Sleeping with the Enemy

As the Windrush scandal reached its apogee today, with the Home Secretary, I learned that the Guardian journalist who broke the story is married to Boris Johnson's brother, who is himself a Tory minister. I was aghast. My first reaction was is the British media so incestuous that two people ostensibly on different sides of the political divide can seamlessly couple together? Is having a middle-class Oxbridge background such a strong glue that it can keep people with opposing political opinions together? Or am I being judgemental? Is love, not class, the superglue? Is it a mistake to conflate political opinions with morals? I don't think so. You cannot help who you fall in love with but you have a reasonably good idea of whom you definitely won't fall in love with. We are whom we love. Some of my close friends have political views that make me cringe, but those that do are not overtly political and we seldom discuss politics. I accept that not all close friendships are built on ideological common ground. But, I would like to imagine that romantic love is, at least for politically  conscious folk like a journalist and a politician. I would never go out with a Tory,  Republican or a bhakt.

Stress

"If you were anymore laid-back, you would be horizontal", my favourite colleague often says to me. In the past few days, I haven't been feeling very laid-back. It feels like too many things are happening at once and I am struggling to cope. Of course, the things that are stressing me are mostly good things--my conference proposal being accepted, my application to a summer school being accepted. But, I've been forced to reassess my self-image as an unflappable person.
Up to the age of about 12, every small wrinkle in life would send me into a bout of panic and tears. My mother later told me she would worry if I would ever be able to cope with life. Then, my parents sent me to Europe alone to spend time with my aunts, neither of whom I knew very well. Looking back, that felt like a turning point. That summer wasn't easy. I frequently felt lonely and found one of my aunts, who would push me to do things on my own, too harsh. But, overall, I had a good time and I came back a much more confident child. I was still an introvert, still socially awkward, but confident. When I was appointed School Captain my confidence was at its peak and my metamorphosis into a confident unflappable person seemed complete.
The following years were not easy or angst-free by any means, but my self-image as a level-headed (almost stoic) chap remained strong. It was only during the Troubles in my life, that were simmering for long but surfaced about two years ago, that that belief was shaken. In fact, my self-image made anxiety an even more disturbing experience. I struggled to accept my situation, as did many others who also saw me as a "rock".
I am much better now, but still suffer from mild anxiety symptoms from time to time. The fear that the anxiety symptoms will come rushing back, rendering me useless, is especially real during stressful periods such as this.
But, I've realized that the ability to remain stoic no matter what life throws at you is not a virtue, unless you are a stone. Anxiety is not always a sign of weakness or unresolved emotional issues. Sometimes it is just a kick on your rump that you need to spur you into action. Making changes in your life in response to anxiety is not a sign of weakness. What is a sign of weakness is clinging to the idea that you are imperturbable and must remain so no matter what life throws at you. Stress is sometimes just a sign that you need to up your game, operate at a higher level. And, the good thing about having gone to pieces is you know you can put yourself back.

Frenetic

Four months ago, I had never thought life would be so busy. I was bemused by people who kept whining that they didn't have enough time. Surely, not every waking minute of their day was occupied? But, now, I can understand how they feel. I am single and don't have any children and I still feel pressed for time. Of course, part of it is pre-deadline stress and it won't last forever. But, it feels like there is so much to do, so much to read, so much to write that those days went time hang heavy like a wet rucksack seem from another lifetime. Being busy has also given me a better appreciation of my supervisor and a changed outlook on what I thought were her poor management skills. When  you are in the thick of action, you are literally always on your feet. I feel like I am in the adult's league, if only for a short while. I remember this feeling--being so immersed in your work that even when you are not working, you are thinking about work. The existential angst goes out of the window and you stop sweating the small stuff in life. Although that can still come and bite you in your weak moments, especially when you are frustrated with work.
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My confidence still hasn't recovered from yesterday's drubbing. But, it has started inching back up. I found a new vein in my research that looks promising and though I still have loads to do over the next two weeks it is work I love. I think if you sit with a problem long enough, you ultimately find a solution. Maybe not the perfect solution, but at least something. Having your confidence shattered makes you a more open person and I am enjoying it. People I had dismissed as being of mediocre intelligence appear bright. You just feel like a nicer person. 

