Polarizing History

For centuries, mankind has lived in awe of the unexplained — the field of hocus pocus, the world of magic. Magicians were treated as mystic creatures, possessing powers that no other mortals could ever understand, let alone acquire and wield. While some made objects bend, float, or disappear, others played with fire, saws, and bunnies. One thing was guaranteed — the onlookers were left clueless, but amused enough to return for additional doses.

What we earthly creatures categorize as ‘supernatural’ is really just a result of our limited perspective and physical inability to comprehend the bigger picture. Almost all magic tricks hinge on hence; onlookers never notice that the

a particular characteristic of the human Polarizing History Tanmay Dadhania | Comps | B.Tech. 1 are of their own making? A notable example of this, is the outright about it. Hiding and obscuring certain perfect puppets to partake in this massive brain. Our eyes constantly see so much happening in front of us that the brain filters out some of the visual information it receives. Whether it be in a magic trick or out in the streets, for the sake of maintaining some order, the eyes only focus on certain parts of the view before us. The rest is automatically ignored. This loophole is what magicians (and sometimes politicians) exploit routinely. Humans possess an innate desire to only believe what they see. Using canny sleight of hand techniques, skilled

magicians divert the audience’s attention to a misleading place, showing you only what they want you to see. For example, the onstage wizard displays an ordinary coin to the spectators — nothing fishy about it. He makes exaggerated gestures with his hands while chanting random spells and poof — the coin is gone. When the magician dramatically transfers the coin from one hand to the other, the attention shifts to the movement of the coin. Misdirection is the key here and Sumant S. Dangi | Chemical | B.Tech. 2

coin actually stayed in the original hand and are perplexed. This sleight of hand is mastered by practice and must look natural enough to bamboozle audiences without raising suspicions.

We don’t live in the medieval era of witchcraft, alchemy, and sorcery anymore. Nowadays, most unexplained phenomena that previously were quite conveniently shoved into the category of ‘magic’ have been demystified. The water in the ‘disappearing water trick’ never vanished; it changed into a gel after being absorbed by sodium polyacrylate. The card set on fire emerged unscathed because it was already doused in a water-alcohol mixture. Even seemingly impossible natural occurrences are just based on science and perspectives. The scientists always spoil the fun, don’t they? It’s their job; don’t hold grudges.

The eyes play tricks on our brains that are sometimes unnoticeable. Ignorance is bliss and until you know the truth, your perception will continue to fool you, and so will others who exploit that limited perception. Although watching magicians exercise their mystical powers on stage may be quite enjoyable, remember that these tricks may be dangerous if you happen to be dealing with fork-tongued friends. So, next time you hear someone say the cliché line: “Pick a card, any card”, play along (you don’t want to hurt the wizard’s feelings). Just sit there, beaming to yourself as you notice every crafty move, and bask in the

How can one be sure that their opinions

Intricate viewpoints and thought processes are forged and refined over the course of one’s life. A person assuming that they are in full authority over their opinions, would only be half right. While we do have command over processing information, we forget that we can’t choose all the information that we receive.

The world is deadlocked in an intense ideological war right now. Young and impressionable minds are planted with seeds of propaganda, to make them the war. For these reasons, governments and communities around the globe tweak history to suit their self-interests. By doing so, they can subtly alter the mindsets of subsequent generations to come.

denial by the Japanese of the war crimes they perpetrated. The contents of their history textbooks are profoundly influenced by the government to minimize the magnitude of the war crimes. The heinous events of the “Rape of Nanjing” have been boiled down to a single line in their history books. Outright denial isn’t necessarily the only way to go glory of your genius.

parts of history can also get the job done. A survey in the UK found that 43% of people thought that the British Empire was a good thing.

As our ignorance persists, bigotry catches up to us. Our point of view becomes dangerously linear and the past and the future start becoming eerily similar. The simple mistakes that we can avoid as a society, get repeated all over again. Embracing our history is ultimately a liberating experience. The reason why Germans today are largely apologetic for their Nazi-era crimes is because they are taught their history in its most factual narrative. This helped them come to terms with the past, and it instilled a sense of remorse in them.

