{"id":447,"date":"2006-03-15T23:02:49","date_gmt":"2006-03-15T17:32:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ravikiran.com\/2006\/03\/15\/the-parlour-game\/"},"modified":"2006-03-15T23:03:38","modified_gmt":"2006-03-15T17:33:38","slug":"the-parlour-game","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ravikiran.com\/blog\/classic\/200603\/the-parlour-game\/","title":{"rendered":"The parlour game"},"content":{"rendered":"

I left this as a comment on Shivam’s post<\/a> on the blog HTOHL. I just thought I’d repeat it here. You need to read that post to get the context.
\n<\/p>\n

\nI think that you folks are misunderstanding the motive<\/i> for this post. It is not aimed at having any serious debate on reforms. It is here just to play the usual parlour game named “Asking serious questions”.<\/p>\n

It goes something like this:<\/p>\n

Part I:<\/b> “We have a right to ask serious questions about the economic reforms process. Don’t we?”<\/p>\n

Part II:<\/b> Offer some anecdote as evidence. In this case for example, he has given an example of the negative consequences of economic growth – and you will notice that neither this negative consequence nor this kind of economic growth is unique to the post reforms period. Coal mines were built, dams were constructed and people were displaced even prior to the reforms era. Any fool can see this point – but this is a trap for fools, as we will later see.<\/p>\n

Part III:<\/b> End the post with some vague negative words about economic reforms.<\/p>\n

Part IV:<\/b> When the fools who have seen the point in Part II ask: “So does this mean that you are opposed to all economic growth or just economic reforms?”
\nor
\nWhen the fools who are bewildered by Part III say: “What the hell does Part II have with Part III?” it means that they’ve fallen into the trap.<\/p>\n

Say<\/b> “Are you saying that no questions can be asked about economic reforms at all?”<\/p>\n

Alternatively, say<\/b>, “Just because I am asking questions about economic reforms, it does not mean that I am opposed to them”<\/p>\n

Or say<\/b> “Just because I am asking serious questions about economic reforms, it does not mean that I am a supporter of the earlier regime. I just want to ask questions about the direction we are going in.”<\/p>\n

Gotcha!<\/b> What was a debate over economic reforms is now a debate over Shivam’s right to dissent. You can’t win this one.<\/p>\n

This is an amusing parlour game, but this is not going to advance the debate one bit. For that to happen, this blog will have to move from asking questions to attempting answers. Unfortunately, once you give answers, you will have to think them through and defend them against the same kinds of attacks that are seen here. Nah.. much better to play these parlour games.<\/p>\n

Actually, there is a Part V for this parlour game, which we will come to soon.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I left this as a comment on Shivam’s post on the blog HTOHL. I just thought I’d repeat it here. You need to read that post to get the context.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ravikiran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/447"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ravikiran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ravikiran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ravikiran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ravikiran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=447"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ravikiran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/447\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ravikiran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=447"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ravikiran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=447"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ravikiran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=447"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}