Knowledge and utility
Wittgenstein compared ideas to tools that you can use for different ends. Some open the world up. The idea that you can do everything with one tool is ridiculous.
The above quote struck me especially because I was reading that article soon after reading this Telegraph editorial [link via India Uncut] about the newly constituted Knowledge Commission by the Government of India.
The Knowledge Commission is supposed to come up with 'bold proposals' that enable India to 'embark on a second wave of institution building'. While launching the commission, PM Manmohan Singh said:
At the bottom of the `knowledge pyramid' the challenge is one of improving access to primary education. At the top of the `pyramid' there is a need to make our institutions of high education and research world class.
The Telegraph's stand is very different and that treads a very predictable state-is-evil path.
The last socialist bastion is a pathetic faith in the state. A bizarre manifestation of this faith is the formation, at the direct initiative of the prime minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, of something called the Knowledge Commission, which was launched on its aimless journey on Tuesday. Most of the members of the commission, despite its token bow to the left, are very eminent people. It is difficult to imagine them advocating the position that the pursuit of knowledge can be driven by the state. Knowledge has advanced not because of the state but despite its presence.
There are plenty of instances where knowledge is advanced because of direct state patronage. There are also instances where knowledge is advanced despite the presence of the state. In any case the commission is not a government body. It's a mechanism through which the state is trying to get new and implementable ideas and I think it's a welcome step in that regard.
The editorial makes another point against the commission:
branches of knowledge considered useful and utilitarian by the state have priority. This is not the pursuit of knowledge, but of utility.
The state should leave knowledge alone if it wants knowledge to flourish. Scholars in their own fields will set their own agenda. Knowledge is power, but it is also an enemy of state power,
Genuine academics and thinkers will make use of the grants that they get whether it's from the state or from some other source. That doesn't/shouldn't restrict in anyway their right to criticise the state, or the relevant source, if necessary. Take just one Indian example -- Kalidasa. A poet of the highest order, his works also contain critiques of power. State patronage wasn't a hindrance at all.
On any day a government that thinks of a Knowledge Commission is far superior to a government that thinks only of its day-to-day existence. And state-is-evil is just one idea/tool and it may not give results whenever you apply it.