I define ants as that curious species of self proclaimed ‘left brain’ (refer to “Splitting Headache” for an update on the absurdity of such a category) individuals, who simply dismiss what they do not understand, as not being worth understanding, or worse, as simply not existing at all. These ants assiduously (hence the name ‘ants’) work towards an answer, when a question is framed for them and given to them in the clearest and most systematic form, along with a set of rules that determine the method of solution. But these are, invariably, the individuals, who can never think in terms of questions. They will feel angry, jealous, sad, confused, nervous, but will scarcely be aware of the reasons for this; they will in fact summarily dismiss everything they cannot understand as ‘wind’ or ‘gas’, effectively consigning it to that dreaded place, where no one wishes to venture...the gas chamber. With a patient and gentle smile, they “confess”, that they can only understand hard, observable, measurable phenomena. Then, presumably, to make humanities students like me feel a little better about themselves, they hasten to add, that, such softer disciplines are the ones that are in fact the most challenging to study. This generosity of spirit sometimes moves me deeply. But I have observed that when it comes to disciplines in which they have not received formal training, then these ants talk more gas than anyone else. This is because they have always been so preoccupied with solving specified defined problems that they are very comfortably insulated from a world where they often have to begin with finding out what the problem is. I have witnessed instances of elaborate, step by step solutions that address the wrong issue. These elaborate solutions often contain abstruse formulas thrown in specifically for the benefit of those, who will not be able to understand them. Ants mostly end up missing the wood for the trees. Ants are adept at breaking down, but can rarely construct. I once heard an ant state: “All the goals and effort stuff is just ‘fundas’; if you want to do something, then you just do it” (which made me wonder, wasn’t this statement, in itself, another ‘funda’?). But, of course, the ant did not realise this rather obvious implication, as having linked A to B, the ant’s work there was done.
Of course, I often sympathize with ants. Many of them are simple, honest individuals, who are simply terrified of ambiguity. But the species I detest is the pseudo ants. These are individuals, who simply mimic ants, their primary objective is to create a semblance of rationality. This is the formula dropping, jargon spewing species that is neither good at maths, nor at anything else. The pseudo ants extol the virtues of the ants and use them as a bulwark against the non ants. While ants are at least good at doing what they know to do; the pseudo ants are not good at anything, but showing off. They will be the first to have recourse to terms like ‘logic’, ‘objective’ and ‘black and white’, but will hardly be able to go deeper in their arguments than merely stating these terms.
It’s time ants grasped (I don’t expect pseudo ants to grasp this) that being logical does not mean finding the solution; being logical means reasoning. This involves analyzing the problem and all the factors affecting it, trying to move towards a solution, while simultaneously exploring loopholes or possible contradictions in one’s analysis. The extent of logic is determined by the quality of an argument and not necessarily by the solution itself. We can, of course, scornfully dismiss the idea that every problem does not have one correct answer or that asking questions often reflects a person’s logical reasoning, as much as answering them does. But I think, that to dismiss such ideas would not be very wise of us. To relegate these ideas to the gas chamber, would be to delude ourselves into believing, "We do not understand this at present, therefore this does not exist."
