Tomichan Matheikal's blog

From Times of India Donald Trump is a big bullshitter but Narendra Modi is far more sinister. This is what Harry Frankfurt, author of On Bullshit , would have said, and what Meera Nanda, author of many books, actually said. I haven’t read the books by either of them. I’ve read quite a few articles written by Meera Nanda in various Indian periodicals. The latest is an interview with her by a Malayalam weekly ( Mathrubhumi ). In that interview, Nanda differentiates between ‘big lies’ and ‘deep lies’ and goes on to illustrate the two concepts with the examples of Trump and Modi. Trump is a ‘big liar’ while Modi is a ‘deep liar.’ Both are similar in their respective ‘visions’ of America-First and Hinduism-First, Prof Nanda says. Both endanger the secular fabric of their societies. However, Trump is yet to declare Christian nationalism as the official American stance while Modi has declared Hindu nationalism as the state ideology. How do the two go about materialising their vision? Tr...

2016 is bidding adieu having gifted us ‘post-truth’ as the word of the year, thanks to the Oxford Dictionaries.  Is the concept new, however?  Haven’t emotions and personal beliefs been more influential in shaping our ‘truths’ than objective facts throughout history?  Otherwise, why did religions and their gods continue to wield such power over us perennially?  Nationalism, Jihadism, Trumpism, Modiism, and a whole range of isms would not have succeeded as they did if objective facts held sway over shaping of public opinions. ‘Post-truth’ is just a euphemism for falsehood, deception, chicanery and all the lies that have dominated politics and human affairs from time immemorial.  There’s nothing new about it except that it’s a new word.  Only the word is new, not the concept, not the implications. Throughout history political leaders used various tricks to deceive their people.  We have words like Machiavellian and Goebbelsian which came ...