WOE UNTO THE MIND THAT HAS LOST ITS POWER TO THINK
Our intellectual standard is at an abysmal low today and daily declining. I urge all to engage in the culture of the head and the heart both. Instead of blaming others for this degradation, let us assume self-responsibility to redress this situation. At the very outset we may read any of these authors : (a) Vivekananda
(b) Tagore (c) Aurobindo (d) Gandhi (e) Nehru (f) Netaji (g) Bankimchandra (h) Nazrul (i) Michael Madhusudan ((j) Ranganathananda. These are but a few names that came readily to mind and I laid them before you by way of suggestion. Surely, you may have other avenues of intellectual culture as well and you are welcome to such reading. But do read. Mere marvelling at photographs attached to posts scarce suffices to fill up this lacuna that today stifles self-consciousness and creative thinking.
How can adults engage in frivolous talk about the polity whole day without even bothering to delve a little deeper into any matter that they discuss? This is not a very wholesome situation and must be addressed at the base at the school level. Children must be encouraged to question arbitrary assumptions and must not be brainwashed at home into believing all sorts of archaic religious dogmas and doctrinaire nonsense that have no basis in evidence or rational rigour whatsoever. A defective system of blind adherence to what is taught results in this sort of uncritical approach to the real issues of life where people move by herd instinct and are not guided by reason. This seems to the sad state of the masses among which the bulk of the educated middle class is as well enrolled.
It is not good enough to improve grass roots education but the University level education will also have to be improved hugely. The Chief Minister's state patronage of these institutions notwithstanding, one must say that cosmetic changes in renaming colleges as universities with minor facility improvement and still more minor domain expansion in real terms does not augur well for the state's future academic possibilities. The same applies for all other states. Even the Ramakrishna Mission Vivekananda University needs to be provided huge governmental assistance before it is able to come up to the standards envisioned by Swamiji over a century ago. Here the government must grant liberally its funds for the result is assured in terms of excellence thereby achieved. The Ramakrishna Mission is one institution that is still working excellently despite the decadence prevailing in society all around.
...to be continued...
Written by Sugata Bose
Our intellectual standard is at an abysmal low today and daily declining. I urge all to engage in the culture of the head and the heart both. Instead of blaming others for this degradation, let us assume self-responsibility to redress this situation. At the very outset we may read any of these authors : (a) Vivekananda
(b) Tagore (c) Aurobindo (d) Gandhi (e) Nehru (f) Netaji (g) Bankimchandra (h) Nazrul (i) Michael Madhusudan ((j) Ranganathananda. These are but a few names that came readily to mind and I laid them before you by way of suggestion. Surely, you may have other avenues of intellectual culture as well and you are welcome to such reading. But do read. Mere marvelling at photographs attached to posts scarce suffices to fill up this lacuna that today stifles self-consciousness and creative thinking.
How can adults engage in frivolous talk about the polity whole day without even bothering to delve a little deeper into any matter that they discuss? This is not a very wholesome situation and must be addressed at the base at the school level. Children must be encouraged to question arbitrary assumptions and must not be brainwashed at home into believing all sorts of archaic religious dogmas and doctrinaire nonsense that have no basis in evidence or rational rigour whatsoever. A defective system of blind adherence to what is taught results in this sort of uncritical approach to the real issues of life where people move by herd instinct and are not guided by reason. This seems to the sad state of the masses among which the bulk of the educated middle class is as well enrolled.
It is not good enough to improve grass roots education but the University level education will also have to be improved hugely. The Chief Minister's state patronage of these institutions notwithstanding, one must say that cosmetic changes in renaming colleges as universities with minor facility improvement and still more minor domain expansion in real terms does not augur well for the state's future academic possibilities. The same applies for all other states. Even the Ramakrishna Mission Vivekananda University needs to be provided huge governmental assistance before it is able to come up to the standards envisioned by Swamiji over a century ago. Here the government must grant liberally its funds for the result is assured in terms of excellence thereby achieved. The Ramakrishna Mission is one institution that is still working excellently despite the decadence prevailing in society all around.
...to be continued...
Written by Sugata Bose
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