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Absolutely not.Many people including Shashi Tharoor say that Savarkar put forth the two-nation theory and Jinnah followed it next. Some say that Savarkar presented it even before Sir Syed Ahmed Khan did.Firstly, let’s clear something. The difference between a nation and a country.A nation is a community of people formed on the basis of a common language, history, ethnicity, or a common culture, and, in many cases, a shared territory. A nation is more overtly political than an ethnic group;[1][2] it has been described as "a fully mobilized or institutionalized ethnic group".[3] Some nations are equated with ethnic groups (see ethnic nationalism and nation state) and some are equated with an affiliation with a social and political constitution (see civic nationalism and multiculturalism).[3] A nation has also been defined as a cultural-political community that has become conscious of its autonomy, unity and particular interests.[4] In international law nation is the term for a sovereign state.A country is a distinct territorial body or political entity. It is often referred to as the land of an individual's birth, residence or citizenship.Now, let’s see the facts.Allegation: Savarkar put forth the theory 6 years before Khan did.Fact:Sir Syed Ahmed Khan had presented the two-nation theory in 1888 in a speech at Meerut. He said that the Hindus and Muslims were two nations and they must be separated in order to dominate each other.[1][1][1][1]Savarkar was born in 1883.[2][2][2][2] Now six years before 1888 means 1882. How can Savarkar speak about creating Pakistan before he was even born? Also, he was a five year old kid in 1888. Who would listen to him, even if he speaks such a thing?Allegation: Savarkar put forth the two nation theory in 1936.Fact:This can be resolved from the above passage itself. Also, Allama Iqbal proposed it as the demand of the Muslim League on 29th December 1930. Morevoer, I don’t think 1930 comes after 1936.Allegation: Savarkar promoted the two nation theory.Fact: He always had a dream of Akhand Bharat (United India). Whether he supported the creation of Pakistan or not can be seen in Babasaheb Ambedkar’s book Pakistan or the partition of India. He writes:The stand taken by Hindu Mahasabha has been defined by Mr. V. D. Savarkar, the President of the Sabha, in his presidential addresses at the annual sessions of the Sabha. As defined by him, the Hindu Maha Sabha is against Pakistan and proposes to resist it by all means. What these means are we do not know. If they are force, coercion and resistance, they are only negative alternatives and Mr. Savarkar and the Hindu Maha Sabha alone can say how far these means will succeed.—Strange as it may appear, Mr. Savarkar and Mr. Jinnah instead of being opposed to each other on the one nation versus two nations issue are in complete agreement about it. Both agree, not only agree but insist that there are two nations in India—one the Muslim nation and the other the Hindu nation. They differ only as regards the terms and conditions on which the two nations should live. Mr. Jinnah says India should be cut up into two, Pakistan and Hindustan, the Muslim nation to occupy Pakistan and the Hindu nation to occupy Hindustan. Mr. Savarkar on the other hand insists that, although there are two nations in India, India shall not be divided into two parts, one for Muslims and the other for the Hindus ; that the two nations shall dwell in one country and shall live under the mantle of one single constitution; that the constitution shall be such that the Hindu nation will be enabled to occupy a predominant position that is due to it and the Muslim nation made to live in the position of subordinate co-operation with the Hindu nation. In the struggle for political power between the two nations the rule of the game, which Mr. Savarkar prescribes, is to be one man one vote, be the man Hindu or Muslim. In his scheme a Muslim is to have no advantage which a Hindu does not have. Minority is to be no justification for privilege and majority is to be no ground for penalty. The State will guarantee the Muslims any defined measure of political power in the form of Muslim religion and Muslim culture. But the State will not guarantee secured seats in the Legislature or in the Administration and, if such guarantee is insisted upon by the Muslims,* such guaranteed quota is not to exceed their proportion to the general population. Thus by confiscating its weightages, Mr. Savarkar would even strip the Muslim nation of all the political privileges it has secured so far.So he clearly states that Savarkar was against the partition. In short he agreed that Hindus and Muslims (most) are two nations, yet he wanted them to live in one country with co-ordination.Ambedkar however misinterpreted Savarkar's theory. He thought that Muslims would be handed over a second class citizenship. In the above paragraph, just after the part I have bolded, he writes:that the constitution shall be such that the Hindu nation will be enabled to occupy a predominant position that is due to it and the Muslim nation made to live in the position of subordinate co-operation with the Hindu nation.This is a misinterpretation. For supporting his analogy, he writes:That being the position assigned to the minorities, Mr. Savarkar concludes* that under his scheme of Swaraj:“The Moslem minority in India will have the right to be treated as equal citizens, enjoying equal protection and civic rights in proportion to their population. The Hindu majority will not encroach on the legitimate rights of any non-Hindu minority. But in no case can the Hindu majority resign its right which as a majority it is entitled to exercise under any democratic and legitimate constitution. The Moslem minority in particular has not obliged the Hindus by remaining in minority and therefore, they must remain satisfied with the status they occupy and with the legitimate share of civic and political rights that is their proportionate due. It would be simply preposterous to endow the Moslem minority with the right of exercising a practical veto on the legitimate rights and privileges of the majority and call it a “Swarajya”. The Hindus do not want a change of masters, are not going to struggle and fight and die only to replace an Edward by an Aurangazeb simply because the latter happens to be born within Indian borders, but they want henceforth to be masters themselves in their own house, in their own Land.”We can see that Savarkar advocated equal rights. He wanted equality and not equity. By the rest of the paragraph, he means that being minority should mean no extra privilege and being a majority should mean no penalty.In his book Hindu Rashtra Darshan, Savarkar writes:Let the Indian State be purely Indian. Let it not recognise any invidious distinctions whatsoever as regards the franchise, public services, offices, taxation on the grounds of religion and race. Let no cognizance be taken whatsoever of man's being Hindu or Mohammedan, Christian or Jew. Let all citizens of that Indian State be treated according to their individual worth irrespective of their religious or racial percentage in the general population. Let that language and script be the national language and script of that Indian state which are understood by the overwhelming majorty of the people as happens in every other state in the world, i.e., in England or the United States of America and let no religious bias be allowed to tamper with that language and script with an enforced and perverse hybridism whatsoever. Let 'one man one vote' be the general rule irrespective of caste or creed, race or religion. If such an Indian State is kept in view the Hindu Sanghatanists will, in the interest of the Hindu Sanghatan itself, be the first to offer their wholehearted loyalty to it. I for one and thousands of the Mahasabhaites like me have set this ideal of an Indian State as our political goal ever since the beginning of our political career and shall continue to work for its consummation to the end of our life. Can any attitude towards an Indian State be more national than that?