Blissful Life

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  • Imaginary Heroes and Why A Radical Commitment to Truth is the Only Solution to Inequity

    Imaginary Heroes and Why A Radical Commitment to Truth is the Only Solution to Inequity

    In my post about truth and Gandhi, I wrote about how a radical commitment to truth is the missing ingredient in the world today. In this post I will elaborate on that. To do this, I’ll first recap what it means, then talk about the “inverted iceberg” model of savarna mediocrity, and finally illustrate what a radical commitment to truth would look like in practice.

    Truth: a recap

    To know how powerful is truth one just needs to walk the path of a truthful person for a while. It is an incredibly powerful philosophy that’s accessible to everyone. A radical commitment to truth as I described with examples earlier, has three components.

    1) Being in touch with your emotions and feelings, and showing commitment to try to label them accurately.
    2) A commitment to yourself to not invalidate your own feelings. To not act in ways that go against your feelings.
    3) A commitment to follow-up on things that you are uncertain of – so that you can arrive at the truth.

    This requires conviction and courage. And it provides immense strength.

    It is easier to explain why this is “radical” by looking at the society as we have it today. A great example is provided in Ravikant Kisana’s article “Saving the World Like a Savarna”:

    In the first few weeks of my doctoral studies at MICA, Ahmedabad, the professor was teaching us about Paulo Freire and the “Pedagogy of the Oppressed,” waxing eloquent about how the modern education system dehumanizes students and erodes their confidence daily. My cohort, though overwhelmingly Savarna, nonetheless had a few scholars from small towns. They didn’t have “good English” or “cultural polish” and struggled to follow the ornate vocabulary of our Brahmin professor. By this point in my life, I had mastered enough of the Savarna culture to pass off as “polished” and wealthy to their casual gaze.

    One day, in the privacy of her cabin, the same professor ranted to me about my cohort-mates, saying she could not believe how some of them had been admitted to the program and was counting on me as a “bright light” to get her through the course. I was shocked and struck by the contrast between talking so passionately about marginalized students’ issues in the lecture hall and making mean-spirited jibes at the same students in her office. In an immature move, I told the professor off and walked out. It immediately soured our equation and she, along with her husband who later became the Director of MICA, proceeded to bring the might of institutional hostility upon me for years, the effects of which still follow my career.

    This, Ravikant Kisana explains, is what is called “switching”. RK defines it as “the social behavior where Savarnas can pose as extremely radical and culturally progressive and then, with the flip of a metaphorical switch, slip back into their privileged family lives without the slightest existential friction“. RK further goes on to describe this like this: “Such posturing that borders on social deception is a public role to be played, a curation, a “look,” an outfit of sorts to mask what is fundamentally a conservative social core that is extremely difficult to unlearn“

    We could explain this in terms of truth (or the lack of it). The savarnas who do switching are living a lie. They are out of touch with their “inner core”. They fail to label their own feelings (1), they fail to act according to their feelings (2), and consequently they have no need to look for the truth(3).

    The solution to this would be to invert this lie and switch to truth. Before I illustrate that, let us look at how this “switching” is internalized by the whole society and how that is damaging the way we do anything.

    The inverted iceberg model of savarna mediocrity

    When we look at an iceberg, what do we see? We see the tip of an iceberg. About 90% of an iceberg is underneath the water. 

    Here’s the artificial picture of a full iceberg. Created by Uwe Kils (iceberg) and User:Wiska Bodo (sky)., CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons. If you actually look at the physics, iceberg wouldn’t float this way as the stable orientation would be different.

    This iceberg model is applicable to human beings also. When we see a human being, we’re only seeing the tip of their unique lived experiences and life stories. Each person is at least 10x times more than what they are able to express. But, as is with icebergs, most people’s true worth goes unrecognized. We see the tip of the iceberg and we narrow the person down to that tip. But we can sometimes be reminded about what’s hidden behind the surface.

    This model accurately captures how most people get viewed by the society.

    But in the case of savarnas*, the iceberg is inverted!

     * Please note two things. One, I am using the word savarna as an umbrella to stand for elite selfish people. Two, in many ways I myself am a savarna.

    The savarnas are so loud, so much interested in talking, and hog up all the space. When this happens, rational people think “Oh, they must have a lot more to say and that’s why they’re speaking so much. Perhaps I’m only seeing the tip of the iceberg. I better see what more lies beneath the surface.” And this leads to them getting more and more space.

