HALF MARX
A 2-Pager by Ajit Chaudhuri – March 2012
A pleasant consequence of being an unemployed bum (oops, sorry, mature student) is the possibility it affords for erudite but pointless discussion. One such was about which author was most known more than actually read. The champion was, you guessed it, Salman Rushdie. I for one have made many assaults on his books and don’t think I have survived more than twenty pages on any one except ‘Shalimar the Clown’, which I managed to plough through thanks to an avid interest in Kashmir. The reason, according to one of the discussants (who claims to have read Rushdie), is not that I am too stupid but that I don’t have an understanding of ‘magic realism’, whatever that is.
But, I digress! This note is actually about the runner up, Karl Marx, possibly the most divisive figure in the history of humankind. We all know him and have our opinions (and I have no intention of attempting to change them), many of us can quote him, and some can even expound on him, but few of us have actually read him. Knowing something about Marx’s work, and being able to discuss it, has its uses. It can convey a dimension of intelligence and/or sensitivity to one’s personality – useful as a means of blindsiding women/men one is looking to impress. It can also irritate – I managed to make myself unpopular at a World Bank training (the kind you want to be unpopular in – full of paternalistic assholes who’ve never faced a community and who’ve divided the world into the enlightened ‘us’ and the unwashed ‘them’) by quoting the line ‘unemployment is the luxury of the bourgeoisie’ – I was later informally informed that Marx is an unmentionable in those haloed quarters. And it can help to advise young people who don’t want to become software engineers or MBAs and have a bit of revolutionary fire in their eyes – that what’s said about Marx and Marxism may not be what Marx said.
So, what did Marx actually say? I will confine this note to his writings in his younger days, in his twenties, mainly because of the sheer volume and variety of his output and the difficulty in pigeonholing him into any particular subject. He is seen as one of the three most influential sociologists of all time (along with Max Weber and Emile Durkheim), but his writing spanned economics, and political science as well, and his PhD was in philosophy – a subject upon which he famously said ‘the philosophers have only interpreted the world, the point is to change it.’ And also because his thinking changed as he grew older, from the young radical on the run from the authorities across Europe to the older radical bringing up his family in penury in London.
A short word about the Europe of Marx’s time, a world of Kings and Tsars and Kaisers looking to ruthlessly protect and preserve class and national interests against those of a burgeoning business class and a teeming proletariat. It reads a bit like Mubarak’s Egypt, or Assad’s Syria, or the Uzbekistan of today.
A little about the young Marx himself, as well! He was born in 1818 to a prosperous family in Trier, a beautiful little town in the wine-growing Moselle valley in Germany that I happen to have cycled through in 1991 (and imbibed a fair bit of that wine). Trier at that time was part of Prussia, and Marx’s father converted to Christianity in order to practice law, which as a Jew he was forbidden to do. The family also owned some of the vineyards around Trier, and Marx’s mother was from a rich Dutch-Jewish family that later went on to found Phillips Electronics. Marx himself received a secular education and was sent off to the University of Bonn where he wanted to study philosophy and literature and where his father insisted he study the more practically oriented law. He was fond of boozing and socializing, and joined a drinking society in Bonn (and later served as its co-President), and his poor grades had his father force him to transfer to the far more academically inclined University of Berlin, where the excursions into philosophy and history began. Somewhere along the way, he fell in love with a beautiful baroness of the Prussian ruling class, Jenny von Westphalen, described as ‘the most desirable young lady in Trier’, who broke off her engagement with an aristocratic Prussian Army officer to marry him. His doctoral thesis of 1841, “The Difference between the Democritean and Epicurean Philosophy of Nature”, a daring and original piece of work that suggested that theology must yield to the superior wisdom of philosophy, was controversial among the conservative professors of the University of Berlin. Marx decided to submit it to the more liberal University of Jena instead, whose faculty awarded him a PhD based upon it. He then looked for an academic job, didn’t find one , and turned instead to writing.
I will now focus on four works that he wrote before the age of 27, i.e. when he was at the age of many post-graduate students here at IRMA.
On the Jewish Question – 1843: In this text, Marx introduces the distinction between political emancipation (or the grant of liberal rights and liberties) and human emancipation. He argues that political emancipation is insufficient to bring about human emancipation, and it is also a barrier towards this. Liberal rights and ideas of justice are premised on the idea that each of us needs protection from other human beings; liberal rights are rights of separation, and freedom is a freedom from interference. Marx suggests that real freedom is to be found positively in our relations with other people, in communities, not in isolation. Insisting on a regime of rights encourages us to view each other in ways that may undermine the real freedom to be found in human emancipation. Marx did not oppose political emancipation, seeing it as a great improvement over the prejudice and discrimination of the Germany of his day, but did feel that it must be transcended on the route to human emancipation. Marx does not, in this text, say what human emancipation is, and we can only assume that it is related to the idea of un-alienated labour of future texts.
Contribution to a Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right Introduction – 1843: This is the one that describes Marx’s views on religion in most detail, and is famous for the remark that religion is the ‘opiate of the people’. It also considers how revolution might be achieved in Germany, and sets out the role of the proletariat in bringing about societal emancipation.
An earlier viewpoint (Feuerbach, et al) opposing theology was that human beings had created God in their own image, and that worshipping God diverted humans from enjoying their own powers. Marx criticised this, saying that religion is a response to alienation in material life – alienation of labour from their work and alienation of people from their communities. Religion deviously promotes a false idea of community in which we are all equal in the eyes of God, and the state offers the illusion of a community in which we are all equal in the eyes of the law. Both state and religion can be transcended when a genuine community of social and economic equals is created. How can such a society be brought about? Marx suggests that it has to be through self-transforming action by the proletariat. Indeed, if they do not create the revolution for themselves (if enlightened philanthropy, for example, brings about change instead), they will not be fit to receive it.
Economical and Philosophical Manuscripts – 1844: This text is most famous for its description of the way labour is alienated under the capitalist system. Marx suggests four forms of alienation. First, from the product, which is taken away from the producer upon its creation. Second, in productive activity (or work), which is seen as a torment. Third, from their own powers, as they produce blindly and not in accordance with their skills and inclinations. And fourth, from other humans, with a relationship of exchange replacing the satisfaction of mutual need. Non-alienated labour, on the other hand, comes about when the immediate producer enjoys a product as a confirmation of his/her powers, and with the idea that production meets the needs of others so that both parties have a human essence of mutual dependence – individual human powers and membership in the human community.
For Marx, alienation is not merely a matter of subjective feeling, or confusion. And there is a sense of inevitability about it, given the tenets of capitalism. As long as a capitalist intends to stay in business, he must ruthlessly exploit his workers to the legal limit whether or not he is wracked by guilt. The worker must take the best job on offer; there is no other sane option. By doing these, they reinforce the very structures that oppress. The urge to transcend this, and to take collective control of destiny, is important in Marx’s social analysis.
Theses on Feuerbach – 1845: This is a compilation of Marx’s reaction to the philosophy of his day. He compliments materialism for understanding the physical reality of the world, and criticizes it for ignoring the active role of the human subject in creating it. And idealism is said to understand the active nature of the human subject, but confines it to thought or contemplation – creating categories upon which we can impose the world. Marx combines these insights to propose a view that human beings do indeed create, or at least transform, the world they find themselves in, but this transformation happens not in thought but through actual material activity. This historical version of materialism is the foundation of Marx’s theory of history.
Tuesday, May 29, 2012
Wednesday, May 16, 2012
Let's Talk About Sex, Baby!
LET’S TALK ABOUT SEX, BABY
By Ajit Chaudhuri – May 2012
“Our youth love luxury! They have bad manners, contempt for authority, they show disrespect for their elders, contradict their parents, gobble up their food, and tyrannise their teachers!”
First, a disclosure! This note is about sex – the use of the word in the title is not a ruse to get you to read it. It is also about postmodern philosophy, and about making sense, for relics of my generation, of contemporary society. Most of us have relatives, friends and colleagues from subsequent generations, and most of us struggle to understand them; the sense of entitlement, the priority of the immediate, the importance of image over substance, the trivialization of relationships, and the lack of a sense of future consequences for today’s actions. This note covers sex, eroticism and love and relates them to changing times, attitudes and behaviour. It is based upon the paper ‘On Postmodern Uses of Sex’ found, of all places, in the reference material for the course on ‘Philosophy of Science’ at IRMA’s PhD programme.
So, let’s first talk about sex! This is a natural, and not a cultural, product that we share with most non-human species, and in its natural form it is always the same. To quote another author that struck a chord on this matter, ‘there has been more progress in cooking than in sex’. Its basic function is reproduction, and since this function is critical to the perpetuation of the species, nature has taken no chances – it has erred on the side of wastefulness by providing reproducing species with sexual energy and a capacity for sexual encounters far in excess of what the reproduction function would require.
Eroticism is about recycling that waste – filling the sexual act with surplus value over and above its reproductive function. It begins from reproduction and then transcends it, and reproduction turns into a constraint, simultaneously an indispensable condition and a thorn in the flesh of eroticism. There is a constant tension between the two. And the history of sex, according to the paper, is that of strategies to manage this tension.
In the modern era, two strategies vied with each other for domination. The first was of imposing the limits of the reproductive function of sex upon the freedom of erotic imagination, and relegating surplus sexual energy to the culturally suppressed and socially degraded spheres of pornography, prostitution and illicit liaisons. The second was the romantic strategy of linking eroticism to love and cutting its ties to sex, with love legitimising eroticism. Both strategies saw eroticism as needing a functional justification, and sought to anchor it in something other than itself – reproductive sex or love.
And now we come to the contemporary postmodern era, where eroticism becomes its own reason and purpose – it has lost its links with reproduction and love, and acquired lightness, volatility and the freedom to enter and leave any association of convenience. This emancipation of eroticism from sexual reproduction and love has been termed as ‘the erotic revolution’.
Now, your cynical minds at this stage would be telling you that all this is probably a marketing stunt concocted by some MBA-types to sell sex toys. Join the club! The paper, however, begs to differ with this view and says that it takes more than market forces, slick advertising, and a greed for profit to bring about a cultural revolution of this scale and depth.
So, how did this revolution come about? The author cites two causes, both relating to changes that came about with the advent of postmodern culture.
The first is that the earlier modern era had institutions charged with the responsibility of instilling discipline into and obtaining socially desirable conduct from people, institutions such as industrial factories and conscript armies. Most males passed through them and acquired habits that guaranteed obedience to social rules and societal order (and enforced them on females and children via the home and school). Contemporary society has no such institutional disciplining treadmills – it needs neither mass industrial labour nor conscript armies. The loss of these institutions led to a generational gap in the understanding of and adherence to traditional social mores, and therefore to the development and establishment of new mores.
The second relates to one of the features of postmodern culture; the condensed perception of the flow of time into ‘a series of self sustaining episodes, each to be lived in the fleeting moment, cut off from its past and its future consequences, with immortality to be lived instantly and enjoyed now, not hostage to the uncontrollable flow of objective time’. This tendency to cut the present from both the past and the future is paralleled by the tearing of eroticism from reproductive sex and love. Erotic imagination and practise, like all postmodern life practices, has acquired the freedom to experiment – to sail freely under the banner of pleasure seeking, and to negotiate its own rules.
