Don't know if you noticed but I certainly did. Edward de Bono, who has expounded at some length on the dangers of linear thinking, came up with an argument which appears suspiciously linear (and meanier, if I may say so). Indians are very argumentative, he pronounced recently, going on to add that “argument is a very primitive way of discussion”.

How dare he suggest, first of all, that the epistemological discussions on existential dilemmas that the One Billion Plus of us routinely engage in — on the streets and out of it, in newspapers and on television screens, in parking lots and railway stations, over issues ranging from whether it is okay to throw a banana peel on the pavement to whether God exists — is merely primitive expression that is just one register higher than wielding the old-fashioned cudgel. In fact, I would have liked to have had a good argument with the man.

Alright, we as a people may not even get around to agreeing on what we should be arguing about — whether it is the ASI affidavit, the existence of Ram, or bridge engineering, for instance. But that has never stopped us from carrying on our argument.

True, every good argument, as far as we are concerned, is about give and take. We give the argument, they take it. We are reasonable folk, always ready to meet our opponents half way, provided they admit that they are wrong. And, in this fashion, we finally come to terms. Our terms, that is. Which, of course, leads logically to a whole new cycle of old arguments, because we believe in re-cycling our arguments in order to create new ones, instead of wastefully discarding them like the rest of the world and moving on. Take Indian politics, for instance. It has, to date, never ever resolved a single issue of national importance once and for all. Instead, once our politicians have exhausted themselves arguing on one particular theme, they carefully put it aside and take up another issue, until they are ready for something else.

... contd.