- Almost a week has passed since last week’s football debacle. It seems like every member of the AFA, from the players to the staff, were reeling from the hurt of Sunday night over the past one week — just like me. And now one person has come out to speak, having regained his senses — Lionel Scaloni. His words perfectly captured what I had always felt about the players, their unrelenting spirit, their fortitude to stick together in times of adversity and have each other’s back. Perhaps most memorably this line explains everything about their tournament journey and the thoughts we’ve been silently having: “continuing to fight even when their legs no longer respond to what their minds are asking them to do.” These were indeed a group of warriors. It was the same team that had played and won in 2022; now four years older, the will remained, but it was in conflict with their physicality. When the psychological confronts the material [limitations], an inevitable tension arises that cannot be easily resolved and often expresses itself through frustration and sometimes even violence. Because sometimes, some emotions cannot be contained. The trope of the ideal sportsman spirit needs to die somewhere.
- In other news, the CJP protest met its objective and the Union Education Minister resigned — a reassuring albeit bittersweet closure given the police brutality and arrests that unfolded when the protests entered its heated phase. At its best, the CJP is a pressure group. Any attempt by it to expand its wings and become a full fledged political party is a hard pass. There are legions of political parties in India already struggling to gain foothold. Moreover a divided opposition is not ideal for a healthy, functioning democracy. I’m not contesting the idea whether India is truly a democracy or not — that is something for the V-Dem Democracy Report to establish (who’s latest report classifies India an ‘Electoral Autocracy’).
- Corruption is universally abhorred. Yet, from a particularistic viewpoint it may not be as abhorrent — especially for the party involved in it when considering the circumstances. Sometimes corruption can help spur economic growth by bypassing red tapes: rules and regulations that muddy the paperwork and do more harm than good. They can act as little financial incentives for the officer, helping companies obtain contracts swiftly. The major caveat is that this mode works better in developing or least developed countries — such as those in Africa or South Asia. It is also a far-from-ideal way of driving industrialisation and is often seen in positive light only when it’s the last resort. Corruption, moreover, is not just a legal but also moral phenomenon. Bribery fits every framework of corruption — however prior to 1977, it was lawful for US companies to offer bribes to secure foreign contracts. The SEP says, “corruption is not at bottom simply a matter of law; rather it is fundamentally a matter of morality.” The ‘grease-the-wheels’ hypothesis also gives credence to the corruption-may-not-be-all-that-bad idea. One can’t help feeling topsy-turvy about the whole debate.
- The Oswald is a masterpiece by Dan Yaccarino. I can’t overstate how much of an impact the show has left on my childhood, outlook on life and happiness. Even today I yearn back to go to those cosy evenings where I would sit with my eyes glued to the blue Octopus and little sunflower on the screen and sip my tea heartily. The other day someone was talking about the therapeutical effects of watching the Oswald as an adult and I’ve been thinking of rewatching the series since.
- Oswald was a deeply empathetic figure. Well, turns out the ‘right’ despises empathy. Or to be fair to their perspective, ‘suicidal empathy’. It is a term coined by Gad Saad — with whose work I became only recently acquainted thanks to the World Cup — which denotes the kind of empathy — the excessive, uncritical compassion — that is detrimental to rational and optimal courses of action geared to self-preservation and security. Think of ‘dying to be kind.’ I can see a parallel with utilitarian thinking here. For instance, when a plane has entered a dangerous situation during a flight and asks its passengers to buckle up and wear the required lifeguards, it is always optimal to secure yourself first before looking after the elderly who may be travelling with you. But some, out of guilt, indebtedness, and extreme compassion, try to secure their elderly co-passengers first. This may take time and may not even be successful and by chance the plane suddenly starts evacuation measures the person as well as the elderly passengers are not secured properly and may die. However there are certain glaring cons: folks who espouse this belief are hard on crimes, closed to immigration, and oppose foreign aid. One of the biggest critics of suicidal empathy is — that’s right, you named it, Elon Musk. Need we say more?
- Plastic surgery has become normalised; almost every well-regarded hospital has a specialised aesthetics division — such has been the demand. But these are not just driven by disfigurements and other bodily distortions which require surgeries or treatments —rather the need to replicate the ideal instagrammable face. Social media has manufactured the perfect female, an illusory category subsuming and overriding all feminine diversities in appearance and shape in the world. Even teenage influencers are devising their own ‘anti-aging’ regimens! More people in their 20s are taking Botox injections than ever. A dermatologist in the UK says that most patients who approach them with acne wouldn’t have had it in the first place had they not used ten different products on their face in the name of skincare. In what is a breath of fresh air, some Gen Z-ers are defying the trend and embracing natural beauty. Fashion, after all, is cyclical. And beauty trends are no different. The seeds of change are already sprouting: unpainted, natural, trimmed nails are in vogue. Before long, this welcome ‘trend’ will (hopefully) take over the visage too.
- I’ve long been an admirer of CSR funding and how it enables a plethora of social causes that would otherwise die out from dire state funding. In Kerala especially observing how companies spend on noble causes at close quarters gave me hope in the welfare capitalist system. But the framework seems to suffer from a few pitfalls: namely, shelling out money to meet CSR targets without focusing on long-term tangible impact; poorly designed low-quality programmes; unequal distribution of funds across regions and causes; lastly, and more importantly, companies may favour visible surface-level interventions than those targeting structural changes. CSR is incredible resource because it makes sufficient amounts of capital for social causes and normalises corporate giving. What’s required to make the policy succeed is to measure outcomes than spending alone, and frame compliance targets around that.
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