Gadkari is in the news again! There is nothing new in that. But, there is something odd about why he in the news. For saying, as quoted in The Hindu (http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/gadkari-regrets-remarks/article4070610.ece?homepage=true):
“…if we can compare the IQ level of Swami Vivekananda and that of Dawood Ibrahim, then it cold (sic) have been the same.”
Is there anything wrong in that? I do not think so. I am neutral on Vivekananda, for the simple reason I have not read him; again, for the simple reason, I have not felt the compulsion to read him.
I have a book entitled What is Intelligence? an anthology edited by Dr. Jean Khalfa. In this, at least half a dozen different kinds of intelligences, including infant, mathematical, musical types, have been discussed. I feel that the editor could have added “spiritual intelligence” and “crime intelligence”. Then, Gadkari would not have been in the news! He would have justified his statement as a comparative study of these two types of intelligence!
I am no apologist for Gadkari (God forbid!) but read what he said in the next sentence, as quoted:
“But Vivekananda used it in nation building, brotherhood and spiritualism, while Dawood used that in excelling in crime world.”
No equivalence is established between Vivekananda and Dawood. None. It is not Gadkari’s fault that some idiot long ago reified intelligence, the aspect of human mind that refuses to be reified, and created problems not only for Gadkari, but for me too.
I am rated a moron, but I think I am an idiot.
IQ is not intelligent enough to rate me correctly. And, it is now posing problems for Gadkari. Isn’t it time we discarded these terms, born out of idiocy?
Raghuram Ekambaram
“…if we can compare the IQ level of Swami Vivekananda and that of Dawood Ibrahim, then it cold (sic) have been the same.”
Is there anything wrong in that? I do not think so. I am neutral on Vivekananda, for the simple reason I have not read him; again, for the simple reason, I have not felt the compulsion to read him.
I have a book entitled What is Intelligence? an anthology edited by Dr. Jean Khalfa. In this, at least half a dozen different kinds of intelligences, including infant, mathematical, musical types, have been discussed. I feel that the editor could have added “spiritual intelligence” and “crime intelligence”. Then, Gadkari would not have been in the news! He would have justified his statement as a comparative study of these two types of intelligence!
I am no apologist for Gadkari (God forbid!) but read what he said in the next sentence, as quoted:
“But Vivekananda used it in nation building, brotherhood and spiritualism, while Dawood used that in excelling in crime world.”
No equivalence is established between Vivekananda and Dawood. None. It is not Gadkari’s fault that some idiot long ago reified intelligence, the aspect of human mind that refuses to be reified, and created problems not only for Gadkari, but for me too.
I am rated a moron, but I think I am an idiot.
IQ is not intelligent enough to rate me correctly. And, it is now posing problems for Gadkari. Isn’t it time we discarded these terms, born out of idiocy?
Raghuram Ekambaram
5 comments:
people talk of eq
emotional quotient
like you say we should talk of
crime quotient,spiritual quotient,corruption quotient etc etc to plot person in his whole personality.
people talk of eq
emotional quotient
like you say we should talk of
crime quotient,spiritual quotient,corruption quotient etc etc to plot person in his whole personality.
Yes DS sir, life should be series of quotients!
Then, we would have a meta-quotient called "Quotient of quotients (QQ)" :)
RE
Gadkari's fault lies elsewhere. But in politics faults of this particular kind are more valuable: 'faults' which can raise communal feelings.
What ultimately matters is who wins: Gadkari or Modi - matters to BJP, I mean, not to the people of India.
But Matheikal, that is a parallel issue, not any less significant yet distinct. The argument in this case is false and foisted only for the purpose of gaining leverage on the post of the presidentship of the party (not even on leadership per se). Then, I have to ask whether people who have taken umbrage at this concocted besmirching of Vivekananda are insulting him. I say yes.
The second point is, an essentially discredited metric (IQ, which has never been up to the task it set itself up for) is being touted as a source of insult. This, I call, irony.
Let me leave politics, even of the intra-party type, out of this argument.
RE
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