—Hindudom cannot advance or fulfil its lifemission unless and until our Motherland is set free and consolidated into an Indian State in which all our countrymen to whatever religion or sector race they belong are treated with perfect equality and none allowed to dominate others or is deprived of his just and equal rights of freecitizenship as long as everyone discharges the common obligations and duties which one owes to the Indian Nation as a whole.For integrating Muslims in his geographo-cultural concept of ‘Hindu’, he says:Ye, who by race, by blood, by culture, by nationality possess almost all the essentials of Hindutva and had been forcibly snatched out of our ancestral home by the hand of violence—ye, have only to render wholehearted love to our common Mother and recognize her not only as Fatherland (Pitribhu) but even as a Holyland (punyabhu); and ye would be most welcome to the Hindu fold.This is a choice which our countrymen and our old kith and kin, the Bohras, Khojas, Memons and other Mohammedan and Christian communities are free to make —a choice again which must be a choice of love.Savarkar, in ‘Essentials of Hindutva’A big hypocrisy I see from anti-Savarkarites is that they believe he was responsible for Pakistan, yet they also opine that Akhand Bharat (undivided India) was his ideology.The Indian activist and Hindu Mahasabah leader Vinayak Damodar Savarkar at the Hindu Mahasabha's 19th Annual Session in Ahmedabad in 1937 propounded the notion of an Akhand Bharat that "must remain one and indivisible" from "from Kashmir to Rameswaram, from Sindh to Assam." He said that "all citizens who owe undivided loyalty and allegiance to the Indian nation and to the Indian state shall be treated with perfect equality and shall share duties and obligations equally in common, irrespective of caste, creed or religion, and the representation also shall either be on the basis of one man one vote or in proportion to the population in case of separate electorates and public services shall go by merit alone."[3][3][3][3]It’ indeed true that Savarkar’s Hindu Mahasabha allied with the Muslim League but that was not for Pakistan.Let’s see the page:The Indian National Congress won a massive victory in the 1937 Indian provincial elections, decimating the Hindu Mahasabha. However, in 1939, the Congress ministries resigned in protest against Viceroy Lord Linlithgow's action of declaring India to be a belligerent in the Second World War without consulting the Indian people. This led to the Hindu Mahasabha joining hands with the Muslim League and other parties to form governments, in certain provinces. Such coalition governments were formed in Sindh, NWFP, and Bengal.In Sindh, Hindu Mahasabha members joined Ghulam Hussain Hidayatullah's Muslim League government. In Savarkar's own words,"Witness the fact that only recently in Sind, the Sind-Hindu-Sabha on invitation had taken the responsibility of joining hands with the League itself in running coalition government[26][27][28] In March 1943, Sindh Government became the first Provincial Assembly of the sub-continent to pass an official resolution in favour of the creation of Pakistan.[29] In spite of the Hindu Mahasabha's avowed public opposition to any political division of India, the Mahasabha Ministers of the Sindh government did not resign, rather they simply "contented themselves with a protest".[30]In the North West Frontier Province, Hindu Mahasabha members joined hands with Sardar Aurang Zeb Khan of the Muslim League to form a government in 1943. The Mahasabha member of the cabinet was Finance Minister Mehar Chand Khanna.[31][32]In Bengal, Hindu Mahasabha joined the Krishak Praja Party led Progressive Coalition ministry of Fazlul Haq in December, 1941.[33] Savarkar appreciated the successful functioning of the coalition government.[26][27]Everywhere here I can see the Hindu Mahasabha joining hands with the Muslim League in Sindh and Bengal only and that too for a coalition government. Congress had resigned from a protest which led to this happening. In 1943, the Islamic government of Sindh, passed a resolution for creating Pakistan. Even then the Mahasabha opposed it, even after being in an alliance.The best proof can be this video:The speech is in Marathi. It seems to be delivered after the partition. Here Savarkar condemns the creation of Pakistan, saying that the green colour from the two sides (Pakistan and former East Pakistan) will paint the whole subcontinent into green. He says that Hindus made a mistake by letting it happen. Now here I don’t see him being happy for Pakistan.It is also not right to blame all the Muslims for partition. There were many prominent Muslim bodies to oppose it. One such party I remember was Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind.So, Savarkar was not responsible for splitting India.Footnotes[1] Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan's speech at Meerut, 16 March 1888[1] Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan's speech at Meerut, 16 March 1888[1] Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan's speech at Meerut, 16 March 1888[1] Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan's speech at Meerut, 16 March 1888[2] savarkar - Google Search[2] savarkar - Google Search[2] savarkar - Google Search[2] savarkar - Google Search[3] Savarkar wanted one god, one nation, one goal. Modi has fulfilled his dream with Kashmir move[3] Savarkar wanted one god, one nation, one goal. Modi has fulfilled his dream with Kashmir move[3] Savarkar wanted one god, one nation, one goal. Modi has fulfilled his dream with Kashmir move[3] Savarkar wanted one god, one nation, one goal. Modi has fulfilled his dream with Kashmir move

EDIT: I have expanded my initial Quora response to the following, which I have also reproduced on Medium:Is majoring in liberal arts a mistake for students?Critical Thinking and the Scientific Process First — Humanities LaterIf luck favors the prepared mind, as Louis Pasteur is credited with saying, we’re in danger of becoming a very unlucky nation. Little of the material taught in Liberal Arts programs today is relevant to the future.Consider all the science and economics that has been updated, the shifting theories of psychology, the programming languages and political theories that have been developed, and even how many planets our solar system has. Much, like literature and history, should be evaluated against updated, relevant priorities in the 21st century.I feel that liberal arts education in the United States is a minor evolution of 18th century European education. The world needs something more than that. Non-professional undergraduate education needs a new system that teaches students how to learn and judge using the scientific process on issues relating to science, society, and business.Though Jane Austen and Shakespeare might be important, they are far less important than many other things that are more relevant to make an intelligent, continuously learning citizen, and a more adaptable human being in our increasingly more complex, diverse and dynamic world.I would coin a new term, “the liberal sciences,” as this basic education, the test for which would be quite simple: at the end of an undergraduate education, is a student roughly able to understand and discuss the Economist, end-to-end, every week. This modern, non-professional education would meet the original “Greek life purpose” of a liberal arts education, updated for today’s world.The most important things for a general, non-professional or vocational education are critical thinking and problem-solving skills, familiarity with logic and the scientific process, and the ability to use these in forming opinions, discourse, and in making decisions. Other general skills that are also important include — but are not limited to — interpersonal skills and communication skills .So what is wrong with today’s typical liberal arts degree?Neither the old definition of liberal arts nor the current implementation of it is the best