The Deadliest Sin

Apparently, pride is the deadliest sin. I have written previously about how prone I am to conceit. Today, that bubble was punctured and it was as unpleasant as I imagined. I was feeling quite uppity before meeting my supervisors today and the meeting was off to a good start before a question floored me. It was simple: "What is the basis for this (particular) statement?". And then the conversation turned to how my writing is still too journalistic. I don't make enough references to other authors. I am too descriptive and not analytical enough.
I have always known that I am an unconventional academic but for the first time it occurred to me that I might be an inadequate academic. It was sobering to realize that my arguments were not as novel or brilliant as I had thought. And I couldn't defend the novel ones with any confidence. My epistemology was my instinct, which is not nearly enough to succeed in the academic world.
But as I set in a boring economics seminar later that afternoon, Adrienne's words came to me "This is where you are and this is what you are working with" and I was flooded with a wave of calm. It is quite empowering to accept where you are at a particular low moment in life, which allows you to move ahead. "Everybody loses, we all have bruises". I do have a busy couple of days ahead of me but I will be busy doing what I like best: writing. The magic of writing, or any art for that matter, is that it is organic, the final form cannot be conceived in advance with any degree of precision. It flows from a place deep inside us, and grows. The last sentence might sound terribly pompous, but I have lost count of the number of times a difficult writing project has turned out well. It is healthy to be reminded of one's weaknesses from time to time,  to acknowledge them and move ahead.  

This Is Where I Am

Adrienne's words from one of her yoga classes came to me today and I immediately felt a wave of relief. "This is where I am and this is what I am working with". 

The day began well. No sooner had I got into work today than I got a mail saying I had been selected for a two-week summer school in Northern Italy. I wasn't expecting it as it was supposed to for advanced PhD students, so I was delighted. I spent the next two hours letting family and friends know and looking up visa rules. But as the day wore on, I began to feel a little stressed as things seemed to be moving too fast. Within five days, I had been invited to two conferences and accepted to summer school. I had my work cut out for the next two months and I didn't seemed to be making much progress with my ongoing writing task. What if I ended up with a shoddy piece of work? What if I wasn't satisfied with my work? Did I deserve so many things going my way?

And then, as I gazed out of my office window, Adrienne's words came to me. Not to be happy with shoddy work but to accept how I am feeling about it today. That insecurities are not just natural but an intrinsic part of the writing process. To have faith that I would pour myself into the project and end up with a satisfactory piece of work. That there was nothing to do but immerse myself in the process and embrace whatever it threw my way. I know I sound kooky but there is something to be said for surrendering. I don't see surrendering as giving up but an acceptance of one's lot at that particular moment. Like taking a breather. Not everything in life has to be a struggle, and certainly not all the time. Hard work and struggle are not synonymous. 

Two Rants

Today, my day took a wrong turn in the evening and just kept getting worse. For one, I felt like my rear tire was going on its personal speed bump with every turn of the wheel. I thought I had filled too much air while topping up my tires yesterday but it turned out that the tire was semi-deflated. I had actually let air out while trying to fill air! I took my bike to the gas pump which had vexed me the previous time. I had ended up deflating my tire instead of filling air, and this time was no different.  And, then as I was finishing cooking dinner the top came off the salt shaker as I was sprinkling it and dumped a large heap on my food. I tried to scoop out as much as I could, but the food still tasted very salty. To top it all, I was quite irritated by my current housemates. One is a really sweet middle-aged Spanish lady who is studying English, and she doesn't lose an opportunity to practice on everyone she meets. The other one started bitching about my landlord within two minutes of meeting me. From that moment on, I got a very icky vibe from him.
I am reasonably happy with my living situation but housemates are a lottery. The two things that can cause irritation are bathroom use and kitchen use. Thankfully, Europeans are not too fond of washing, so they don't hog the bathroom, even though they don't always leave it clean. But, some people have a tendency to hog the kitchen, which can be annoying.
Now on to my second rant--the long days. Early mornings and evenings are my favourite parts of the day because they encourage dreaminess an contemplation. I often get my best blog ideas during these times. But, now with the longer days, both are elusive. 