    Then, they repeat the obvious, they talk about the clichéd, they keep talking without saying anything.

    The savarna icebergs are inverted. What you see is all that is there. There’s nothing more than that.

    When savarnas do heroic things or give inspiring talk, they are at the end of their wits. When they make “deep” intellectual points, they’re talking from the maximum depth they can reach. There’s nothing more in them!

    But unfortunately we imagine that there is more. We create heroes out of them. We extrapolate their arguments and see them as bastions of hope and justice. We build imaginary heroes.

    I don’t want to name anyone, but if a savarna hero has ever shattered in front of you, you know who I’m speaking about. We thought they would do something because we built up a larger than life hero based on something they did/said in the past. And turns out we were wrong. We were too kind. Our hero was imaginary.

    How does a radical commitment to truth make things better?

    In a radical commitment to truth, we call out the mediocre as the mediocre. If there’s discrimination going on and ABC speaks against it but the discrimination still continues, we say “ABC spoke against it. Nothing changed.”. If there’s an organization that has worked 40 years in a sector and all they have managed to achieve is award after award and no justice, then we say “Well, this organization did work on this for 40 years and what they did is this much [only].” If there’s a savarna group which does the bare minimum, we say “Well, this group did the bare minimum”.

    We stop using the words “great work”, “admirable”, “amazing”, “super”. Let’s reserve the superlatives for the superlative. Let’s use mediocre adjectives to describe the mediocre.

    When an insanely privileged person does a PhD on something and comes up with a repetition of what’s already widely known, we call it “they have used their privilege to get a PhD by working on a topic and discovering nothing new”.

    When there’s a random new technology with no use coming out of an IIT, we say “these people with all the resources spent on them have come up with a technology that benefits nobody”.

    When a doctor treats their patient like a human being, we say “well, the doctor treated the patient like a human being as they should be”

    We start doing this and then we will be reversing a trend that has led to marginalization and oppression of a large majority. We will lead to a society where chasing (often fake) numbers instead of caring about people is questioned. We will challenge the capitalist assumptions of putting “efficiency” (read “profit”) above human welfare. We will challenge “merit”. We will destabilize the self-centered argument of “compromising for the sake of career”. We will put an end to the pragmatism vs idealism debate. (What’s preventing the ideal from being pragmatic?)

    We will stop being content with arbitrary measures of “impact” and we will settle only for equity and justice. We will stop glorifying the bare minimum. We will start demanding what’s right. We will rethink who we fall behind and whose voices we amplify. We will stop hero worship and rediscover the value of every individual in the community.

    And in that radical commitment to truth, we can be fully free. We can live our lives to our true selves. Often we will be forced to change. But there’s no reaching the truth without change. A radical commitment to truth is a radical commitment to change.

     

    Preemptively answering some questions

    How does this help?

    It forces us to improve. It forces everyone to improve. It creates an environment of growth.

    It also puts on display privileges and the contribution of those to people’s “achievements”.

    It creates a “level” discourse where the privileged doesn’t keep accumulating more privileges.

    Isn’t this discouraging for those who are doing work?

    If you really care about justice and equity, you know very well that what you’re doing is not enough. And you would be happy to agree with anyone who says how the world needs to improve.

    But shouldn’t we appreciate any step towards positive social change?

    We should. Our appreciation ought to be commensurate with how big the step is. It is the extrapolation and the superlatives that need to be avoided.

    By this standard, nobody will be doing good work

    Well, if we don’t apply these standards, we will keep getting the mediocre work that we have. Is that what you would like?

    Be comfortable with the idea that we can only be imperfect. Be comfortable with the idea of not having heroes.

  • Hatred Based on Stereotypes Weaken Social Justice Movements

    This post talks about stereotypes, emotions, justice, etc from the point of view of a savarna, cis-het male who lives in a metropolitan city. Like the post claims, nobody can eliminate stereotype/bias from their worldview and therefore this post includes some stereotypes/biases too.

    Trigger warning: Detached discussion of emotions that makes it sound like I’m judging the emotions.