The effects of the erotic revolution are many, and the author describes two of these. The first relates to the construction of postmodern identity. In traditional societies, identity was a given – it was based upon ethnicity, class, caste, race, etc. – you were born with one, and you were stuck with it. In the modern era, identity was a life project – you built up and worked towards a desired one, and stuck to it. Postmodern identities, however, are flexible, light, and rearrange-able at short notice. Solidity, permanence and commitment are seen as dangerous maladjustments to an unpredictable world, to the opportunities it offers, and to the speed with which it transforms yesterday’s assets into today’s liabilities. And eroticism, free from amorous and reproductive constraints, fits this well; it is made to measure for the multiple, flexible and evanescent identities of postmodern men and women. Sex can be framed into an episode, gender and other aspects of identity can be chosen and discarded, and sexuality need bear no relation to its reproductive role.
The second is the way all human relations are being vigilantly re-assessed for sex. In the home, with children, one has to be careful of overt and tangible expressions of parental love – children are now seen as sexual objects, and potential victims of parents and other adults who are sexual subjects. In the office, a casual remark can be construed as sexual provocation, and an offer of coffee sexual harassment. Sexual undertones are sniffed out in every emotion, and a threat suspected in every smile, gaze, and form of address. Every act can be seen as an act of sex, and every act of sex as a form of rape. This leads to human relations sans intimacy and emotionality, and the wilting of the desire to enter into them and keep them alive.
So, what do I think about all this? Well, though this paper pertains to western societies, and though the postmodern society in India coexists with traditional and modern ones, the points made do strike a chord. Young people are different in the ways described, and it is heartening to know that they are merely products of their times. The changes in homes, educational institutions and offices have taken place – speaking for myself, I am a regular recipient of dirty looks for holding doors open for ladies (and I promise you I had no intention of sex with any of them), and my wife recently fired me up for waking up the children (who were late for school) with a threat to pinch
their bums.
But, how does one develop as a sexual subject without committing the sin of treating another as a sexual object? In a sexual encounter, are participants not simultaneously required to be subjects and objects of desire?
And, what about love? Is it an outdated human construction, dreamed up as a way to absorb excess sexual energy and to give eroticism space and respectability in an era gone by, as the paper suggests? Or does it have a role in human relations, irrespective of the era? As one who has experience of its pleasures and pain, I personally have difficulty subscribing to the former view. And those of you who have read ‘The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’ would remember the confusion the protagonist Lisbeth Salander, that poster girl for postmodernism, underwent when she experienced an emotion that she was unable to recognize or categorize – an emotion called love. It still exists! Yippee!!
By Ajit Chaudhuri – May 2012
“Our youth love luxury! They have bad manners, contempt for authority, they show disrespect for their elders, contradict their parents, gobble up their food, and tyrannise their teachers!”
First, a disclosure! This note is about sex – the use of the word in the title is not a ruse to get you to read it. It is also about postmodern philosophy, and about making sense, for relics of my generation, of contemporary society. Most of us have relatives, friends and colleagues from subsequent generations, and most of us struggle to understand them; the sense of entitlement, the priority of the immediate, the importance of image over substance, the trivialization of relationships, and the lack of a sense of future consequences for today’s actions. This note covers sex, eroticism and love and relates them to changing times, attitudes and behaviour. It is based upon the paper ‘On Postmodern Uses of Sex’ found, of all places, in the reference material for the course on ‘Philosophy of Science’ at IRMA’s PhD programme.
So, let’s first talk about sex! This is a natural, and not a cultural, product that we share with most non-human species, and in its natural form it is always the same. To quote another author that struck a chord on this matter, ‘there has been more progress in cooking than in sex’. Its basic function is reproduction, and since this function is critical to the perpetuation of the species, nature has taken no chances – it has erred on the side of wastefulness by providing reproducing species with sexual energy and a capacity for sexual encounters far in excess of what the reproduction function would require.
Eroticism is about recycling that waste – filling the sexual act with surplus value over and above its reproductive function. It begins from reproduction and then transcends it, and reproduction turns into a constraint, simultaneously an indispensable condition and a thorn in the flesh of eroticism. There is a constant tension between the two. And the history of sex, according to the paper, is that of strategies to manage this tension.
In the modern era, two strategies vied with each other for domination. The first was of imposing the limits of the reproductive function of sex upon the freedom of erotic imagination, and relegating surplus sexual energy to the culturally suppressed and socially degraded spheres of pornography, prostitution and illicit liaisons. The second was the romantic strategy of linking eroticism to love and cutting its ties to sex, with love legitimising eroticism. Both strategies saw eroticism as needing a functional justification, and sought to anchor it in something other than itself – reproductive sex or love.
And now we come to the contemporary postmodern era, where eroticism becomes its own reason and purpose – it has lost its links with reproduction and love, and acquired lightness, volatility and the freedom to enter and leave any association of convenience. This emancipation of eroticism from sexual reproduction and love has been termed as ‘the erotic revolution’.
Now, your cynical minds at this stage would be telling you that all this is probably a marketing stunt concocted by some MBA-types to sell sex toys. Join the club! The paper, however, begs to differ with this view and says that it takes more than market forces, slick advertising, and a greed for profit to bring about a cultural revolution of this scale and depth.
So, how did this revolution come about? The author cites two causes, both relating to changes that came about with the advent of postmodern culture.
The first is that the earlier modern era had institutions charged with the responsibility of instilling discipline into and obtaining socially desirable conduct from people, institutions such as industrial factories and conscript armies. Most males passed through them and acquired habits that guaranteed obedience to social rules and societal order (and enforced them on females and children via the home and school). Contemporary society has no such institutional disciplining treadmills – it needs neither mass industrial labour nor conscript armies. The loss of these institutions led to a generational gap in the understanding of and adherence to traditional social mores, and therefore to the development and establishment of new mores.
The second relates to one of the features of postmodern culture; the condensed perception of the flow of time into ‘a series of self sustaining episodes, each to be lived in the fleeting moment, cut off from its past and its future consequences, with immortality to be lived instantly and enjoyed now, not hostage to the uncontrollable flow of objective time’. This tendency to cut the present from both the past and the future is paralleled by the tearing of eroticism from reproductive sex and love. Erotic imagination and practise, like all postmodern life practices, has acquired the freedom to experiment – to sail freely under the banner of pleasure seeking, and to negotiate its own rules.
The effects of the erotic revolution are many, and the author describes two of these. The first relates to the construction of postmodern identity. In traditional societies, identity was a given – it was based upon ethnicity, class, caste, race, etc. – you were born with one, and you were stuck with it. In the modern era, identity was a life project – you built up and worked towards a desired one, and stuck to it. Postmodern identities, however, are flexible, light, and rearrange-able at short notice. Solidity, permanence and commitment are seen as dangerous maladjustments to an unpredictable world, to the opportunities it offers, and to the speed with which it transforms yesterday’s assets into today’s liabilities. And eroticism, free from amorous and reproductive constraints, fits this well; it is made to measure for the multiple, flexible and evanescent identities of postmodern men and women. Sex can be framed into an episode, gender and other aspects of identity can be chosen and discarded, and sexuality need bear no relation to its reproductive role.
The second is the way all human relations are being vigilantly re-assessed for sex. In the home, with children, one has to be careful of overt and tangible expressions of parental love – children are now seen as sexual objects, and potential victims of parents and other adults who are sexual subjects. In the office, a casual remark can be construed as sexual provocation, and an offer of coffee sexual harassment. Sexual undertones are sniffed out in every emotion, and a threat suspected in every smile, gaze, and form of address. Every act can be seen as an act of sex, and every act of sex as a form of rape. This leads to human relations sans intimacy and emotionality, and the wilting of the desire to enter into them and keep them alive.
So, what do I think about all this? Well, though this paper pertains to western societies, and though the postmodern society in India coexists with traditional and modern ones, the points made do strike a chord. Young people are different in the ways described, and it is heartening to know that they are merely products of their times. The changes in homes, educational institutions and offices have taken place – speaking for myself, I am a regular recipient of dirty looks for holding doors open for ladies (and I promise you I had no intention of sex with any of them), and my wife recently fired me up for waking up the children (who were late for school) with a threat to pinch
their bums.
But, how does one develop as a sexual subject without committing the sin of treating another as a sexual object? In a sexual encounter, are participants not simultaneously required to be subjects and objects of desire?
And, what about love? Is it an outdated human construction, dreamed up as a way to absorb excess sexual energy and to give eroticism space and respectability in an era gone by, as the paper suggests? Or does it have a role in human relations, irrespective of the era? As one who has experience of its pleasures and pain, I personally have difficulty subscribing to the former view. And those of you who have read ‘The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’ would remember the confusion the protagonist Lisbeth Salander, that poster girl for postmodernism, underwent when she experienced an emotion that she was unable to recognize or categorize – an emotion called love. It still exists! Yippee!!
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
GERIATRIC STUDIES
GERIATRIC STUDIES
A 2-Pager by Ajit Chaudhuri, March 2012
A consequence of enrolling in full time doctoral level education at my age is that one is inundated with variations of two questions. The first, in the beginning, is ‘why?’ This one is like being asked, when I was a kid, what I wanted to be when I grew up – I didn’t quite know, but I could spin a good yarn depending upon the audience. The second one, now that I am 9 months down, is ‘what’s it like?’ The short answer is ‘Great! All the day to read, lots of football, no day to day worries or distractions, and a wonderful library BUT wife and children far away, the rapid depletion of one’s life savings, and no combination of cold beer, cigarettes, kebabs, and gossip with old friends!’ And the less short answer, the subject of this note, is a little more nuanced.
I now know that doctoral level education is not an extension of post-graduation. It cannot be done in ‘project mode’, wherein you sit through eight semesters, submit your assignments, pass your exams, and hey presto, you have your degree. It is a lonely journey, a relationship between you, your supervisor, your subject, and the institution – a journey without a cohort of batch-mates to draw support from (and to peg yourself against). It is also a long journey, longer than graduation and post-graduation (and often longer than them combined), where the light at the end of the tunnel is both far away and dim. Signing up is not a ‘rational’ decision in economic terms, more so when one does not intend to go into full time academics. And nobody (except Saif-al-Islam Gaddafi) has got a genuine PhD without pain and sacrifice.
The first indication that I was going to be in over my head was while filling the application form, specifically the section requiring details of my guardian. I had to fill something, and there was no option like ‘I’m 47 years old – what the hell is a guardian?’ – so I nominated my wife of twenty years for the role. This is a bit dicey, with the possibility of her receiving letters from the institution beginning with “Dear Mrs. Chaudhuri, are you aware that your ward a) has failed, b) is short on attendance, c) has been drunk and disorderly, d) has not struck an appropriate balance between academic pursuits and cavorting with members of the opposite gender, etcetera” with a tick mark against one (or more) of the options. I still live in dread of the consequences of this one.
The doctoral programme of an academic institution is a form of public service for the institution. It gets no fees for the not inconsiderable effort that goes into converting an assortment of wasters and misfits (who also have to be paid a monthly stipend) into PhDs, and the gains accrue to academia as a whole (in the form of research and writing) and to other academic institutions (institutions don’t often recruit their own PhDs). As a consequence, the doctoral student is lowest in the caste hierarchy of an institution – well below the much more numerous (and fee-paying) Master’s students. If you come from a position of authority and responsibility, the move from one end of the food chain to the other takes getting used to. This is not entirely unpleasant – one discovers that no authority and few responsibilities is a lot better than one without the other, and often also better than the combination of plenty of both.
Sitting in class again turned out easier than I had expected. Some classes were with the Masters students, and in these one sat with a group of 45 or so 20 something’s, most of them engineers, all of them bright and ambitious. I had planned to replicate tactics of 25 years ago, of hitting the back row and being anonymous – unfortunately, as the saying goes, the more things change, the more they remain the same – this row is still always full. I survived the gamut of quizzes (surprise and otherwise), 3-hour written exams, and having my marks up with everyone else’s, I contributed my mite to in-class discussions, and I obtained grades that did not necessitate packing up and going home. Doctoral level classes were very different – two or three of us to a class, with no way to hide inadequate preparation or a wandering mind, but also with a pace that is adjustable for one’s ability and capacity.
