"Winners don't do different things, they do things differently." A great idea! Isn't it?
"There is never a right time or a right way to do a wrong thing." Another great idea! I am sure many of our readers would agree.
This morning, i was taking a class of about 40 students. The session was intended to develop the quality of delivery and content in a group discussion. We agreed to do an exercise. Everybody would tell the class a good quotation and the class would assess its effectiveness on the parameter of using it in a live group discussion. In that session, one student uttered the first quotation mentioned herein above. Nearly everybody agreed with this. Many of them were able to recall that famous motivation guru Shiv Khera often uses this in his speech and writings. There was not a single one in the class to oppose this thought. After 3 or 4 more contributions, someone presented the second idea written above. And she got a lot of accolades for speaking something wise and true. And then someone pointed out that both these thoughts appear to be contradictory. Both of them may not be correct together.
Although a very deep analysis may be able to find out an area that may accommodate both these wise sayings, yet the fact remains that one of these presents a counterpoint to the other.
It was a very interesting finding of the class that listeners are very often awed by some big names and tend to accept their thoughts without applying their own analysis. Any quotation attributed to Emerson, G.B.Shaw or Oscar Wilde, for example, is more likely to be accepted without any opposition. In contemporary India, similar respect (though illogical) is commonly offered to sentences attributed to Dr Kalam or Mahatma Gandhi.
What to call this? Is it intellectual terrorism supported by celebrity endorsement? Can it be compared with promotion of various products by celebrities?
Some further study revealed that any such thought when presented incognito i.e. without using the name of any thinker, is more likely to be discussed with an open mind. Is it branding? Is it accepting the intellectual supremacy of some names and considering them above evaluation?
Let us hope that the scientific attitude of testing and then accepting something expands to include such food for thought also in its ambit.
