True to his word, Barack Obama issued executive orders on two fronts immediately after the transfer of powers - to close the Guantanamo prison camp in no more than a year's time and to reverse the many bans and restrictions imposed by the Bush administration on abortion aid programs. Stellar!
I watched the inaugural speech alongside a number of MIT students. The unanimous verdict was that the speech was inspiring and one noticed jubilant approvals when the new President assured his audience that scientific research will not be compromised any longer (Bush and Cheney were booed correspondingly). Yet, one finds Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman playing Devil's Advocate in his recent editorial in the NYT on the economic policies addressed by Obama in his inaugural speech. Though Krugman doesn't go beyond criticism in this particular article, he has attacked specific policy initiatives of Obama ever since the latter's election.
It is reassuring to know that there exist smart and honest people out there who constantly question and criticize the administration even when the public opinion is largely approving. This might be a direct consequence of the skeptic outlook of the intellectual elite; but then, not everyone can pull it off in a scholarly manner. An ordinary chap like me finds it difficult to keep up with each and every topic that is important to the world. Skepticism that doesn't have information and depth to back it just amounts to pigheadedness. And to be perfectly honest, I've never had a intuition for economic concepts except the most rudimentary ones - if a million monkeys like me were laid end to end, we wouldn't reach a conclusion on an economic policy ;-). Besides, I have other fish to fry.
I have recently developed a great regard for dissenting voices across history. I wish I had the time to explore Voltaire, Rosseau, Bakunin, London, Thoreau and the likes. They were necessary in the absence of democracy, but now they are all the more important in democracies like America where propaganda is much more subtle. There probably exist dissenting voices in India too but the frequency of their appearances in popular newspapers is quite rare. On this thread of thought, I am reminded of a passage about the famous evolutionary biologist J. B. S. Haldane from an essay by Ramachandra Guha:
I watched the inaugural speech alongside a number of MIT students. The unanimous verdict was that the speech was inspiring and one noticed jubilant approvals when the new President assured his audience that scientific research will not be compromised any longer (Bush and Cheney were booed correspondingly). Yet, one finds Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman playing Devil's Advocate in his recent editorial in the NYT on the economic policies addressed by Obama in his inaugural speech. Though Krugman doesn't go beyond criticism in this particular article, he has attacked specific policy initiatives of Obama ever since the latter's election.
It is reassuring to know that there exist smart and honest people out there who constantly question and criticize the administration even when the public opinion is largely approving. This might be a direct consequence of the skeptic outlook of the intellectual elite; but then, not everyone can pull it off in a scholarly manner. An ordinary chap like me finds it difficult to keep up with each and every topic that is important to the world. Skepticism that doesn't have information and depth to back it just amounts to pigheadedness. And to be perfectly honest, I've never had a intuition for economic concepts except the most rudimentary ones - if a million monkeys like me were laid end to end, we wouldn't reach a conclusion on an economic policy ;-). Besides, I have other fish to fry.
I have recently developed a great regard for dissenting voices across history. I wish I had the time to explore Voltaire, Rosseau, Bakunin, London, Thoreau and the likes. They were necessary in the absence of democracy, but now they are all the more important in democracies like America where propaganda is much more subtle. There probably exist dissenting voices in India too but the frequency of their appearances in popular newspapers is quite rare. On this thread of thought, I am reminded of a passage about the famous evolutionary biologist J. B. S. Haldane from an essay by Ramachandra Guha:
In 1957, Haldane left England to make his home in Calcutta. Several years later, an American science writer referred to him as a "citizen of India"**.Haldane replied: "No doubt I am in some sense a citizen of the world. But I believe with Thomas Jefferson that one of the chief duties of a citizen is to be a nuisance to the government of his state. As there is no world state, I cannot do this ... on the other hand I can be, and am, a nuisance to the government of India, which has the merit of permitting a good deal of criticism, though it reacts to it rather slowly. I also happen to be proud of being a citizen of India, which is a lot more diverse than Europe, let alone the U.S.A., the U.S.S.R., or China, and thus a better model for a possible world organisation. It may of course break up, but it is a wonderful experiment. So I want to be labelled as a citizen of India."
**There is very likely a typo here. It ought to be "citizen of the world"
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Appa arrives in Boston tomorrow. We're going to Florida on Monday where he has to attend a conference and I will be making sand-castles on the beach. Presently, I have rediscovered:
1. that molecular biology is quite interesting. And that experiments can be wonderful. I read about the Meselson-Stahl experiment a few weeks ago; I cannot believe how it escaped my attention during undergrad. It is one of the most beautiful and simple experiments that I have come across and should be regarded as textbook in experimental design.
2. that Jawaharlal Nehru remains my favourite historian despite his biases for China, Russia and the Congress. He can be forgiven for innocence on the first two. We all know he paid his price for China years later.
3. that not all the happiness in life is confined to human relationships. In fact, hardly any is.
1. that molecular biology is quite interesting. And that experiments can be wonderful. I read about the Meselson-Stahl experiment a few weeks ago; I cannot believe how it escaped my attention during undergrad. It is one of the most beautiful and simple experiments that I have come across and should be regarded as textbook in experimental design.
2. that Jawaharlal Nehru remains my favourite historian despite his biases for China, Russia and the Congress. He can be forgiven for innocence on the first two. We all know he paid his price for China years later.
3. that not all the happiness in life is confined to human relationships. In fact, hardly any is.
7 comments:
While I have no knowledge on the first rediscovery and not enough on the second one, I wouldnt agree with the third one.
Guess thats what makes you 'you' and me 'me'. And it also indicates what happiness means to each one of us.
"And it also indicates what happiness means to each one of us."
:-)
Don't read too much into my mind. It always hits me where I don't expect it. Ouch!!!! (Screams in excruciating pain)
btw, you should ask your twin to resume blogging.
Probably you meant at the third one that these relationships accord a larger share of worries and sorrow than happiness! :P
Everyone comments and quizzes on the most harmless and inconsequential line on the post, wtf! Well, on second thoughts, most of my blogging is inconsequential anyway :P
Well, I definitely have a reason. I could not find one single line that I could argue with or make any non-trivial addition to! :)
Delectable to think of warm sand to bury your feet in,especially in Delhi winters.
7500 miles away the only reasonable substitute I can think of is cognac. But not enough to bury my feet with a graduate student's income.
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