Warning: This is looong. On 12/14/08, ashok _ <[email protected]> wrote: > On Sat, Dec 13, 2008 at 4:49 AM, ss wrote: > > Nearly two years after the book went online - I find it satisfying that this > > is as far as criticism gets. The inability to counter the content speaks > > for > > itself. :) > > > > Perhaps the only people reading your book are the ones who are already > pre-conditioned to believe its contents. > Hmmm. :-) Thanks, how did you know me!
> Say for example I have a particular affinity towards a hypothetical > country in sub-saharan africa. > I feel very strongly about whats happening in this country, but I > don't have the possiblity to travel there. So I end up doing a lot of > research using news reports, articles, think-tank reports etc. All the > reports validate my belief that the country is a basket-case in terms > of every kind of indicator. Finally I conclude that the populace of > this country is suffering, unhappy and bitter. Much has been made on the list whether Shiv has been to PunjabAfghanKashmirSindSTAN and stuff, whether he interviewed people or got bulletin board wounds or whatever, as a background work for his book. I find this attitude humongously funny at best. Also there have been a few questions on whether there are 'backup' references - both online and offline kinda stuff. Of course, we simplify and stereotype things to interpret them better, and so it is easy to straitjacket Shiv into the role of a foaming-at-the-mouth fanatic, what with his knife wielding abilities with surgical precision as also his masochistic suggestions of starvation as the principal method of reducing weight. Going OT, Sadly many guys (verrry learned otherwise) think that if somestring does not return any search results (from the brain that is), then probably the something for which the string is a token, is NOT existent or worst still, NOT worth knowing. Or even absolutely wrong. O tempora. We have rather happily progressed from I think therefore I am to I buy books therefore I am (think of the books that are in my library and overflowing to beds, tables, chairs - sadly unread...) to I xerox therefore I am (one has to think of the many xerox copies made of books / articles, in the fond hope that one would some day read them) to I printout therefore I am to I download therefore I am (the fond hope of reading the books / articles sometime) to I search (sorry, google) therefore I am to 'I am feeling lucky' therefore I am to I am a wikipedophile therefore I am. to I can find any URL anytime, therefore I am and therefore I already know what the URL contains and to I am content, though I have only a pointer to a pointer & so forth... Sad. In this absolutely delicious Nirvana, anyone can comment on anything, heck, *I* can comment on Shiv and Ashok and Buddha and... IMO, just because google gurgitates some links, mainly throwing up incorrect and decontextualized information, just because a page has been linked into by umpteen other pages, just because a book or an article has been peer reviewed - it/they doesnt say much about any offending string / article / book / whatever. This is not to say that there is no value at all in all these thingies, but we should know better. Google is probably a metaphor - one can substitute it with 'our brain' and make appropriate changes, in the social context, and may be this is the way we think about things and respond. OT reversed... For these kinds of nagging and mildly irked and mostly irksome queries aimed at Shiv, I seriously think that a reading up of how any kind of research is done would be a good idea. There are concepts such as primary sources, secondary sources etc though perhaps not all folks may realize/know them. In fact, we happily tend to have stunningly erudite (and mostly incorrectly biased and ill-informed) opinions on anything and everything, mostly from tertiary and at best secondary sources. Also, we are so so quick to criticize in this SMS age, and if we can't understand an issue in its cultural context and its many a gray shade & nuance, then instead of trying to understand it more (but alas it *is* hardwork) conginitively or affectively, we find it easy to rubbish issue. Ah, what a great pleasure, this kneejerk rubbishment! Our brains can take a walk while our fingers do time at the keyboard! Shiv, IMHO has done a good amount of research based on secondary sources and primary sources and has put them in a reasonable context/framework; personally I feel that objectivity is impossible in any context, but I think Shiv has treaded the path carefully without randomly jumping into conclusions or undertaking surprising leaps of faith. I have not been to the moon, but that does not by anyway mean that I cannot comment on the moon. You have not been a politician (If you are one, my humble salutations, and I rub my fast-expanding-forehead at your lotus feet for your bravery), and you have commented (I liked your love of labour, resulting a cute takeoff, that I read sometime back, thanks to Ma'am Deepa? Or was this some other ashok?) on the posters/buntings/cutouts put up by them. You probably commented on this based on some tertiary sources. :-) Though what I am going to write now is an absolute cliche, I suppose one has to choose his battles / pet peeves / wars, if you will, among many candidates, and then do justice to whatever happens to be one's calling at that time. IMO, Shiv has chosen one of his pet peeves (or deeplyfelt issues) and has done a competent job (yes, mea culpa, just finished the book (second parse), feeling all goggle eyed currently, *phew*) of it and hats off to him. I wish I could beer with Shiv, but being a teatotaller, I would rather have a few more steaming cups than misty mugs. :-) In the same way, Ashok, you have chosen your petpeeve and have done (probably among many other cute critiques) a good job of your satirical takes-off and me salutes thou too. Elsewhere I have ranted on 'talkers and doers' - but... I have long since come to the conclusion (not that it is a great revelation or whatever) that: * it is darn easy to keep complaining ad infinitum about anything and everything in life and more half-baked knowledge that one has of any given issue, the better it is! * if I painstakingly complain about something (weather / prices / IT crowd / fanatics / selfrighteous indignation / whatever / whoever), it is easy to have a meaningless conversation with everyone, and for some strange reason folks love it and participate in it with much gusto, lynching towards glory, listlessly listing lists included. Time passes. We all happily die ever after. *it is oh so difficult and taxing a task to do anything right and to contribute towards righting anything that I want to complain about. (I think, here's one of the contexts where Shiv shines through) * it is probably a fullfilling task if one choses to do something instead of merely whining all the time. * and if one immerses fully into something, then, he (or she) has no bloody time to complain about anything in life. (and hopefully, this rant would not qualify as whining about whiners, hic) * anyway, our lifetime is rather short and whatever that remains of it, could rather be spent on appreciating and enjoying beautiful things in life - it could be music or books or films and just being (of course without whining). Sad. But this too shall pass, I hope. sermon umounted. ramjee. ps: What is silk-list, without ad hominem attacks, launched suo motu. :-) -- http://www.qsl.net/vu2sro/ The lyfe so short, the Craft so long to lerne. -- Geoffrey Chaucer (The Assembly of Fowles)