Back Home

Yes, Home. It might be a shared AirBnB house and living here can be quite a trial sometimes, but it is still home. Because home is not heaven but a base to return to at the end of the day. If it were heaven you would never leave it in the mornings. A home is familiar, a space that you can adapt to your body rhythms and, if you are fortunate, to your emotional rhythms. Of course, the space for that is limited if you are in a shared home or if you lack financial resources. But, everyone does the best with what they have. Home is where you don't feel like a guest, where you don't feel like you are beholden to someone else's generosity or sense of duty. Living in a shared house with the owner can be trying because the owner's territorial instinct often flares up. It is tempting for him or her to see every minor misdemeanour of the housemates as stemming from a lack of concern for a house that isn't theirs. Sharing a living space with someone requires trust and forbearance and the option to sequester yourself from them when you don't feel trusting or patient. Being a renter allows you to distance yourself from the owner and claim a right to the place, although of course that right is revocable. When you are staying with distant family or friends, that is not an option.
When we use a space we imbue it with meaning. The longer we live in a space, the more creative are the ways we use it in and the more meanings it has for us. Of course, not all meanings are positive. 

Last Day of Holiday

This is my last day of a holiday that was not really a holiday because I kept working through it. What it was was a change of scene that reminded me of the good things about my own scene. If you start missing your own scene and look forward to going back, that is a good holiday, right?

Good Immigrants

I read another article by Gary Younge, who I feel is one of the few well-known columnists in England who is not an Oxbridge-educated glorified navel-gazer. I feel most columnists are nothing but skillful phrase-turners instinctively prone to reactionary political positions and have nothing substantive to say. Younge's column talked about how parents of black kids who had been shot by the police in the U.S. stressed on how honest and law-abiding their kids were. While this understandable, it also feeds the narrative that some kids deserved to be shot more than others. Younge drew parallels between this and the Windrush saga, which had prompted the government to apologize not for creating a dehumanizing immigration dragnet but because the wrong people had been caught in the dragnet. The "good immigrants" had been caught.
I find the "good immigrant" narrative pernicious because it creates a class of supposedly good immigrants who are expected to prove their credentials by policing bad immigrants. Which is why you had the curious sight of Gujarati and Punjabi immigrants griping about Polish and Romanian immigration ahead of the Brexit vote. Some British people I spoke to also talked about how Asian immigrants had integrated but East-Europeans hadn't. To me the idea, that white nationalists would have a problem with white people from other countries but not with brown immigrants is bemusing. Tactical alliances can be easily abandoned once they have served their purpose.
All social hierarchies reproduce themselves by having each rung police the rung below it. Which is why well-educated well-to-do Brahmins are usually quite pleasant, because they have the lower castes behave as caste police for them. Brahmins and  other higher castes can afford to be blind to caste while enjoying all caste privileges.
Technically, I am not an immigrant, but I look and sound like one. Anti-immigration rhetoric makes me quite uncomfortable because I don't see myself as more deserving than other less-educated and less well-to-do immigrants. That being said, I don't know if the solution is to have open borders. It is difficult for me to imagine the consequences of open borders and whether I would still want to live in an Europe with open borders. But, can you have closed borders and an immigration system that is not dehumanizing? 

School Grooming

Yesterday, I was reading an article by a British Indian who had studied at Cambridge. He had felt quite out of place there, among offspring of the white privileged elite who it seemed were divinely ordained for great things. It is a common criticism of Britain's elite universities and public school system (which, in true British style, refers to elite private boarding schools) that it pumps privileged youngsters, who are usually white men, with inordinate amounts of self-belief, and little else. These men then go on to occupy positions of power in the government, media and business and, blinded by hubris, make a mess of  things. Of course, elite university and school networks are not unique to the U.K. but I imagine the ones here are the most vain.

