Viswanathan K's Thoughts

Continuing with the theme of polarized opinions, I recently discovered a few more reasons why things are unlikely to change any time soon. Like last time , this one too is for reasonable people, i.e., not fanatics. These lines by Bertrand Russell are a warning sign as to when things may not be as black and white as you think: “If an opinion contrary to your own makes you angry, that is a sign that you are subconsciously aware of having no good reason for thinking as you do. If some one maintains that two and two are five, or that Iceland is on the equator, you feel pity rather than anger, unless you know so little of arithmetic or geography that his opinion shakes your own contrary conviction. The most savage controversies are those about matters as to which there is no good evidence either way.” It's hard to believe, but just because you can see some of the flaws in the views you support doesn’t mean that you can see the merits of the opposing view. To understand and ...

Rumaan Alam talks about what he terms the “ firehose of certainty ”: “Everyone on Twitter—everyone on the Internet—seems so damn certain.” That led him to wonder: “Is deciding what you like an instinct, a sense that arrives as swiftly as my autoimmune response to cat dander? Or is it the result of reasoned consideration, the way wine tasters swish pinot noir around in their mouths, spit it out, and reach for complex metaphors about chocolate and tobacco?” Alam himself can’t always make up his mind. That characteristic sticks out like a sore thumb on the Internet: “I am surrounded by confidence and all I feel is ambivalence. I am so cowed by how everyone else seems to know their own mind that it’s hard for me to exercise my own.” I think Alam need not worry. After all, isn’t Arthur Schopenhauer right when he wrote this on why just reading isn’t enough unless one reflects as well: “When we read, another person thinks for us: we merely repeat his mental process. It is th...