Chandrayaan landed on August 23. Since then most Indians have felt very good about it. It’s the same feeling, for example, as when the Indian team won the cricket World Cup in 1983.

Such feelings can be expressed publicly in many ways. National pride is one of them. Some silly people denigrate what people feel by adding an unnecessary adjective: muscular to nationalism. In the last one week we have seen several examples of this. One highly respected writer even went so far as to say the low cost of the mission was because India underpays its scientists. He also asked what’s the point of going to the moon if you can’t bring malaria under control. And so on.

Another said yes, it’s something to be proud of but hey how about religious bigotry, superstition and the absence of “scientific temper”? He also mentioned “mob lynching, cow vigilantism, hate speeches, dowry death, rural schools without teachers, hunger, malnutrition, and the smell of death in non-hygienic/over-crowded government hospitals.”

This diehard pessimism is like asking the father of the bride on his daughter’s wedding day why he hasn’t fixed the toilet, kitchen and broken windows. Valid questions maybe, but surely there’s a time and place for everything? Can you compare a unique event with the supremely ordinary?

These questions are what in Latin are called non sequiturs. They are very widely used by people trying to make valid points that have nothing to do with the actual issue. They are irrelevant. The modern name for them is whataboutery.

Logicians have studied this phenomenon for a long time and concluded that the premise can be true but the conclusion is false. In other words, validity is one thing, truth quite something else.

It’s a fine distinction. A conclusion drawn from a set of propositions may be true but not necessarily so. That’s the heart of it. This is a fascinating area of study that must be taught in high school to prevent children from talking nonsense in adulthood.

Related Topics
comment COMMENT NOW