Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, and lesser minds discuss people.
This was one of those homilies from childhood that I encountered again a while ago somewhere on the internet, and I realised that as with most homilies, it doesn’t really stand up to application in the real world.
Because if the ideas you are discussing are on the lines of:
- Vaccination causes autism
- Genetically Modified foodstuffs cause cancer
- Taj Mahal is actually a Siva temple called Tejo Mahalaya
- Muslim men are seducing Hindu women into marriage for nefarious purposes1
- Jan Lok Pal will solve all corruption everywhere in India
then honestly, you and society at large are probably better off talking about the people on last night’s episode of Bigg Boss. In fact we should celebrate and praise Bigg Boss as a sort of storm water drain that takes conspiracists away from the high streets of policy discourse.
1: The worst thing about this particular conspiracy theory is that it never gives an explanation of what Muslim men get out of this.