use of four years of somebody’s education (if it is to be non-professional). The hardest (and most lucrative) problems to solve are non-technical problems. In my opinion, getting a STEM degree gives you the tools to think about those problems more effectively than a liberal arts degree today; though it is far from a complete way of thinking, and a liberal science degree will do this in an even more complete form.Some of you will point to very successful people who’ve gone to Yale and done well, but you don’t understand statistics. A lot of successful people have started out as liberal arts majors. A lot haven’t. If you’re very driven and intelligent or lucky, you’ll probably be successful in life, even with today’s liberal arts degree. Then again, if you’re that driven and intelligent, you could probably find success with any degree, or even no degree. Apple’s Steve Jobs and Joi Ito (Director of the MIT media lab) are both college dropouts. Joi is a largely self-taught computer scientist, disc jockey, nightclub entrepreneur and technology investor. The top 20% of people in any cohort will do well independent of what curriculum their education follows, or if they had any education at all. If we want to maximize the potential of the other 80%, then we need a new Liberal Sciences curriculum.Yale just decided that Computer Science was important and I like to ask, “if you live in France, shouldn’t you learn French? If you live in the computer world, shouldn’t you learn Computer Science?” What should be the second required language in schools today if we live in a computer world? And if you live in a technology world what must you understand? Traditional education is far behind and the old world tenured professors at our universities with their parochial views and interests will keep dragging them back. My disagreement is not with the goals of a liberal arts education but its implementation and evolution (or lack thereof) from 18th century European education and its purpose. There is too little emphasis on teaching critical thinking skills in schools, even though that was the original goal of such education. Many adults have little understanding of important science and technology issues or, more importantly, how to approach them, which leaves them open to poor decision-making on matters that will affect both their families and society in general.Connections matter and many Ivy League colleges are worth it just to be an alumnus. There are people with the view that liberal arts broadened their vision and gave them great conversational topics. There are those who argue that the humanities are there to teach us what to do with knowledge. As one observer commented: “They should get lawyers to think whether an unjust law is still law. An engineer could contemplate whether Artificial Intelligence is morally good. An architect could pause to think on the merit of building a house fit for purpose. A doctor could be taught whether and how to justify using scarce medical resources for the benefit of one patient and not another. This is the role of humanities — a supplement to STEM and the professions.”In my view creativity, humanism, and ethics are very hard to teach, whereas worldliness and many other skills supposedly taught through the liberal arts are more easily self-taught in a continuously updating fashion if one has a good quantitative, logical and scientific process-oriented base education.The argument goes that a scientific/engineering education lacks enough training in critical thinking skills, creativity, inspiration, innovation and holistic thinking . On the contrary, I argue that the scientific and logical basis of a better liberal sciences education would allow some or all of this — and in a more consistent way. The argument that being logical makes one a linear problem solver and ill prepared for professions that require truly creative problem solving has no merit in my view. The old version of the Liberal Arts curriculum was reasonable in a world of the far less complex 18th century Euro-centric world and an elitist education focused on thinking and leisure. Since the 20th century, despite it’s goals, it has evolved as the “easier curriculum” to get through college and may now be the single biggest reason students pursue it.I do not believe that today’s typical liberal arts degree turns you into a more complete thinker; rather, I believe they limit the dimensionality of your thinking since you have less familiarity with mathematical models (to me it’s the dimensionality of thinking that I find deficient in many people without a rigorous education), and worse statistical understanding of anecdotes and data (which liberal arts was supposedly good at preparing students for but is actually highly deficient at). People in the humanities fields are told that they get taught analytical skills, including how to digest large volumes of information, but I find that by and large such education is poor at imparting these skills. Maybe, that was the intent but the reality is very far from this idealization (again, excluding the top 20%).There is a failing in many college programs that are not pragmatic enough to align and relate liberal arts program to the life of a working adult. From finance to media to management and administration jobs, necessary skills like strategic-thinking, finding trends, and big-picture problem-solving have all evolved in my view to need the more quantitative preparation than today’s degrees provide.Such skills, supposedly the purview of liberal arts education, are best learnt through more quantitative methods today. Many vocational programs from engineering to medicine also need these same skills and need to evolve and broaden to add to their training. But if I could only have one of a liberal arts or an engineering/science education, I’d pick the engineering even if I never intended to work as an engineer and did not know what career I wanted to pursue.I have in fact almost never worked as an engineer but deal exclusively with risk, evolution of capability, innovation, people evaluation, creativity and vision formulation. That is not to say that goal setting, design, and creativity are not important or even critical. In fact these need to be added to most professional and vocational degrees, which are also deficient for today’s practical careers.More and more fields are becoming very quantitative, and it’s becoming harder and harder to go from majoring in English or history to having optionality on various future careers and being an intelligent citizen in a democracy. Math, statistics and science are hard, and school is a great time to learn those areas, whereas many of the liberal arts courses can be pursued after college on the base of a broad education. But without training in the scientific process, logic and critical thinking, discourse and understanding are both made far more difficult.A good illustrative example of the problems of today’s liberal arts education can be found in the writing of well-known author, Malcolm Gladwell, a history major and a one-time writer for The New Yorker. Gladwell famously argued that stories were more important that accuracy or validity without even realizing it. The New Republic called the final chapter of Gladwell’sOutliers, “impervious to all forms of critical thinking” and said that Gladwell believes “a perfect anecdote proves a fatuous rule.” Referencing a Gladwell reporting mistake in which Gladwell refers to “eigenvalue” as “Igon Value,” Harvard professor and author Steven Pinker criticizes his lack of expertise: “I will call this the Igon Value Problem: when a writer’s education on a topic consists in interviewing an expert, he is apt to offer generalizations that are banal, obtuse or flat wrong.” Unfortunately too many in today’s media are similarly “uneducated” in their interpretation of experts. Storytelling and quotes become a misleading factor instead of being an aid to communicating the accurate facts more easily. His assertions around “10,000 hours” may or may not be true but his arguments for it carry very little