In this, I have been lucky in my professors (conflict of interest alert – some are on this reading list and are still grading my assignments), who have without exception been patient and encouraging. A professor is a category of person one does not meet in professional life – the nearest is an expert service provider (chartered accountant, development consultant, etcetera) without an obvious principal-agent relationship. I see it now as a position of considerable responsibility; a good professor, one with a passion for a subject, can enable it to unfold upon you and gradually take over your mind space. S/he is just as important at this stage as s/he was back in class VIII mathematics.
I have also been lucky in my fellow students. Despite being two generations apart (I’m a fag end baby boomer and they’re mostly Gen-Y – or, to put it in plain English, they haven’t heard Dylan sing, they haven’t seen Maradona play, and they think they’ve invented sex), they have made me comfortable around them and welcome in the students’ mess. I have observed some restraint myself – following my wife’s orders of being reasonably attired in the students’ areas (ensuring that her own memories of an unshaven slob in the late 1980s, clad in a torn vest and a shorts, are not inflicted on another bunch of delicate minds), and trying to veer towards the ‘good example’ rather than ‘horrible warning’ category of personality. I will leave them to figure out somewhere else, at another time, that age is not linked to respectability.
A major lifestyle change has been on the football field. In Delhi, I was playing once a week with a group that has made a mark or two over the years in the local amateur circuit. I now play almost every day, but a kinder, gentler, slower version in which I am forced to behave better. I miss the occasional crunching tackle, the feel of body on body vying for the ball, and sometimes letting my opponents know what I think of their mothers. And I worry that, when I return, I will have difficulty adjusting back to football with my old group.
What lies ahead? I don’t know! For me, it is a race between completing and going broke – whichever happens first gets me back into the job market (and the expected time of the latter is mid-2013). What sort of job does a broke 50-year-old get, or even compete for, with or without a PhD? Your guess is as good as mine. I’m just glad that eating in a students’ mess has led to some loss of weight – just in case I have to do something unconventional.
And finally, my advice to those of you contemplating doctoral level education yourselves and falling within a similar age category! This is a great time to study – one doesn’t have the same distractions and anxieties that one had in one’s 20s, one can focus much better, and one can connect academics with the real world that one has experience of – unlike the other doctoral scholars, for you there will be little that is abstract. Journeys into philosophy, mathematics and policy can be fascinating and addictive, as can having a library at one’s disposal, long discussions on a variety of esoteric topics, and the company of young people. But, you have to really (and I mean really, from deep within) want to! Because, as I have mentioned earlier, doing a late PhD is not ‘rational’! The effort to returns ratio is not good - it neither increases your market value (I assume here that you are not a complete loser) nor your ability on the job – if anything, it works in the other direction. And the mental conversion from a tax-paying citizen to a broke student can be traumatic.
If you do decide to go ahead, it is important (unless it’s Harvard) to find an institution and a supervisor you trust. Don’t be rigid in your choice of topic – this can change during the journey. And have your family on board. And yes, don’t be surprised that your children have grown up in between your visits, and your wife has taken over your cupboard space at home. All the very best!
A 2-Pager by Ajit Chaudhuri, March 2012
A consequence of enrolling in full time doctoral level education at my age is that one is inundated with variations of two questions. The first, in the beginning, is ‘why?’ This one is like being asked, when I was a kid, what I wanted to be when I grew up – I didn’t quite know, but I could spin a good yarn depending upon the audience. The second one, now that I am 9 months down, is ‘what’s it like?’ The short answer is ‘Great! All the day to read, lots of football, no day to day worries or distractions, and a wonderful library BUT wife and children far away, the rapid depletion of one’s life savings, and no combination of cold beer, cigarettes, kebabs, and gossip with old friends!’ And the less short answer, the subject of this note, is a little more nuanced.
I now know that doctoral level education is not an extension of post-graduation. It cannot be done in ‘project mode’, wherein you sit through eight semesters, submit your assignments, pass your exams, and hey presto, you have your degree. It is a lonely journey, a relationship between you, your supervisor, your subject, and the institution – a journey without a cohort of batch-mates to draw support from (and to peg yourself against). It is also a long journey, longer than graduation and post-graduation (and often longer than them combined), where the light at the end of the tunnel is both far away and dim. Signing up is not a ‘rational’ decision in economic terms, more so when one does not intend to go into full time academics. And nobody (except Saif-al-Islam Gaddafi) has got a genuine PhD without pain and sacrifice.
The first indication that I was going to be in over my head was while filling the application form, specifically the section requiring details of my guardian. I had to fill something, and there was no option like ‘I’m 47 years old – what the hell is a guardian?’ – so I nominated my wife of twenty years for the role. This is a bit dicey, with the possibility of her receiving letters from the institution beginning with “Dear Mrs. Chaudhuri, are you aware that your ward a) has failed, b) is short on attendance, c) has been drunk and disorderly, d) has not struck an appropriate balance between academic pursuits and cavorting with members of the opposite gender, etcetera” with a tick mark against one (or more) of the options. I still live in dread of the consequences of this one.
The doctoral programme of an academic institution is a form of public service for the institution. It gets no fees for the not inconsiderable effort that goes into converting an assortment of wasters and misfits (who also have to be paid a monthly stipend) into PhDs, and the gains accrue to academia as a whole (in the form of research and writing) and to other academic institutions (institutions don’t often recruit their own PhDs). As a consequence, the doctoral student is lowest in the caste hierarchy of an institution – well below the much more numerous (and fee-paying) Master’s students. If you come from a position of authority and responsibility, the move from one end of the food chain to the other takes getting used to. This is not entirely unpleasant – one discovers that no authority and few responsibilities is a lot better than one without the other, and often also better than the combination of plenty of both.
Sitting in class again turned out easier than I had expected. Some classes were with the Masters students, and in these one sat with a group of 45 or so 20 something’s, most of them engineers, all of them bright and ambitious. I had planned to replicate tactics of 25 years ago, of hitting the back row and being anonymous – unfortunately, as the saying goes, the more things change, the more they remain the same – this row is still always full. I survived the gamut of quizzes (surprise and otherwise), 3-hour written exams, and having my marks up with everyone else’s, I contributed my mite to in-class discussions, and I obtained grades that did not necessitate packing up and going home. Doctoral level classes were very different – two or three of us to a class, with no way to hide inadequate preparation or a wandering mind, but also with a pace that is adjustable for one’s ability and capacity.
In this, I have been lucky in my professors (conflict of interest alert – some are on this reading list and are still grading my assignments), who have without exception been patient and encouraging. A professor is a category of person one does not meet in professional life – the nearest is an expert service provider (chartered accountant, development consultant, etcetera) without an obvious principal-agent relationship. I see it now as a position of considerable responsibility; a good professor, one with a passion for a subject, can enable it to unfold upon you and gradually take over your mind space. S/he is just as important at this stage as s/he was back in class VIII mathematics.
I have also been lucky in my fellow students. Despite being two generations apart (I’m a fag end baby boomer and they’re mostly Gen-Y – or, to put it in plain English, they haven’t heard Dylan sing, they haven’t seen Maradona play, and they think they’ve invented sex), they have made me comfortable around them and welcome in the students’ mess. I have observed some restraint myself – following my wife’s orders of being reasonably attired in the students’ areas (ensuring that her own memories of an unshaven slob in the late 1980s, clad in a torn vest and a shorts, are not inflicted on another bunch of delicate minds), and trying to veer towards the ‘good example’ rather than ‘horrible warning’ category of personality. I will leave them to figure out somewhere else, at another time, that age is not linked to respectability.
A major lifestyle change has been on the football field. In Delhi, I was playing once a week with a group that has made a mark or two over the years in the local amateur circuit. I now play almost every day, but a kinder, gentler, slower version in which I am forced to behave better. I miss the occasional crunching tackle, the feel of body on body vying for the ball, and sometimes letting my opponents know what I think of their mothers. And I worry that, when I return, I will have difficulty adjusting back to football with my old group.
What lies ahead? I don’t know! For me, it is a race between completing and going broke – whichever happens first gets me back into the job market (and the expected time of the latter is mid-2013). What sort of job does a broke 50-year-old get, or even compete for, with or without a PhD? Your guess is as good as mine. I’m just glad that eating in a students’ mess has led to some loss of weight – just in case I have to do something unconventional.
And finally, my advice to those of you contemplating doctoral level education yourselves and falling within a similar age category! This is a great time to study – one doesn’t have the same distractions and anxieties that one had in one’s 20s, one can focus much better, and one can connect academics with the real world that one has experience of – unlike the other doctoral scholars, for you there will be little that is abstract. Journeys into philosophy, mathematics and policy can be fascinating and addictive, as can having a library at one’s disposal, long discussions on a variety of esoteric topics, and the company of young people. But, you have to really (and I mean really, from deep within) want to! Because, as I have mentioned earlier, doing a late PhD is not ‘rational’! The effort to returns ratio is not good - it neither increases your market value (I assume here that you are not a complete loser) nor your ability on the job – if anything, it works in the other direction. And the mental conversion from a tax-paying citizen to a broke student can be traumatic.
If you do decide to go ahead, it is important (unless it’s Harvard) to find an institution and a supervisor you trust. Don’t be rigid in your choice of topic – this can change during the journey. And have your family on board. And yes, don’t be surprised that your children have grown up in between your visits, and your wife has taken over your cupboard space at home. All the very best!
Sunday, February 12, 2012
THE FIFTH OF EUCLID
THE FIFTH OF EUCLID
A 2-Pager by Ajit Chaudhuri – February 2012
Six months down the PhD road, and the only thing I can claim to have learnt is the unwelcome art of living alone. This is no minor matter for someone who is generally useless at all things that require an element of practicality and/or pragmatism. How have I survived? Well, I have someone coming in to clean and wash clothes, and I have outsourced all gastronomic requirements to the institution’s students’ mess. In fact, the only thing that I have had to actually learn is ironing clothes. And I have been spectacularly unsuccessful at this.
The reason for this is that I have yet to figure out two inter-related things – stuff that my semi-educated neighbourhood ironing-lady has probably known from childhood. One, how do you project a curved surface onto a flat space? And two, how can something that covers a three dimensional figure (like clothes for my upper body) be reduced into two dimensions?
Looking for answers has been a journey (conducted while supposedly studying public policy and local governance) through geometry and abstract mathematics that touches upon issues such as the philosophy of science, the possibility of a fourth, or fifth, or even an infinite number of dimensions, and the likely shape of the universe. And I have just begun! This note is an attempt to suss out some of this, and to share the wonder and bewilderment that I feel. And let me assure those of you on the verge of closing this, there are no mathematical equations, there are no formulas, there are no graphs, and this is in plain and simple English from beginning to end. So please don’t!
Let me begin with flat spaces, curvature, and the shape of the Earth. The ancient Greeks were the first to wonder about these matters without ascribing every mystery to the presence of God. They had figured out that the Earth’s surface was curved and had even worked out a possible circumference (on the assumption that it was a sphere) that has since proved stunningly accurate. They also drew maps, depicting the parts of the Earth’s surface that they knew on to two-dimensional charts. But there was no way of knowing the shape of the Earth – land and sea seemed to go on forever, in every direction. The Earth could have been shaped like a pear, or an idli (the equivalent would be a flying saucer), or an infinitely long dosa (cylinder) or a vada (doughnut) or even two vadas joined together as sometimes happens in the cooking pot before the chef cleaves them apart. And as for the maps, what happened when one went, say, beyond the top right hand corner? Did one fall off into infinity? Or come back on the bottom left hand (or another) corner?
