Strike one and two

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:

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"

----

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.

Oscars

There must be cogent reasons behind it perhaps, but I am quite sad that 'The Dark Knight' did not make it to the top five :-(

Watched 'The Curious Case of Benjamin Button' and absolutely loved it (though it significantly diverges from Fitzgerald's original short story). Watched 'Slumdog Millionaire' and liked it too notwithstanding certain leaps of faith and willing suspensions of disbelief that were needed. 'Milk' and 'The Wrestler' are next on my list of movies to watch.

Some more doublespeak

The following is an excerpt from a recent editorial in The Economist urging for a ceasefire between Israel and Gaza, an event that happened on the following day.

Some of the hypocrisy in the Arab world is unspeakable. Syria, for example, is one country to accuse Israel of “genocide”. But in 1982, when Syria’s own Muslim Brotherhood rebelled in the Syrian city of Hama, the regime responded by shelling the city indiscriminately for three weeks, killing about 20,000 or 30,000 civilians. In Gaza Israel has killed 1,000 people. It is not playing by Hama rules, let alone committing genocide. Russia’s onslaught on the Chechen city of Grozny in the mid-1990s is reckoned to have killed some 20,000 civilians. As for Hamas itself, it deliberately murdered hundreds of Israeli civilians in buses and restaurants in the intifada of 2001-03.

Before I sleep every night, I read about 3-4 news articles and the sites vary from day to day, all of them western newspapers. One is no longer surprised to find such glib language used with great facility to buttress the most ridiculous of arguments across respectable journalists in the west. It seems a pathological condition, a self-deception of an unprecedented kind in supposedly freethinking democracies - something that would have surprised Orwell himself. But it ceases to be funny when you remember that lives cannot be lumped in multiples of thousand. It is beyond belief that in a country where popular public discourse is so often conscious to the inherited "Judeo-Christian" values, it is so very difficult to find a voice in the popular media who opposes these west-supported invasions as 'morally outrageous' and not simply 'politically imprudent'. The article ends:

For Israel, however, the sword alone will never be enough. A small country with many foes cannot afford to become a pariah. And Israel has a particular reason to avoid killing civilians, since the people it is bombing are the neighbors with whom it so much needs to live in peace.

Some expedient reason to stop mass murder, isn't it?

Obama's inauguration

Yesterday, January 20th was a momentous day in the history of the USA. While President Obama made minimal references to this historical shift in his inaugural speech, he harmonized many emotions when he referred to the nature of improbability that "a man whose father less than 60 years ago might not have been served at a local restaurant can now stand before you to take a most sacred oath".

His speech was forthright, emotional and pregnant with fresh confidence that we have come to regard as an epitome of great modern oration. In an attempt to be cordial on a day of celebration, he refrained from explicitly criticizing his predecessor other than saying that the present systemic failure was the sum total of the inability of "those who hadn't the courage to take hard decisions". He stressed on the immediate uphill tasks before his government - resurrecting and revitalizing the economy, demilitarization of Iraq and improving the health care system. There have been reports suggesting that he has immediate plans to disband Guantanamo Bay and also remove restrictions imposed by the Bush administration on pro-abortion groups, both of which would be immensely gratifying steps if implemented soon enough.

But there was one part in his speech that I was disappointed with (the constant references to God and Jesus throughout the proceedings was something that bummed me out further, but that's a given). Something, where I hoped the 44th President would have differed from his many predecessors. With sweeping patronization, Obama said “To all other peoples and governments who are watching today, from the grandest capitals to the small village where my father was born, know that America is a friend of each nation and every man, woman and child who seeks a future of peace and dignity, and that we are ready to lead once more.”

Obama's election coincided with my birthday here. I have had deep admiration for man ever since I heard of him and my reading of his autobiography only entrenched my respect for his indomitable courage, conviction and more importantly his aspiration to the highest office of the biggest democracy with a principled heart beating in his chest. But since his election, my regard for him has vacillated and even gone downhill for a bit. One principal nail was his stance on the Israel invasion of Gaza which he met with calculated silence initially and in the passing, appraised it as yet another 'strategic blunder' or 'mistake' (the other was the Iraqi invasion). by the incumbent government. I had hoped he would correct this in his inaugural speech, but it was not to be so.