weight with me because of the quality of his thinking.Though one example of Malcolm Gladwell does not prove the invalidity of arguments for a Liberal Arts degree, I find this kind of erroneous thinking (anecdotally) true of many humanities and liberal arts graduates. In fact I see the inconsistencies that Gladwell failed to understand (giving him the benefit of the doubt that these were unintentional) in the writings of many authors of articles in supposedly elite publications like The New Yorker and The Atlantic. Again this is not a statistically valid conclusion but the impression across hundreds or thousands of examples of one person. When I do occasionally read articles from these publications, I make a sport of judging the quality of thinking of the writers as I read, based on false arguments, unsupported conclusions, confusion of story telling with factual assertions, mistaking quotes from interviews as facts, misinterpreting statistics, etc. Similar lack of cogent thinking leads to bad decisions, uninformed rhetoric, and lack of critical thinking around topics like nuclear power and GMOs.Unfortunately in an increasingly complex world, all these topics skills that many liberal arts majors even at elite universities fail to muster. The topic of risk and risk assessment from simple personal financial planning to societal topics like income inequality is so poorly understood and considered by most liberal arts majors as to make me pessimistic. I am not arguing that engineering or STEM education is good at these topics but rather that this is not its intent of STEM or professional education. The intent of Liberal Arts education is what Steven Pinker called a “building a self” and I would add “for the technological and dynamically evolving 21st century”.Learning new areas as career paths and interests evolve becomes harder. Traditional European liberal arts education was for the few and the elite. Is that still the goal today? People spend years and a small fortune or lifelong indebtedness to obtain it and employability should be a criterion in addition to an educations’ contribution to intelligent citizenry.Wikipedia defines “the liberal arts as those subjects or skills that in classical antiquity were considered essential for a free person to know in order to take an active part in civic life, something that (for Ancient Greece) included participating in public debate, defending oneself in court, serving on juries, and most importantly, military service. Grammar, logic, and rhetoric were the core liberal arts, while arithmetic, geometry, the theory of music, and astronomy also played a (somewhat lesser) part in education.” Today’s ideal list, not anchored in “classical antiquity”would be more expansive and more prioritized in my view.Idealists and those who perceive liberal arts education today as meeting these goals are wrong not in it’s intent but in assessing how well it does this function (and that is an assertion/opinion). I agree that we need a more humanistic education but it is hard to agree or disagree with the current curriculum without defining what humanistic means. Does it really teach critical thinking, logic or the scientific process, things every citizen should know in order to participate in society? Does it allow for intelligent discourse or decision-making across a diverse set of beliefs, situations, preferences, and assumptions?Should we teach our students what we already know, or prepare them to discover more? Memorizing the Gettysburg address is admirable but ultimately worthless; understanding history is interesting, even useful, but not as relevant as topics from the Economist. A student who can apply the scientific process or employ critical thinking skills to solve a big problem has the potential to change the world (or at minimum get a better-paying job). They can actually debate a topic like #blacklivesmatter, income inequality or Climate Change without being subject to “Trumpism” or emotion and biases-based distortions. No wonder half the college graduates who fill jobs as some studies indicate, actually fill jobs that don’t need a college degree! Their degree is not relevant to adding value to an employer (though that is not the only purpose of a degree).Further, even if an ideal curriculum can be stitched together, most liberal arts majors infrequently do it. If the goal is not professional education then it must be general education, which requires many more must-have requirements for me to consider a university degree respectable. Of course others are entitled to their own opinion, though the right answer is testable if one agrees that the goals of such an education are intelligent citizenry and/or employability.For now I am mostly leaving aside matters related to professional, vocational or technical curriculum. I’m also ignoring the not irrelevant and pragmatic issues of education affordability and the burden of student debt, which would argue for a more employment-enabling type of education. The failure I am referring to are two-fold: (1) the failure of curriculums to keep up with the changing needs of modern society and (2) liberal arts becoming the “easy curriculum” for those who shy away from the more demanding majors and prefer an easier, often (but not always) more socially-oriented college life. Ease, not value, or interest instead of value become key criteria in designing a curriculum for many students today. And for those of you who think this is not true, I am asserting based on my experience this is true for the majority of today’s students, but not for every liberal arts student.Not every course is for every student but the criteria need to match the needs of the student and not their indulgences, taking interests and capability into account. “Pursue your passion” even if it increases the probability of getting you into unemployment or homelessness later is advice I have seldom agreed with (yes there are occasions this is warranted, especially for the top or the bottom 20% of students). More on passions later but I’m not saying passions are unimportant. What I am saying is with today’s implementation of a liberal arts curriculum, even at elite universities like Stanford and Yale, I find that many liberal arts majors (excluding roughly the top 20% of students) lack the ability to rigorously defend ideas, make compelling, persuasive arguments, or discourse logically.Steven Pinker — in addition to refuting Gladwell — has a brilliant, clarion opinion on what education ought to be, writing in The New Republic, “It seems to me that educated people should know something about the 13-billion-year prehistory of our species and the basic laws governing the physical and living world, including our bodies and brains. They should grasp the timeline of human history from the dawn of agriculture to the present. They should be exposed to the diversity of human cultures, and the major systems of belief and value with which they have made sense of their lives. They should know about the formative events in human history, including the blunders we can hope not to repeat. They should understand the principles behind democratic governance and the rule of law. They should know how to appreciate works of fiction and art as sources of aesthetic pleasure and as impetuses to reflect on the human condition.”Though I agree, I am not sure this curriculum is more important than the ideas below. Based on the skills defined below any gaps in the above education can be filled in by students post graduation.So what should non-professional elite education entail?If we had enough time in school, I would suggest we do everything. Sadly that is not realistic, so we need a prioritized list of basic requirements because every subject we do cover excludes some other subject given the fixed time we have available. We must decide what is better taught during the limited teaching time we have, and what subjects are easier learnt during personal time or as post-education or graduate pursuits.In the new Liberal Science curriculum I propose, students would master:1. The fundamental