Ferdinand Magellan’s expedition around the world, much later in 1519-22, showed that if one headed continuously in one direction one could ultimately return to where one started. So even if the Earth’s surface was continuous, it was also finite. But what did that say about the shape of the Earth? He could have made his journey around the narrow part of a pear-shaped object, or along the surface of the circular cross-section of a dosa, or around the inside ring of a vada. It was only with the advent of space travel, and therefore of man’s ability to move outside the boundaries of the Earth to look at it, that one could confidently say that it is a sphere with slightly flattened poles.
As my ironing lady knows, the simplicity of flat two-dimensional spaces does not apply in curved three-dimensional ones. There is nothing like a straight line connecting two points – lines curve as they move along the surface of the Earth. The shortest distance between two places is not as per the line connecting them on a map – it is along a curved line (called the geodesic) running along the circumference of an imaginary circle that touches the two places, whose centre is the centre of the Earth. Which is why, you would have noticed on planes in which one channel on your armchair TV displays route and location, inter-continental journeys take seemingly elliptical directions.
This leads to interesting controversies. For example, Islamic convention decrees that all mosques be built facing Mecca. Now, in which direction should a proposed mosque in New York be built? Would it be the southeast, the shortest distance on a map and the direction New Yorkers know Mecca to be? Or would it be the north, as per the geodesic connecting the two places?
Complicated? Let’s merely agree that the laws of geometry that we learnt in school tend not to apply when the two-dimensional plane we are working upon (such as a map, or my ironed clothes) is actually a depiction of the surface of a three-dimensional curved object (such as the Earth, or my body).
Let’s go back to the ancient Greeks for a bit, and to their search for answers to questions regarding the Earth. Scientists today are asking similar questions of the Universe. Does it continue forever, or is it finite? What is its shape? What lies beyond it? If we move in one direction continuously, for a long time, where will we end up – in some form of infinity, or back where we are now?
We are also trying to map it, just as the ancient Greeks did of the Earth, using accounts of our travels, our powers of observation, and our mathematics. But, in addition to our telescopes being seriously powerful and our mathematical tools considerably more developed, there is a critical difference. The Greeks mapped out the surface of the Earth, a three dimensional object, on to a two dimensional chart. And we are working one dimension higher, using a three dimensional space (a cube, or a shoebox) to map the surface of the Universe.
We are able to say, so far, that the Universe is a finite space that exists in multiple dimensions, and that it possibly expanded from one single point. The space that we know is possibly a curved three-dimensional surface of a four-dimensional Universe, much as the Earth’s surface is a curved two-dimensional boundary of a three-dimensional sphere. Parameters such as time, distance and speed become much more complicated when one moves from the three dimensions of a cube or shoebox (such as our map of the Universe) to a four-dimensional space with a curved three-dimensional surface (such as the Universe itself), just as they do on similar switching between two and three dimensions (as my ironing lady and I can confirm).
Most sciences, like our senses, can function in up to three dimensions. Abstract mathematics has no such limitation, and mathematicians have shown that there are limited possible shapes for curvaceous four-dimensional objects with a single point of origin, all of them being spherical in some way.
What does all this mean? I hesitate here – I am out of my depth. But I do know that it means something from recent churnings in the field of mathematics. One of mathematics’ greatest and longest unsolved problems, and the subject of a Millennium Prize (immense prestige plus $ 1 million), was the Poincare conjecture about multidimensional spheres, which is critical to speculation on the shape of the Universe. The conjecture was solved in 2003 by a reclusive Russian mathematician, Grigori Perelman, who just put his proof up on a public website on the Internet and left it there. It took three years and much controversy before the proof became accepted (some Chinese mathematicians tried to claim credit). Perelman was awarded the Fields Medal, the mathematical equivalent of the Nobel Prize, in 2006 for his work despite the facts that the proof was not published in a prestigious peer-reviewed mathematical journal as per rules and that the authorities knew that he would refuse it, which he duly did. He also refused the Millenium Prize (and the money) in 2010. Perelman’s proof of the Poincare Conjecture was honoured by the journal Science in 2006 as the breakthrough of the year, the first time ever that it has been bestowed upon the field of mathematics.
Why is this so important? It took 23 centuries from when the Greeks posed questions to when humankind became able to move out of the Earth, look at it, and confirm its shape. The recent ability of mathematics to make sense of possible shapes of curved four-dimensional objects, of which Perelman’s proof is a critical component, may just be an important step in obtaining confirmatory answers to similar questions regarding the Universe.
For those of you still here, I would like to conclude with something on the joys of mathematics. Mathematics, like single malt whisky, is an acquired taste – few of us are born with mathematical ability, and even fewer with an innate distaste for it. It is mostly that some of us are fortunate with our middle school maths teachers, and others are not. Mathematics is the only science that does not require expensive laboratories and complicated equipment to be able to practise – a pencil and paper, and a mind, are all one needs. And as for whether mathematics makes you a boring dullard – let’s look at some mathematicians. Pythagoras of the eponymous theorem fame was also the head honcho of a secretive spiritualist cult. Descartes, who built the foundation for understanding physical objects as algebraic equations, was a mercenary soldier who often fought both sides of the same war (depending on who was paying more money). Poincare was from a famous political family (his cousin, with the same surname, was a French Prime Minister), born with a silver spoon and a love for the good things in life. And, last but not least, Perelman himself is an unemployed bum who stays with his mother in a run-down St. Petersburg apartment and lives on her Soviet-era pension. It is entirely possible that he, too, would have difficulty ironing his clothes.
A 2-Pager by Ajit Chaudhuri – February 2012
Six months down the PhD road, and the only thing I can claim to have learnt is the unwelcome art of living alone. This is no minor matter for someone who is generally useless at all things that require an element of practicality and/or pragmatism. How have I survived? Well, I have someone coming in to clean and wash clothes, and I have outsourced all gastronomic requirements to the institution’s students’ mess. In fact, the only thing that I have had to actually learn is ironing clothes. And I have been spectacularly unsuccessful at this.
The reason for this is that I have yet to figure out two inter-related things – stuff that my semi-educated neighbourhood ironing-lady has probably known from childhood. One, how do you project a curved surface onto a flat space? And two, how can something that covers a three dimensional figure (like clothes for my upper body) be reduced into two dimensions?
Looking for answers has been a journey (conducted while supposedly studying public policy and local governance) through geometry and abstract mathematics that touches upon issues such as the philosophy of science, the possibility of a fourth, or fifth, or even an infinite number of dimensions, and the likely shape of the universe. And I have just begun! This note is an attempt to suss out some of this, and to share the wonder and bewilderment that I feel. And let me assure those of you on the verge of closing this, there are no mathematical equations, there are no formulas, there are no graphs, and this is in plain and simple English from beginning to end. So please don’t!
Let me begin with flat spaces, curvature, and the shape of the Earth. The ancient Greeks were the first to wonder about these matters without ascribing every mystery to the presence of God. They had figured out that the Earth’s surface was curved and had even worked out a possible circumference (on the assumption that it was a sphere) that has since proved stunningly accurate. They also drew maps, depicting the parts of the Earth’s surface that they knew on to two-dimensional charts. But there was no way of knowing the shape of the Earth – land and sea seemed to go on forever, in every direction. The Earth could have been shaped like a pear, or an idli (the equivalent would be a flying saucer), or an infinitely long dosa (cylinder) or a vada (doughnut) or even two vadas joined together as sometimes happens in the cooking pot before the chef cleaves them apart. And as for the maps, what happened when one went, say, beyond the top right hand corner? Did one fall off into infinity? Or come back on the bottom left hand (or another) corner?
Ferdinand Magellan’s expedition around the world, much later in 1519-22, showed that if one headed continuously in one direction one could ultimately return to where one started. So even if the Earth’s surface was continuous, it was also finite. But what did that say about the shape of the Earth? He could have made his journey around the narrow part of a pear-shaped object, or along the surface of the circular cross-section of a dosa, or around the inside ring of a vada. It was only with the advent of space travel, and therefore of man’s ability to move outside the boundaries of the Earth to look at it, that one could confidently say that it is a sphere with slightly flattened poles.
As my ironing lady knows, the simplicity of flat two-dimensional spaces does not apply in curved three-dimensional ones. There is nothing like a straight line connecting two points – lines curve as they move along the surface of the Earth. The shortest distance between two places is not as per the line connecting them on a map – it is along a curved line (called the geodesic) running along the circumference of an imaginary circle that touches the two places, whose centre is the centre of the Earth. Which is why, you would have noticed on planes in which one channel on your armchair TV displays route and location, inter-continental journeys take seemingly elliptical directions.
This leads to interesting controversies. For example, Islamic convention decrees that all mosques be built facing Mecca. Now, in which direction should a proposed mosque in New York be built? Would it be the southeast, the shortest distance on a map and the direction New Yorkers know Mecca to be? Or would it be the north, as per the geodesic connecting the two places?
Complicated? Let’s merely agree that the laws of geometry that we learnt in school tend not to apply when the two-dimensional plane we are working upon (such as a map, or my ironed clothes) is actually a depiction of the surface of a three-dimensional curved object (such as the Earth, or my body).
Let’s go back to the ancient Greeks for a bit, and to their search for answers to questions regarding the Earth. Scientists today are asking similar questions of the Universe. Does it continue forever, or is it finite? What is its shape? What lies beyond it? If we move in one direction continuously, for a long time, where will we end up – in some form of infinity, or back where we are now?
We are also trying to map it, just as the ancient Greeks did of the Earth, using accounts of our travels, our powers of observation, and our mathematics. But, in addition to our telescopes being seriously powerful and our mathematical tools considerably more developed, there is a critical difference. The Greeks mapped out the surface of the Earth, a three dimensional object, on to a two dimensional chart. And we are working one dimension higher, using a three dimensional space (a cube, or a shoebox) to map the surface of the Universe.
We are able to say, so far, that the Universe is a finite space that exists in multiple dimensions, and that it possibly expanded from one single point. The space that we know is possibly a curved three-dimensional surface of a four-dimensional Universe, much as the Earth’s surface is a curved two-dimensional boundary of a three-dimensional sphere. Parameters such as time, distance and speed become much more complicated when one moves from the three dimensions of a cube or shoebox (such as our map of the Universe) to a four-dimensional space with a curved three-dimensional surface (such as the Universe itself), just as they do on similar switching between two and three dimensions (as my ironing lady and I can confirm).
Most sciences, like our senses, can function in up to three dimensions. Abstract mathematics has no such limitation, and mathematicians have shown that there are limited possible shapes for curvaceous four-dimensional objects with a single point of origin, all of them being spherical in some way.
What does all this mean? I hesitate here – I am out of my depth. But I do know that it means something from recent churnings in the field of mathematics. One of mathematics’ greatest and longest unsolved problems, and the subject of a Millennium Prize (immense prestige plus $ 1 million), was the Poincare conjecture about multidimensional spheres, which is critical to speculation on the shape of the Universe. The conjecture was solved in 2003 by a reclusive Russian mathematician, Grigori Perelman, who just put his proof up on a public website on the Internet and left it there. It took three years and much controversy before the proof became accepted (some Chinese mathematicians tried to claim credit). Perelman was awarded the Fields Medal, the mathematical equivalent of the Nobel Prize, in 2006 for his work despite the facts that the proof was not published in a prestigious peer-reviewed mathematical journal as per rules and that the authorities knew that he would refuse it, which he duly did. He also refused the Millenium Prize (and the money) in 2010. Perelman’s proof of the Poincare Conjecture was honoured by the journal Science in 2006 as the breakthrough of the year, the first time ever that it has been bestowed upon the field of mathematics.