Remarkably, such a poor stance is highly regarded among the American intellectual elite as 'principled opposition'. The official and reports in the New York Times are so depressing- nearly 1400 Palestinian deaths as opposed to 13 Israeli deaths and vast areas of Gaza devastated and raped off civilian infrastructure - one wonders whether there is any need to speculate as to what the 'real' figures and picture might be! With such outright crime before our eyes, how can calling this or Iraq a 'strategic blunder' be regarded as 'principled dissent'?

Boston is one of the places where you could sit in a coffee shop and find your neighbours involved in passionately sophisticated discussions about art, science and politics - the city having a rich academic culture. When one is bored of one's own work/reading, it is always a great pleasure to eavesdrop into something interesting. Yesterday, on one such occassion in Huntington avenue, I found a group of women (who I suspect were liberal arts teachers) discussing the coming of the new President. Boston, unlike the south, is a place where people openly support abortion, same-sex unions, the right to an independent stand on religion and abhor conservatism. Yet five out of seven among these consented the American support of Israel! (one of them even quoted the death tolls and referred it to as an unfortunate statistical consequence) One is surprised to find so much obfuscation in the conscience in the most powerful democracy in the world (with the grand specter of the fifth amendment) to not realize that there is something grossly wrong in American interventionism over the years. Not surprisingly, the two women who did not support the America's policy on Israel called it a 'mistake'. This is the legacy that every such subterfuge since the Monroe doctrine and the white man's burden has left us. But this is by no means a principled dissent!

Another Ramble

I have often tried to reflect on my schooling experience and attempted to deconstruct its effects in shaping my overall personality, outlook and character. These were merely contemplative exercises but nonetheless I think they helped me form some strong opinions about how primary and pre-college instruction ought to be in a general sense. When I try to gauge the ten odd years I spent in schools in terms of learning, I look back with a lot of disappointment at a good deal of 'lost time'. That there was an absence of direction towards life's broader goals does not bother as much as the pestilential presence of rigid constraints that conspire to limit you to much narrower, pettier goals - passing exams and beating your peers at grades for instance. I recently read an interview of Noam Chomsky (incidentally, I also had the good fortune of hearing him speak on the Gaza intervention in a recent public lecture at MIT) where the interviewer asked Chomsky on his schooling. Chomsky attended an experimental progressive school until he was twelve when he was transferred to a "college-oriented school" in the city. He says:

"...it wasn't until I was in high school that I knew I was a good student. The question had never arisen. I was very surprised when I got into high school and discovered that I was getting all A's and that was supposed to be a big deal.

In fact, every student in the school I had previously attended was regarded as somehow being a very successful student. There was no sense of competition, no ranking of students..... Well, anyway, at this particular school, judging from my experience, there was a tremendous premium on individual creativity, not in the sense of slapping paints on paper, but doing the kind of work and thinking that you were interested in. Interests were encouraged and children were encouraged to pursue their interests. They worked jointly with others or by themselves. It was a lively atmosphere, and the sense was that everybody was doing something important."

- taken from The Chomsky Reader

Such 'progressive schools' do exist in India in a small number. But I am quite certain most of them are prohibitively expensive and accessible to only rich families. Most of the other supposedly 'good schools' which include the ones I went to are primarily concerned with populating 'merit lists'- a term that I have come to regard with utmost disdain over the years. The unfortunate consequence is that most students who out happen to be outliers; those who do well in spite of the system, not because of it. I was no outlier as a schoolboy. I did well in my exams and lived in a world of my own delusion thinking that was all there was to learning. My parents and teachers were happy with me and the sum total of this status quo was that I learned absolutely nothing in my school beyond mechanically chewing and regurgitating the regimented syllabus.

The unfortunate thing, in the words of a Brazilian educator, is that most schools are "more preoccupied with the transmission of knowledge than with the creation, among other values, of a critical spirit. From the social point of view, the educational systems are oriented to maintaining the existing social order and economic structures instead of transforming them".

