I was recently having a long conversation with one of my friends who is also teaching and is generally interested in education and related issues. We talked about Gandhi's Hind Swaraj and it that context he was wondering if by educating the children the way it is now, are we doing more damage. I was desperately trying to convince him that it is not so, that unlike Gandhi that I was fully embracing modernity (though I have to say I have not read Hind Swaraj but I have read a review of it by T.S.Ananthu). I was later wondering about why the essential messages to structure society has always failed throughout history. Messages from Sangam Literature like Purananooru (400 songs about how to live life with regards to the society) or Tirukkural, messages from Plato, Buddha, Jesus Christ, Mohammad or later from Marx or Gandhi all seem to have fallen on deaf ears. I find it not surprising.
My thesis, is simple. Human society, like life, has evolved and has not been designed (well, if you are one of those crazies who subscribe to Intelligent Design you would not be reading this post in any case!). It would continue to evolve and cannot be designed. By that I mean that it will take small steps that would be advantageous to it in the short-term. Evolution does not know about the long-term. All these folks tried to prescribe a design and not surprisingly it has not been adopted. On the other hand, if you look at free-market capitalism, it is by nature evolutionary where choices of individual agents make a system. There is no overall design as such. You can see now why it has been readily adopted so widely!
Our cultural evolution has brought us to a stage where we actually employ some design to organize our societies. This might sound contradictory but if you think carefully we could have just blundered into constitutional democracy and found it beneficial. So the contemporary human society finds itself equipped with some possibilities for design.
That said, what are we to do now? Those who are interested in pushing the society in a specific direction can and should do it only in small steps. Evolution has never made radical changes and our societies would also never accept radical changes. Rather than having grand (grandiose?) goals of an utopia let us take small steps to make each individual a thinking and tolerant member of the society.
Coming to education, the focus on education should remain on the individual. If we have a grand design of a society and we build an education system to create such a society, it is bound to fail due to the reasons mentioned in the previous paragraphs. So, focus on the individual and hope for the best...
P.S. - I was actually tempted to keep the title as “It is not teleological” but my wife somehow hates that word, especially when I use it....
9 comments:
I find this depressing.
Mainly because I think you may be right.
Jai Guttur Dev.
Why is it depressing? I am very pleased now to know why Buddha, Jesus or Gandhi did not make an impact. Now we can insidiously fool the evolutionary mechanism to adopt a design by providing the appropriate environment to make the selection! :) But, these have to be small changes, that is all. I thought this message ended in a hopeful note!
It was an interesting conversation that forced me to carry the topic on for a much longer time.
My first responses - a few thoughts
I dont have a clear, confident stand on this, but the response is based on my current inclination. I would look forward to carrying this discussion forward to gain netter understanding
1.First of all human society is not one single homogeneous mass. Different societies at different points in time have had historically different trajectories. For example would you include the 'Jarawa tribes in your bucket of 'himan societies'?
I think modernism based on industralization, improving the material quality of life,fossil fules exploitation has brougt in 'good life' for small islands of groups (islands in terms of geographies, classes and also in tiame. for example the use of technology for intensive monoculture farming made a generation of farmers prosperous in some parts of AP, but now, this generation and the next would pay r it dearly for the over use of resources - thanks to technology making it easy to exploit resources. Now its another argument wheather it is technology or the use of technology
So in summary, the overall benefits hasnt been as rosy as it seems. For just one snippet of this let us take the issue of poverty itself - see the hindu dated 2nd and 3rd of September to see how poverty is conceptualized to concoct rosy looking pictures. The reality is much more grim.
2. The concept of 'evolving' seems to not consider teh role of power and agency of power in determining the course of history. Certain choices were made by a select few vested interests for their benefit. Even the use of fossil fules and the decision of the US of A to ignore building a public rail system are conscious decisions that are taken knowing fully well the cons of them. Not just benign innocent decisions that are good for all - even if it is only in teh short term (as you are arguing). The promotion capitalism - a certain brand of it that is beneficial to a certain few - all of these are not evolutionary phenomena. There are to be viewed as political decisions that are in some sense exploitative and not natural courses of human history as the word 'evolotion' suggests .. (i dont know if youi meant to use it that way)
3. I agree with your role of educaiton as actually a effort with an individual - in the context of a social.
4. The points in Hind Swaraj and also in Schumachers critques of technology is that both these thinkers (and as Ananthu suggests thinkers in science like einstein ) is the spiritual angle they bring in to conceptualize 'well being' rather than use pure economic, material parameters. I personally feel this is am important perspective -althought it wanders into the domain of irrational ..
from this point of view too I wonder if inspite of all the material goods, even the richest classes are actually 'happy' - or rather happier than the wealthiest in past times ??
