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Random Quotes Extracted from the essay RT. You could also
download the entire essay. Find a definition of Postponism in
this link -------------------------------------------------------------- “I consider myself lucky to have been born in the locality of
Sri Lanka, which is an ex-colony of Great Britain. We are brought up in an
environment where the native culture and the culture of the ex-colonial
masters and the popular culture of the so-called new imperialism compete with
each other for dominance. This salad bowl model has given us the opportunity
to taste the best of several worlds. Right now this does not taste all that
good because of the war and all other prevailing conditions in the country.” -------------------------------------------------------------- “An interesting observation I made during my efforts of
writing RT is that if you think that you are forming an idea/concept of your
own for the first time; you are wrong most of the time. There may be
innumerable others who think the same way as you do and may be contemplating
on the same line of thought as you are. If your line of thought is any good,
then probably it is a well-known philosophy with a popular name.” -------------------------------------------------------------- “Speaking of the ‘ultimate truth’, it took a long time for me
to realize that we don’t have any as such thing. At least there is nothing in
the form I which expected. After so much going back and forth on this topic,
my views can be summarized in to following sentence “Perception is the
reality and what you believe-in is your truth. There is nothing more and
nothing less”. It took a long time for me to come to above stance. Fact that
the definition of the truth is largely dependant on the worldview one
entertains, is something which I realized very late in my life. Until very recently
I did not know that there are heated debates going on among the intellectual
community over the existence of a ‘reality’. It seems that the scientific
community got involved and divided over this matter especially after the
famous Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Theory in 1925-1927 (Heisenberg and Max Born). The Copenhagen
Interpretation leads to the argument that reality is created by the observer,
and without the observer, nothing exists – or at least it is meaningless to
speak of a hypothetical ‘existence’ outside of the observations. Observer and
observed are tightly coupled to form one system and is indivisible. Einstein
never agreed with this proposition! He believed in an underlying reality and
a ‘God’s eye view of nature’ or in other words, a reality which ‘just exists’
regardless of whether it is being observed by an organic life form or not.” -------------------------------------------------------------- “It is interesting to note that the core philosophy of almost
all major world religions survived humankind’s relentless pursuit of
determinism by way of scientific knowledge. Defenders of these religions
always found ways to stay above science or, at least, to be even with the
propositions of the scientific modeling of the universe. The origin of the
modern, scientific approach is found in cultures with Judeo-Christian
backgrounds. In those cultures, most scientists treated their efforts as a
pursuit of finding the ultimate equation of God. The theories, like the Big
Bang, of the beginning of the universe, in fact, were supportive of the
argument of the creation of the universe by a personal God. The laws of
nature seem to break down at the Big Bang singularity and scientists agreed
that only God knows what happened there. On the other hand, with the
Copenhagen interpretation of Quantum theory and modern concepts of subatomic
physics, the wisdom traditions of the East found their way into the minds of
the scientific community. The concepts, like ‘observer-created-reality’, in
quantum theory go hand-in-hand with Buddhist philosophy. Also the modern
notion of an ‘undivided universe’ where the observer and the observed are
treated as a single system, and every observed phenomenon is treated as
manifestations of an ‘underlying wholeness’, goes well with the Hindu
philosophy of undivided wholeness of the Brahman Paramaathma” -------------------------------------------------------------- I believe that LTTE’s claim to autonomy and separate state in
north is baseless and impractical. This is while agreeing to the fact that
Tamils from the north and the east have been discriminated to a certain
extent (may be to the same extent that Sinhalese people from remote
agricultural areas and far reaches of the country were discriminated). I
don’t think it is easy to argue that Tamils are given second-class citizen
treatment. It will be very difficult to support that argument because there
seems to be no barrier for any given Tamil person to acquire economical or
political superiority with competing Sinhalese . Tamil struggle is mostly to
do with ‘Tamil aspirations’ rather than ‘lost Tamil rights’. LTTE represent
this Tamil tribalism. However, LTTE struggle is an eye opener for the
majority ethnic group Sinhalese. The message is that Tamils should never be
ignored and discriminated. However, LTTE tries to find a solution for the
Sinhalese chauvinism by way of Tamil racism. In my opinion, this is never going
to bring any lasting stability. Rather, what we need to do is to work towards
eliminating the factors that force people to organize in to camps based on
ethnicity. -------------------------------------------------------------- “I strongly believe no one should go to jail for having sex
with consenting adult(s). Having said that, I do not go to the town to
endorse the movement to achieve the legal acceptance of gay marriages. If I
ever had to vote for this I might vote against it, as it brings in
unnecessary complications to the legal system. Letting the gays have sex
without being arrested in more than enough at this point in time, I guess.” -------------------------------------------------------------- Having said that, I like to stand for till my death, the right
of gay community to gather and discuss and hold conferences. This is not
because I endorse their gayness but as a gesture towards the right of free
speech. Government or the legal system should not have any problem with bunch
of harmless people with a common interest, getting together to discuss the
matters, which concerns them. If I have got my facts correctly, a few years
back there was a court ruling in Sri Lanka banning a Lesbian conference,
which was scheduled to be held shortly. Also one of the Cabinet Ministers has
commented that those women are lesbian because they have had bad experience
or no experience with proper heterosexual sex! Well, may be that’s true, and
may be not. At any rate, it is not up to the honorable minister to decide on
what kind of sex those women should have. It is their personal choice. -------------------------------------------------------------- Those who like to think win-loose; the ‘western’
science and technology is a winner! All other sciences and technologies other
cultures have developed have either died, or have lost their credibility or identity.
Today only one science and technology prevails! I am not thinking win-loose.
I am thinking win-win. Today’s western science is rich from ideas from east
and west. All the identities of other knowledge systems have now diffused in
to the single identity of ‘the’ science and technology. Therefore I like to
refer it simply as science and technology and NOT western science and
technology as preffered by some eastern pundits. ----------------------------------------------------------- I agree to a certain extent with argument that the people, who
are educated under western systems and achieved the ‘intellectual’ status of
western world, often do not understand that ‘knowledge’ and ‘sciences’ are
not universal but relative. However, I like to view the western dominance of
knowledge and science as just a matter of natural selection of the best fit.
At the same time we should be aware that that it is not the ultimate
knowledge or ultimate science. |