There is certainly a lot of truth in the above statement even if one were to refrain from sourcing these political accusations to an active agency in the system. But even then, this is a much more charitable position if we notice that even transmission of knowledge degenerates to rote learning in our schools- the pedantic recitation of facts as opposed to the assimilation of a principle and exploring its consequences thereon. To quote Richard Feynman from 'The Pleasure of finding things out', an inseparable part of robust learning is to realize the difference between 'knowing the name of something and knowing something'. The following is one of his famous anecdotes involving his early childhood experiences with his father:

‘See that bird?’ he says. ‘It’s a Spencer’s warbler. Well, in Italian, it’s a Chutto Lapittida. In Portuguese, it’s a Bom da Peida. In Chinese it’s a Chung-long-tah, and in Japanese it’s a Katano Takeda. You can know the name of that bird in all the languages of the world, but when you’re finished, you’ll know absolutely nothing whatever about the bird. You’ll only know about humans in different places, and what they call the bird. So let’s look at the bird and see what it’s doing - that’s what counts!

The Necessity of Atheism

I recently came across a remarkable essay written by the famous English Romantic poet, Percy Shelley titled 'The Necessity of Atheism'. It was first published in 1811 when the author was merely nineteen and its "audacious content" led to his immediate rustication from Oxford. What surprises me is not that such an essay could be conceived and written nearly two-hundred years before this day- there had been a sufficient maturation of the scientific method and philosophical literature (with the exception evolutionary biology) for thinkers to be motivated in this direction and Shelley was by no means ordinary in his capacity to do so-, but that in spite of the avalanche of scientific work that was accomplished in the following two hundred years the kind of nonsense attacked in this essay still persists in the minds of the educated class (not the 'opiate masses' as Marx condescendingly put it). Shelley was writing at a time when western colonial powers engaged in slavery with impunity, sati and untouchability was shamelessly prevalent in India and the world was still in its infancy of socio-economic and political thinking. Undoubtedly, many of us can rationalize (Dawkins' saw-toothed shaped Zeitgeist curve for instance) as to why we haven't progressed in this direction - a big factor in contention is the championing of religion (or conservatism in a broader sense) by many managers of political power across the world to facilitate the propagation of their self-interest. But let me be infantile here for a moment and shout - this shouldn't be the case!

Sir W. seems to consider the atheism to which it leads as a sufficient presumption of the falsehood of the system of gravitation; but surely it is more consistent with the good faith of philosophy to admit a deduction from facts than an hypothesis incapable of proof, although it might militate, with the obstinate preconceptions of the mob. Had this author, instead of inveighing against the guilt and absurdity of atheism, demonstrated its falsehood, his conduct would have, been more suited to the modesty of the skeptic and the toleration of the philosopher.

Mind you, this was penned nearly sixty years before Bertrand Russell was born in Victorian England and readers would note that what I have marked as bold can be considered a trite version of Russell's famous 'celestial teapot' argument. What is more inexplicable is the observation that a book like 'The God Delusion' should be a bestseller two centuries later! In no way do I intend to disparage Dawkins' excellent book; I have to admit that in some manner, it led to my own 'conversion' or at least facilitated it greatly. Many of my friends would agree to this too. That is, until you read Russell and realize that he was much broader than Dawkins, Harris and Hitchens (the three 'bright' Musketeers of the present) put together. Perhaps in another ten years I will say the same thing about Kant and Bacon. But let me be childish yet another time and expostulate - My parents should have introduced me to this shit!

India Inc.

While the Satyam fiasco is still fresh in the minds of the nation, news of India Inc.'s overwhelming endorsement for Modi as PM is the talk of the town. This support, apart from making L. K. Advani very pleased and encouraging him to express saffron solidarity with Modi in his latest blog entry has also frothed trouble for a little known CPI(M) MP in Kerala who talked a little too much by praising Modi's economic policies. The thought of Advani as PM sends shivers down my spine as such (being not so inconceivable a possibility); I fear a slip disk if the Modi speculation draws close to reality.

My trepidation reached highest levels when I saw a video that had Anil Ambani speak the following salutary words for Modi in front of an audience primarily comprising the hotshots of India Inc. It almost sounded as a call to arms:

"If one Dhirubhai can do so much for India, imagine what a thousand Dhirubhais can do. If one Narendrabhai can do so much for Gujarat, imagine what Narendrabhai can do as a leader for India."

A thousand Dhirubhais can ensure that India Inc. evades every possible taxation and can buy out every spoke in the central government with unprecedented impunity. As far as what a thousand Narendrabhais can accomplish for Gujarat or one Narendrabhai for India is concerned, I don't even want to indulge in speculation.