    Axioms

    Let’s assume a few things as truth.
    One: Individuals cannot completely avoid stereotypes/biases. The human brain is a pattern recognition machine. It thinks through mental models of the world. It thinks through patterns. It thinks through stereotypes. The best an individual can do is to have a fairly nuanced and complicated outlook.
    Two: There is a strong component of stereotypes in various kinds of oppression that we see in the society. Stereotypes are reinforced by other cognitive biases and logical fallacies. Human beings are susceptible to all these things. They use anecdotal evidence to “refute” comprehensive statistics. They think through emotions.

     

    Arguments

    I make three arguments in this post.
    One: Hatred is sometimes/often used in social justice movements.
    Two: Stereotypes and hatred are connected.
     
    Three: Stereotypes that strengthen hatred makes the politics of social justice movements weaker.
    In this post, I do not make a judgement on whether the hatred is justified or not (It is almost always justified). I also do not talk about whether hatred is used in oppression (Oppression thrives on hatred).
    What I do talk about is how some of the hatred in social justice movements arises from stereotypes and how avoiding this component of stereotype/hatred maybe beneficial to social justice movements.

     

    Hatred in social justice movements

    This might be amplified by twitter, but the specific emotions of disgust and hatred is sometimes/often seen used by activists who engage in social justice movements.
    It can manifest as angry rants, snap judgement, judgemental comments, monologues, etc.
    Activists might be using hatred intentionally as a tool to evoke response/engagement. They might also be using it unintentionally as a result of being psychologically triggered. This can be due to stress, burn-out, and other discomforts. This can be due to the burden of lived experience and/or trauma. But I argue that stereotypes also contribute to this emotion.

     

    Contribution of stereotypes to hatred

    Like I posited, stereotypes are unavoidably human. Activists in social justice movements also accumulate stereotypes and biases.
     
    The logical fallacy of false dichotomy also maybe involved. Some activists start seeing people as “either for our cause, or against our cause”.
    This can contribute to hatred.

     

    When hatred is based majorly on stereotype, the politics is weakened

    Hatred based majorly on stereotype is harder to justify than hatred not based majorly on stereotype.
    If hatred is based on stereotype, it also opens the opportunity for political opponents to call it as hypocrisy.
    Such hatred can evoke reactive emotions from others and cause weakening of the political cause.

     

    Arguments against my arguments

    One: This is tone policing.
     
    This is about tone. But I don’t intend to make a blanket judgement about whether hatred is justified or not. I am suggesting a sharper use of hatred such that hatred does not become counter-productive.
    Two: This ignores the hatred spewed by the opponents.
    Yes, my target audience is social justice activists who are already aware of the context of how debates happen in social media, etc.
    Three: It is easy for the privileged to say these.
    Yes. I acknowledge my privileges in saying these. It is a suggestion for people who have the privilege to consider this.
    Four: Read up “righteous indignation”
    I have. I am on your side. I’m talking to you about strengthening your own politics. I’m not saying don’t use hatred. I’m talking only about a specific instance of hatred that is based on stereotypes. And I’m not saying I’m right. I’m saying, perhaps this can be considered.
     
    Five: This is not empirically tested.
     
    True. I have not tested this empirically. This is just a theory now.
     
    Six: This is sealioning.
    Consider whether any friendly, meta-level discussion should be labeled as sealioning.
    Seven: This post can be used by our political opponents as fodder to strengthen their politics against us.
    I suppose. I’m sorry for posting this. But it’s a thought I had.

  • How Many Genders Are There In Our Languages?

    I stumbled on Trans 101 website today. The videos in there are literally the best I have seen in the past few weeks.

    I’m embedding the first video, but there are 6.

    Head over to the Trans 101 website for the rest.

    I learned a lot of things while watching the videos. Reading them all in this post would take you longer than simply watching the video. So I’m not going to write about all that.

    In the second video Margot makes a point about how she felt incredibly happy when her mother introduced her to others as her “daughter”. That made me think about non-binary individuals. What word would they be happy about when their parent calls them that?

    What about a non-binary parent? What should their child call them?

    I soon realized that there are a lot of words, especially in the context of relationships, that are very much based on the (obsolete) binary concept of gender.

    A quick search revealed a Washington Post column where a parent is confused on how to introduce their child. What caught my attention is not just the answer to that question. The question also included a reference to the orientation of the child. That made me realize how very problematic our language’s poverty is when it comes to gender and sexuality. When a transgender male is attracted to females, are they called homosexual or heterosexual?*

    Perhaps it is better to not name anything anything and just call it all a spectrum.

