Thread by @kushal_mehra

Whether it was Gandhi, Aurobindo, Vivekananda, Ram Mohan Roy, Nehru etc. Always remember one thing they were humans, they will have flaws. They will make choices & speak about things you may not agree with. Heck this culture doesn't spare its gods & we're touchy about humans.

I personally like aspects in all of them. But none are my heroes. I learn from them. The moral arch keeps on expanding. When we compare humans of the past from the current moral arch they will always fall short. Doesn't mean we don't study them. But we rem this fact all the time

I don't look at Ram, Krishna as Gods personally. To me they are also personalities. Heck we've critically analysed them too. That is how we are as a community. I will analyse Mohammad & Jesus too as personalities. That is my Hindu way. I take the good from everyone.

Whether it is Bengal or it Kerala, this land has given us heroes and idiots from every corner of the country. But when we discuss them we have to keep our emotions aside. We can't attribute motives to anyone discussing a personality beforehand. That is unfair IMHO.

Also, this medium is brutal and ill suited for discussions of such nuance. We tend to pounce on everyone because of the absence of the audio visual element. The same discussion if held offline would be be far more nuanced and respectful. This medium breeds megalomania.

This medium is a stage where u make pronouncements. U don't have a discussion after that. Wish more people realised this basic tech prob in the medium. Also, this medium is brutal. If u cant take the heat the best thing would be to leave. I don't debate here cuz it's unproductive

I personally found the debate on Ram Mohan Roy brilliant. All the sides contributed and presented their POV. I got to learn a lot. Hope we have more discussions. But ad hominem should he avoided. We're all adult trolls here 😈😈😈

As far as this whole Ram Mohan Roy debate is concerned I have a few questions:
1. Is being Christian fundamentally bad?
2. Cant Christians do good things?
3. Is Hinduism squeaky clean?
4. Why cant a person retain his Hinduness after a so called conversion?
Just asking questions

Also another observation, I see Hindus sometimes getting more agitated when their human social reformers are questioned. Saw parallels of this in Gandhi & now Ram Mohan Roy being discussed. Haven't seen such reactions even when Ram & Krishna are discussed. Wonder why 🤔🤔🤔

One more point, now we see quotes by different personalities about XYZ & then we paint a picture about them as per our pre conceived notions. The reality is that quote mining is a waste of time. We can quote mine anyone & paint them in the way we feel like.

If we play the game of analysing a personality then the only reliable tool would be a meta analysis. But, for that we will have to define a base line of what is considered objectively moral by all & sundry. This is a serious epistemic challenge by the way.

The moment we define morality objectively (I believe it can be to some extent) we will find all the past icons falling short. Now after that moral baseline is defined we will have to see who scores a higher point on that scale. We will have to give points to X view over Y view.

And this entire process can take years or maybe we do it faster by using AI. But the point is until we follow this methodology most of this quote mining should be taken with a pinch of salt. We can present any personality the way we like to present them using their quotes.

Also, when we read biographies of humans written by other humans we should know that the writer also carries a confirmation bias. A hater of Gandhi will share his dark quotes & a lover will share his awesome quotes in a biography. So basically stay agnostic to this process.

That's why I try to avoid the word XYZ personality is my hero. I realised this over time when I read the works of these icons. U take the good & discard the bad. But avoid the tag hero. But I guess that works at an individual level & will most probably fail at a societal level.

Societies rally around heroes and valiant personalities. Hero is being used in a gender neutral way FYI. So whenever a societal icon is questioned there will be turbulence. But what comes after that usually is a more sober society which has nuance & maturity.