Wednesday 16 March 2016

RC - 16.03

Solutions - https://www.facebook.com/events/1572131479771837/

Ending civil wars is hard. Hatreds within countries often run far
deeper than between them. The fighting rarely sticks to battlefields,
as it can do between states. Civilians are rarely spared. And there
are no borders to fall back behind.

Yet civil wars do end. Of 150 large intrastate wars since 1945 fewer
than ten are ongoing. Angola, Chad, Sri Lanka and other places long
known for bloodletting are now at peace, though hardly democratic. The
rate at which civil wars start is the same today as it has been for 60
years; they kick off every year in 1-2% of countries. But the number
of medium-to-large civil wars under way − there are six in which more
than 1,000 people died last year − is low. This is because they are
coming to an end a little sooner.

The outcomes of civil wars changed, too. Until 1989, victory for one
side was common (58%). Nowadays victories are much rarer (13%), though
not unknown; the Sri Lankan government defeated Tamil rebels in 2009.
At the same time negotiated endings have jumped from 10% to almost
40%. The rest of the conflicts peter out, subsiding to a level of
violence below the threshold of war − though where that threshold
should lie is a matter of some debate.

The main reason for jaw-jaw outpacing war-war is a change in the
nature of outside involvement. In the Cold War neither of the
superpowers i.e., the United States and the Soviet Union was keen to
back down; both would frequently fund their faction for as long as it
took. When the Cold War ended, the two superpowers stopped most of
their sponsorship of foreign proxies and without it, the combatants
folded. Today outside backers are less likely to have the resources
for funding faction. And in many cases, outsiders are taking an active
interest in stopping civil wars. The motives vary. Some act out of
humanitarian concern. Others seek influence, or a higher international
profile. But above all, outsiders have learned that small wars can
wreak preventable havoc. Fractious Afghanistan bred al-Qaeda; the
genocide in tiny Rwanda spread murder across a swathe of neighbours.
In coastal west Africa, violence is passed back and forth between
Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Ivory Coast like a winter cold round
an office.

Outsiders can weigh in on one side, backing their desire for peace
with cold steel. In Mali a brawl involving a mutinous army, ethnic
rebels and Islamic extremists ended after less than a year thanks to
French soldiers, who intervened in January and forced a partial
reconciliation. Ever fewer powers, though, have the stomach for an
overt armed intervention. It is true that military victories tend to
provide more stable outcomes than negotiated settlements, which −
especially in the absence of external peacekeepers − often break down
when the underlying problems that led to the conflict in the first
place resurface.

Still, some break-ups do make sense. South Sudan's government is
lousy, and fighting continues along the border set up with the rest of
Sudan two years ago. But most independent observers agree that the
south made the right choice in negotiating to split off. The Arab
elite in the north was never going to change its murderous attitude
toward black southerners that brought about decades of miserable war
and the death of two million people. And there is little worry that
South Sudan will look so attractive as to encourage secession
elsewhere. Few minorities would accept such pain to win a seat at the
UN.



11.The passage mentions each of the following as perceptible trends in
civil war EXCEPT?
a)
The number of civil wars is low by the standards of the period.
b)
The number of civil wars has risen by leaps and bounds.
c)
Victory for one side is not very common now in civil wars.
d)
Civil wars are increasingly being resolved with both sides facing
their enemies across the negotiating table.



13.The author compares which of the following to "a winter cold round
an office" as mentioned in the last line of the fourth paragraph?
a)
Civil wars contagiously passing from one country to another.
b)
Civil wars ending in a messy way.
c)
Negotiations taking place in parallel with combat.
d)
Readying the underlying dynamics of civil war.


14.The author cites South Sudan to make the case that
a)
many nations with fissiparous tensions at home recoil from the ideas
of any partition anywhere, lest it be seen as a precedent.
b)
separating sects may well spark new conflicts.
c)
populations mobilized by grievances that have ripened over decades are
best separated.
d)
fighters cling to their original dreams long after all possibility of
attaining them has faded.


*********************



At the zenith of its physical power in the world, Europe was at the
nadir of its moral capacity to lead it, or even to reform itself. The
sheer violence and aggression of the expansions was justified in terms
of white European supremacy on various moral, religious,
organisational and other counts, which tended to be accepted through
their constant repetition. But the brutalising nature of the colonial
encounters tended to rebound on these countries themselves,
culminating in the internal wars and the emergence of very dark
political forces within Europe in the first half of the 20th century.