    Perhaps it is useful to name a few things. I don’t know.

    Anyhow, there is this wiki on gender neutral English that’s useful. And this writing guide is helpful for bloggers like me who have in the past abused repeating names as a way to avoid pronouns.

    As an aside, while looking through the wiki I also remembered how I could never find a word to describe Swathi when filling out a form. Partner? Sounds like we’re directing a company. Beloved? Who writes that on a form? Significant other? Too colloquial. Our languages really need to grow with the growth of civilizations.

    Coming back to the point about written forms of communication. What happens when you want to write about someone and they are gender fluid and prefers to be referred by pronouns that match how they are feeling at any moment? I hope all fluid people are cool not to care about pronouns in such scenarios.

    *What does orientation actually mean? Is someone’s orientation determined by what gender expression they get aroused by? Is sexuality only about arousal?

    There seems to be some answers in The Genderbread Person which is a cool website. They have broken “attraction” into sexual attraction and romantic attraction. Perhaps the concept of orientation needs to be thrown away altogether?

    Now, there is one more unresolved thing in my head. It is about an umbrella term for all whose gender expression or gender identity are socially complicated by their anatomical sex and the societal expectations of whom they are attracted to based on that. LGBT doesn’t include everyone. Queer is derogatory for some. LGBTQIA+ is the term I am thinking of using these days. But, this wiki has some alternatives.

    What is pretty clear, though, is that our spoken language has to pick up a lot of these words.

  • How to Travel In Bangalore – Get A BMTC Bus Pass

    I've now spent more than an year using the public transport in Bangalore and made the best investment only this month. That is the BMTC bus pass.

    Previously my commute was fully reliant on metro, but recently I joined MetaString foundation where I have to take the road to reach. There is a direct airport bus from where I stay to the office. The BMTC app gives a fair sense of where the buses are and how quickly I have to run to catch them. But giving 80 rupees in change every time I take a ticket was a pain. And unlike the metro, BMTC hasn't introduced smart cards yet. That's where the passes come in.
    There are three classes of bus pass. The cheapest ones are 1050 including tax and lets you ply only in ordinary buses (non-AC). The next slab is 2363 which allows you to travel in volvo buses as well, but doesn't let you get on Vayu Vajra (airport bus). For the last category there is a 3570 rupees pass that lets you "yelli bekadru odaadubodu" (run around anywhere). But even that gold pass won't let you go in Bangalore Rounds bus (I have never seen a Bangalore Rounds bus). On the other hand, gold pass gives you a travel insurance which covers accidents.
    I got my gold pass from Majestic (Kempegowda Bus station). But just getting the pass is not enough. You also have to get a BMTC id card. The ID card can be obtained on the other side of the bus pass issuing window of Majestic. You have to give a stamp size photo, your address, and phone number here which they enter sloppily in a register. The ID card has to match the pass and that's how they ensure that two people don't use the same pass.
    The biggest advantage the bus pass provides me (even though it makes no economic sense for me who don't go to the airport every day) is the mobility. WIth the bus pass you can get on any bus and travel for any distance. This lets you make on-the-fly (pun intended) decisions about changing route/direction/bus. If there are better buses starting from the next stop, you can get on in any bus in the current stop, get down at the next stop, and switch to the better bus.
    Additionally, the conductor can no longer make you feel guilty about not having change.
    And above all, you save the environment. Less the Uber, less the traffic, less the pollution, faster the buses.
    PS: I also got a new wirless keyboard. I'm now composing this blog post from a Vayu Vajra bus through my phone.
    PPS: Also checkout "moovit" app which is a citizen app for travel information.

  • How To Travel in Bangalore

    I’ve been traveling extensively in and around central Bangalore for the past 6+ months. I have experimented with various modes of transport and various tools that assist finding the right transport in these journeys. Today when I met Nishan on his first day of a new life in Bangalore, I realized I have been traveling long enough to give some travel advice.