Why is this so important? It took 23 centuries from when the Greeks posed questions to when humankind became able to move out of the Earth, look at it, and confirm its shape. The recent ability of mathematics to make sense of possible shapes of curved four-dimensional objects, of which Perelman’s proof is a critical component, may just be an important step in obtaining confirmatory answers to similar questions regarding the Universe.
For those of you still here, I would like to conclude with something on the joys of mathematics. Mathematics, like single malt whisky, is an acquired taste – few of us are born with mathematical ability, and even fewer with an innate distaste for it. It is mostly that some of us are fortunate with our middle school maths teachers, and others are not. Mathematics is the only science that does not require expensive laboratories and complicated equipment to be able to practise – a pencil and paper, and a mind, are all one needs. And as for whether mathematics makes you a boring dullard – let’s look at some mathematicians. Pythagoras of the eponymous theorem fame was also the head honcho of a secretive spiritualist cult. Descartes, who built the foundation for understanding physical objects as algebraic equations, was a mercenary soldier who often fought both sides of the same war (depending on who was paying more money). Poincare was from a famous political family (his cousin, with the same surname, was a French Prime Minister), born with a silver spoon and a love for the good things in life. And, last but not least, Perelman himself is an unemployed bum who stays with his mother in a run-down St. Petersburg apartment and lives on her Soviet-era pension. It is entirely possible that he, too, would have difficulty ironing his clothes.
Monday, December 5, 2011
DUMB AND DUMBER
DUMB AND DUMBER
A 2-Pager by Ajit Chaudhuri: December 2011
Introduction: We have all, dear readers, at one time or another, been party to some really stupid decisions. Those of us with championship pretensions on this score would find the following list, of some of the dumbest decisions ever taken, humbling. The purpose of this paper, however, is not only to help put your own stupidity into perspective – it is also to examine why groups of intelligent people sometimes take stupid decisions, and how to avoid this. For those of you uninterested in history, please go directly to the end of page 3.
Some Of The Dumbest Decisions Ever Taken (in chronological order)
By the Shah Of Khwarazm – killing Genghis Khan’s envoys – 1218:
Khwarazm, or Eastern Turkestan, was a large and prosperous empire that included much of today’s Iran, Afghanistan, eastern Azerbaijan, and Central Asia. Extreme deserts and high mountains separated the empire from the Chinese in the east and a burgeoning Mongol tribe further to the north. The Mongols, who were busy at that time fighting the Chinese, sent a trade mission to Khwarazm. A local Governor stopped the mission and confiscated its goods at Otrar (along the Syr Daria river in today’s Kazakhstan). Genghis sent three ambassadors to the Shah, asking for the goods and the mission to be released and the local Governor to be punished. The Shah executed the ambassadors and sent their heads back to Genghis.
The Mongols crossed the Syr Daria with 200,000 men, led by Genghis himself, in 1219 and proceeded to sack the empire. Samarkand, Bukhara, Tashkent, Bamiyan, all flourishing cities at the time, were destroyed. Populations were massacred, raped and enslaved (this is where the Mongols picked up a reputation that has survived 800 years). The offending local Governor was captured and then history is divided as to whether he was built alive into a wall or made to swallow molten gold. The Shah spent two years running and hiding, a fugitive in his own kingdom (the Mongols chased him right up to the Indus river, their southern most advance) before dying in some remote island in the Black Sea. And the land became a Mongol Khanate.
By Napoleon – invading Russia – 1812:
Most of Europe was under French rule in early 1812 – the Prussians had surrendered, England was on the other side of the channel, and, apart from a few annoying guerrilla wars in Spain, the French were well in charge. French military might and Napoleon’s charismatic leadership combined with the values of liberty, equality and fraternity to make for an irresistible force, making the many little kings in the region nervous about the spread of ideas questioning the legitimacy of monarchy within their own populations. And then, Napoleon invaded Russia!
Adam Zamoyski’s account of the invasion, entitled ‘1812’ , suggests that the invasion was meant to be a rap on Czar Alexander’s knuckles that went too far (the Czar had been employing renegade Prussian officers in the Russian Army and encouraging insurrection against the French by the aforementioned little kings). The Grande Armee crossed into Russia in June 1812 with 500,000 men and crossed out in December with 27,000. And the events of those intervening months marked the beginning of the end of French hegemony in anything (with the possible exception of culinary arts).
By the British – invading Afghanistan – 1839:
The British became the bosses of the world in the 19th century – Napoleon was defeated, India was conquered, the sun had difficulty setting on the empire, etcetera. The one blip was on the Raj’s western front, where Czarist Russia was trying to get a foothold in Afghanistan. The British Governor General in India, Lord Auckland, decided that the Afghan Emir was unreliable, and sent in British (i.e. mostly Indian) troops in 1839 to install a puppet Emir and a British representative.
The forces reached Kabul, but were unable to hold on there and therefore decided to return to Peshawar in January 1842. A British contingent of about 16,000 people left Kabul, of whom one person reached Jalalabad on the Indian border. To quote Rev. G.H Gleig, an Army Chaplain in Kabul, it was ‘a war begun for no wise purpose, carried out with a strange mixture of rashness and timidity, brought to a close after suffering and disaster, without much glory to anybody. Not one benefit, political or military, was acquired with this war.”
By Germany – invading USSR – 1941:
The Germans of the 1930s decided on a policy of lebensraum (literally “living space”) or the need for eastward expansion – killing, deporting, or enslaving inferior Slavic populations and replacing them with superior Germanic peoples. Hitler came to a deal with Stalin in 1939, called the ‘Molotov-Ribbentrop Non-Aggression Pact’, dividing up eastern and northern Europe between Germany and Russia and ensuring quiet there so that he could fight in the west. And then, 4.5 million Axis forces moved into the USSR along a 2900 km front in June 1941!
Hitler was not prepared for a long war and fully expected to be in Leningrad, Moscow and Baku (yes, he needed the oil! Sounds familiar?) before the onset of winter. Bolstering his confidence was Stalin’s recent purge of the Red Army’s leadership, and it’s disastrous conduct of the 1939 winter war in Finland. He (i.e. Hitler) is rumoured to have said, “We only have to kick in the door and the whole rotten structure will come crashing down.”
It didn’t! The invasion determined the outcome of World War II, with 95 percent of German casualties between 1941 and 1944 being suffered in Russia , and ended in May 1945 in the form of a German surrender in Berlin.
By the USSR – invading Afghanistan – 1979:
In the 1970s, the Soviet Union was at the height of its empire. Today, it doesn’t exist! The key reason is a decision taken by the Politburo to respond to the ‘request’ of the then Afghan government for military support – the Red Army crossed the Amu Darya river in December 1979 looking to create a 16th state, Afghan SSR. It crossed back in February 1989, a shadow of its former self and a danger only to itself. And the Soviet Union disbanded in 1991. In the words of the then US National Security Adviser Brzezinski, ‘the Soviets fell into the Afghan trap’.
By Real Madrid – allowing Samuel Eto to Barcelona – 2004:
Florentino Perez became President of the world’s most successful football club in 2000 with the promise that he would buy Luis Figo, which he did. He also bought Zidane and Ronaldo and won La Liga in 2001 and 2003, and the Champions’ League in 2000 and 2002. He then ushered in the first era of ‘Galacticos’ with the purchase of Beckham – a policy of playing the best attacking footballers in the world and a defensive philosophy of ‘we’ll let in three but score six’.
Real Madrid had also purchased the 16-year-old Samuel Eto in 1997, and loaned him out to various clubs before selling him to Real Mallorca in December 2000, albeit with a buy-back clause. Eto proceeded to create havoc every time he played against Real Madrid, most famously scoring two wonderful goals in a 2-3 win for Mallorca in the Bernabeu in the 2003-04 season. At the end of the season, Real Madrid chose not to exercise the buy-back saying that they already had the two best strikers in the world (Raul and Ronaldo) , and Eto went to Frank Rijkaard’s Barcelona.
Eto went on to score 108 goals in 145 appearances for Barcelona, winning La Liga in 2005, 2006 and 2009 and the Champions’ League in 2006 and 2009 and being in the forefront of a shift in the focus of Spanish football from Madrid to the Catalan region that is firmly cemented today. Real Madrid did not win anything for the next three years (and has yet to challenge again for the Champions’ League), and went on to disband the Galacticos and relieve Perez of the club Presidency. As a footnote, Perez is now back and has ushered in another Galacticos era to break Barcelona’s grip on La Liga.
Why Intelligent People Take Stupid Decisions
Conventional thinking had it that highly cohesive groups generated the best decisions, and generated them quickly and with little fallout. And then, in 1961, the Bay of Pigs incident happened. Allow me to describe this a little!
Castro had just taken over Cuba, and the Americans didn’t like it. A new President, JF Kennedy, approved a covert plan to invade Cuba with a bunch of CIA-supported renegades, and to unseat Castro. The invasion was beaten back in three days and merely served to achieve its opposite objectives – strengthen Castro’s regime and cement its alliance with the Soviet Union.
The Kennedy administration studied what went wrong. They found that the CIA had made many assumptions – on the weakness of Castro’s army, on the support the renegades would receive from the local populace – that proved unfounded, and that the administration had not critically assessed the plans (and did not have systems that enabled critical assessment), and had not discussed and evaluated alternative plans. Key reasons for the above were that decision-making groups within the administration were homogenous, they strongly believed in the morality of their plans, and they relied heavily upon consensual validation, leading to a loss of individual creativity and independent thinking. The research psychologist Irving Janis, who studied the Bay of Pigs incident, termed this as Groupthink (GT).
To those with a love for definitions, GT is a mode of thinking that people engage in when they are deeply involved in a cohesive group, when the members’ striving for unanimity override their motivation to appraise alternative courses of action (Janis, 1972).
Most of us, if we think about it, have seen GT in action in our professional lives. Take a look at these symptoms and see if you recognize them.
Symptom 1: Overestimation of the group’s morality and power: This includes that illusion of invulnerability that creates excessive optimism and encourages the ignoring of dangers and the taking of risks, and that unquestioned belief in the morality of the group and the rightness of its objectives that causes members to ignore the moral and ethical consequences of their actions.
Symptom 2: Close-mindedness: This includes the collective rationalization of warnings – by explaining away or discrediting evidence that contradicts the group’s beliefs – and the stereotyping of those opposed as weak, evil, stupid, impotent, etc. In the cases above, the German view of Slavs and the Russian and British view of Afghans illustrate the latter component of this symptom.
Symptom 3: Pressures towards uniformity: This has several aspects! Groups sometimes indulge in self-censorship of ideas that deviate from apparent group consensus, or have ‘mind-guards’ or self-appointed members who shield the group from dissenting or adverse information. And the group creates an illusion of unanimity among members by viewing silence as agreement, and applies pressure on members to conform by seeing disagreement as disloyalty or, to use a recent term, as being ‘off message’.
Symptom 4: Overbearing leadership: The boss makes his/her preferred choice of action overt while assigning a task to a group.
