Macaulay

Thomas Babington Macaulay

Thomas Babington Macaulay

These are two of his speeches. He was a poet, historian and a politician. He was one of the best political scientist of his generation . He made a slew of speeches but these are his best ones. 

Despite his staunch patriotism and contempt-like posture towards Indian culture, languages, arts, sciences, and theology, Macaulay wanted Indians to prosper and excel themselves in all ways of life. He told the House of Commons in his speech on July 10, 1833,

We are told that the time can never come when the natives of India can be admitted to high civil military office. We are told that this is the condition on which we hold our power. We are told, that we are bound to confer on our subjects every benefit-which they are capable of enjoying?-no; --which it is in our power to confer on them? -no ; --but which we can confer on them without hazard to the perpetuity of our own domination. Against that proposition I solemnly protest as inconsistent alike with sound policy and sound morality. . . . We are free, we are civilized, to little purpose, if we grudge to any portion of the human race an equal measure of freedom and civilization. Are we to keep the people of India ignorant in order that we may keep them submissive? Or do we think that we can give them knowledge without awakening ambition? Or do we men to awaken ambition and to provide it with no legitimate vent? Who will answer any of these questions in the affirmative? . . . It may be that the public mind of India may expand under our system till it has outgrown that system; that by good government we may educate our subjects into a capacity for better government; that, having become instructed in European knowledge, they may, in some future age, demand European institutions. Whether such a day will ever come I know not. Abut never will I attempt to avert or to retard it. Whenever it comes, it will be the proudest day in English history. To have found a great people sunk in the lowest depths of slavery and superstition, to have so ruled them as to have made them desirous and capable of all the privileges of citizens, would indeed be a title to glory all of our own. The sceptre may pass away from us. Unforeseen accidents may derange our most profound schemes of policy. Victory may be inconstant to our arms. . . . (Young 1935: 152-155).

 In his speech delivered in the House of Commons on July 10, 1833, just a few months before he left for India, Macaulay declared,

If the question were, what is the best mode of securing good government in Europe? The merest smatterer in politics would answer, representative institutions. In India you cannot have representative institutions. Of all the innumerable speculators who have offered their suggestions on Indian politics, not a single one, as far as I know, however democratical his opinions may be, had ever maintained the possibility of giving, at the present time, such institutions to India" (Young 1935: 125). He further said, "We have to frame a good government for a country into which, by universal acknowledgment, we cannot introduce those institutions which all our habits, which all the reasonings of European philosophers, which all the history of our own part of the world would lead us to consider as the one great security for good government. We have to engraft on despotism those blessings which are the natural fruits of liberty" (p. 126). He questioned, "But what constitution can we give to our Indian empire which shall not be strange, which shall be anomalous? That Empire is itself the strangest of all political anomalies. That a handful of adventurers from an island in the Atlantic should have subjugated a vast country divided from the place of their birth by half the globe . . . a territory, inhabited by men differing from us in race, colour, language, manners, morals, religion . . ." (Young 1935: 130). "In what state did we find India? And what have we made India? . . . society was a chaos. . . (Young 1935: 133).

That the average of intelligence and virtue is very high in this country is matter for honest exultation. But it is no reason for employing average men where you can obtain superior men. Consider too, Sir, how rapidly the public mind in India is advancing , how much attention is already paid by the higher classes of the natives to those intellectual pursuits on the cultivation of which the superiority of the European race to the rest of mankind principally depends. . . ." (Young 1935: 141).

Things arent always what they seem, & sometimes they are. :)

Ceci N'cest pas une pipe was a painting by the great Belgian Rene Magritte . this is to say that sometimes things dont appear as they are. they might not be so. a person can look well adjusted for most of the time and yet sometimes commit slight peccadilloes. they are merely faux pas but sometimes what happens is that they are taken in the wrong sense and thus there are problems.
well , i wanted to address this issue as the time had come , when people actually ask you or doubt you sometimes for reasons unbeknownst to you and i felt a need to do this. this is not for myself but for a friend. dont put a lot of thought into it.