    Disclaimer: This may not apply to all parts of Bengaluru, especially the Electronic City side (which actually should come under Chennai metro)
    What is the best way to travel in Bangalore? It depends. What time is it? Where are you going? How much time do you have?
    BMTC
    BMTC is the most connected public transport system in Bangalore. The frequency of buses is usually inversely proportional to how badly we want to reach somewhere quickly. But, if we leave enough time to wait for the right bus, there will always be a bus. 
    The BMTC app on play store is a hit and miss. If you’ve used it successfully in a particular route and if the time is before 8pm there is a high chance that the “Trip planner” will show buses that actually are plying. In fact, in such situations the information is so accurate (location, bus number plate, etc.) that I’ve been thinking about an Uber like service on top of the BMTC app.
    There is a monthly pass if it works for you. For ₹1100 in ordinary buses and ₹1700 in AC buses you can travel wherever you want how much ever you want for a month. These passes can be got from any of the bus stations. There is also a daily pass which can be got from bus conductors.
    Metro
    Namma metro is simple. It either goes where you are going or it doesn’t. Indiranagar, Jayanagar, Majestic, Mysore Road, Yeshwanthpur – these are best connected by the metro. The unfair advantage metro has over any other means of transport is that at 7 o’clock when the entire road network is jammed up, the metro rail just flies over the traffic.
    In rush hour, if possible, always choose metro.
    Get a metro card. It saves 15%. It can be recharged online. And it can be kept in wallet which allows you past gates by waving the wallet over them.
    Uber/Ola/Rapido/Speedo/Ludo/Bodo/whatever-do
    Uber and Ola are for business class travel. Also, when it is late night and there is no other way to travel. Rapido is for teenagers who aren’t afraid of dying. Avoid all these unless absolutely trapped.
    Google maps
    The only tool you need to figure out the best route to anywhere is Google maps. It may not always get the timing right (especially for buses), but it always calculates the quickest route. Use the public transport tab. Use options and choose “subway” whenever there is a chance. Experiment with the starting/ending point a bit and there may be more convenient routes.
    When using Google maps for planning travel, always be mindful of the time of day for which the calculations are made. Change this in the “arrive by” or “depart at” setting.
    To conclude, traveling cheaply in Bangalore is possible. The secret is in planning and timing. Use the tips I’ve laid out with your own judgement and enjoy traveling!

  • Making Time

    Yesterday Swathi and I visited Anivar and Joshina and their kids. It has been at least 5 months since we started planning this visit. And we finally made time for it, yesterday.
    The moment we stepped inside Noonu and Ilan were on us – showing their toys, making us read story books, laughing at jokes, jumping, dancing, and purely enjoying. I burst out laughing at one particular joke in Balarama and could not control myself for half a minute. We had lots of food for stomach and mind.
    I had asked Joshina about her work some time in the recent past. She told me about her current life philosophy which resonates with what Anivar told about his life philosophy a few weeks back, both of which struck a chord in me. The following is what it boils down to.

    The society will expect superhuman things from you. Whenever you do something, there will be a few people to ask you about that next thing that you haven’t done. If you keep trying to satisfy all these “next things”, you will never be able to keep up. Because it is humanly impossible. But more importantly, you will be happy only if you are doing the things you want to do and those are things that bring you happiness.
    A few weeks ago, I had said to myself “the secret to getting things done is to have more things to do”. I think I was not entirely right. The focus should never be on getting things done. The focus should be on finding out things worth doing.
    Today, coincidentally, I read Make Time: How to Focus on What Matters Every Day (affiliate link). I started it today and I made time to finish it today. And now I have made time to write this blog post today. The book gave me a strategy to implement the theory I learned in The One Thing (affiliate link).
    The idea is to focus on life and not let it wither away. To focus on things that make sense to you. Things that are meaningful to you. Things that you will regret not doing. Make time for those things.

  • Everyone has an Angel and Devil in Them

    Last week I had (what I thought was) the rare privilege to have a conversation with Jimmy Wales, the reluctant-to-admit-so co-founder of Wikipedia.

    It was all a part of the #NetNeutrality campaign to save the Internet. I built a Firefox add-on called Zero Internet which would simulate what happens to a poor mother of three (who can’t afford a data-pack) when she visits the “Internet” through Internet.org.

    I submitted it to reddit, and for a few hours, it was the top post on r/india (which, to be honest, has been the rendezvous for sane Indian Internet users, and would have upvoted even if Deepika Padukone supported Net Neutrality).

    Surprisingly, Jimmy Wales responded (with harsh criticism), both on twitter and on reddit, as if he was personally leading Internet.org. He said:

    “This is deeply dishonest and makes me think you haven’t even done the most basic homework as to how this works.

