Epporul Yaaryaar Vaai Ketpinum

Recently I had a long chat with an old friend. She told me she attended a pravachan (Hindu religious equivalent of a TED Talk) given by a guy who had been to Ivy league engineering and management schools in India.

I asked her how the talk was, whether it was good. She said it was nice considering the background of the speaker. I thought that was a wrong way to judge. How did it matter what the pedigree was. What ought to matter was only the content.

But then my conclusion was true if one was judging solely the content. What if one was also judging the speaker? If one was judging the speaker, one will consider what they said and where they went to school and so on.

So the logical question is: when would we judge only the content and when would we judge the speaker (as in a Ted Talk)? 

Or, is this question irrelevant because a content cannot be judged adequately or holistically without considering who the speaker is (or what they are wearing)?

Tiruvalluvar might be turning in his grave.

Now we come to what Wall Street Journal says about the same thing in this article written in response to NY Times anonymous op-ed piece on Trump: 
https://www.wsj.com/articles/publishing-anonymous-column-is-rare-editors-say-1536269520 "So much of the value of an op-ed is the weight the author brings to the issue through their experience. If you don’t know who that person is, it is very hard for the reader to determine whether it is important or not,” said Greg Kesich, editorial page editor of the Portland Press Herald." 
This is essentially the same as what my friend said. WHAT is said becomes important or unimportant based on WHO said it. 

This is also similar to how Google PageRank works. The importance of WHAT you say is determined by WHO links to you.

In an age where the WHAT is too difficult to evaluate, we use the WHO to filter out rubbish.

It's time to rephrase.
Epporul yaaryaarvaai ketpinum apporul 
Yaarvai endru kaanbadhu arivu