Una verdad simulada

When it comes to ideological issues, we just don’t seem to get the other side. Its like a horse with blinkers; one refuses to accept the other view. So many debates end up being about what one perceives the other side ought to be saying instead of debating the substantial point they are actually making.

A case in point is the recent “faggot” comment by Ann Coulter. What the right wingers now on a counter-attack don’t get is that it isn’t the words that matter. Words are just words. Its the thought or lack thereof that they convey. It isn’t that Ann Coulter used that word at one of the largest Conservative forums, its what those words reflect about the conservative movement that matter. As Andrew Sullivan puts it:

[Ann Coulter’s] defense, however, is that she was making a joke, not speaking a slur. Her logic suggests that the two are mutually exclusive. They’re not. […]

Her joke was that the world is so absurd that someone like Isaiah Washington is forced to go into rehab for calling someone a “faggot.” She’s absolutely right[…]

She added to the joke a slur: “John Edwards is a faggot.” [….]

The word “faggot” is used for two reasons: to identify and demonize a gay man; and to threaten a straight man with being reduced to the social pariah status of a gay man. Coulter chose the latter use of the slur, its most potent and common form. […] And that’s what she was doing: trying to delegitimize and feminize a man by calling him a faggot. It happens every day. It’s how insecure or bigoted straight men police their world to keep the homos out.

And for the slur to work, it must logically accept the premise that gay men are weak, effeminate, wusses, sissies, and the rest.

(emphasis mine)

Likewise, some commenters saying out loud that they were unhappy that a suicide bomber in Afghanistan missed Dick Cheney is exactly the same as Bill O’reilley saying that if terrorists attack the Coit tower, San Franciscans should not expect the rest of Americans to come to their help. The difference is that the former were made by anonymous commentors on some blogs; latter were made by a prominent conservative personality. One could say that the latter are representative, while the former aren’t.

However, still, these are mere “words”. If actually the Veep had been hurt or the Coit tower under attack, I am sure the same commentors as well as Bill O’reilley would be “up in arms” (figuratively) against these acts of terrorism. They are mere words because they indicate a resentment of the other side that “just doesn’t get it;” they do not represent a sentiment that the attacks should actually succeed.

However, I am not sure if I could say the same about Coulter’s Timothy McVeigh and NYT building comment.

Tags: General by Niket
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A funny video of “Steve Jobs” unveiling the new product “iRack,” a parody on Bush’s Iraq policy.

Tags: General by Niket
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I think Bill Clinton and Jawaharlal Nehru have one thing in common. People with certain ideological leanings hate (hate is a stronger term than I intend) them more than they deserve.

Or perhaps, centrists like myself, appreciate these gentlemen more than other presidents/prime minister.

That is not to say I agree with majority of their policies; as a matter of fact, I don’t. However, they managed to please a larger section of society during their time than displease, while still leading their respective countries with some sense of direction.

Update (posted after Patrix’s comment on this post): I should mention that I don’t consider Nehru as a good prime minister. However, I do consider Clinton to be a fairly good president. My main point is that those who criticize Nehru and Clinton do not acknowledge the things they did right.

Tags: General by Niket
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I tend to be libertarian-leaning in my economic views. I believe liberalization has been good for India and that we need more broad-based liberalization (and not, what Amit Varma calls, ”mai-baap” government) to reduce poverty. I also believe Nehruvian economics may not have been the right path for India to take after its independence.

But I agree with Abi that Nehru took a “middle path” in his economic decisions. I will not blame Nehru for his decisions; I don’t think the “blame” for the current state of India rests with him. For one, it wasn’t clear at that time that a laissez faire or a capitalist economy was a better choice than the socialist path. Secondly, Nehru did believe in a “mixed economy”. India did not go as strongly on a socialist path until Indira Gandhi. Thirdly, although Nehru was a socialist — or perhaps because Nehru was a socialist — he put significant investments into science and scientific institutions. It is a failure of the subsequent administrations that we, as a nation, did not build on these investments.

That we still continue espousing strongly socialist economic policies is anachronistic at best, criminal at worst.

Tags: General by Niket
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This post really started as a chat with Aditya based on my reply on his blogpost about a recent onion article. For the uninitiated, the onion is a satirical newspaper.

Figuring out whether a piece is satire or real is becoming more and more difficult. Either the satirist are getting better or we are getting more ridiculous. It will be fun to institute a contest where contenstants identify whether a particular piece is real news or a parody.

Less than an year back, Rep. Tom Delay’s Legal Defense Trust made themselves look ridiculous when they used one of Stephen Colbert’s faux interviews on their website and their mailing to show the “anti-Delay bias” of the leftists.

Via Pharyngula, I came across the Faith Brokers, who provide “Sin Cards” that you can apply online to rid yourselves of the sin you have committed and gain entry into heaven. I think its a parody… but watching the right-wingers these days, one can never be so sure!

For example, there is a businessman in California selling holy drinking water. I wasn’t sure what to make of this until I read this news report.

This guy, who claims to be Jesus, takes the cake. Hands down! And there are millions of gullible people who believe him.

Tags: General by Niket
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Here in US, a large number of folks are worried about the dumbing down of education and that half the population believes in creationism. Often, Europe is taken as an example of things going right in education and skepticism (and healthcare). So, this video came as a shocker to me:

I had originally embedded this video from youtube. Its now removed because it breaks the layout in Firefox. Thanks Prashant.
(Hat Tip Norm)

This comes from the French version of “Who wants to be a millionaire.” To the question “What is it that revolves around the earth,” the contestant replied “The Sun.”

But what is worst is that 56% of the audience believed the same thing; only 42% knew that it was the moon; 2% thought it was Mars that went around the earth. Of course, this is not necessarily a general indication of what the French believe, but these numbers sure are a cause of concern.

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In his book Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman, the Nobel Prize-winning physicist, Richard Feynman, discusses his experience teaching physics to undergrads in Brazil.

After a ot of investigation, I finally figured out that the students had memorized everything. When they heard “light that is reflected from a medium with an index,” they didn’t know that it meant a material such as water. They didn’t know that the “direction of the light” is the direction in which you see something when you’re looking at it, and so on. Everything was entirely memorized, yet nothing had been translated into meaningful words.

(italics in original, bold emphasis mine)

This criticism is apt in the Indian context as well. We teach students to pass exams, but not necessarily to understand and experience science. I was reminded of a post I made in my earlier blog on a similar topic. Thanks to Google cache, I have restored it below the fold

[Read more →]

Tags: General by Niket
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