Think about how much smarter you are than a mentally retarded person and sorry to use this word but thats the word used by the US Government.

An average person’s IQ is about 100, and that of a retarded person is around 65. For a measly 35 point difference, one can see the difference in thinking and thought process.
Well, the deficit between a guy with an iq of 170 and the average person is nearly 200% greater! Heck, the difference between him and a genius is as great as the difference between a genius and a retarded person!
For a ten point difference it is considered to be a standard variation ie it is like the difference between 6 sigma and 5 sigma. and likewise . when you look at it with 10 billion specimens , the difference stands out easily.

Aldous Huxley once said,
Perhaps men of genius are the only true men. In all the history of the race there have been only a few thousand real men. And the rest of us--what are we? Teachable animals. Without the help of the real man, we should have found out almost nothing at all. Almost all the ideas with which we are familiar could never have occurred to minds like ours. Plant the seeds there and they will grow; but our minds could never spontaneously have generated them.



And there have been people with IQ's much higher than that too. I do not say that the IQ is really important. well, it isnt, but in general cases , it has been observed to form an important part of human understanding per se. and the thought processes of these individuals are different and thus there behaviour may not seem rational or even as held by common belief.

sometimes people have to understand that. compassion is an important human trait that most have forgotten . hopefully a day shall come when even that has been restored.
I , myself had problems as a kid and had to do a lot to fit in with society and conform to societal standards . but that shouldnt be the case. wh should one expect that. do they expect retards to do anything special ? for this guy, an average human is thrice as much a retard than a retard is for you.

something to think about , N'Cest il pas ? 

Learned Hand

The great US judge and judicial philosopher Learned Hand was born on the same day as I , on the 27th January. His greatness was already justified, but he did a lot more to deserve the fame and respect that his name carries in the courts of the most powerful democracy in the world. , and I do tend to agree with his decisions and thoughts.
Hand was amongst the greatest judicial prodigies produced by that country. He has been the most oft quoted judge by the US supreme court in judicial history.
In his I am an American Speech , he defined the spirit of liberty. This is what he had to say,

"What then is the spirit of liberty?
I cannot define it ; I can only tell you my own faith.
The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure that it is right; It is the spirit that seeks to understand the minds of men and women, It is the spirit which weighs their interests alongside its own without bias; The spirit of liberty remembers that not even a sparrow falls to the earth unheeded; The spirit of liberty is the spirit of Him , who near 2000 years ago, taught mankind that lesson it has never learned , but has never quite forgotten; that there may be a kingdom where the least shall be heard and considered side by side with the greatest."


He once said that liberty lies in our hearts, and once it dies there, then no constitution , however righteous and powerful, can save it.

How apropos, N’cest il pas ?
He defined the nation’s courts and the process of the judiciary as well as the fiduciary duties of a lawyer. Rights enjoyed today by most Americans are perhaps manly due to him. people like Oliver Wendell Holmes , Taft , etc had huge respect for this man , who in his youth was a very a quiet person .
Imagine this man , coming back to life and seeing the dreary atmosphere , this subfusc cloud of tyranny and oppression gripping the world, where a government can do anything to protect it’s citizens , sometimes even by taking their freedom of rights , all for the purpose of protecting “freedom”.
Let us learn from this man. He did a lot of good for humanity , let us have the common decency to give something back to this man . I am not being a mulligrub due to the nival weather that i currently have to face, i am just a bit concerned for the future of this once superior race,
This degringolade of human behaviour must cease at once else we are doomed, of that i am sure. I pray that his sedulous efforts don’t surcease just because of a few demagogues. We don’t want to make the earth a chthonic paradise now do we? Lol, i am getting way of course. I believe it is the apropos time for the denouement of this note.

laa korn
ps-it is in the second language i learnt after english :)