Re: [IAC#RG] Popularity

Dear Prof Natarajan

I have no idea what your domain of expertise is or as regards your claim to an academic title.

It would help if I knew about your published work so that I could better appreciate the advice you are signalling to me.

 BTW, I have no desire for popularity of any kind. I am normally an intensely private person wrapped in my academic and research and I hardly post on such mailing lists dispute being an IAC subscriber since 2008.

with best wishes

Ravi

.

On Sat, May 16, 2020 at 9:03 PM Natarajan <natarajan218@yahoo.com> wrote:

The virtues and toxicities of popularity

There is a saying in Tamil that too much of anything is harmful. Even nectar turns poisonous beyond a point. Perhaps popularity falls under the category.

 Our daily experience shows that this applies to most good things of life. When a child badly wants a toy, he is in ecstasy when he gets it. But after playing with it for a while very he loses interest in it and throws it away.  A person with a sweet tooth enjoys a delicacy up to a certain quantity. Beyond that he doesn't wish to consume any more of it. I call it the Limit Theory (there is actually such a theory based on which Engineering Structures are designed), or in business parlance, what the traffic will bear. Of course, there are exceptions. My daughter never lost her interest in her family of dolls. She had a name for each of them and never discarded a single doll when a new one was bought. Now and then her dolls received some corporal punishment. Sometimes a limb or ear went missing, and occasionally it was beheaded, but the doll never left the family. At some point in time the missing part was restored and the torn dress was repaired or renewed.

Popularity is something we all seek secretly or publicly. It is a common weakness. Very rarely have I come across a person who does not love popularity. Many of them also mistake plain flattery for popularity. Some of them of course try to impress others by declaring that they don't care for popularity. Some bosses specially do. It may not show on their faces but secretly they enjoy it. Junior colleagues compete to lay it thick in the presence of the boss and have a good laugh when he leaves the scene. This behaviour is cultivated when at school. In the continual rating system, a teacher has tremendous discretion. The students do not waste a moment in humouring him for a few more marks. I had a Professor who was known for being soft and good-natured. He never chided us. We thought that he would be an easy prey to flattery. When we tried to try our skill on him, he simply removed his hearing aid to deliver us a lesson in good behaviour. We gave up.

Popularity is not a dirty word. We all need a dose of it for motivation. It feels good. To that extent it is certainly a virtue. But it should be the result of our genuine behaviour or action. To act for the sake of cheap popularity would be a mistake. That is a temptation one must avoid. We need to be bold enough to call a spade a shovel. Never mind if someone thinks you are not being polite. A foul language must be avoided, but there are ways of making your mind known in a subtle way.

Seeking popularity for its own sake, ignoring the ground realities is a behaviour we exhibit now and then. I must confess that I have been occasionally guilty of such conduct. I simply get carried away, and make promises beyond my competence. I suppose it is just a heady behaviour in excitement blinded by an illusion of omnipotence. Very soon the monumental folly is exposed with loss of face and  retraction. Why does this happen?  It is toxicity. Such behaviour can be explained away when one has imbibed an overdose of the hard stuff and become intoxicated. However, it is difficult to imagine that a tea-totaller can exhibit the same behaviour, unless toxicity of popularity has induced him to act in that manner.

Conclusion: Popularity is a virtue, but don't go on an overdrive.

N. Natarajan

With regards 

Prof N.Natarajan