GT often results in bad decisions due to the following reasons –
• An incomplete appraisal of objectives
• An incomplete survey of alternatives
• Failure to examine the risks of the preferred choice of action
• Poor information search and selection bias in information collection
• Failure to work out plan B
Guarding against GT? Janis has the following recommendations –
1. Higher-ups should not express opinions when assigning a task to a group.
2. Each member of the group should be a ‘critical evaluator’, and the group should be open to dissenting opinions.
3. An organisation should set up several independent groups to work on the same problem.
4. Group members should discuss ideas outside, with ‘trusted outsiders’.
5. Groups should invite outside experts to sit in its meetings.
6. All effective alternative courses of action should be thoroughly examined.
7. One group member, on a rotational basis, should be assigned the role of ‘Devil’s Advocate’ – arguing for a diametrically opposite course of action.
To conclude: There are several criticisms of GT, both as a concept and as a villain – the many good decisions that have come about as a result of GT, the many other (probably more influential) causes of bad decisions, and the fact that hindsight is always 20/20. But, coming from an industry with a high GT index (especially the moral superiority and overbearing leadership aspects of it), the concept strikes a chord. I, for one, will organize task-force groups differently in future. And I will have a stronger refrain when I am next shat on for harbouring a dissenting opinion – ‘you buggers are indulging in GT!’
A 2-Pager by Ajit Chaudhuri: December 2011
Introduction: We have all, dear readers, at one time or another, been party to some really stupid decisions. Those of us with championship pretensions on this score would find the following list, of some of the dumbest decisions ever taken, humbling. The purpose of this paper, however, is not only to help put your own stupidity into perspective – it is also to examine why groups of intelligent people sometimes take stupid decisions, and how to avoid this. For those of you uninterested in history, please go directly to the end of page 3.
Some Of The Dumbest Decisions Ever Taken (in chronological order)
By the Shah Of Khwarazm – killing Genghis Khan’s envoys – 1218:
Khwarazm, or Eastern Turkestan, was a large and prosperous empire that included much of today’s Iran, Afghanistan, eastern Azerbaijan, and Central Asia. Extreme deserts and high mountains separated the empire from the Chinese in the east and a burgeoning Mongol tribe further to the north. The Mongols, who were busy at that time fighting the Chinese, sent a trade mission to Khwarazm. A local Governor stopped the mission and confiscated its goods at Otrar (along the Syr Daria river in today’s Kazakhstan). Genghis sent three ambassadors to the Shah, asking for the goods and the mission to be released and the local Governor to be punished. The Shah executed the ambassadors and sent their heads back to Genghis.
The Mongols crossed the Syr Daria with 200,000 men, led by Genghis himself, in 1219 and proceeded to sack the empire. Samarkand, Bukhara, Tashkent, Bamiyan, all flourishing cities at the time, were destroyed. Populations were massacred, raped and enslaved (this is where the Mongols picked up a reputation that has survived 800 years). The offending local Governor was captured and then history is divided as to whether he was built alive into a wall or made to swallow molten gold. The Shah spent two years running and hiding, a fugitive in his own kingdom (the Mongols chased him right up to the Indus river, their southern most advance) before dying in some remote island in the Black Sea. And the land became a Mongol Khanate.
By Napoleon – invading Russia – 1812:
Most of Europe was under French rule in early 1812 – the Prussians had surrendered, England was on the other side of the channel, and, apart from a few annoying guerrilla wars in Spain, the French were well in charge. French military might and Napoleon’s charismatic leadership combined with the values of liberty, equality and fraternity to make for an irresistible force, making the many little kings in the region nervous about the spread of ideas questioning the legitimacy of monarchy within their own populations. And then, Napoleon invaded Russia!
Adam Zamoyski’s account of the invasion, entitled ‘1812’ , suggests that the invasion was meant to be a rap on Czar Alexander’s knuckles that went too far (the Czar had been employing renegade Prussian officers in the Russian Army and encouraging insurrection against the French by the aforementioned little kings). The Grande Armee crossed into Russia in June 1812 with 500,000 men and crossed out in December with 27,000. And the events of those intervening months marked the beginning of the end of French hegemony in anything (with the possible exception of culinary arts).
By the British – invading Afghanistan – 1839:
The British became the bosses of the world in the 19th century – Napoleon was defeated, India was conquered, the sun had difficulty setting on the empire, etcetera. The one blip was on the Raj’s western front, where Czarist Russia was trying to get a foothold in Afghanistan. The British Governor General in India, Lord Auckland, decided that the Afghan Emir was unreliable, and sent in British (i.e. mostly Indian) troops in 1839 to install a puppet Emir and a British representative.
The forces reached Kabul, but were unable to hold on there and therefore decided to return to Peshawar in January 1842. A British contingent of about 16,000 people left Kabul, of whom one person reached Jalalabad on the Indian border. To quote Rev. G.H Gleig, an Army Chaplain in Kabul, it was ‘a war begun for no wise purpose, carried out with a strange mixture of rashness and timidity, brought to a close after suffering and disaster, without much glory to anybody. Not one benefit, political or military, was acquired with this war.”
By Germany – invading USSR – 1941:
The Germans of the 1930s decided on a policy of lebensraum (literally “living space”) or the need for eastward expansion – killing, deporting, or enslaving inferior Slavic populations and replacing them with superior Germanic peoples. Hitler came to a deal with Stalin in 1939, called the ‘Molotov-Ribbentrop Non-Aggression Pact’, dividing up eastern and northern Europe between Germany and Russia and ensuring quiet there so that he could fight in the west. And then, 4.5 million Axis forces moved into the USSR along a 2900 km front in June 1941!
Hitler was not prepared for a long war and fully expected to be in Leningrad, Moscow and Baku (yes, he needed the oil! Sounds familiar?) before the onset of winter. Bolstering his confidence was Stalin’s recent purge of the Red Army’s leadership, and it’s disastrous conduct of the 1939 winter war in Finland. He (i.e. Hitler) is rumoured to have said, “We only have to kick in the door and the whole rotten structure will come crashing down.”
It didn’t! The invasion determined the outcome of World War II, with 95 percent of German casualties between 1941 and 1944 being suffered in Russia , and ended in May 1945 in the form of a German surrender in Berlin.
By the USSR – invading Afghanistan – 1979:
In the 1970s, the Soviet Union was at the height of its empire. Today, it doesn’t exist! The key reason is a decision taken by the Politburo to respond to the ‘request’ of the then Afghan government for military support – the Red Army crossed the Amu Darya river in December 1979 looking to create a 16th state, Afghan SSR. It crossed back in February 1989, a shadow of its former self and a danger only to itself. And the Soviet Union disbanded in 1991. In the words of the then US National Security Adviser Brzezinski, ‘the Soviets fell into the Afghan trap’.
By Real Madrid – allowing Samuel Eto to Barcelona – 2004:
Florentino Perez became President of the world’s most successful football club in 2000 with the promise that he would buy Luis Figo, which he did. He also bought Zidane and Ronaldo and won La Liga in 2001 and 2003, and the Champions’ League in 2000 and 2002. He then ushered in the first era of ‘Galacticos’ with the purchase of Beckham – a policy of playing the best attacking footballers in the world and a defensive philosophy of ‘we’ll let in three but score six’.
Real Madrid had also purchased the 16-year-old Samuel Eto in 1997, and loaned him out to various clubs before selling him to Real Mallorca in December 2000, albeit with a buy-back clause. Eto proceeded to create havoc every time he played against Real Madrid, most famously scoring two wonderful goals in a 2-3 win for Mallorca in the Bernabeu in the 2003-04 season. At the end of the season, Real Madrid chose not to exercise the buy-back saying that they already had the two best strikers in the world (Raul and Ronaldo) , and Eto went to Frank Rijkaard’s Barcelona.
Eto went on to score 108 goals in 145 appearances for Barcelona, winning La Liga in 2005, 2006 and 2009 and the Champions’ League in 2006 and 2009 and being in the forefront of a shift in the focus of Spanish football from Madrid to the Catalan region that is firmly cemented today. Real Madrid did not win anything for the next three years (and has yet to challenge again for the Champions’ League), and went on to disband the Galacticos and relieve Perez of the club Presidency. As a footnote, Perez is now back and has ushered in another Galacticos era to break Barcelona’s grip on La Liga.
Why Intelligent People Take Stupid Decisions
Conventional thinking had it that highly cohesive groups generated the best decisions, and generated them quickly and with little fallout. And then, in 1961, the Bay of Pigs incident happened. Allow me to describe this a little!
Castro had just taken over Cuba, and the Americans didn’t like it. A new President, JF Kennedy, approved a covert plan to invade Cuba with a bunch of CIA-supported renegades, and to unseat Castro. The invasion was beaten back in three days and merely served to achieve its opposite objectives – strengthen Castro’s regime and cement its alliance with the Soviet Union.
The Kennedy administration studied what went wrong. They found that the CIA had made many assumptions – on the weakness of Castro’s army, on the support the renegades would receive from the local populace – that proved unfounded, and that the administration had not critically assessed the plans (and did not have systems that enabled critical assessment), and had not discussed and evaluated alternative plans. Key reasons for the above were that decision-making groups within the administration were homogenous, they strongly believed in the morality of their plans, and they relied heavily upon consensual validation, leading to a loss of individual creativity and independent thinking. The research psychologist Irving Janis, who studied the Bay of Pigs incident, termed this as Groupthink (GT).
To those with a love for definitions, GT is a mode of thinking that people engage in when they are deeply involved in a cohesive group, when the members’ striving for unanimity override their motivation to appraise alternative courses of action (Janis, 1972).
Most of us, if we think about it, have seen GT in action in our professional lives. Take a look at these symptoms and see if you recognize them.
Symptom 1: Overestimation of the group’s morality and power: This includes that illusion of invulnerability that creates excessive optimism and encourages the ignoring of dangers and the taking of risks, and that unquestioned belief in the morality of the group and the rightness of its objectives that causes members to ignore the moral and ethical consequences of their actions.
Symptom 2: Close-mindedness: This includes the collective rationalization of warnings – by explaining away or discrediting evidence that contradicts the group’s beliefs – and the stereotyping of those opposed as weak, evil, stupid, impotent, etc. In the cases above, the German view of Slavs and the Russian and British view of Afghans illustrate the latter component of this symptom.
Symptom 3: Pressures towards uniformity: This has several aspects! Groups sometimes indulge in self-censorship of ideas that deviate from apparent group consensus, or have ‘mind-guards’ or self-appointed members who shield the group from dissenting or adverse information. And the group creates an illusion of unanimity among members by viewing silence as agreement, and applies pressure on members to conform by seeing disagreement as disloyalty or, to use a recent term, as being ‘off message’.
Symptom 4: Overbearing leadership: The boss makes his/her preferred choice of action overt while assigning a task to a group.
GT often results in bad decisions due to the following reasons –
• An incomplete appraisal of objectives
• An incomplete survey of alternatives
• Failure to examine the risks of the preferred choice of action
• Poor information search and selection bias in information collection
• Failure to work out plan B
Guarding against GT? Janis has the following recommendations –
1. Higher-ups should not express opinions when assigning a task to a group.
2. Each member of the group should be a ‘critical evaluator’, and the group should be open to dissenting opinions.
3. An organisation should set up several independent groups to work on the same problem.
4. Group members should discuss ideas outside, with ‘trusted outsiders’.
5. Groups should invite outside experts to sit in its meetings.
6. All effective alternative courses of action should be thoroughly examined.
7. One group member, on a rotational basis, should be assigned the role of ‘Devil’s Advocate’ – arguing for a diametrically opposite course of action.