tools of learning and analysis, primarily critical thinking, the scientific process or methodology, and approaches to problem solving and diversity.2. Knowledge of a few generally applicable topics and knowledge of the basics such as logic, mathematics, and statistics to judge and model conceptually almost anything one might run into over the next few decades.3. The skills to “dig deep” into their areas of interest in order to understand how these tools can be applied to one domain and to be equipped to change domains every so often4. Preparation for jobs in a competitive and evolving global economy or preparation for uncertainty about one’s future direction, interest, or areas where opportunities will exist.5. Preparation to continuously evolve and stay current as informed and intelligent citizens of a democracyCritical subject matter should include economics, statistics, mathematics, logic and systems modeling, psychology, computer programming, and current (not historical) cultural evolution (Why rap? Why ISIS? Why suicide bombers? Why the Kardasians and Trump? Why environmentalism and what matters and what does not? And of course the question, are the answers to these questions expert opinions or have some other validity?).Furthermore, certain humanities disciplines such as literature and history should become optional subjects, in much the same way that physics is today (and, of course, I advocate mandatory basic physics study along with the other sciences). And one needs the ability to think through many, if not most, of the social issues we face (which the softer liberal arts subjects ill-prepare one for in my view).Imagine a required course each semester where every student is asked to analyze and debate topics from every issue of a broad publication such as The Economist or Technology Review. And imagine a core curriculum that teaches the core skills to have the discussions above. Such a curriculum would not only provide a platform for understanding in a more relevant context how the physical, political, cultural and technical worlds function, but would also impart instincts for interpreting the world, and prepare students to become active participants in the economy.It would be essential to understand psychology because human behavior and human interaction are important and will continue to be so. I’d like people who are immune to the fallacies and agendas of the media, politicians, advertisers, and marketers because these professions have learned to hack the human brain’s biases (a good description of which are described in Dan Kannehman’s Thinking Fast & Slow and in Dan Gardner’s The Science of Fear). I’d like to teach people how to understand history but not to spend time getting the knowledge of history, which can be done after graduation.I’d like people to read a New York Times article and understand what is an assumption, what’s an assertion by the writer, what are facts, and what are opinions, and maybe even find the biases and contradictions inherent in many articles. We are far beyond the days of the media simply reporting news, shown by the different versions of the “news” that liberal and conservative newspapers in the US report, all as different “truths” of the same event. Learning to parse this media is critical. I’d like people to understand what is statistically valid and what is not. What is a bias or the color of the writer’s point of view.Students should learn the scientific method, and most importantly how to apply its mental model to the world. The scientific method requires that hypotheses be tested in controlled conditions; this can diminish the effects of randomness and, often, personal bias. This is very valuable in a world where too many students fall victim to confirmation biases (people observe what they expect to observe), appeal to new and surprising things, and narrative fallacies (once a narrative has been built, it’s individual elements are more accepted). There are many, many types of human biases defined in psychology that people fall victim to. Failure to understand mathematical models and statistics makes it substantially more difficult to understand critical questions in daily life, from social sciences to science and technology, political issues, health claims and much more.I’d also suggest tackling several general and currently relevant topic areas such as genetics, computer science, systems modeling, econometrics, linguistics modeling, traditional and behavioral economics, and genomics/bioinformatics (not an exhaustive list) which are quickly becoming critical issues for everyday decisions from personal medical decisions to understanding minimum pay, economics of taxes and inequality, immigration, or climate change. E.O. Wilson argues in his book “The Meaning of Human Existence” that it is hard to understand social behavior without understanding multi-level selection theory and the mathematical optimization that nature performed through years of evolutionary iterations. I am not arguing that every educated person should be able to build such a model but rather that they should be able to “think” such a model qualitatively.Not only do these topics expose students to a lot of useful and current information, theories, and algorithms, they may in fact become platforms to teach the scientific process — a process that applies to (and is desperately needed for) logical discourse as much as it applies to science. The scientific process critically needs to be applied to all the issues we discuss socially in order to have intelligent dialog. Even if the specific information becomes irrelevant within a decade (who knows where technology will head next; hugely important cultural phenomena and technologies like Facebook, Twitter, and the iPhone didn’t exist before 2004, after all), it’s incredibly useful to understand the current frontiers of science and technology as building blocks for the future.It’s not that history or Kafka are not important, but rather it is even more critical to understand if we change the assumptions, environmental conditions and rules that applied to historical events, that would alter the conclusions we draw from historical events today. Every time a student takes one subject they exclude the possibility of taking something else. I find it ironic that those who rely on “history repeating itself” often fail to understand the assumptions that might cause “this time” to be different. The experts we rely on for predictions have about the same accuracy as dart-throwing monkeys according to at least one very exhaustive study by Prof Phil Tetlock. So it is important to understand how to rely on “more likely to be right” experts, as defined in the book Superforecasters. We make a lot of judgments in everyday life and we should be prepared to make them intelligently.Students can use this broad knowledge base to build mental models that will aid them in both further studies and vocations. Charlie Munger, the famous investor from Berkshire Hathaway, speaks about mental models and what he calls “elementary, worldly wisdom.” Munger believes a person can combine models from a wide range of disciplines (economics, mathematics, physics, biology, history, and psychology, among others) into something that is more valuable than the sum of its parts. I have to agree that this cross-disciplinary thinking is becoming an essential skill in today’s increasingly complex world.