Colonial rulers hugged the idea of civilising colonial peoples so
completely that they would be 'assimilated' to European standards.
This was an idea that marked them off from both the British and the
Dutch. Britain was prepared to give some of its subjects Western
knowledge, Holland to give some of them Western husbands: France
proposed in addition to give them Western souls, to translate them
into Frenchmen". But the "ideal of assimilation soon wilted under
contact with the realities of colonial profit-making". Homelands were
always depicted as being in frightful conditions of misrule or chaos
(Malaya) or prone to appalling social practices (India and China).
Debt-slavery was highlighted and emphasised to generate shock among
the British public, "little as the reality might differ from
indentured labour on a British plantation". The fact that the natives
did not always respond with gratitude at this deliverance was a
frequent source of annoyance and irritation. "The haughtiest conqueror
has moods of regret that he is not loved, and Burma was hugged as a
consolation for India". But that too proved to be but a fleeting
compensation. Kiernan describes the bewilderment of an officer who
finds to his dismay people did not after all seem to have been so
unhappy under their old regime, "and gave no evidence of rejoicing at
our coming".

In the meantime, the cruelty and violence with which the native
populations were treated could be justified in various ways. H. H.
Prichard argued that "negroes have far duller nerves and are less
susceptible to pain than Europeans". This justified not just outright
killing and torture but also the slave trade. Resilience in turn could
become a weapon to be used against the native. "It was widely
suggested that Africans only understood force and positively enjoyed
being ruled with a rod of iron".

The degradation of other peoples was even greater when they were
openly manipulated and conned, with their subjugation being seen as
evidence of their inherently inferior nature. In Australia, as in
other continents, "the argument was heard that natives had no souls,
so that killing them was nothing like murder. Like any killing, it
could come to be viewed as sport." Late in the 19th century, a man in
Queensland showed a visitor "a particular bend in the river where he
had once, as a jest, driven a black family, man, woman and children,
into the water among a shoal of crocodiles". In the case of New
Zealand, for example, the conditions of the Maori and their
exploitation at the hands of British settlers were simply ignored.
England reserved no right and recognised no duty to protect the native
population, and was free to collect its dividends or eat its frozen
mutton without looking too closely into how they were produced. Tacit
agreement was spreading in Europe with the doctrine of men on the spot
that primitive races were bound to be displaced, even to die out, very
much as a large crop of annual accidents in mines or mills at home was
accepted. "Progress has to be paid for, preferably by someone else".



15.According to the passage, the ideal of assimilation failed because
a)
of different political economies and social histories in colonial encounters.
b)
colonialism warped the masters as much as it degraded natives.
c)
of the brutalising nature of colonial encounters.
d)
of the imperatives of the balance sheet.


16.The author contends that Burma proved to be just a fleeting
compensation to "ungrateful India" because
a)
the weakness of the Burmese in collective organization in their own
land made them an easy prey.
b)
the Burmese were openly manipulated and conned.
c)
the Burmese did not consider themselves as undeveloped as imagined nor
were they so interested to adapt themselves to 'civilization'.
d)
the subjugation of the Burmese was seen as evidence of their
inherently inferior nature.


17.DIRECTIONS for question 83: Select one or more answer choices
according to the directions given in the question.



All of the following are assumptions that are disproved in the passage EXCEPT?



Select all that apply:

a)
The conditions in the controlled society were so dreadful that the
Europeans necessarily came in as saviours.
b)
The Africans were more or less impervious to pain as physical
sensation was mercifully blunted.
c)
Primitive races were bound to be displaced, or even to die out.
d)
Colonialism is justified by appeals to the civilising burden of the
more developed societies.



18.The last sentence of the passage "Progress
.............................. someone else" implies which of the
following?
a)
Native populations had only second-rate souls, and they were better
off as slaves.
b)
Economic benefits accrued without causing any headaches of moral or
ethical concerns about the conditions faced by native peoples.
c)
Public misgivings were assuaged with the notion that all native
peoples were destined bondsmen.
d)
Evil, however covered up and sanctified, comes home in often
unexpected ways − Those to whom evil is done, do evil in return.


********************************

The philosophical concept of transcendence was developed by the Greek
philosopher Plato. He affirmed the existence of absolute goodness,
which he characterized as something beyond description and as knowable
ultimately only through intuition. Later religious philosophers,
influenced by Plato, applied this concept of transcendence to
divinity, maintaining that God can be neither described nor understood
in terms that are taken from human experience. The doctrine that God
is transcendent, in the sense of existing outside of nature, is a
fundamental principle in the orthodox forms of Christianity, Judaism,
and Islam.