    In all cases, people who are using Internet.org are on data plans (often daily plans or plans with quite restrictive data caps). One reason Facebook has been successful at getting ISPs to go along with this is that it is viewed as a win/win by the carriers – it gets people online and using data.

    For the very poor, if they can’t even afford a daily plan, then they don’t look at the Internet at all. At least this way they have something. For those who are a bit less poor, the program offers them a way to save money on data – they can look at some sites for free (like Wikipedia) and use their precious data for other things.

    Your plugin gives a completely false impression.”

    …which is quite contrary to what Mark Zuckerberg is making people believe (He says Internet.org is about bringing Internet access to those who do not have it yet) and also calling my add-on dishonest was dishonest. For poor people who can’t afford data plans, going out of the sites allowed by Internet.org is impossible. And that’s exactly what my add-on does.

    So, on twitter, I went on a couple of rounds of arguments over the issue. And it turns out Jimmy Wales really, truly believes that Internet.org is the only way for poor people in India to access Internet.

    Afterwards, Pirate Praveen helped me understand why I was feeling awkward.

    “the problem is with your expectation. We want angels and devils so we don’t have to think. But everyone has both these aspects in them. Just because someone does a lot of good is not a reason to support them when they do something wrong. Attacking someone who is in opposing camp is easy. But standing up to someone in your own group needs immense courage and conviction. Every privilleged person thinks its their god given mission to help the poor and show their kindness. They do not want to acknowledge that their privillege is the result of historic oppression and they are part of the reason why they remain poor. They think poor people needs charity and kindness. What we really need is a conscious collective effort to end systematic oppression of people and that will need questioning of our own roles and privilleges. Accepting our role in creating the poor is much harder than feeling good about helping poor.”

    In fact, I now have a tagline for Wikipedia (which I would have never thought about till last week)

    “Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to *some* of all human knowledge. That’s what we’re doing.”

    NB: Jimmy Wales is an Objectivist. His life philosophy is based on that. And therefore any comment on where Objectivism gets it wrong is appreciated.

  • When There’s Nothing Left to Say

    One of the many things I like in life is talking. I like to discuss things, dissecting events and analyzing situations. It gives me some kind of strange pleasure when there’s clarity in my mind on every way to think about an issue.

    Say, there is a forward on the IM client that is obviously a hoax. The things that go through my mind include but are not limited to:

    • Why is it a hoax?
    • Why is it believable?
    • Why do people believe in it?
    • Why do people forward it?
    • Why do even people who do not believe it forward it?
    • Why do people who forward it not take it seriously when asked about it?

    Following these thoughts to their completion makes me comfortable. It lets me classify the forward (the event) to a folder in my brain. The next time I see an event of the same kind, I know all the patterns surrounding it. And there is less need to think about it. This somehow simplifies thought.

    But the first time a new kind of event occurs, I spend a lot of time thinking about it, characterizing it, judging it. Sometimes this involves talking with, arguing with people (although most people do find this annoying). But the process gives me clarity. And clarity is golden.

    There are times when I see events repeat. I find it incredulously boring to talk about them when I have already gained clarity about it. That’s why I write things down. So that I can point people to my thoughts on the event. When they have a new way of looking at it, I will come back and discuss it.

    Some issues have been discussed so much that any more of discussions on it would be like eating after you’ve finished a buffet dinner – nauseating.

    Then there are issues about which talking is equivalent to whining. Things that can be fixed straightaway (or if not, that deserves to be attempted). Here, not doing what is logically the right action after discussion makes me nauseous. Therefore, sometimes, I shun away from the discussions altogether.

    Those are the times when there’s nothing left to say. Everything left is to be done.

  • Being Feminist

    Each day passing, I am turning more and more a feminist. Although I abhor extremism in feminism (I do not think calling every action of a man “sexist” is the right way to achieve gender equality), I cannot overstate the importance of visualizing the routine, systematized discrimination against women based on their gender alone.

    In this address to the UN as its woman ambassador, Emma Watson says how it is important for men to be participating in women empowerment programs. By alienating men from gender equality programs, we are just increasing the gender gap. Read more at HeForShe.org

    Yet, that is what some feminists do – give no respect to men, attack them on whatever they do or say.

    Read about the dongle joke that spiralled way out of control. 

    But all these are issues of fine adjustment. There are coarse course corrections to be made in countries like India.

