Tyler Cowen: belief

Transcript context

…Because it’s one of the most fascinating places on earth. It’s a city that is like no other, with a life, a cultural life, a history utterly its own, and hard, and beautiful. Its beauty is not conventional. People say, “Is it a beautiful city?” Well, no. I mean yes, parts of it can be. Yes, of course, but not in that conventional sense, and it’s challenging on a whole host of levels. Of course I don’t know it as a tourist because my family’s from there, and I’ve never known it in any other way other than — when I was very young — where my grandparents lived, and then my aunts and uncles, my cousins, and so forth. So I have my own relationship to it. But it’s like not knowing New York City in the American context. It’s just its own thing, and it’s so strong in its flavor, and its power, and its energy. So it has to be reckoned with, I think. If I think of Indian economists, two of the best known would be Amartya Sen and Abhijit Banerjee, and they’re both Bengali, of course. Why does it seem that so much of the Indian intelligentsia comes from Kolkata or Bengal? What is in the water, so to speak? I don’t know. I hate to make these kind of sweeping generalized comments. I don’t believe in them. But it’s a city that believes in its poets, that believes in its politics, believes in humanity in some sense. And life is so extreme there, in so many ways. People are put to the test, and you see life being put to the test constantly around you. There’s nothing you can really accept easily or take for granted about yourself or about the universe if you’ve been there. It’s a jolt to your consciousness, but a fundamental one, an essential one, to shake us out of this, whatever takes over, if you protect yourself.…

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