I am not sure if you will understand this blog and even if you do I am not sure you will appreciate the significance of it. I have read Bertrand Russell repeatedly from whom I got most of my ideas. But on going through the blog before publishing I still found the concepts vague and abstract. Please read carefully as these are concepts necessary for India’s national security and perhaps the survival of mankind. Quite literally. I am exaggerating to a certain extent but not by much.
It is not easy to explain in a short blog what Russell took a whole book to expound. And Russell was a master of English prose. Not given to unnecessary words and sentences. Please bear with me if you can’t make head or tail of what I have said. And read Russell.
Is India strong in science?
What will it take for India to be strong in science?
Amongst other things like accuracy and intellectual courage and integrity it requires a nation to take seriously the following quote by Voltaire – I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.
My own family is progressive and modern by Indian standards (although authoritarian). But if I remember correctly when I was young I was expected to agree with what my elders told me about life. The fact that I held independent views was disapproved of.
Of course I was a disobedient youngster in a country where obedience to elders is valued very highly.
I suppose society thought that my holding independent views was the cause of my disobedience. But it wasn’t.
It is possible to disagree with your superiors and still obey his orders. You may disagree with his point of view but still do what he tells you to do. That is unless you want to resign from your job.
It is a subtle point but The Dharma is subtle as the Mahabharata tells us.
And even more important. It is possible to be polite towards a person even when you don’t agree with him. This is something I did not understand when I was young. Hee hee.
Bertrand Russell makes the following point strongly in his writings. What is more important than your beliefs is the way in which you hold those beliefs. We should not hold beliefs in a fanatical way.
Russell was an opponent of fanaticism all his life. He saw the evils in his day of a fanatical belief in the Nazi and Communist ideology in Germany and the Soviet Union. And it is telling that both these ideologies were defeated by the free thinking West.
Basically your beliefs are not set in stone. According to the Hindu scriptures everything is Maya. An illusion. How can your views be unchanging and rigid and express absolute truth?
More on the subject of the way in which our beliefs should be held is explained in The Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell. Russell explains the scientific attitude which is what I am propagating for the sake of national security and the survival of humanity. See blog linked to below:
But there are limitations to the scientific outlook as related to faith and religion. They are:
- Mystical insights are mystical insights. We should not judge them on the evidence that is available to us. A person with a powerful telescope will have much more evidence to base his conclusions about astronomy than the average person on the streets who looks at the stars. So also the mystics know things not known to the average person or even the average man of science. Religious traditions have survived thousands of years for that reason. Aldous Huxley explained this point of view in his book The Perennial Philosophy.
There is no reason why we cannot have a scientific attitude towards religion and question the mystics. But then we should first aim to have the same experience that the mystics had when they formed their view. First get yourself a telescope and then question the astronomers.
But at the same time giving our elders in our family the respect that should only be given to heavy duty mystics is completely unjustified and unscientific.
Now for the question that I started this article with. Is India really strong in science despite large sections of society being authoritarian and feudal?
I haven’t studied the subject and don’t have the evidence to really be sure. Time will tell. If Indians living in India come up with inventions that transform the economy or medicine or the sciences or other fields of knowledge and ensure the national security of the country then you can say that India is strong in science.
But at this point in time such inventions mostly have come only from the western nations. I would like India and Indians to also compete and collaborate with them.
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