To conclude: There are several criticisms of GT, both as a concept and as a villain – the many good decisions that have come about as a result of GT, the many other (probably more influential) causes of bad decisions, and the fact that hindsight is always 20/20. But, coming from an industry with a high GT index (especially the moral superiority and overbearing leadership aspects of it), the concept strikes a chord. I, for one, will organize task-force groups differently in future. And I will have a stronger refrain when I am next shat on for harbouring a dissenting opinion – ‘you buggers are indulging in GT!’
Thursday, October 20, 2011
LOVE AND MARRIAGE
LOVE, MARRIAGE, RIGHTS AND RESPONSIBILITIES!
A 2-Pager by Ajit Chaudhuri
Some of you may remember Art Buchwald’s column in the Washington Post. In one, he describes the basic difference between bachelors and married men as being that married men think that bachelors dine with fashion models (and get sex after that), and bachelors think that married men get a home cooked three-course dinner served with love and affection (and get sex after that) when in actuality both eat cold food in front of the TV every evening (and sleep after that) – it’s just that married men are more likely to use spoons.
Which brings me to some questions I occasionally ponder – is it correct for a man to expect a hot meal every evening, cooked by his wife’s own hands? Is a woman entitled to the expectation of ‘being provided for’ for life by virtue of getting married? Who decides these things? Do married people have a right to their respective expectations and a responsibility to fulfil their spouse’s? In an era wherein many marriages break up early because of mismatch of expectations and unwillingness to compromise, it may be useful to see what the great philosophers have to say on these mundane matters.
I recently read a fascinating paper outlining the disagreement between Kant and Hegel on the role of rights in marriage.
Kant saw marriage as a contract between two people for ‘lifelong reciprocal possession of their sexual facilities’ and said that, in sexual relations, one party in the contract uses the other as an object and vice versa. Now, using any human being to satisfy one’s desires is against basic laws of humanity (and renders the used as ‘irrational’, the ultimate crime). Marriage remedies this with the condition of reciprocity, wherein the used simultaneously uses the user and thus enables both parties to remain ‘rational’. Kant stressed the importance of equal and reciprocal rights and responsibilities in marriage so as to satisfy the fundamental test of respect for persons. Reciprocity requires monogamy, because polygamous systems of matrimony involve unequal amounts of giving and taking between parties.
Hegel adamantly repudiated the Kantian view of marriage as a purely contractual arrangement . Couples celebrate marriage not merely as a quid pro quo but in order to attain a union of desire, affection, interest and identity that goes beyond anything specified in a contract. He said that there is a world of difference between the Kantian ‘contract for reciprocal use’ and the ‘love, trust and common sharing of their existence as individuals’ that married couples commit themselves to. If marriage begins in an agreement, it is a contract to transcend the standpoint of contract.
After 19 years of marriage, I’m not sure which one I go with. But there is one aspect of Hegel’s critique of Kant that I would like to touch upon – that of reducing marriage into an array of legalistic rights and responsibilities. Hegel did not see a role for rights in marriage, saying that to stand on one’s rights is to distance oneself from those upon whom claims are made. It is to announce the opening of hostilities, and to acknowledge that warmer bonds of kinship, affection and intimacy can no longer hold. Conjugal rights, or the right to a partner’s fidelity, or to be freed from domestic chores, or to draw equally upon family income, or an equal right to pursue a career, are OK as expectations and as a natural outcome of mutual concern and respect. But to claim them as rights (that one party presses upon another) is a moral failing.
This broadens into a larger conflict between liberals and communitarians. Liberals see the bonds of social life as constituted primarily by the rights (and the rights-based relations) of individuals. Communitarians take their reference from the shared lives of people within the communities of which they are a part, and the informal and engaged (as opposed to impersonal and abstract) relationships between them. They take umbrage at liberal political philosophy for the way the desires and preferences of individuals have precedence over community, fraternity, and a shared social good. Liberals counter that communitarians dangerously underestimate the possibility of things going wrong between human beings, and the need for guarantees when they do.
Is this something that one needs an advanced degree in philosophy to understand, or do the concepts described apply easily to the real world? I am reminded, at this stage, of a visit to the state of Mizoram in the mid-1990s and a debate on whether Mizos (an indigenous community resident in the state) should revert to traditional tribal law. The move was opposed (and is still opposed) tooth and nail by the Mizo Women’s Association because traditional law sees women’s rights within an informal communitarian framework, without countervailing guarantees that could be relied upon when things went wrong. A formal system of marital rights that could be enforced in a court of law, they felt, is better for women. And Mizoram, don’t forget, is where 89.4 percent of the women (as per the 2011 census) are literate.
To conclude, we would all like that things in love, marriage, and relationships be perfect, and we also know that this is rarely the case. Some expectations are met, some are not, and one is expected to compromise! Beyond a point, one or both partners may choose to break the matrimonial bond and restructure their lives. There is nothing wrong in this! However, when this happens, community spirit and kinship ties may not be sufficient to provide continued care and security to partners and children. A formal legal framework that outlines rights and responsibilities, that partners know they can fall back upon if mutual affection fades, strengthens the institution of marriage. Put simply, there is nothing like having love, respect, and friendship within a marriage so that a mutual and fair understanding of who does what is achieved. And there is nothing like the cold language of rights and responsibilities to back this understanding up. The combination is a winner!
A 2-Pager by Ajit Chaudhuri
Some of you may remember Art Buchwald’s column in the Washington Post. In one, he describes the basic difference between bachelors and married men as being that married men think that bachelors dine with fashion models (and get sex after that), and bachelors think that married men get a home cooked three-course dinner served with love and affection (and get sex after that) when in actuality both eat cold food in front of the TV every evening (and sleep after that) – it’s just that married men are more likely to use spoons.
Which brings me to some questions I occasionally ponder – is it correct for a man to expect a hot meal every evening, cooked by his wife’s own hands? Is a woman entitled to the expectation of ‘being provided for’ for life by virtue of getting married? Who decides these things? Do married people have a right to their respective expectations and a responsibility to fulfil their spouse’s? In an era wherein many marriages break up early because of mismatch of expectations and unwillingness to compromise, it may be useful to see what the great philosophers have to say on these mundane matters.
I recently read a fascinating paper outlining the disagreement between Kant and Hegel on the role of rights in marriage.
Kant saw marriage as a contract between two people for ‘lifelong reciprocal possession of their sexual facilities’ and said that, in sexual relations, one party in the contract uses the other as an object and vice versa. Now, using any human being to satisfy one’s desires is against basic laws of humanity (and renders the used as ‘irrational’, the ultimate crime). Marriage remedies this with the condition of reciprocity, wherein the used simultaneously uses the user and thus enables both parties to remain ‘rational’. Kant stressed the importance of equal and reciprocal rights and responsibilities in marriage so as to satisfy the fundamental test of respect for persons. Reciprocity requires monogamy, because polygamous systems of matrimony involve unequal amounts of giving and taking between parties.
Hegel adamantly repudiated the Kantian view of marriage as a purely contractual arrangement . Couples celebrate marriage not merely as a quid pro quo but in order to attain a union of desire, affection, interest and identity that goes beyond anything specified in a contract. He said that there is a world of difference between the Kantian ‘contract for reciprocal use’ and the ‘love, trust and common sharing of their existence as individuals’ that married couples commit themselves to. If marriage begins in an agreement, it is a contract to transcend the standpoint of contract.
After 19 years of marriage, I’m not sure which one I go with. But there is one aspect of Hegel’s critique of Kant that I would like to touch upon – that of reducing marriage into an array of legalistic rights and responsibilities. Hegel did not see a role for rights in marriage, saying that to stand on one’s rights is to distance oneself from those upon whom claims are made. It is to announce the opening of hostilities, and to acknowledge that warmer bonds of kinship, affection and intimacy can no longer hold. Conjugal rights, or the right to a partner’s fidelity, or to be freed from domestic chores, or to draw equally upon family income, or an equal right to pursue a career, are OK as expectations and as a natural outcome of mutual concern and respect. But to claim them as rights (that one party presses upon another) is a moral failing.
This broadens into a larger conflict between liberals and communitarians. Liberals see the bonds of social life as constituted primarily by the rights (and the rights-based relations) of individuals. Communitarians take their reference from the shared lives of people within the communities of which they are a part, and the informal and engaged (as opposed to impersonal and abstract) relationships between them. They take umbrage at liberal political philosophy for the way the desires and preferences of individuals have precedence over community, fraternity, and a shared social good. Liberals counter that communitarians dangerously underestimate the possibility of things going wrong between human beings, and the need for guarantees when they do.
Is this something that one needs an advanced degree in philosophy to understand, or do the concepts described apply easily to the real world? I am reminded, at this stage, of a visit to the state of Mizoram in the mid-1990s and a debate on whether Mizos (an indigenous community resident in the state) should revert to traditional tribal law. The move was opposed (and is still opposed) tooth and nail by the Mizo Women’s Association because traditional law sees women’s rights within an informal communitarian framework, without countervailing guarantees that could be relied upon when things went wrong. A formal system of marital rights that could be enforced in a court of law, they felt, is better for women. And Mizoram, don’t forget, is where 89.4 percent of the women (as per the 2011 census) are literate.
To conclude, we would all like that things in love, marriage, and relationships be perfect, and we also know that this is rarely the case. Some expectations are met, some are not, and one is expected to compromise! Beyond a point, one or both partners may choose to break the matrimonial bond and restructure their lives. There is nothing wrong in this! However, when this happens, community spirit and kinship ties may not be sufficient to provide continued care and security to partners and children. A formal legal framework that outlines rights and responsibilities, that partners know they can fall back upon if mutual affection fades, strengthens the institution of marriage. Put simply, there is nothing like having love, respect, and friendship within a marriage so that a mutual and fair understanding of who does what is achieved. And there is nothing like the cold language of rights and responsibilities to back this understanding up. The combination is a winner!
Saturday, August 27, 2011
FAIR AND LOVELY
FAIR AND LOVELY
A 2-Pager by Ajit Chaudhuri – August 2011
Most Indians’ first introduction to Britain is via the chapter on the freedom struggle in class 8 history. Some of us are fortunate to move on – to see Britain through the eyes of Goscinny and Uderzo in ‘Asterix in Britain’ and George Mikes in ‘How to be an Alien’, and to thereby gain an acquaintance with quirky British customs such as the conversations about the weather, the tea break, the love for one’s garden, the queue and the hot water bottle. My own introduction went a step or two further, via my 12 years in a British organisation, and let me state emphatically that I share with Asterix, Obelix and Mikes a wonderment at what I saw and learned in that time.
For example, the value of playing oneself down! In India, high status individuals make sure that they are recognizable by the presence of bowing and scraping minions, by visibly not observing rules and courtesies, and by conspicuous big talk. In the UK, they are not so easily discernable. The scruffy person standing next to you on the London tube could be a Nobel Prize winner, the rubenesque blonde you are trying to chat up at a bar could have a PhD in the classics, and the illegal-immigrant-looking fellow lining up behind you to watch the football game could be Real Madrid’s scout. It is best to reign in one’s initial assumptions. I, for one, remember visiting a pub in rural Scotland where I drank copious quantities of beer with someone looking like a daily wage labourer coming in straight after a day spent shovelling dung. It was only at about drink #5 that I got to know that he was the chief scientist in the “Dolly the cloned sheep” project. And I have many similar stories!
Or the appreciation of realistic reports! Some years into my job, I decided to unilaterally review the work done under my beat, and to do this with brutal honesty (as it was for my own information). The review report highlighted mistakes and bungles, and I did not come out smelling of roses. I sent this on to my boss in London fully expecting that he would trash it and cover up the failings, or else get rid of me. Instead, I was asked to present the findings to the board, then to write a paper for the industry magazine, and then to sit on a panel at an industry jamboree to discuss the realities of working in India. I learned that people there did not value rosy reports, and that I should always include what was not going well, and why, along with what was.
