Photo by Ben White on Unsplash Today is the 1st of February. Let’s just say I took January off and am now ready to take on a year long writing project. What’s it going to be? No surprise, it’s the same project as last year. Way back at the beginning of last year, I said I…
Photo by Jason Blackeye on Unsplash Institutions Institutions are the mechanism through which we impose collective order upon our lives. Some institutions are tacit, such as customs, habits and rituals. Why do people in many cultures drink and write with their right hand? Is there a law on the books that says so — usually not. Others are…
Photo by Joshua Brown on Unsplash TL;DR: Anthropocene = Ponzi Scheme. Slightly longer version: The Anthropocene is the culmination of liberalism and it’s a Ponzi scheme. I started writing this essay as a way of understanding the term “Anthropocene” and its consequences for our understanding of an even more weighty term, namely, “society.” Google tells us…
In case you want to know my opinion, you don’t need to read any further since the title says it all. In case you want to know why I think so, the following words might have some value. Jallikattu is one of thousands of practices worldwide in which animals are used for entertainment and ritual: bull…
If you don’t want to read any further, here’s the one sentence summary: The moral is material and the material is moral. Morality is considered to be the domain of religion; an aspect of human nature impervious to empirical reality, perhaps because it descends from God or an equivalent supernatural source. I am a naturalist…
This is the extended version — with data and footnotes — of the article on the treatment of milch animals that I wrote with Krithika Srinivasan and Smitha Rao. It appeared in the Hindu on Sunday, November 9th, 2014. Your comments are welcome. Dark and Dairy Rajesh Kasturirangan[1], Krithika Srinivasan[2] and Smitha Rao[3] Kamadhenu, the mythical cow of yore,…
Human beings are animals. As biological creatures, we are bipedal primates that wander from one location to another and engage with our environment by walking, running and other forms of active exploration. As living beings of flesh and blood, we are mobile, embodied creatures. Education, for the most part, tries to take us away from…