“The models have to come from multiple disciplines because all the wisdom of the world is not to be found in one little academic department,” Munger explains. “That’s why poetry professors, by and large, are so unwise in a worldly sense. They don’t have enough models in their heads. So you’ve got to have models across a fair array of disciplines… These models generally fall into two categories: (1) ones that help us simulate time (and predict the future) and better understand how the world works (e.g. understanding a useful idea from like autocatalysis), and (2) ones that help us better understand how our mental processes lead us astray (e.g., availability bias).” I would add that they provide the “common truth” in discussions where the well educated discussants disagree.After grasping the fundamental tools of learning and some broad topical exposure, it’s valuable to “dig deep” in one or two topic areas of interest. For this, I prefer some subject in science or engineering rather than literature or history (bear with me before you have an emotional reaction; I’ll explain in a minute). Obviously, it’s best if students are passionate about a specific topic, but it’s not critical as the passion may develop as they dig in (some students will have passions, but many won’t have any at all). The real value for digging deep is to learn how to dig in; it serves a person for the duration of their life: in school, work, and leisure. As Thomas Huxley said, “learn something about everything and everything about something,” though his saying that does not make it true. Too often, students don’t learn that a quote is not a fact.If students choose options from traditional liberal-education subjects, they should be taught in the context of the critical tools mentioned above. If students want jobs, they should be taught skills where future jobs will exist. If we want them as intelligent citizens, we need to have them understand critical thinking, statistics, economics, how to interpret technology and science developments, and how global game theory applies to local interests. Traditional majors like international relations and political science are passé as base skills and can easily be acquired once a student has the basic tools of understanding. And they and many other traditional liberal arts subjects like history or art will be well served in graduate level work. I want to repeat that this is not to claim those “other subjects” are not valuable. I think they are very appropriate for graduate level study.Back to history and literature for a moment — these are great to wrestle with once a student has learned to think critically. My contention is not that these subjects are unimportant, but rather that they are not basic or broad enough “tools for developing learning skills” as they were in the 1800s, because the set of skills needed today has changed. Furthermore, they are topics easily learned by someone trained in the basic disciplines of thinking and learning that I’ve defined above. This isn’t as easy the other way around. A scientist can more easily become a philosopher or writer than a writer or philosopher can become a scientist.If subjects like history and literature are focused on too early, it is easy for someone not to learn to think for themselves and not to question assumptions, conclusions, and expert philosophies. This can do a lot of damage.Separating the aspirational claims by universities from the reality of today’s typical liberal arts education I tend to agree with the views of William Deresiewicz. He was an English professor at Yale from 1998–2008 and recently published the book “Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite and the Way to a Meaningful Life.” Deresiewicz writes on the current state of liberal arts, “At least the classes at elite schools are academically rigorous, demanding on their own terms, no? Not necessarily. In the sciences, usually; in other disciplines, not so much. There are exceptions, of course, but professors and students have largely entered into what one observer called a ‘nonaggression pact.’” Easy is often the reason students pick liberal arts subjects today.Lots of things are important but what are the most important goals of an education?To repeat, school is a place where every student should have the opportunity to become a potential participant in whatever they might want to tackle in the future, with an appropriate focus not only on what they want to pursue but also, pragmatically, what they will need to do to be productively employed or productive and thinking member of society. By embracing thinking and learning skills, and adding a dash of irreverence and confidence that comes from being able to tackle new arenas (creative writing as a vocational skill, not a liberal arts education, may have a role here, but Macbeth does not make my priority list; we can agree to disagree but if we discourse I want to understand the assumptions that cause us to disagree, something many students are unable to do), hopefully they will be lucky enough to help shape the next few decades or at least be intelligent voters in a democracy and productive participants in their jobs .With the right critical lens, history, philosophy, and literature can help creativity and breadth by opening the mind to new perspectives and ideas. Still, learning about them is secondary to learning the tools of learning except possibly the right approach to philosophy education. Again I want to remind you that none of this applies to the top 20% of students who learn all these skills independent of their education or major. Passions like music or literature (leaving aside the top few students who clearly excel at music or literature) and its history may be best left to self-pursuit, while exploring the structure and theory of music or literature may be a way to teach the right kind of thinking about music and literature!For some small subset of the student body, pursuing passions and developing skills in subjects such as music or sports can be valuable, and I am a fan of schools like Juilliard, but in my view this must be in addition to a required general education especially for the “other 80%”. It’s the lack of balance in general education which I am suggesting needs to be addressed (including for engineering, science and technology subjects’ students. Setting music and sports aside, with the critical thinking tools and exposure to the up-and-coming areas mentioned above, students should be positioned to discover their first passion and begin to understand themselves, or at the least be able to keep up with the changes to come, get (and maintain) productive jobs, and be intelligent citizens.At the very least they should be able to evaluate how much confidence to place in a New York Times study of 11 patients on a new cancer treatment from Mexico or a health supplement from China and to assess the study’s statistical validity and whether the treatment’s economics make sense. And they should understand the relationship between taxes, spending, balanced budgets, and growth better than they understand 15th century English history in preparation for “civic life” to quote the original purpose of a liberal arts education. And if they are to study language or music, Dan Levitin’s book “This Is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession” should be first reading or its equivalent in linguistics. It can teach you about a human obsession but also teach you how to build a mathematical model in your head and why and how Indian music is different than Latin music. In fact, these should be required for all education, not just liberal arts education, along with the other books mentioned above.The role of passion and emotion in life is best epitomized by a quote (unknown source) I once saw that says the most important things in life are best decided by the heart and not logic. For the rest we need logic and consistency. The “what” may be emotion and passion based but the “how” often (yes, sometimes the journey is the reward) needs a different approach that intelligent citizens should possess and education should teach.I am sure I have missed some points of view, so I look forward to starting a valuable dialogue on this important topic.

