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The following lines are from the article "Terms of protest" by Ashutosh Bhardwaj in the Indian Express dated 10 October, 2015. The words of Sartre hold applicability to all professions. At any point of time, being conscious of the difference between skill, results that acrrue due to the skill, distinctions and appreciation that is a consequence of the public interpretation of these results and the ephemeral nature of the last is something that should warn a man of profession to zealously safeguard his skill from the irreversible harm that rank, position, fame, money and responsibility may wreck with a cavalier slight of hand.
To this end one is reminded of the programmer Ken Thompson. When asked to mention his profession on any application, he simply wrote "software programmer". For the contribution that Ken Thompson made to the evolution of the software industry along with his colleagues, this was as clear an indication as any of the love affair that Thompson had with his fundamental skill. Today, that kind of confession will be hard to elicit from those who have had the chance to come even moderately close to the limelight.
"A writer is not necessarily an activist, certainly not a politician. She is most comfortable in the universe of words. She has only two chief weapons of protest against the state: To write, and to refuse or return any favour or award from the establishment. ... Jean-Paul-Sartre wrote the charter of this delicate bond between the establishment and a writer when he rejected the Nobel in 1964: "A writer who adopts political, social, or literary positions must act only with the means that are his own --- that is, the written word.
All the honours he may receive expose his readers to a pressure I do not consider desirable. If I sign myself Jean-Paul Sartre, it is not the same thing as if I sign myself Jean-Paul Sartre, Nobel prize winner."
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