චින්තනයේ දුප්පත්කම (2)
Ivan argues that British rule transformed Ceylon’s economy and state but left its thinking feudal. Europe’s Renaissance and liberal philosophers — Copernicus to Locke and Mill — remade how people thought as well as how they lived; India’s Congress, under Gandhi and Nehru, used the freedom struggle itself as a revolution in thought against caste and communalism. Ceylon, handed independence on a tray, had only Buddhist and Hindu revivals that fought Christian dominance but, trapped by caste and unlike Ram Mohan Roy’s, never turned their criticism inward.
දරුවන් බුද්ධිමත් කිරීමේදී නිවසේ තිබිය යුතු පරිසරය
Ivan argues that three decades of violence have damaged the country’s social psyche and that parents must shield children from the resulting culture, including what they see on television. Explaining how fast a child’s brain grows between four months and two years, he urges parents to care for mental as well as physical nourishment. He tells the story of John Stuart Mill, educated entirely at home by his father, learning Greek at three and logic at twelve, and while calling the experiment too harsh, draws from it the lesson that every home, rich or poor, should keep a collection of good books for children.