Penitent's Progress - 1

I've spent too much time thinking about what justifies the proper use of a blog. Is it the work of an adventurous chronicler that needs to be blogged? Or is it the daily to-do list of a nerd?

Enough of it, the thinking.

What better way to start blogging than to deal with the very foundations of human knowledge?

The inspiration for this post, and some following pieces comes from a number of sources – books defending the paramount importance of ideas, philosophy, and public discussions (none more so than Amartya Sen’s works); exchanges with friends about the utility of ideas and philosophies (“These things are too philosophical to be practical.”) – exchanges that are at best excited arguments and at worst end in venomous glances; and a very general discontent towards all those – individuals, organizations, and cultures alike – that downplay the importance of ideas. (A very good depiction of this tendency can be found in the movie 3 Idiots, in the scene where the Dean of the college says, “This is not a philosophy class!” I felt an overwhelming sense of déjà vu, having been told countless times that engineering is about facts and concretes, and that I shouldn’t bother myself or my colleagues with philosophical abstractions.)

Earlier I could only term this tendency of wrongly isolating utility from philosophy as utter blasphemy, as if these ‘practical’ folks sought to break the natural link between cause and effect. Today the frustration has gone, but the disquiet remains.