The League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), founded in 1929.The following website of the organization describes its history and purpose:https://lulac.org/about/history/Below is an abstract of the webpage worth reading:LULAC History - All for One and One for AllThe League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), founded in 1929, is the oldest and most widely respected Hispanic civil rights organization in the United States of America. LULAC was created at a time in our country’s history when Hispanics were denied basic civil and human rights, despite contributions to American society. The founders of LULAC created an organization that empowers its members to create and develop opportunities where they are needed most.In 1945, a California LULAC Council successfully sued to integrate the Orange County School System, which had been segregated on the grounds that Mexican children were “more poorly clothed and mentally inferior to white children.” Additionally, in 1954, LULAC brought another landmark case, Hernandez vs. the State of Texas, to protest the fact that a Mexican American had never been called to jury duty in the state of Texas. The Supreme Court ruled this exclusion unconstitutional.Since then, LULAC has fought for full access to the political process and equal educational opportunity for all Hispanics. LULAC’s continues to play an active role in these efforts. LULAC councils across the United States hold voter registration drives, citizenship awareness sessions, sponsor health fairs and tutorial programs, and raise scholarship money for the LULAC National Scholarship Fund. This fund, in conjunction with LNESC (LULAC National Educational Service Centers), has assisted almost 10 percent of the 1.1 million Hispanic students who have gone to college.LULAC Councils have also responded to an alarming increase in xenophobia and anti-Hispanic sentiment. They have held seminars and public symposiums on language and immigration issues. In addition, LULAC officers have used television and radio to protest against the “English Only” movement, which seeks to limit the public (and in some cases, private) use of minority languages.Below is an account of the struggles that LULAC and its members have had to endure in order to improve the status of employment, housing, health care, and education for all Hispanics in the United States of America.Reasons That Lead To The Formation of LULACWhen the United States of North America annexed a third of Mexico’s territory following the Mexican War, nearly 77,000 Mexicans became U.S. citizens. For generations, these citizens were to be plagued by prejudice that would result in overt acts of discrimination and segregation. This prejudice led to the curtailment of many civil rights. The sign, “No Mexicans Allowed” was found everywhere.In Texas, prejudice and acts of discrimination had reached such extreme proportions that Mexican Americans began organizing to defend themselves. There were three main organizations: The Order of the Sons of America with councils in Somerset, Pearsall, Corpus Christi, and San Antonio; The Knights of America in San Antonio; and The League of Latin American Citizens with councils in Harlingen, Brownsville, Laredo, Penitas, La Grulla, McAllen, and Gulf.The Unification EffortFirst LULAC Convention - Corpus Christi, TX - 5/17/1929Ben Garza, leader of Council #4 of the Order of the Sons of America in Corpus Christi, united all Mexican American organizations under one title, one set of objectives, and one constitution. The first of a series of attempts occurred on August 14th, 1927, when delegates from The Order of the Sons of America, The Knights of America, and other allied organizations traveled to Harlingen, to officially form The League of Latin American Citizens. The President General of The Order of the Sons of America invited the League of Latin American Citizens--then under the leadership of Attorney Alonso S. Perales of Harlingen--to unite with them in order to unify Mexican American organizations. The League of Latin American Citizens approved the idea and a resolution to bring about the merger was adopted.There were serious doubts regarding the merger due to differences between the leaders of The League of Latin American Citizens and the President General of The Order of the Sons of America. Thus, The Order of the Sons of America and The Knights of America decided to join together regardless of The League of Latin American Citizens’ actions. Council #4 of The Order of the Sons of America and The Knights of America considered the proposed merger for a year.During this time, Alonso S. Perales and Ben Garza were constantly discussing how to bring about the merger. However, the President General of The Order of the Sons of America never called a unification convention. This lead Council #4 of The Order of the Sons of America to withdraw on February 7, 1929. They voted to have a uniting convention on February 17, 1929, at the Obreros Hall, on the corner of Lipan and Carrizo streets in Corpus Christi.Delegates from Alice, Austin, Brownsville, Corpus Christi, Encino, Harlingen, La Grulla, McAllen, Robstown, and San Antonio opened the unification convention. They elected Ben Garza as chairmen protem and M.C. Gonzalez as secretary.LULAC Outing - 4/21/1929The delicate task of uniting these groups was assigned to Juan Solis and Mauro Machado, members of The Knights of America, Alonso S. Perales and J.T. Canales, members of The League of Latin American Citizens, E.N. Marin, A. DeLuna and Fortunio Trevino, member of The Order of the Sons of America. Alonso S. Perales initially proposed the name “Latin American Citizens’ League.” In response, Mauro Machado suggested they use the word “United” as apropos for the merger and as a way of differentiating the title from “The League of Latin American Citizens”. Thus, Juan Solis motioned that the union be “United Latin American Citizens.” J.T. Canales friendly amended the motion so that the name read “League of United Latin American Citizens”. The amended motion was unanimously passed.The committee proceeded to adopt the motto proposed by J.T. Canales, “All for One and One for All”, to serve as a reminder of the difficulties of unification and as the basis for all future activities of LULAC.Temporary rules were drawn up until a constitutional convention could be held. A constitutional convention was to be held on 18, and 19 May 1929, in Corpus Christi, Texas, and an executive committee was established to administer LULAC until the convention. The executive committee included Ben Garza as chairman, M.C. Gonzalez as Secretary, J.T. Canales and J. Luz Saenz as committee members. On May 18, 1929, at the Allende Hall in Corpus Christi, Texas, Ben Garza called the first LULAC General Convention to order. The assembly promptly adopted a constitution proposed by J.T. Canales and based upon the one used by The Knights of America. Ben Garza was elected President General, M.C. Gonzalez was elected Vice President General, A. DeLuna was elected Secretary General, and Louis C. Wilmot of Corpus Christi, Texas, was elected Treasurer General. These officers guided a new organization that faced prejudice and skepticism.First LULAC Convention Invitation - May 1929Mexican Americans were not allowed to learn English. Thus, they were disenfranchised and unable to vote. Many were unable to pay voting taxes. Thus, their Anglo bosses paid this charge and told them who to vote for.Many Mexican American families worked in fields, farms, and ranches and their children never went to school. Many were denied jobs because they were perceived as lazy, poorly dressed, dirty, ill educated, and thought to be thieves.American children had to attend segregated schools known as “Mexican Schools.” In those days “Mexican Schools” were legal in the Southwest. These schools were staffed with the worst teachers and the buildings were in deplorable conditions.DiscriminationDiscrimination against Mexican Americans was rampant. During those years there were more Mexican Americans hung than the total number of blacks hung during the Civil War. A famous Anglo gunfighter was once asked how many men he had killed. He responded that each notch on the handles of his guns represented one kill and that he had twenty-seven notches, not counting Mexicans. Discrimination knew no age limits. In one incident a young Mexican American girl was eating a dry tortilla and choked to death because her peers were not allowed to get her a drink of water from a “whites only” water fountain. In another incident, LULAC members on a weekend