Intellectual Weak Sauce

Not infrequently, we run into arguments that can be stretched to a point where persistence / loudness decides the winner, not the rationale.

As a country with both claims as well as aspirations of greatness, it is important for us to be able to spot weak logic and overcome it to focus on results. Here is how I spot them.

• Recommendations of inaction or delay. e.g., 
• "let's wait for some more time, I'm sure X is doing something about it", 
• "this is not the solution, let's find an alternative", 
• "we need all the facts, let's get them first", etc.

The dead giveaway here is that a timeline or specific replacement action is missing. Often, the action is also someone else's responsibility (who is not present there) or better still, a collective responsibility!

• Role-playing someone else (esp., the judiciary or police)
• "we need proof.. where is the proof?"

• Shifting the responsibility
• "Let someone take the lead, I'll support",
• "It's not our job, let's mind our business", etc.

• And finally, the cost of action / benefit of action pseudo arguments
• "We can't change everybody" (huge effort / impossible),
• "This whole system is corrupt, there is no use of even trying", etc.

These actually sound reasonable since they are valid in certain other circumstances. They assuage any guilt feelings and avoid immediate unpleasantness. This is why they're so difficult to spot as well as overcome.

This is a follow up on what I wrote a few days ago - on the wrong kind of tolerance.

The post evoked a lot of strong responses. Mostly along the above lines.

Freedom, Independence, Education and Literacy

In a free world, we are all free to be just the kind of idiots (I mean "perfect people", of course) we like to be.

Not your definition of perfection or hers. To each of us, just our individual, personal and intensely "right" perspective of perfection. I mean we each are free to be the perfect idiots of our choice. Free to even scorn the other perfect-but-different idiots.

Provided, we are independent enough to be really free.

As in, for example, my NGO (no, I don't really have an NGO) needs funds from this particular source, but "hey, we haven't sold our souls, you know... we are being pragmatic, looking at the larger picture, being apolitical, neutral.. " and so forth.

Now that (if) we are independent, what could we do with our freedom?

I know! We could eat up as much as we can at the buffet table, and for good measure throw away the rest (tragedy of the commons). But hey, we are free, right?

However, if we were educated (not to be confused with being literate), we would have a bit of enlightened self-interest. Not just self-interest, but enlightened (worth the emphasis) self-interest.

On that happy note, I propose that we rename all our "Education Departments" as "Literacy Departments".

I mean, who are we fooling? Though I know a few enlightened people trying to guide syllabi towards education, we are indeed chasing metrics and reaping the... benefits. The metrics are biased towards literacy. Period.