The  issue, however, got me thinking about my own school. My sister and I did well at school and left it brimming with self-confidence. But, I would like to think not excessive self-confidence and none of the hauteur that comes with attending an elite school. Our school's name wouldn't have rung a bell outside Thane. But, what of the others who didn't do as well and didn't leave school bursting with self-belief? I imagine everyone who leaves Eton, even the humble ones and those who do badly, leave school with at least one chip on their shoulders, if not three. Is that better than finishing at a school like mine--great but not famous by any means--demoralized and diffident about your future?

I have always felt that my school was great, but now I acknowledge that it was great for me, and maybe not for everyone who attended it. Children are so vulnerable in their formative years that a bad experience can scar them for years. Being a good schoolteacher requires vast reserves of love

Modern Love Revisited

When I discovered The New York Times' Modern Love column last year, I thought I had found a reliable source of leisure for the evenings. But the past few columns have been quite disappointing. They only word I  can think of to describe them is self-indulgent. And hyper-existential. All of us trying to  figure out the purpose of our lives so what makes your navel so special that others would like to gaze at it to? At the risk of sounding racist, I think Modern Love is quintessentially American. When the Americans find something that works, they try to nail the formula for it and commodify it. Hence, the profusion of Master of Fine Art writing programmes. Maybe there are some great authors who came out of writing programmes, but I haven't heard of any. I have heard Modern Love has become so popular that it has become mandatory for some college students to have a Modern Love essay ready for submission before they finish college. The past few Modern Love pieces seemed quite formulaic--like they were the work of someone who sees writing as a craft more than an art or a calling (at the risk of sounding self-righteous). The work of people who want to write, not those who need to write.

Nostalgia

Today, I talked to a girl I dated for a few months when we were classmates in my Master's programme in Holland. We got to reminiscing about old times and I told her how different my uni was to ISS. I had a hard time adjusting to the cold formality of my uni in England after the cuddly-familiarity of ISS, where everyone knows everyone. While I was there I found the hippie culture and the benign cliques that formed chafing, but I missed them terribly when I first moved to uni in England. Now, I am well past the phase when I was pining for ISS and I am merely nostalgic about it. Nostalgia for a place or time is actually nostalgia for a feeling, even though we are often unaware of the feeling when in the middle of it. Nostalgia paints everything in a comforting sepia hue, papering over all the ugly and tedious bits. But what is wrong with that? There is a quote from one of my favourite authors, which goes, "What is nostalgia but an attempt to recreate what was good in the past? The past has been good to us. Let us honour it in this way." I also just came across an article which talks about the benefits of nostalgia and how it is a profoundly rooting experience. It can help us tide over tough times by reminding us of the intimacy of the good times.

Conceit

I often feel that if was more successful, I would be unbearably conceited. That is if I wasn't an isolated grad student working in a marginalized economics tradition at a second-tier university. Back in India, I had ruminated on the question of arrogance and come to the conclusion that it is the result of defining yourself by and clinging to that aspect of your personhood which you feel is most acceptable to the world. In the  process, you deny yourself the possibility that there could be more to you and close yourself off to new ideas, experiences and people.
I am not so sure anymore. I find myself reverting to my habit of judging people as intelligent or stupid based on something they said. Maybe it is a consequence of not being a part of a community of grad students. In isolation, one starts feeling either too smart or too stupid. With me it is usually the former and I suppose that's the case for most privileged males (although I am not that privileged in this country). What makes me uncomfortable is the possibility that conceit will further increase my isolation. The more you think that most people you come across are not that bright, the less you socialize. Isolation reinforces your conceit thereby breeding further isolation, until you become disconnected from the world and start living a parallel existence.
I read something this morning that made me return to the question of conceit. The author said that any sustained interaction requires members of the group to stoop to a lower level of  intellect. People are smart in unique ways and to interact fruitfully they need to descend to a common level of intellectual discourse which is comprehensible to everyone in the group, who might be equally smart but in different ways. The lowest common denominator, so to speak. Being a part of the group invariably involves this sacrifice. The question of conceit becomes muddled because if you are smart in a unique way, how can you compare your intelligence to someone else's? It is like comparing apples and origins. Also, even if a person said something stupid, it is impossible to know why  they said it unless you put literally  put yourself in the other person's shoes. The dumb utterance may have some perfectly smart justification which they failed to articulate.
Of course, the lesser you have to mutually stoop, the closer you are likely to be to that person. You can understand each other without the need for long winded explanations. Humour and camaraderie blossom in such relationships. 

