REGINALD VICTOR writes TO THE INTELLECTUAL STUDENT

*

To the intellectual student

The two earlier posts by Dharumi and Professor V Srinivasan reflect the unfortunate present day status of students as well as faculty. I was a student in American College from 1965 -1971 and continued as a faculty till the end of 1974. Therefore, I could sadly identify with the issues addressed in the two posts.

Let me first consider the students: Dharumi talks about the students’ shift from “emotional” to “intellectual” paradigms. When I started reacquainting myself with the College in early 90s, I commented on this change in students’ attitude to some of my old friends and colleagues. I was told that students of these times are “mature”. So the idiots like us who fought against the enforcement of Hindi and brought down stalwarts like Kamarajar were immature! Is “mature” a new name for “apathy”? If so, what is the root cause of this apathy? Is it just pure and simple selfishness, instinct for self preservation and /or cowardice to make a commitment for causes other than one’s own? No one can find fault with the fact “number one = self” is important and “survival of self” is also important, but unfortunately “self” does not live alone. Self is linked to other entities like itself in the society and as a matter of fact its survival depends on these links. In essence, self has a social responsibility that is not optional; it is bound by a social contract that needs to be fulfilled. Human species is gifted with an uncanny ability to choose and discriminate the right from wrong, good from bad and the ugly from everything else. What is wrong to one may be extremely right to another; it does not matter, choose, commit and act. I have a lot of respect for an opponent who is absolutely convinced that I am wrong. The person who claims to have no opinion, the ever safe “neutral” is the one I loathe. Look around, it is the silent majority that is killing us!

The next issue is the “emotional” as opposed to the “intellectual” approach. An analogy equates the intellect to the engine of a train and the emotions to the carriages that follow. Naturally, the argument follows that the engine can go anywhere while the carriages need the engine to go somewhere. Yes- but it is the people or the cargo in the carriages that determine where the engine should go! If anyone cares to deconstruct the great intellectuals of our time, there sure will be an underlying mess of emotions. Great reformers and tyrants that passed through history had this incredible knack of understanding the emotional status of the human milieu around them and were able to use their intellect to guide or misguide the hapless and suppress the rest. Our student days in the 60s and 70s were marred with emotional excesses, but we did see changes nevertheless. There is this great scene in “One flew over the cuckoo’s nest” – Nicholson declares to his fellow inmates of the asylum that he is going to get out of the goddamn place by picking up the water cooler and smashing it right through the window. Someone says he is full of shit and he tries hard to yank the water cooler off the floor and fails. He retires with a parting shot “I at least tried goddamn it!” There is no shame in trying; it is an awful lot better than dying as neutrals.

Now to the faculty…. Ah…. that is another post!


RV
Sultanate of Oman