The terms transcendent and transcendental were used in a more narrow
and technical sense by scholastic philosophers late in the Middle Ages
to signify concepts of unrestricted generality applying to all types
of things. The Scholastics recognized six such transcendental
concepts: essence, unity, goodness, truth, thing, and something (Latin
ens, unum, bonum, verum, res, and aliquid). The German philosopher
Immanuel Kant was the first to make a technical distinction between
the terms transcendent and transcendental. Kant reserved the term
transcendent for those entities such as God and the soul, which are
thought to exist outside of human experience and are therefore
unknowable; he used the term transcendental to signify a priori forms
of thought, that is, innate principles with which the mind gives form
to its perceptions and makes experience intelligible. Kant applied the
name transcendental philosophy to the study of pure mind and its a
priori forms. Later German idealist philosophers who were influenced
by Kant, particularly Johann Gottlieb Fichte, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph
von Schelling, and Edmund Husserl, described their views as
transcendental. Consequently, the term transcendentalism came to be
applied almost exclusively to doctrines of metaphysical idealism.

In its most specific usage, transcendentalism refers to a literary and
philosophical movement that developed in the U.S. in the first half of
the 19th century. While the movement was, in part, a reaction to
certain 18th-century rationalist doctrines, it was strongly influenced
by Deism, which, although rationalist, was opposed to Calvinist
orthodoxy. Transcendentalism also involved a rejection of the strict
Puritan religious attitudes that were the heritage of New England,
where the movement originated. In addition, it opposed the strict
ritualism and dogmatic theology of all established religious
institutions.

More important, the transcendentalists were influenced by romanticism,
especially such aspects as self-examination, the celebration of
individualism, and the extolling of the beauties of nature and
humankind. Consequently, transcendentalist writers expressed
semireligious feelings toward nature, as well as the creative process,
and saw a direct connection, or correspondence, between the universe
(macrocosm) and the individual soul (microcosm). In this view,
divinity permeated all objects, animate or inanimate, and the purpose
of human life was union with the so-called Over-Soul. Intuition,
rather than reason, was regarded as the highest human faculty.
Fulfillment of human potential could be accomplished through mysticism
or through an acute awareness of the beauty and truth of the
surrounding natural world. This process was regarded as inherently
individual, and all orthodox tradition was suspect. American
transcendentalism began with the formation (1836) of the
Transcendental Club in Boston. Among the leaders of the movement were
the essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson, the feminist and social reformer
Margaret Fuller, the preacher Theodore Parker, the educator Bronson
Alcott, the philosopher William Ellery Channing, and the author and
naturalist Henry David Thoreau.



27.The statement that is true, keeping Kant's ideas of
'transcendental' and 'transcendent' in view is
a)
knowledge about all objects can be considered transcendental knowledge.
b)
certain features or aspects of objects are not amenable to be
quantified by our senses.
c)
thought that helps us understand objects as objects is transcendental.
d)
any type of knowledge can be obtained through reasoning.

28.Transcendentalists opposed the strict ritualism associated with
religious practices because
a)
they subscribed to the view that each person's experience is unique
and equally important.
b)
they considered nature to be God's alter ego and thus worshipped nature.
c)
according to them, each individual has his unique way of uniting them
with the Over-Soul.
d)
they did not perceive God in idols or in any other form of tangible
representation.


29.All of the following are true from the passage EXCEPT?
a)
"Transcendentalism"− a literary and philosophical movement came into
existence in the first half of the 19th century with the formation of
the transcendental club in Boston.
b)
As transcendentalism developed as a movement over time, it came to
accept many principles and dogmas of other religious establishments
and it rejected metaphysical idealism.
c)
Intuition, and not reason, was more important to transcendentalists as
a principle through which the mind gave form to its perceptions.
d)
Transcendentalists celebrated mysticism, individualism and natural beauty.

30.DIRECTIONS for question 96: Select one or more answer choices
according to the directions given in the question.



Which of the following statements is/are true as per the passage?



Select all that apply:

a)
The primary purpose of the passage is to discuss a plan for
investigation of a phenomenon that is not yet fully understood.
b)
The primary purpose of the passage is to describe an alternative
hypothesis and provide evidence and arguments that support it.
c)
Religious forms like Christianity, Judaism and Islam differ from
transcendentalism in the respect and status accorded to nature.
d)
Religious forms like Christianity, Judaism and Islam differ from
transcendentalism in the perception of the link between macrocosms and
microcosms.
e)
None of the above.


**********************



Pieces of behaviour, beliefs, arguments, policies, and other exercises
of the human mind may all be described as rational. To accept
something as rational is to accept it as making sense, as appropriate,
or required, or in accordance with some acknowledged goal, such as
aiming at truth or aiming at the good.

The contrast between "rational coherence" and "reason" might be
questioned. In principle, the answer to this question might perfectly
coincide: that what agents have reason, or ought, to do just is what
it would be rationally coherent for them to do, and vice versa. In
several ways, however, the answers might be expected to diverge.