On The Wrong Side

Is it common to find oneself on the wrong side of an argument? At a recent discussion of the philosophy group, I think I may have come across as standing for something I definitely don't believe on more than one occasion. One was on the question of whether colonialism was good or bad. I was so conscious of not wanting to alienate the white British people present that I tried to sugar-coat my answer too much. I said something to the effect of 'it was good for some people in the colonies". What I meant was it was and continues to benefit a tiny minority who have preserved the apparatus of the colonial state as it serves them quite well. But my position might have been interpreted as being an apology for colonialism by another white Brit who had a more critical view of empire. The hoops we have to jump through to keep a particular race happy! In another discussion, I was arguing with a man who was railing against cheap clothing made in third-world sweat-shops. I was trying to say that we shouldn't blame consumers for buying them as their real incomes have also been stagnant, and maybe they  couldn't afford more expensive clothes. Which could well have been a point made by one of the fast-fashion retailers. Is the line between progressive and reactionary positions less clear-cut than I had imagined? Or am I just unskilled in expressing my opinion coherently? Well, at least I am not on Twitter, making a fool of myself. 

Online Dating

I have been off online dating for a month now and don't feel inclined to go back. When I decided to take a break, it was because I had started to take it too seriously, and micro-rejections had started to grate on my self-esteem. But, herein lies the paradox. If you take online dating too seriously, you are likely to get hurt quite often (unless you are quite) lucky because people can be extremely inconsiderate and fickle online. You have to either train yourself to have no expectations or be prepared for frequent disappointments. But, if you don't have any expectations of it, what is the point of being on an online dating website? It is not an inherently pleasurable experience. I suppose few people date online because they love it. It is a means to an end--whether that end is finding a spouse, short-term partner, friend with benefits, or a hook-up--but not an end in itself. If it is an end in itself, a way of distracting yourself from other stuff in your life, then I don't think that is very healthy, either for you or for the people who encounter you. Also, if your attitude to online dating is very casual you should say that upfront because otherwise someone might assume you are looking for something serious and end up getting hurt. I don't imagine many men have the honesty to say that they are only looking for short-term dalliances for fear of putting women off. And, I have a strong suspicion that you have to be quite good-looking and white to say that and still get matched.
When I resumed online dating last year, it was because I was bored. Then, when I returned to the UK, it was a way to meet new people. But, turns out there are less emotionally stressful ways to meet new people, such as Meetup groups. I have learned to temper my expectations from these events as well because platonic rejection can also hurt, even though it might not have the sting of romantic or sexual rejection. I now only choose activities that I am interested in. If I happen to make friends in the process, that is great, but if I don't, no harm done. Such an attitude has made me bolder in my choice of activities as I don't think too much about who else will be there or peruse their profiles to see if they are friendship material. The worst that can happen is I will waste a few hours of my life. I might encounter unpleasant people but that is true of any venture in life. Most of the people who turn up for Meetup events tend to be kind and open-minded because it takes courage to participate in an activity with complete strangers. It is difficult to be mean-spirited when you are in a strange environment, so I suppose the unkind ones weed themselves out. Also, expectations is a two-way street--if you don't have any expectations of other people, you don't owe them anything either, apart from some basic civility. I can always speak up or walk out if I feel too uncomfortable. Of course, that is not an excuse for being unkind or disrespectful. I like to imagine I am neither.