Hi Ram,
Thanks for the response. I am continuing the argument further here.
1. Definitely human societies is not a single homogenous entity. But societies evolve divergently and converge too as life too has done. So the Jarawa society must have indeed evolved as has western european societies. Now, what I am going to say might be unsavoury to a lot of folks. Like life human societies also converge and those that are in a 'better' condition cannibalize others. This is not recent. When early hominid species spread out of Africa the Neanderthals were probably the initial settlers in Europe. But when a 'better' adapted Homo Sapiens arrived later, the Neanderthals were 'consumed'. We don't know whether there was genocide or they were just homogenised into Homo Sapiens.
About Poverty - The very fact that global poverty seems to be a concern of so many is a 'modern' concept. This is what I am being optimistic about. You have to remember poverty is a shifting scale. During despotic medieval times if a large population died of cholera the emporer was not held responsible. If you think the wars fought now are silly, you should read history and see how neighborhood kings went to war for even sillier things. I am definitely not saying things are rosy now, I am saying that it is not worse now than before (if I am very modest) and saying that it might be better now (if I am a little bit more adventurous).
Poverty and Inequality - This is the classic debate we are getting into. There is no contradiction in poverty reducing and inequality increasing. I guess that is what is happenning now. It could cause other social problems like conflict, but it does not deny that poverty is reducing (the debate in Hindu is not about whether poverty is reducing, but by how much!)
2. Individuals definitely design for themselves. I am not denying that. I am not saying large systems like life and societies do not go by design. So the e.g. you quoted are individual design for Ford to make more money. All you e.g. in fact prove my point. When farmers have access to some technology they would use it for the short-term! Why do you assume decisions "are good for all"? They definitely are not. That is my argument. That said, 'modern' institutions like democracy are trying to subvert the evolutionary process. In that sense I am embracing modernity.
4. I am deeply suspicious of spirituality and happiness. I honestly don't fully understand the difference between what Gandhi says and what Sri Sri Ravishankar says. It all seems the same mumbo-jumbo to me. Yeah, I (the rich) is unhappy that I don't have the latest iPhone, while some farmer in Vidharbha is unhappy and committing suicide because he can't pay back his loans. Do you really think the kind and quality of unhappiness is the same? I don't think so. This who talk about unhapiness and spirituality (the Bhagavad Gita and Upanishad discourses in cities) is for the well fed, some time-pass. Instead of watching IPL 20-20 they go for these lectures and return home for dinner. (Sorry, I get very worked up about spirituality...)
Schumacher got old in his Guide to the Perplexed. He has more 'rational' solutions in his Small is Beautiful. I think that is the way to go. In fact as we speak, Timbaktu Collective is embarking on creating several producer run business enterprises. Are you interested in joining them? They need business expertise!
Hey, some quick points .. will probably get back in detail later though
1. The farmer using technology was a point to argue that things take shape (especially with human societies) because of choices thatsocial formations make not because of some 'natrual' process of evolution. ANd my other point was to suggest that mostly these choices are monopolized by the powerful few for tehir benefit and NOT for the benefit of the scoeity, so its not as if social formations are evolving - in the sense of moving forward. They may be moving randomly and playing snakes and ladders
on spirituality - i can see your cynicism about it given the number of branded gurus in town, and the number of upper middle class sophiticated 'have nothing else toachieve' creating this therapy cult - but i still think if you carefully sift through this there os something.
You cant see the two books of schumacher as disjointed piecess. Your reason as schumacher being too old is rather hasty - I would rather say it was a mature schumacher. And if people who have done path breaking work that gains the respect of 'rationa; scientific minds' like einstein are talking of the spiritual - i would take note ..
on your argument that things are not really bad in historical context - i honestly cant say much. I dont know too much history, but i can say in recent history (the last 20-30 years things have turned from bad to worse .. thats ofcourse just a speck -dont know if its relevant ..
So I thought I'll follow up my original comment with something less frivolous, especially in the context of the serious discussion between the Rams.
Regarding Ram-Puvidham's original thesis (upon further reflection):
> messages from Plato, Buddha,
> Jesus Christ, Mohammad or
> later from Marx or Gandhi
> all seem to have fallen on
> deaf ears.
Really? I think not. In the grand cosmological scheme of things, or even on the terrestrial timeline scheme of things they may have been insignificant, but all the above characters have played a highly substantial role in the way our world is now. Their theses have definitely not fallen on deaf ears, and continue to shape the world even today. Admittedly, their "end goals" haven't been met (yet), but you can't deny that they've given the course of human history a hard push in whichever directions they fancied.
