My thoughts on thoughts of some others

‘Liberalism should provide the devout with a reason for tolerance’ – Thomas Nagel

This is not a definition of liberalism but a condition for being called a liberal. Even if one is parochially religious and devout, one can be a liberal if, leavened by secular reasons, she shows a level of tolerance.

‘…the duty which we owe to our Creator, and the manner of discharging it, can be directed only by reason and conviction, not by force or violence’ – Virginia’s declaration

Perhaps the above was inserted at the instance of the famous deist and Virginian, Thomas Jefferson. The Creator is acknowledged but the duty towards Him, whether arising out of Him or otherwise, traverses the path of reason and not faith. Of course, one is free to interpret “conviction” as conviction in faith! Well, some people are incorrigible.

‘The comfort of the rich depends upon the abundant supply of the poor’ – Voltaire

Now, that explains the Pareto principle which, at least the milder version, goes something like, “20% of the people will control 80% of wealth.” If truth be told, the Occupy Wall Street movement located the line at 1% of people and 99% of wealth – shall we call it, the super-duper Pareto principle?

‘Mathematics is a part of physics. Physics is an experimental science, a part of natural science. Mathematics is the part of physics where experiments are cheap’ – Vladimir Arnold

I wonder what G. H. Hardy, the mentor-cum-collaborator of Ramanujan would have said to this. Hardy was enamored of the continental way of doing math – just for its own sake and he looked down severely upon applied mathematics. Now, someone says that mathematics is part of physics, application personified. Take that Hardy!

‘I’m trying to write history while it is happening, and I don’t want it to be wrong’ – John Steinbeck

I have read a few books of John Steinbeck – The Grapes of Wrath, Winter of Discontent, East of Eden and Of Mice and Men. Though I am not a lover of fiction – to put it mildly – and though I found them heavy, I liked them. I did not take these novels as history but as starters (the first three) if ever I get interested. And I did. Then came the light hearted Travels with Charley. I thought it was a telling of real experience (claimed so by the author) and I loved it. But recently I came to know that it is, in all likelihood, a concoction. He wrote wrong history, of himself, when it never happened. Why did Steinbeck resort to such cheap tricks? I stand disillusioned…

‘Literature is not a game for the cloistered elect. Literature is as old as speech. It grew out of human need for it and it has not changed except to become more needed’ – John Steinbeck

… even so, what Steinbeck says above is about as good a justification for the arts in general, and for poetry in particular

 ‘[I]ts possible to live within the truth’ – Vaclav Havel

Isn’t this a different way of saying, “Speak truth to power!”? Can you live without speaking? If you speak within truth, are you not automatically speaking to power?

‘My lack of respect for the stupidity of blind faith has, I hope, saved me from the extravagance of cleverness to a large measure’ – Rabindranath Tagore

I just wondered whether Bengalis, who to a man (and woman too) lionize the poet, are aware of this streak of iconoclasm, nearly of the secular kind? If yes, are they taking this message of his along with the pride his name evokes in them? If no, will they continue to adore him after coming to know of this detail? Just questions.  

‘[W]riting anything as an expert is really poisonous to the writing process, because you lose the quality of discovery’ – Siddhartha Mukherjee

This can almost be a commandment about writing to reach the non-experts on matters in which expertise is essential. I have a longstanding plan to reach experts in structural engineering by stripping down all their expertise and see the field as a layman would; merely to rediscover the wonder of what the experts, they themselves, really do.

Raghuram Ekambaram