Everybody Needs Taking Care Of Sometimes

These are the words my colleague said to me as I was saying goodbye this afternoon. I am off to Brighton tomorrow to spend some time with my aunt. I was last there for Christmas 2016 and spent a very relaxing three weeks. I had also considered going there around this time last year when life was swirling out of control, but I ran back to India instead.
This time I am not running away. I am looking forward to the visit and also looking forward to returning to Bristol in about two weeks. I feel happy and empowered. There have been tough moments in the three months since I returned to England but I have seen them through and discovered reserves of fortitude and self-acceptance that I didn't know existed. But, I'm ready for a break, because as my colleague said, everyone needs to be looked after from time to time, even when nothing is wrong. You shouldn't wait to take a break until you need it desperately. I am going a few days earlier than originally planned because I had started feeling stressed last week. I felt like I was forcing myself to carry on with the activities that I have identified as serving me well. Yoga, which I usually find quite relaxing, had started to feel like a chore and cooking had become unbearably tedious. When I decided to step back and made my Brighton plan I immediately felt better. Maybe a part of the reason I felt better was appreciation for the fact that I wasn't holding myself to exacting standards and willing to make changes when something wasn't working. That I could stop trying to prove to myself that I could power through life, come what may. The good thing about having gone to pieces is that the next time you spot the cracks when they first appear and can take remedial action. And prevention is always better than cure. 

Angela Carter

Today was the second meeting of my book club, and we discussed The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter. I won't bore you with a review--it is a collection of popular fairy tales reimagined and adulted. The revision is subversive. For instance, the beauty turns into a beast, in one of the stories. The female characters are not submissive, they are wild, autnomous and sexual. The male characters are mostly beasts--wolves, bears, tigers, lions--but they are not black and white either. Many of our members appreciated her  portrayal of female desire. What I also found interesting was her conception  of female beauty. Some of her heroines were deathly pale, had talons in place of fingers, were half-human, half-animal enigmas. In contrast, in the real world, females who have even a distant resemblance to animals are considered anything but beautiful. Horse-faced isn't a compliment. The less a female is like an animal, the more beautiful she is. But, this wasn't the case in Carter's stories. It seemed as though the character's pure unadulterated desire conferred a raw beauty on them.
I wouldn't say it was among my favourite books, but I've never read anything like it and I don't think I would have unless I had joined the book club. I also quite enjoy the company of smart, attractive and articulate women. And, I don't want to date any them (releasing yourself from the obligation of  chasing everyone who is attractive and available is liberating). I do feel uncomfortable and out of place at times, but, to be honest, I am used to it. I feel out of place in most situations in my life--the perpetual outsider who has an aversion to cliques and thrives on individual rather than group connections. 

Coming to Terms with Privilege

At the Cafe Philosophy meeting last week, one of the women said white men had no idea how privileged they are. I silently applauded her for having the courage to say that because I didn't. But, the issue got me thinking about the many-layered concept of privilege. In my opinion, the only people who think about privilege are the underprivileged. And, as the woman in the discussion said, most privileged people don't realize how privileged they are. I can understand why a white man who isn't professionally successful or doesn't get attention from the opposite sex doesn't see himself as privileged. I personally became aware of my  privilege as an upper-caste Indian male when I moved to Europe and was treated differently than I am at home. I am not sure I would have otherwise although I am sure more reflective and sensitive men don't need to experience lack of privilege to acknowledge their privileges. 

Of course, an experience of discrimination need not sensitize one to other forms of exclusion or discrimination. It can lead to reactions, such as "I or my group deserve to be treated better" which is well and good, until it leads to you discriminating against people who are less privileged than you or underprivileged in different ways. For instance, white feminists who discriminate against people of colour. When it comes to white heterosexual men, I imagine it is really difficult to understand privilege. Those who are unhappy with their lot in life consider themselves underprivileged, and those who are happy think they, as individuals, deserve it. 

Of course, listening to other people with an open heart and mind is also an option. You don't need to experience someone's pain to empathize with them. You don't need to put yourself in someone else's shoes. 