    “India’s Daughter” is a documentary that was released today by BBC. And it shows how vulgar the mindset of many Indians are. If you watch that documentary, you get avulsed not by the guilty defending himself, but by the lawyers of the rapists trying to define the role of women in society.

    And to ban that outright is worse, from the Government of India. Anyhow, I have a few mirrors at learnlearn.in/indias-daughter/#mirrors

    I’ve found myself guilty of (unconsciously at times) discriminating against my female friends many times in the past. Every time it is discovered, I try to never repeat the mistake. Yet, there is so much to unlearn that I still commit new mistakes. Anyhow, I am a feminist. I know that manhood and womanhood are just two colours of human beings.

  • The Line Between Morality and Freedom – A Guide to the Confused

    Morality is a dilemma for many – “What is right for me is not necessarily right for you. Am I right in forcing you to see things my way?”

    Christopher Hitchens and Shashi Tharoor debate for over an hour in the above video about which is more important – “freedom of speech” or “not hurting others’ sentiments”.

    The dilemma is that if we concede to Tharoor’s argument and censor ourselves in whatever we say we will turn into a gun without bullet, and on the other hand if we follow what Hitchens says, to speak our mind out without worrying about the consequences, we will all turn into guns shooting each other.

    After thinking about this issue for weeks, literally, I have come up with a middle ground.

    First I’ll explain why it is necessary.

    We should do what we feel is right because otherwise we are doing it wrong. It is mean on our part to see “wrong” and not react. Do not conform to majority opinion, or minority opinion, or anyone’s opinion because they could all be wrong. We do not know the absolute truth, or the absolute right. But what we do know is our “rights” and our “truths”. Be courageous to put it forth.

    Now I am sure some of the readers will take it down the slippery slope and say that this argument favours terrorism – what they feel is right, they do. But I have not finished my point. Keep reading.

    But what if I am not sure what is right? In such a situation just listen to all sides and form an informed opinion which you are ready to change if proved wrong later. It is fine to change your opinion. You could support someone and later oppose them if it turned out you were wrong, or vice versa. You could support an ideology and later oppose it if that is better in the light of new knowledge.

    Okay, I know what is “right”. But am I right in forcing others into my “right”? They have their right to have their “right”, right?
    True that. This is where terrorists are wrong. While asserting their right they are taking away the others’ right to live, learn, etc. We can do what we feel is right as long as we don’t deny others their rights.

    Is that the ground-breaking middle ground insight that I promised? No. We have all heard “Your freedom ends where my nose begins”. But what we have not heard is how to swing our hands in such a way that it almost reaches the opponent’s nose and scares them, but does not touch their nose and cause harm.

    It is this line that we must aim at. A war in which both parties shoot, but not at each other. Where do they shoot then?

    They shoot into the consciousness of the society. I can explain.

    You know that ethyl alcohol is a harmful substance. When you see a lot of people drinking it, you feel like the government should ban it. But by banning drinking – even when a person is not a government servant, not responsible for anything, or is a dead waste in the world – you’re essentially shooting at the alcoholics and denying their right to drink whatever poison they want to (Note: Of course there’s a question about suicide being legal or not). There is an alternate way. Though it is more difficult and long, it puts you in a moral ease. And that way is to shoot your argument at the masses and convince them collectively that alcohol is a harmful substance. Like what Dr Dharav Shah does.

    You know that Bollywood/Tollywood/Kollywood/Sandalwood movies are produced by perverts who want to make money by tickling our dicks. You know that actors and actresses are selling their bodies off under the pretext of “doing it for the script”, “what the character demands”, and you feel the society is being exploited. But you shall not ask the government to ban these movies. You shall not tear the posters and make filming impossible. What you can do without consciousness prick is criticize them vehemently, call them what they are – hypocrites, expose their lies, and raise the society’s awareness about how they are being exploited.

    Still not sure you are right enough to do such good things for the society? Think of this. Collectively our society thinks very less. Its opinions are heavily shaped by the mainstream media and easily biased by glamour and money.

    It is a place which cannot understand sarcasm, takes words by the face value, and listens to celebrities (politicians and actors) – whatever shit they say.

    It is a place where emotion rules over logic, and superfluous thoughts and ideas triumph over deep, far-sighted visions on any day.

    And if you read so far be assured your “rights” and “wrongs” are better than those of 95% of this society.