Or the general expectation of honesty and truthfulness! If an authority asks you who you are, you are not expected to corroborate your answer with some form of formal identification. If you put up a proposal for financial support, the claims made within are assumed to be factually correct. And if you submit a request for reimbursement of expenses, you don’t have to provide a hundred countersigned vouchers as proof. Quite unlike Indian systems, where the basic assumption is of dishonesty that has to be proven otherwise!
Or the issue of conflict of interest! We Indians would remember a minister who was found to have allotted a petrol pump under the ‘unemployed youth’ quota to his son, who upon query said, “So who’s son should I allot it to? Yours?” In Britain, he would have been joining the ranks of the unemployed very quickly.
The one quirk that I was particularly unable to apply to Indian conditions was that of ‘being fair’. Let me describe two instances where ‘fairness’ was called into question. We received too many proposals for financial support for our systems to handle, and were (therefore?) somewhat judgemental in disposing of them. And when we found dishonesty in our project partners we quickly and peremptorily closed the projects, without recourse to hearings, alternative viewpoints, and opportunities for the we-are-sorry-and-will-be-good-in-future syndrome to kick in. These were seen as ‘unfair’ by British standards (and therefore synonymous with high treason) even though the action taken was probably right. Similar handling of these issues in the Indian organisation that I simultaneously worked in was considered normal and unworthy of further explanation or justification. I was left feeling schizophrenic!
So, and here I come to the point of this paper, what is ‘being fair’? It is only now, as a ‘mature’ (ahem!) PhD candidate with an interest in policy issues relating to equity and justice, that I am able to read the philosopher John Rawls’ treatise on ‘justice as fairness’ . Fairness, to him, is about avoiding bias or the influence of vested interests, prejudices and personal priorities, and taking note of the concerns and interests of others . Here is a very brief synopsis of what he says about a ‘fair society’.
One, on the role of justice – it has to be the first virtue of all institutions of society. Laws and institutions, no matter how efficient and well arranged, must be reformed or abolished if they are unjust.
Two, on basic individual liberties – each person has to have an equal right to an adequate set of basic liberties that is compatible with a similar set of liberties for all. These basic liberties should be inviolable, not subject to political bargaining or the calculus of social interests. ‘Justice as fairness’ denies that loss of freedom for some is made right by a greater good shared by others. An injustice is tolerable only if it is to avoid a greater injustice.
Three, to identify a set of ‘principles of justice’ for assigning the rights and duties in the institutions of society, and for determining the benefits and burdens of social cooperation, there need to be two rules. There has to be equality of opportunity to gain the skills and inclinations that make for merit and capability. And inequality is acceptable only if it brings the greatest benefit to the least advantaged members of society.
Rawls goes on to identify a hypothetical ‘original position’ wherein the principles of justice in a society are agreed upon using the above three basic positions. The original position has members of society sitting together without taking account their respective social places, classes and positions, or their fortune in the distribution of natural assets and abilities, i.e. in a ‘veil of ignorance’. The fundamental agreements reached in this position, the principles of justice agreed to in this situation, can be considered ‘fair’.
Why is ‘justice as fairness’ important?
First, it moved the issue of justice out of the realm of economics and into that of political philosophy, where it provided a platform for subsequent thinkers such as Amartya Sen to develop their ideas. It provided an alternative to the then prevalent utilitarian beliefs that a society is just when its institutions are arranged to provide the most total satisfaction (summed for all individuals within), and that losses for some are compensated by greater gains for others.
Second, it brought the concept of ‘fairness’ into justice – that the violation of basic liberties of a few is not made right by the greater good shared by many. This would be well learnt in countries such as ours, where we suffer violations of all sorts in the name of security and economic growth (but actually for the greater benefit of our politician – bureaucrat – contractor nexus), so as to enable, inter alia, sensible policies on land acquisition, displacement of indigenous communities, and bestowing of mining and extractive rights.
Third, it provided a theoretical construct for developing ‘fair’ principles. The voluminous and occasionally legitimate, in my limited opinion, criticism that the concepts of ‘original position’ and ‘veil of ignorance’ have attracted do not take away from their importance as enabling constructs.
Finally, it provided a theoretical basis for the acceptance of inequality as being just – that a low-income household may be better off in a high income but unequal society than in a low income but egalitarian society. That we may not intuitively agree with this, again, does not take away from its importance.
To conclude, John Rawls has been like a ‘shaft of light’ (to quote Amartya Sen again, also on reading Rawls) on my dilemmas relating to equity, efficiency and justice. And yet, I hesitate to recommend his writings – they require time and/or greatly superior intelligence (and I have time). I also wonder what he would have made of the current British government’s expropriation of his ideas into the concept of a ‘Big Society’, and then using them to axe budgets and curtail basic services. Maybe he would have said, “It’s not fair!”
A 2-Pager by Ajit Chaudhuri – August 2011
Most Indians’ first introduction to Britain is via the chapter on the freedom struggle in class 8 history. Some of us are fortunate to move on – to see Britain through the eyes of Goscinny and Uderzo in ‘Asterix in Britain’ and George Mikes in ‘How to be an Alien’, and to thereby gain an acquaintance with quirky British customs such as the conversations about the weather, the tea break, the love for one’s garden, the queue and the hot water bottle. My own introduction went a step or two further, via my 12 years in a British organisation, and let me state emphatically that I share with Asterix, Obelix and Mikes a wonderment at what I saw and learned in that time.
For example, the value of playing oneself down! In India, high status individuals make sure that they are recognizable by the presence of bowing and scraping minions, by visibly not observing rules and courtesies, and by conspicuous big talk. In the UK, they are not so easily discernable. The scruffy person standing next to you on the London tube could be a Nobel Prize winner, the rubenesque blonde you are trying to chat up at a bar could have a PhD in the classics, and the illegal-immigrant-looking fellow lining up behind you to watch the football game could be Real Madrid’s scout. It is best to reign in one’s initial assumptions. I, for one, remember visiting a pub in rural Scotland where I drank copious quantities of beer with someone looking like a daily wage labourer coming in straight after a day spent shovelling dung. It was only at about drink #5 that I got to know that he was the chief scientist in the “Dolly the cloned sheep” project. And I have many similar stories!
Or the appreciation of realistic reports! Some years into my job, I decided to unilaterally review the work done under my beat, and to do this with brutal honesty (as it was for my own information). The review report highlighted mistakes and bungles, and I did not come out smelling of roses. I sent this on to my boss in London fully expecting that he would trash it and cover up the failings, or else get rid of me. Instead, I was asked to present the findings to the board, then to write a paper for the industry magazine, and then to sit on a panel at an industry jamboree to discuss the realities of working in India. I learned that people there did not value rosy reports, and that I should always include what was not going well, and why, along with what was.
Or the general expectation of honesty and truthfulness! If an authority asks you who you are, you are not expected to corroborate your answer with some form of formal identification. If you put up a proposal for financial support, the claims made within are assumed to be factually correct. And if you submit a request for reimbursement of expenses, you don’t have to provide a hundred countersigned vouchers as proof. Quite unlike Indian systems, where the basic assumption is of dishonesty that has to be proven otherwise!
Or the issue of conflict of interest! We Indians would remember a minister who was found to have allotted a petrol pump under the ‘unemployed youth’ quota to his son, who upon query said, “So who’s son should I allot it to? Yours?” In Britain, he would have been joining the ranks of the unemployed very quickly.
The one quirk that I was particularly unable to apply to Indian conditions was that of ‘being fair’. Let me describe two instances where ‘fairness’ was called into question. We received too many proposals for financial support for our systems to handle, and were (therefore?) somewhat judgemental in disposing of them. And when we found dishonesty in our project partners we quickly and peremptorily closed the projects, without recourse to hearings, alternative viewpoints, and opportunities for the we-are-sorry-and-will-be-good-in-future syndrome to kick in. These were seen as ‘unfair’ by British standards (and therefore synonymous with high treason) even though the action taken was probably right. Similar handling of these issues in the Indian organisation that I simultaneously worked in was considered normal and unworthy of further explanation or justification. I was left feeling schizophrenic!
So, and here I come to the point of this paper, what is ‘being fair’? It is only now, as a ‘mature’ (ahem!) PhD candidate with an interest in policy issues relating to equity and justice, that I am able to read the philosopher John Rawls’ treatise on ‘justice as fairness’ . Fairness, to him, is about avoiding bias or the influence of vested interests, prejudices and personal priorities, and taking note of the concerns and interests of others . Here is a very brief synopsis of what he says about a ‘fair society’.
One, on the role of justice – it has to be the first virtue of all institutions of society. Laws and institutions, no matter how efficient and well arranged, must be reformed or abolished if they are unjust.
Two, on basic individual liberties – each person has to have an equal right to an adequate set of basic liberties that is compatible with a similar set of liberties for all. These basic liberties should be inviolable, not subject to political bargaining or the calculus of social interests. ‘Justice as fairness’ denies that loss of freedom for some is made right by a greater good shared by others. An injustice is tolerable only if it is to avoid a greater injustice.
Three, to identify a set of ‘principles of justice’ for assigning the rights and duties in the institutions of society, and for determining the benefits and burdens of social cooperation, there need to be two rules. There has to be equality of opportunity to gain the skills and inclinations that make for merit and capability. And inequality is acceptable only if it brings the greatest benefit to the least advantaged members of society.
Rawls goes on to identify a hypothetical ‘original position’ wherein the principles of justice in a society are agreed upon using the above three basic positions. The original position has members of society sitting together without taking account their respective social places, classes and positions, or their fortune in the distribution of natural assets and abilities, i.e. in a ‘veil of ignorance’. The fundamental agreements reached in this position, the principles of justice agreed to in this situation, can be considered ‘fair’.
Why is ‘justice as fairness’ important?
First, it moved the issue of justice out of the realm of economics and into that of political philosophy, where it provided a platform for subsequent thinkers such as Amartya Sen to develop their ideas. It provided an alternative to the then prevalent utilitarian beliefs that a society is just when its institutions are arranged to provide the most total satisfaction (summed for all individuals within), and that losses for some are compensated by greater gains for others.
Second, it brought the concept of ‘fairness’ into justice – that the violation of basic liberties of a few is not made right by the greater good shared by many. This would be well learnt in countries such as ours, where we suffer violations of all sorts in the name of security and economic growth (but actually for the greater benefit of our politician – bureaucrat – contractor nexus), so as to enable, inter alia, sensible policies on land acquisition, displacement of indigenous communities, and bestowing of mining and extractive rights.
Third, it provided a theoretical construct for developing ‘fair’ principles. The voluminous and occasionally legitimate, in my limited opinion, criticism that the concepts of ‘original position’ and ‘veil of ignorance’ have attracted do not take away from their importance as enabling constructs.
Finally, it provided a theoretical basis for the acceptance of inequality as being just – that a low-income household may be better off in a high income but unequal society than in a low income but egalitarian society. That we may not intuitively agree with this, again, does not take away from its importance.
To conclude, John Rawls has been like a ‘shaft of light’ (to quote Amartya Sen again, also on reading Rawls) on my dilemmas relating to equity, efficiency and justice. And yet, I hesitate to recommend his writings – they require time and/or greatly superior intelligence (and I have time). I also wonder what he would have made of the current British government’s expropriation of his ideas into the concept of a ‘Big Society’, and then using them to axe budgets and curtail basic services. Maybe he would have said, “It’s not fair!”
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