First, even if what one ought to do is just to make one's responses
globally coherent, what it takes to make one's responses locally
coherent might differ from what it takes to make them globally
coherent. By Subjective Desire-Based Theory, what agents have reason,
or ought, to do or intend is just what, given what they believe their
circumstances to be, would best satisfy their strongest, present
intrinsic desires. Suppose that the agent's strongest, present
intrinsic desire is for health. Nevertheless, he intends to have a
smoke, believing that lighting up is a necessary means. By Subjective
Desire-Based Theory, it is not the case that he ought to intend to
light up. If he were globally coherent, the agent would not intend to
light up. But if he does form an intention to light up, he achieves a
kind of local coherence.

Second, what the agent has reason, or ought, to do or intend may
depend not on what she believes her circumstances to be, but on
something more "objective." What an agent has reason, or ought, to do,
might be what the evidence (where this depends on something other than
her attitudes) available to the agent suggests about her
circumstances, what the evidence of the person making the reason- or
ought-claim suggests about the agent's circumstances, what the
evidence of the person assessing the claim suggests about the agent's
circumstances, or all of the relevant facts about the agent's
circumstances. Consider the Objective Desire-Based Theory − agents
have reason, or ought, to do or intend just what, given what their
circumstances actually are, would best satisfy their strongest,
present intrinsic desires taken as a whole. Suppose the agent's
strongest, present intrinsic desire is to drink a gin and tonic, and
she so intends. However, she mistakenly believes that the stuff in
this bottle is gin, when it is in fact petrol. So she believes that
mixing the stuff with tonic is a means to drinking a gin and tonic.
According to the Objective Desire-Based Theory, she does not have
reason to intend to mix the stuff with tonic and drink it. But if she
does so intend, she might be said to have achieved a kind of rational
coherence, both local and global.

Third, one might hold not a Desire-Based Theory, but a Value-Based
Theory − whatever ultimate ends an agent has reason, or ought, to
achieve depend not on what she desires or wills, but instead on what
is of independent value. Suppose the madman's strongest, present
intrinsic desire is to set off a nuclear war, and he so intends.
Moreover, the madman knows that intending to press this button is a
necessary and sufficient means to setting off a nuclear war. In
intending to press this button, the madman would achieve a kind of
coherence, both local and global. By Desire-Based Theories, the madman
ought so to intend. By Value-Based Theory, this is not the case.

There are several reasons to expect at least some divergence between
what one has reason, or ought, to do or intend, and what it would be
rationally coherent for one to do or intend. But that is perfectly
compatible with partial convergence. Among the things that agents have
reason, or ought, to do or intend is precisely to make their responses
rationally coherent. Just as we ought not to torture, or ought to care
for our children, we ought to be rationally coherent.



31.Which of the following statements best summarizes the difference
between the value based theory and the desire based theory?
a)
There is only a subtle difference between the value based theory and
the desire based theory.
b)
The desire based theory involves local and/ or global coherence while
the value based theory doesn't.
c)
According to desire based theory, one does or intends to do something
to fulfill a deep intrinsic desire thereby achieving a local or global
coherence (which differ according to the subjective and objective
desire-based theory) but according to the value based theory not
everything one does is desire based but can be due to an independent
value.
d)
The desire based theory places importance on desire, which when
fulfilled achieves a local or global coherence (which are similar
according to the subjective and objective desire-based theory) and the
value based theory revolves around a value interest rather than
desire.

32.What according to the author is the relationship between rational
coherence and reason?
a)
Coherent
b)
Divergent
c)
Non-existent
d)
None of the above


33.What is the difference between rational local coherence and
rational global coherence?
a)
Rational global coherence is based on long-term benefits while
rational local coherence is based on short-term gratification.
b)
Rational local coherence is based on long-term benefits while rational
global coherence is based on short-term gratification.
c)
Rational global coherence is based on circumstances and personal
benefits, while rational local coherence is based on intentions and
desires.
d)
None of the above.


34.
a)
Rational local coherence and global coherence coincide at all times if
we use the Subjective-Desire Based Theory.
b)
Rational local coherence and global coherence do not coincide at all
times if we use the Subjective-Desire Based Theory.
c)
If a person wants to indulge in binge-eating and gorge on junk food as
she is frustrated with her strict diet and exercise regime and follows
this desire, then the Objective-Desire Based Theory is applicable.
This desire is neither locally nor globally coherent.
d)
If a person wants to indulge in binge-eating and gorge on junk food as
she is frustrated with her strict diet and exercise regime and follows
this desire, then the Subjective-Desire Based Theory is applicable.
This desire is globally coherent but not locally coherent.
e)
None of the above

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