To Intervene or Not to Intervene

I read a twitter stream yesterday by a woman who had called out a drunk man harassing another woman on the London tube. On being confronted, the drunk man had turned his toxic stream on her, and none of the men in the compartment, even the strong-looking ones, had intervened. The writer was clearly pissed about that. In the comments section below, a man had said that had he been there he wouldn't have intervened either because he didn't want to be punched. The drunkard was more likely to react violently to a man than a woman and at least in this case, he hadn't been violent.
Which was untrue, of course, because he had been verbally violent and abusive. But, it does raise the question of whether the men should have intervened or not. Most men these days aren't primed to fight and even the strong-looking ones might go to great lengths to avoid a physical confrontation. But, I don't think we men realize what it feels to be sexually harassed. To us, they are just words, as long as he didn't touch them, his behaviour was, of course, deplorable, but not dangerous.
I remember the time I was stopped and searched by two policemen in Holland. That was my first experience of racial profiling and I felt quite shaken up, even though the policemen hadn't been rude and had only searched my bag, not my person. I imagine being sexually harassed or sexually assaulted is much much worse. I guess we men don't appreciate the courage it takes most women to go through everyday life without losing their minds--dodging potential assailants, mostly tolerating misogyny because its exhausting to respond to every instance of it. Maybe the least we men can do is show some courage and solidarity on our part when the time comes. Of course, easier said than done. I imagine if I intervene in the situation I will be racially abused and possibly assaulted. Hopefully, I will be able to remember all the brave women that I know and know of who endure much worse for speaking up or speaking out. 

Free Speech

I just got back from a discussion on free speech with my philosophy group. I quite enjoyed it although in the beginning I felt my free speech was being restricted because I was struggling to get a word in. It is tricky to know when to start speaking because you run the risk of either cutting someone off or waiting too long and losing your turn because someone else started talking. But, I finally managed to get a word in. There were many interesting points made but I can't remember any of them apart from the ones I made. My main point was that if one believed in the right to free speech then one must necessarily believe in the right of other people to get offended and say that they are offended. That is an element of free speech. I said that mainly in response to white men moaning about political correctness and how that was restricting their free speech. I went on to say that free speech also gives people the  right to say that you shouldn't have a right to speak on a particular topic because they find your views unacceptable. If in a group, one person says that, it won't make a difference, but if many people say that they can shut the speaker down. Which is why free speech cannot be dissociated from questions of power, and the speech of some people is freer than others. Free speech also has different consequences depending on how much power you wield.
There were interesting points raised by other people but I can't for the life of me remember even one. Maybe they will come to me in the coming days.
I like the discussions, although I do think they are male-dominated. Women never seem to have a problem listening. But the people are all reasonably intelligent, open-minded and welcoming. A lot of people also speak from personal experience which is important as otherwise philosophical discussions can either get too abstract or logical, in which case the arguments are blindingly obvious. I also like that I can relate with people without any expectations that the interaction will lead to friendship. It is so liberating to be able to appreciate people in the moment.

Nature or nurture

In my previous post about Cambridge Analytica, I wrote about how those incensed that manipulative algorithms had swayed susceptible voters towards Trump and Brexit were ignoring the structural issues that had made the voters susceptible in the first place. Over the weekend, I read a piece which said psychographic targeting is nowhere near as effective as it was being made out to be and that Cambridge Analytica had a pretty spotty record of success. Even before I read the article, I had become skeptical of the whistleblower Christopher Wylie after I watched his testimony to a British Parliamentary committee. When asked if Cambridge Analytica's work on Vote Leave could have affected the results of the referendum, he replied that when an athlete dopes he is banned outright, without splitting hairs over how much had he doped, etc. He was before the committee as an expert witness and not to wax on with his political views or what should be done next. The more I saw of him and the Guardian's fawning coverage of him, the more he struck me as either a grandstander hoping to stretch his five minutes of fame or the protagonist of a plot to force a second referendum.
I know too little about technology or psychology to have an informed opinion on the matter, and I admit I initially believed that Cambridge Analytica had succeeded in manipulating the vote. When we don't understand something, we bestow it with great powers in our minds. But, I think this episode raises an interesting question about the primacy of structure or agency that has befuddled social scientists for ages. Do a person's political views depend more on her personality or her circumstances, on her psychology or her sociology? If you think it depends mostly on psychology than you would tend to agree that psychological manipulation can be quite effective. If you think it depends more on her social circumstances and life experiences, you would be much more skeptical of this claim.