recruitment journey stopped at a hamburger place. One of the men went to the takeout window and placed an order. When the food was ready, he was told that he had to go to the black section to eat his food. He refused, telling the food handler that he was Mexican and not black, and the food was taken away. In another instance, a LULAC member (who later became a LULAC President General) had to dress as a woman in order to get pass a sheriff with rifle in arm who had vowed to prevent LULAC from organizing in his town.This was the discrimination that led many Mexican Americans to build strong traditions of self-determination. In 1921, courageous men and women in Texas began organizing to ensure that juries reflected the composition of the population and filed suits to have Mexican Americans placed on jury rosters. In 1929, a number of Mexican rights organizations met in Corpus Christi, Texas, and merged into a single group.February 27, 1929This was not a day for a meeting. It was Sunday and a day of rest. The rain was filling the dirt streets. But there was an urgent task to be done; the muddy streets were of little concern to those men about to make history. It was a meeting that would merge three largest Mexican American organizations into one.The merger has been discussed in 1927 during an installation of officers of a newly formed Mexican American organization, “The League of Latin American Citizens”, founded in Harlingen, Texas, by Alonso S. Perales. Now on February 17, 1929 the merger was now about to take place in Corpus Christi, Texas.First LULAC Convention Preparations Article - 1929Delegates from three prestigious Mexican American organizations: The Knights of America, The Sons of America, and The League of Latin American Citizens, gathered on this rainy day to attempt to unify. Although many members were hesitant, the leaders of the organizations convinced the delegates of the necessity of a merger. A committee, with two delegates from each organization, was formed. This committee had the responsibility of coming up with rules and a name for the new organization.This was a delicate task, because each organization had a proud history, its own constitution, its own structure, and a strong leader. The Knights of America of San Antonio, the oldest of the three had done much for its community under the leadership of M.C. Gonzalez. The same held true for The Sons of America of Corpus Christi, the second oldest and under the leadership of Ben Garza. Nevertheless, The League of Latin America Citizens of the Texas Valley, although the youngest of the three, had been effective under the leadership of Alonso S. Perales and was growing at a much faster pace than the other two combined.After a four hour meeting, the committee decided to combine of the constitutions of the three merging organizations. The name of the new organization would be taken from the youngest of the three with the word “United” added to the name. Thus, “The League of United Latin American Citizens” was formed.The delegates were pleased with the calm leadership efforts of Ben Garza and elected him the first President General of LULAC. The delegates agreed to hold the first LULAC Convention on May 19, 1929 in Corpus Christi, Texas.First LULAC Convention ArticleOf course, the three merged organizations, which became LULAC were not the only Mexican American organization of that era. Many wanted to revolt and regain the territories that Mexico ceded to the United States of America after the Mexico-Texas War. Others wanted to engage in widespread civil disobedience against local authorities. There were many Mexican Americans that considered LULAC members as a bunch of “vendidos.” They could not understand why LULAC members would embrace an Anglo society that had been so cruel to Mexican Americans. However, the founders of LULAC had seen many Mexican American organizations flourish and disappear within a couple of years, without accomplishments. LULAC founders were determined not to let this occur to LULAC. Therefore, the founders of LULAC forewant many of their convictions in order to avoid suspicions of un-American activities and serve as a safe haven for its members. Many of the official rites that LULAC adopted had never be adopted by any other Mexican American organization. LULAC adopted the American Flag as its official flag, America the Beautiful as its official song, and The George Washington Prayer as its official prayer. Also, LULAC adopted the Robert Rules of Order as its governing rules during meetings and conventions.These founders envisioned LULAC as an organization that would be strongly accepted by Mexican Americans throughout Texas. In this regard they were correct. However, they were not prepared for the rapid growth of Mexican Americans in the states of Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and California, all within the first three years of LULAC’s founding. LULAC’s founders could never have imagined that LULAC would later serve 48 states, Puerto Rico, Mexico, South America, and the armed service base in Heidelburg, West Germany. Nevertheless, the guiding philosophies of the League of United Latin American Citizens supported the inclusion of all those of Hispanic origin and not just Mexican Americans.The Women of LULACLULAC was one of the first national organizations to place emphasis on the role of women. Its first Council #9 was created on February 22, 1934, in El Paso, Texas. By 1938, the league had created the first women’s national office in Mrs. Ester Machuca as Ladies Organizer General.Women continued to serve fundamental roles within LULAC. In 1981, the League elected its first National Vice-President for Women. State coordinators for women carry out local programs for women. A national conference “Adelante Mujer Hispana” and two-day conferences on education and employment have been some of the League’s most successful programs.Women of LULAC: A History of AccomplishmentsWomen of LULAC: A History of AccomplishmentsLULAC was one of the first national organizations to place emphasis on the role of women. Its first council #9 was created on February 22, 1934, in El Paso, Texas. By 1938, the league had created the first women's national office in Mrs. Ester Machuca as Ladies Organizer General.National Past PresidentsThe founding of the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) marked an important moment in the history of Hispanic people in the United States. It signaled the end of one era and the beginning of another. It embodied the will of a people to overcome inequality, discrimination and injustice, to claim their rights as U. S. citizens, and to access the American dream.LULAC's MilestonesWhat follows are some of the milestones accomplished by LULAC in its history. These milestones offered many difficult struggles, at times - life threatening, that LULAC and its members endured to get equality in justice, employment, housing, health care, and education for all Hispanics.LULAC History BookAll For One, One For All -- A Celebration of 75 Years of the League of United Latin American Citizens. (PDF format)50th anniversary of John Kennedy’s visit with LULAC in 1963On November 21, 1963, President John F. Kennedy, Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson and Texas Governor John B. Connally, Jr. made an appearance at the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) Council 60's Gala held at the Rice Hotel in Houston Texas....LULAC Archives at The University of Texas at AustinThe University of Texas at Austin is the designated repository for the records of the League of United Latin American Citizens. LULAC was formed in 1929 by the merger of three Mexican American civic organizations in Texas: Order Sons of America, Order Knights of America and the League of United Latin American Citizens.As the oldest active organization of Hispanic Americans, LULAC is committed to the advancement of the Latino community in the United States. The LULAC Archives record the organization's profound achievements in many areas, especially social and educational advancement.