Reading Response letters to a young contrarian book and chapter VII or page 47

Reading I'm so glad that you liked the Microcosmographia. It's a delight in itself, of course, but I keep it by me as a reminder that many questions are actually quite simple. There's a small paradox here; the job of supposed intellectuals is to combat oversimplification or reductionism and to say, well, actually, it's more complicated than that. At least, that's part of the job. However, you must have noticed how often certain "complexities" are introduced as a means of obfuscation. Here it becomes necessary to ply with glee the celebrated razor of old Occam, dispose of unnecessary assumptions, and proclaim that, actually, things are less complicated than they appear. Very often in my experience, the extraneous or irrelevant complexities are inserted when a matter of elementary justice or principle is at issue, My best illustration here would be the case of my dear friend Salman Rushdie. You would think, perhaps, that when he was assaulted by a theocratic fatwah in 1989, his fellow authors would have rushed to his defense. Here was an open incitement to murder, accompanied by the offer of a bounty and directed at a writer of fiction who wasn't even a citizen of the said theocracy. But you would have been astonished to see the amount of muttering and hanging back that went on. Had his novel perhaps been "offensive"? Were the feelings of pious Muslims not to be considered? Was he not asking for trouble? Surely he knew what he was doing? and so forth. Several senior Western statesmen, often of the law-and-order and "antiterrorist" school, took refuge in similar evasive formulations, In public debates with those who worried about the blasphemous or profane element in the novel, or who said that they did, I would always begin by saying, look, let's get one thing out of the way. May I assume that you are opposed without reservation to the suborning of the murder, for pay, of a literary figure? It was educational to see how often this assurance would be withheld, or offered in a qualified form. In those cases, I would refuse to debate any further. So I was a reductionist in that instance, and proud of my simple-mindedness. Another example, also from experience. In 1968 I travelled to Cuba. The revolution was still young; Che Guevara's murder was a memory only a few months old; the Castroites maintained that their version of socialism would not be modelled on the dreary example of Russia; there was a good deal of play and latitude. I'm not relating this to you by hindsight, because I was then a member of a Marxist group that had strong reservations about "Fidelism" (and if you like, I'll tell you the story of my political formation in another letter). Anyway, discussions and arguments were intense and, in the year of Vietnam and Paris and Prague, seemed to be-_and sometimes were of real moment. I remember particularly a seminar with Santiago Alvarez, the grand old man of Cuban cinema. Film was the special medium of the Cuban revolution and he assured us that it was unfettered. Completely Back to page 8 86 0183 unfettered? Well, he said with a slight laugh, there is one thing that is not done. No satirical portrayal of the Leader will be permitted. (The slight laugh was at the very idea that anyone would even dream of proposing such a thing.) I said, quite simply, that if the main subject of Castro was of-limits then, in effect, there could be no real satire or criticism at all. I had heard and read of the term "counterrevolutionary," but this was the first time I heard it applied in all seriousness-_and to myself, at that. Again, I claim no courage for making such an elementary point, and I ran no risk save the obloquy of some of those present. But I can't forget the dead silence as I passed my observation. At another meeting, where we heard many boasts--some of them truthful-about the advances in medical care and literacy, I inquired whether a Cuban citizen could start his own magazine, or travel outside the country and return to it. Again, the view seemed to be that only a narcissist and unsound element would intrude such a question. I've been back to Cuba many times since, to find chat these and related questions have become urgent (and their postponement absolutely fatal to the society). Back then, I was only asking about the obvious, and perhaps discovering that there is something to be said for Anglo-Saxon empiricism after all. It's not for nothing that we celebrate the story of the small boy and the unclothed emperor. I'm no great advocate of folkloric wisdom, but this tale has stood the test because it emphasises what Orwell once said in another context: very often the hardest thing to see is what is right in front of your nose. And there is, not infrequently, a considerable social pressure not to take note of the obvious. Every parent knows the moment when children acquire the word "why" and begin to make use of it. I still don't know quite why the sky is blue (I did know, once, but I've forgotten) but I've had to find explanations for "Daddy, why is that man sleeping on a grating?" and for other phenomena that I had become too much used to. In societies infected by the poison of racism, it has often been children (who don't suffer innately from the infection) who have set the example. Of course, one should not idealise children, who are very suggestible and who make easy targets for indoctrination. And, of course, innocence will only take you so far. You have to be sophisticated by experience before you are old enough to argue that, say, it might be wrong to launch a thermonuclear war but not wrong, indeed only prudent, to prepare the weaponry of extermination. Or that an act that would be a loathsome crime if committed by an individual is pardonable when committed by a state. But these are the rewards of maturity, to be enjoyed only as we decline. We are an adaptable species and this adaptability has enabled us to survive. However, adaptability can also constitute a threat; we may become habituated to certain dangers and fail to recognise them until it's too late. Nuclear armaments are the most conspicuous example; as you read this you are in effect wearing a military uniform and sitting in a very exposed trench. You exist at the whim of people whose power does not derive from your own consent and who regard you as expendable, disposable. You merely failed to notice the moment at which you were conscripted. A "normal" life consists in living as if this most salient of facts was not a fact at all. I tell myself every day that I do not recognise the legitimacy of a government that puts me in this position. I do not grant even my "elected" leaders the power of life and death over myself, let alone over all present, future and indeed past forms of life, all of which they arrogate the right to extirpate at an instant's notice. Nor was I ever asked if I would grant that power, even supposing for a moment that I had the right to grant it on behalf of others, which I do not for a moment believe that I do. However, when meeting a minister or senior functionary of this regime, which is a privilege I quite often enjoy, I do not act as if I am shaking Caligula's blood-bolted mitt. (I do sometimes content myself with thinking that if they knew what was in my mind and heart, they would shrivel as if cursed and blasted.) So I practise cognitive and emotional dissonance. The most I can claim is that I do it consciously, while waiting for better days. Try your hardest to combat atrophy and routine. To question The Obvious and the given is an essential element of the maxim de omnius dubitandum.

Assignments > Reading Response #6 Letters to a Young Contrarian (pgs. 27-53) Reading Response #6 Letters to a Young Contrarian (pgs. 27-53) Hide Assignment Information Instructions Look up Occam's razor and discuss this in conjunction with the opening paragraph of chapter VII (p. 47). What are some examples outside of the book that apply to this? Discuss in a minimum of 200-words. Due Date Nov 17, 2021 12:00 PM