So your assertion is partly correct, i.e. the "grand design" end goals of these characters have not been realized (and I am inclined to think never will be), but they definitely have had a disproportionate effect on the course of events.
> On the other hand, if you
> look at free-market capitalism,
> it is by nature evolutionary
> where choices
Come, now. Ram-CFL and/or I could just as easily claim that free market capitalism is the "end goal" of other thinkers (I don't know Adam Smith, Milton Friedman, Ayn Rand etc. (Can't believe I used Ayn Rand and thinker in the same sentence, Boucher!!!) and equally well say, "Look we don't have free market capitalism as they envisioned it yet!".
I think the reason is that there's no "on the other hand", as you prefixed your sentence. There is only one hand (and the sound of it clapping!). The confusion is possibly that you're looking "equal" groups like this: Platonism, Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, Marx, Gandhigiri, evolutionary free market capitalism. I think there's a sort of category error type thing, the property "evolutionary" is wrongly ascribed only to free market capitalism (FMC). It's one level higher, i.e. it's all evolutionary, Buddhism/Marxism are just as much the product of this evolution as FMC, these are all just strains or memes or whatever.
> Those who are interested in
> pushing the society in a
> specific direction can and
> should do it only in small
> steps. Evolution has never
> made radical changes and our
> societies would also never
> accept radical changes.
Why? Who says so? Societies have made radical changes, at the behest of a select few people, all the time, non? It's a different matter that you won't always achieve the exact end result that you were hoping for, in that sense it's good to be aware of the possible ultimate futility of your enterprise, but that hasn't prevented people from making changes in the past, and why should it in the future? Let them do whatever they want!
> Coming to education, the
> focus on education should
> remain on the individual.
I think there's a sort of "grand design" implicit in this view. You want education to produce a certain kind of individual, because you have a vision of a certain kind of society and you think producing this sort of individual is your best bet in ultimately creating that sort of society. Isn't it? I think you do.
Moving on to the points that Ram-P and Ram-C have subsequently raised, and not knowing anything about the verbal discussion from which this post springs, largely have to come down on the side of Ram-P. Though I get the feeling that both of you are arguing at cross purposes and over terminology at one level. Ram-Puvidham will probably concede that the concept of evolving does consider the role and agency of power in determining the course of history, indeed the fact that more 'powerful' classes of people/ways of life/societies will 'triumph' (i.e. in an evolutionary sense, i.e. they will outlast) ultimately. Evolution is not making value judgements (e.g. "the Jarawa lifestyle is worth preserving"), it just is, and it certainly is not in the business of trying to move humanity to a 'better' place. For all you know, we may be rapidly evolving out of existence, the way we are going about.
Agree almost entirely with Ram-Puvidham about the 'spirituality' bit. Or maybe I don't know enough about it, but the 'conventional' versions of spirituality are all so much humbug.
> And if people who have done
> path breaking work that
> gains the respect of
> 'rationa; scientific minds'
> like einstein are talking
> of the spiritual - i would
> take note ..
I would also definitely take note, no question, but not forget that even the Einsteins of the world have proven to be tragically wrong about things (his whole attempt to unify gravity with quantum mechanics, for example, is supposed to be tragic). So if it's Einstein about relativity it would be one thing, but about spirituality I would reserve judgement. It's like how a bunch of people went gaga over the inter-linking of rivers, just because Kalam was for it.
Anyway, it will be good to have this discussion in person with either/both of you!
Just like conventional schooling, maybe conventional (or mainstream spirituality) too needs questioning perhaps. Have alternate spirituality :)
More later ..
Dear Sir
You may get worked up on Spirituality but often it has been the case that half baked knowledge has been the reason for getting worked up on anything in general and Spirituality in particular
Great Scientists and Thinkers have recognised that
Best wishes for more knowledge and experience
couldn't agree more with Ram-CFL and Ludwig.
I also believe that free market capitalism inherently has structure of a boiling milk : where the cream is meant for the top, the rest of the milk is plain and watery. Of course, the cream wants the milk to keep boiling forever; the more it boils, the more cream the cream accumulates.
Still, I see capitalisam has made all happy and rosy around, because of probably two factors 1) the hope that "I will be rich like them one day" (oops, what kind of goal-setting they have these days?) and 2) ultra-exploitation of land resources.
Truth is bitter, no doubt. What our ancestors did for 3-4 thousands of years, that is, to save these precious resources is now termed unintelligent and even anti-social. However, the new generation which is crazy to suck up everything around, is seen as development and prosperity. As they say, people are getting richer but our land is getting poorer.
People hate zamindars and love corporates these days. I wonder the difference! Zamindars made crores and gave back little, so are these corporates. Different faces, same outlook.
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