.

It is at this moment, help comes.

The City folk & their merchants, artisans, whoremongers, performers, artists have heard the problems of the villagers.

They come in number to aid them in their moment of need.

The boars are driven off, the walls repaired in a haphazard fashion.

But cityfolk have lost men & women saving the villagers too.

What is to be done?

Compromise is struck. The villagers will send 2 boys, 2 girls to city every year to be slaves. The city folk will maintain 10 men garrison at village to drive off boars.

So it is done.

Villagers start working harder than ever.

Every year they select 4 kids to be sent off by lottery. Families begin to hate each other. Garrison are venal, corrupt, perverted as all soldiers. Wall is repaired- but soon breaks down. Repairs aren't done, but troops keep boars away.

Eventually one brave boy declares rebellion.

He attacks the soldiers when they're returning from a boar hunt. The soldiers are trained, peasant boy isn't. He's killed & his corpse left at the village square as example. His family crushed, men killed, women & kids enslaved.

Rumours start that his neighbours had tattled. Which is why they got 2 girls as reward.

Some begin to question the lottery system.

Next spring, there's another rebellion.

This time 2 families are on the soldiers' side. Revolt is crushed.

Then again next spring. 4 families.

After that is crushed, a peasant is visited by his whoremonger city-uncle's ghost who'd left for city long ago.

Next rebellion, they hold a feast & get village girls to fuck the soldiers to sleep. Then they slice the necks of sleeping soldiers.

Then they enslave the 4 families.

All is happy and at peace.

Two months later, the boars come again but the peasants are now bloodied and armed with soldiers' weapons. They dispatch the boars at ease after a few farms are destroyed.

Two months later, city soldiers come. In strength. They have cavalry too.

Behind the rebuilt walls, the Peasants manage to throw off their attacks for 2 days.

3rd day, one of 4 enslaved families opens gates in secret.

Peasants fight bravely, but in the middle of the battle- another 5 families betray them in the hope of good treatment afterwards.

Peasants are enslaved again.

This time City folk are serious.

All boys are defacto slaves. All girls will be defacto whores. Family system is abolished. Strong garrison of 20 men with a City-elected governor are to be appointed.

Villagers' books, temples, square are destroyed.

Next monsoons, there is a flood.

In all this rigamarole, the embankment has been ignored. It's now in disrepair.

The river breaks its banks and wipes out half the village.

The villagers appeal to soldiers for aid & lower taxes.

The governor mocks them & increases their work.

At this point, the old zamindar goes to the Office of Gobindadeva Ratha- who is the Assistant Superintendent of Forests of Wastelands for Orissa under Gajapati Narasimhadeva I. He describes the troubles of his village & requests help to save his people.

Gobindadeva gives orders.

The soldiers are impaled. The governor is flayed alive. The Cityfolk are awed by this display of wisdom & strength. They eagerly accept Gobindadeva's ultimatum to either join the kingdom of Orissa or die.

The old Zamindar's son is instated as Zamindar.

The Zamindar's son has fought in the Lakhnauti wars.

He grew up in Cuttack, was raised in the Gajapati's court, was lashed like a dog for minor offences, has lived on the battlefield for most of his life.

As a child, he learnt what happened.

Thus, he has zero chill.

He frees the peasants, restores the family system, goes to the city and kills anyone he sees until the merchants & whoremongers return the children.

Then he whips the hide of all peasants until the embankment & wall are repaired. Then he whips them again for good measure.

That night, he has a nightmare so he goes out and whips the peasants again until they build a strong citadel for him.

The next night, he has another nightmare & sends to Gobindadeva for 2 soldiers.

Every day afterwards, he whips the peasants in evening so that they remember.

That zamindar dies of old age, respected and feared by all for his anger, cruelty, and devotion to the Gods, Gajapati, & laws of Orissa.

The boar-demon is replaced by his son.

Zamindar's son was born from a village girl. He feels bad for the villagers and stops whipping them.

Eventually the villagers forget and so does the Zamindar's family.

Thus the cycle turns.