P.S. I have been doing some more critical reading on Cambridge Analytica and the upshot is this: It is difficult to predict personality traits from facebook behaviour, it is even more difficult to estimate political orientation based on personality traits, and it is insanely difficult to change political orientations, which is what Cambridge Analytica is accused of pulling off.

Rude Food

I always thought I had very low standards when it came to food. To be sure, I have a healthy appetite, but I am not very picky about how it is satiated. I would make a rotten food critic because I couldn't tell the difference between decent, good, great and mind-blowing food. 

After moving to England, I have realized that I am not that indifferent to the taste of food. I quite dislike the ready-to-eat meals in most supermarkets, most of the food in my university cafeteria, and the food in most restaurants I have been to is quite mediocre as well. 

I have also discovered that bad food can ruin my mood. Today, I had cooked lunch to carry to uni, but as fate would have it, I forgot to pack it. So around lunch time, I ambled over to the only restaurant within walking distance of uni and ordered some pancakes. The sun was out and I was in a chirpy mood, notwithstanding the fact that I was eating alone in an almost full restaurant, which could have been grounds for awkwardness and melancholy. 

The pancakes took their time arriving and I wish they hadn't bothered. They were dry, tasteless and the toppings were a joke. To make matters worse, they were tiny. Most people would be glad to have small portions if they  don't like the food. But my logic is different. If you are not going to tickle my taste buds the least you can do is leave me feeling full (unless the food is rank terrible, of course). So ordinary or bad food in small helpings is a double fail.

I have actually started believing that  British people hate food and would dispense with it completely if they could. If only humans could survive on wine and ales. Nowhere have I seen so many people have a sandwich for lunch. Just a sandwich, and some chips and a soda maybe. Even college boys who ought to be at the pinnacle of  their pigging days. When I was their age, I had to wolf down mountains of food to feel even half full.

I have actually started preferring food that I have cooked myself to outside food, and I am by no means a good cook. I have some talent but still need years of practice to hone it. The only times I eat outside is when I am too bored to cook, or squeezed for time. 

Blogging Fatigue

Blogging has started feeling a bit of a chore lately, which is apparent from the length of my recent blogs. I have been struggling to find stuff to write about and feel unsatisfied with what I come up with. Until a few weeks ago, I used to feel a warm glow of satisfaction after writing a substantive (in my opinion) post. This blog isn't supposed to be explicitly therapeutic, but all writing, and especially writing of a personal nature, is a bit therapeutic, I suppose. Maybe the reason I am struggling to blog is life has been quite calm for the past few weeks. I am taking a break from online dating and am learning to interact without expectations, which I find liberating. Maybe angst is good food for thought and when angst levels fall, so does the impetus to write. Not a bad thing at all, but I hope my writing is adopt to these circumstances, because I really enjoy it.
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In the past few months, I have read a few articles lauding the single life, written by "alpha singles". The articles were intelligent and balanced, not pretending that the single life was a blast. But, the authors were invariably female, white, pretty, successful and had a large circle of friends as well as admirers of the opposite sex. Can you be an alpha single if you are not all or even any of those things? I hate the world alpha single because it has a normative connotation--that if you are single you need to be an alpha single, someone eminently desirable, but picky. But, I feel like it is still possible to be comfortably single without any of the above attributes. This is the most comfortable I have been with my single status in years. And, I am not white, female, pretty or having to fend off hordes of girls who want to date me. I don't even have a good friend in the city where I live. I just feel like I have become better at living life on my own terms and having fewer expectations of myself and of other people. At living in the moment, and not thinking about how I can manipulate the moment to achieve a future goal. At not judging interactions by their potential to turn into a friendship. And, this might sound like a cliche but it is liberating to be the master of your own time.