Just like Thanos, history being warped is inevitable. Only in an idealistic world can we expect governments to always do the right thing. There exists some level of individualistic responsibility that lies within us. Rejecting everything being taught to us isn’t the smartest way of counteracting this. The occasional bout of self-introspection and dubiousness about new information, goes a long way in this grand scheme of things.

How Interpretation is Art’s Biggest Scam

Rhishabh Goswami | Chemical | B.Tech 4

Anya Trivedi | Comps | B.Tech 4

“Interpretation is the revenge of the intellect upon art.” -Susan Sontag

Nietzsche boldly declared that there are no facts, only interpretations. His observation is best seen in the ‘elite’ world of art criticism, ranging from cinema to literature to obscure art pieces, where interpretation forms the focal point, if not the only point, of conversation. In the realm of criticism, works of art are often reduced to their ‘meaning’, to what they are trying to say. In this tradition, The Great Gatsby is about the “dangers of idealism”, Narnia is an allegory of Christianity, and Pride & Prejudice a “commentary” on wealth and class. This association of meaning even happens retroactively, with various groups ‘claiming’ the essential meaning of a work (trans women, for example, have recently claimed The Matrix as an allegory for gender transition).

Interpretations, either as a focal point or as an afterthought, may not be as harmless as they seem. By reducing a work to its meaning, we are basically making it more manageable- “one tames the work of art,” said Susan Sontag. Interpretation conforms art to the invisible boundaries that are dictated by society, which are rigid, fixed, and, forcibly, objective. And therein lies the problem. Most modern-day interpretations of art are forced upon its audience, violating the aspect of what makes art, well, art. Haughty art critics tell you exactly what that obscure Pollock painting is ‘supposed’ to make you feel. YouTube commentators force-feeding the ‘correct’ meaning of films to you often leaves a taste you can’t be sure you like. Nietzsche’s interpretations have, ironically, become facts.

The beauty of art doesn’t lie in the objective meanings that it must invoke. It is in its subjective, and, in the case of great art, deeply personal, meanings. The rigid approach to interpretation masks the essence of art- that its meaning is curated by the individual experiences and emotions of each one of its audience. No two people view art entirely the same, and a person may not even view art the same way twice. Unfortunately, modernday interpretation has not only stripped art’s audience of the originality of their own opinions, but has also stripped art of its most unique trait- the liberty of its audience to derive from it no meaning at all.

Of course, this is not to say that art shouldn’t be viewed from an intellectual standpoint. Art can and should invite intellectual contemplation. But the fruit of such a contemplation is never theory, nor a cookie-cutter ‘commentary’ on the nature of the world. It’s not a quest for truth - after all, is art even amenable to an objective truth? Isn’t art more about questions than answers? Or rather, about the poverty of answers, about the duplicitous, ultimately-weird, ultimatelyuntranslatable fabric of reality? As such, Lolita is not about the “corruption of youth” or the “loss of innocence”. It’s about the power of language and the essential contradictions inherent in desire and morality that can never be reduced to ‘meaning’ or an answer. And most certainly not to any ‘correct’ answer.

Ultimately, rigid allegorical inspection (and its failure) is one of the most limiting ways to approach art, as such an inspection comes at the cost of one of the most fundamental aspects of art- appreciation. For most of us, what we take away from a book, a movie or a painting (digital or otherwise) is what it made us feel in the immediacy of the moment. What made Fight Club a cult classic among moviegoers was not its retrospective commentary on consumerism, but the immediate sense of nihilistic thrill that the music, dialogue and grainy cinematography combined to instill.

With (great) art, we are in suspended time, in silence, where the fractured nature of reality is made manifest to us. It rarely provides clarity, and if it ever does, it doesn’t do so immediately. And maybe that’s okay. In an age where every action and commodity is optimized, where every endeavor is expected to yield immediate, clear results, maybe it’s okay to have a space where one is permitted to not have the answers. A space where simply appreciating that art makes us feel something is as accepted as knowing exactly what it makes us feel, or why we feel it.

At the end of the day, appreciation, devoid of the baggage of interpretation, is what separates good art from great artgood art can be victimized by pseudointellectuals, great art simply holds your attention.