Tuesday, October 2, 2012

Truth Telling - A Tough Job

Trying to be a truth-teller in today's world is a tough job. It is an unpopular affair.

I recently saw a few videos and read articles about how the great physicist Feynman faced the same challenges when he investigated the Challenger disaster. It was an eye-opener to me that even such a world-famous physicist had to face significant resistance from powerful administrators. If you have not seen it I recommend you see this 4 min 42 sec. video, Richard Feynman - Space Shuttle Challenger Investigation, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCLgRyKvfp0. The official view now seems that Feynman did catch the real problem: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Feynman#Challenger_disaster.

The wiki page above states, 'He concluded that the space shuttle reliability estimate by NASA management was fantastically unrealistic, and he was particularly angered that NASA used these figures to recruit Christa McAuliffe into the Teacher-in-Space program. He warned in his appendix to the commission's report (which was included only after he threatened not to sign the report), "For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled."'

My respect for the great physicist Richard Feynman went up enormously after I recently came to know of the above human goodness side and the sheer *guts* to speak out the truth in the face of powerful opposition side of him.

So, I guess, it is always a challenge to be a truth-teller - material truth-teller - and far more challenging perhaps to be a spiritual truth-teller (e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mansur_Al-Hallaj). The saying goes: Sathyam Bhruyath Priyam Bhruyath Na Bhruyath Sathyam Apriyam. [English translation: Speak the truth; speak the pleasant truth; don't speak the unpleasant truth.]

Perhaps the safe path is to just put out one's views on the Internet and provide opinions only if people ask - a low-key activism and not a pushy activism.

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