There exists an ancient proverb about an elephant and a bunch of blind men. Denied by nature of the sensory perception of vision, these men decide fast enough to grope the elephant in order to learn its characteristics. One feels the trunk and compares it to a snake, one feels its legs and imagines it to be similar to a tree trunk. Others judge it to resemble either a fan or a rope, depending on whether they touched its ear or tail. When they compare notes, the blind philosophers come to blows as they end up interpreting each other as liars. The moral of the story is pretty clear. The Truth is indifferent to subjective opinions.
But what's the real lesson to draw from this story -- for me, a man in his mid thirties, who has received extensive training for 18 years to follow a path of reason? I wonder about it and lie awake in the middle of the night.
I am a product of my circumstances. I was born in an Indian middle-class family to hard working parents, a Bengali businessman (who had previously won the Dishari award for best actor in Bengali theatre for his titular role of Debangshi, and later gave up acting) and a house-wife (who was born, brought-up and educated in central Calcutta but gave up on a career to get married to a family in the small town of Balurghat). Needless to say, my parents saw in me a potential (and hunger) for knowledge and pushed me in that direction, trying to imbibe in me a certain measure of ruthlessness - to punch above my weight. It is this fighting spirit that eventually took a small-town boy to Cambridge to successfully work with the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics.
If I truly see the act of writing as catharsis, it's absolutely important to be honest to myself. I need to understand who I am before I answer questions on moral dilemma that I am subjecting myself to. If I dare to choose a future career path of education, I must ask myself what my vision is, and for whom it is meant to be. My current circumstances force me indeed to hear opinions on academia - how a candidate is judged, who the judge is, how ideas and results are to be presented, etc. But what about the one true feature that underlines it all - honesty? Academia is a path (one among many) to seek 'knowledge'. Knowledge is associated with the fundamental - the Truth. It cannot, should not and does not muddy itself with untruth, half-truth and propaganda. It is a quest for the eternal - what that is I do not know. But for sure, it is not a playground of opinions - which are nothing but reflections of half-truths, untruths and marketing gimmicks.
In my quest to find a leadership role in academia, I have been seriously advised almost entirely on salesmanship - what sells, who buys, how to pitch and how to 'survive' - basically, to build a narrative that feeds the confirmation bias of the existing players in the market. We call ourselves doctorates in Philosophy! Is this what Philosophy has been reduced to - a game of one-upmanship with rules as hollow as the outcomes?
I don't need to play this game. Not today, not ever. I do not need a pat on my back from every salesman in the market. I achieved whatever little I could give to the subject because I was destined for it. I was born to tough and loving parents, nurtured by my teachers, and mentored by advisors who themselves are fighters and seekers. If I am destined to be in academia, my vision should be to nurture younger minds, to provide them with a backbone and self-belief, and a fearless attitude to question every assumption they encounter. Indeed, I do not see myself as another lecturer who walks up to the board and writes stuff that has been printed in a journal or a book. My job is to hunt for flaws in established arguments and make mistakes and hopefully get corrected by younger, brighter minds. A teacher is more a student than a student is a teacher. A teacher learns by observing each student the art of moulding - the mind and thus, the character of his students. It is a duty, a responsibility; not a game of pits and ladders. A teacher leads generations, shows them what is real and of true value and how to distinguish it from what is not but appears to be. A teacher illuminates the strength in restraint and the art of rhetoric. A teacher sets examples through life choices and empathy, by leading from the front and by being indifferent to glory. It's a difficult life, but one worth living. A teacher can see the elephant, and thus is able to convince the blind men that subjective opinions are both true and false.
An elephant is an elephant - whole, beautiful, beyond understanding, and simply meant to be adored!
