An interesting read on how Avg IQ of India was put at 81, by Dr richard lynn.
http://isteve.blogspot.com/2008/06/indias-average-iq-in-2100.html?commentPage=1
The post is a VERY VERY interesting read, and the debate that follows is even more interesting. Steve's original post , here, (http://www.vdare.com/sailer/india.htm), makes an interesting comparison between India and China in his attempt to deciphere the low IQ reported by Dr Richard Lynn and Vanhanen's IQ and the Wealth of Nations. Steve, further, tries to interpret the avg IQ score of Indian, and surely for the benefit of potential investors in Indian markets, by dividing India into North and South-- a geographical divide, and the Caste groups with Brahmins on top of the pyramid-- the social divide. One of his critic further very zealously adds the vast followers of Islam in India also a very very influencing causes for the Avg IQ score of Indians.
Apart from what has been said and debated in the above links, I , on my own, attempted to track the actual status of Avg IQ by my personal observations. I begin with a feeling that Dr Lynn may not be as much incorrect in what he reports, as when I look around for traits of them, i find the low IQ signatures far more.
The quest begins with a look into Bollywood. It has a saga of producing those same run-of-the-mill stories , and more shockingly they quite often become a hit-- more cause being ther reasons such as cast, banner, locations, songs, etc.
The same goes with the song lyrics. Quite often the pattern of ryhme is same or preditable in them.
The history of India shows a lot of cultural confusion resulting into the average growth direction being seriously retarded. There is vedic dharma, followed by Islam, followed by Chritianity. It all leads to our culture fostered IQ to come low. Heavily.
And then last but important, the social stratification, which has become hugely caste biased, resulting into a huge population propotion of the backwards and dalits. The forwards are only oppertunity based gainers, whereby even they can often be overlapping, atleast economically, into the backward groups, on occasions. There is little or less doubt that whatever high IQ is there can mostly be traced to the forward caste groups, but the lower castes have huge population , thus bringing down the score.
In the current , Software and IT -cult of India, the flynn effect is surely working at a very high propotion whereby the score might see a dramatic change in the next , if ever, study conducted on the same matter.
Diagnosis of our Joke culture
Diagnosis of our Joke culture
Some boys show a good sense of humor to girls only to have some more fun. ! Humor, then, is mark of their cunningness, not intelligence.
A joke is a playful and entertainment activity done by human. In most cases, it is a narration done with intentions to invoke laughter. A Wikipedia search shows the antiquity and kinds of joke. But apart from what ever is documented by the Wikipedia, Jokes , in my observations, serve other purposes as well.
Humor , in human beings , is a unique gift to the species, and in a sense depicts our intelligence. Jokes are a sub classification of the larger emotion, the Humor. In the classic socio-anthropology, intelligence is the pre-requisition for being a good at 'Providing' work by males. Thus, Jokes can also be taken as an approximate indicators for a good Intelligence, and thereby a good Provider. Females of human species very often succumb to the charms of a good humourist, -- read -- a good joke-cracker. Owing to this nature, Jokes have slowly risen to become the mark of a good and nourished status of person in his society. A person good at joking is a person- smart and trendy.
Jokes have thus moved into the field of mutual competition between males for courting the females. Thereby, jokes have now adopted the form of acute criticism, Sarcasm, hurled at the fellow competitor, aimed with reducing his popularity among the females. One can notice clearly that -- "jhela di' culture rising, or that 'de ghooma ke' one. The smartness is now measured, unwittingly, by promptness of reply to a statement, by promptness of cross-questioning, -- promptness being the word.
Humor is everywhere. One can hear jokes all through the day :- in the television, on radio FM, on emails, on mobiles, --everywhere. When I attempted the net search on Jokes, there were a thousand sites, but it was hard to find one which could provided the scientific aspects of the practices of Joking among humans. My actual concern, while doing this search was to look for reasons for lower IQ as reported by Dr Richard Lynn through his researches. The jokes and their insightfulness, as I attempt to assess, among Indians is no where inferior to what the best of high-IQ nations have.
Then, what signs are there for the low IQ among Indians, our galores of troubles which are attributable to us only, no external agency being the reason in the post-Independence era. I felt that the Jokes, in themselves, are supposedly not deep-delving means of analysing the cases. Surely, as the wikipedia put it, Jokes are a method to carry an inconvenient message across without getting confrontational, but they in themselves don't go too deep to help proper diagnosis. Thus they only open the door to the route on which a person himself has to walk a long way down through personal enquiries.
And then comes the path crossing aspect as well of the Jokes. While it is possible to have a joke to enlighten someone on some aspect, it is equally easy to have another joke, in the form of sarcasm, to lighten away the whole questioning self in that person. The cumulative effect could be that the person will stay un-awakened.
Perhaps this can explain the lower IQ case, despite a good Joking culture amongst us.
In a sense, the Jokes enlighten us about something, but the excess of it makes sure that we remain shallow in our thoughts, putting our energy to the job of fighting the sarcasm from our fellow being. A good analytical diagnosis does not happen for any issue with us people.
The newspaper writings, report-making, --everything attempts to become popular by adopting what is mostly accepted by the people-- the humor. A serious, but discerning, write-up matter hardly attract any readers for it.
While applying the above proposition to the heavy philosophical culture of Benaras (aka, Varanasi, my ancestral home town), I felt that the knowledge of the East has also dissipated away in the mirthfulness of the West. Over here , I am comparing the cultures of eastern UP with that of western UP. Eastern UP is the land of Rama, Hindu god, who was supposedly an Ideal Man, an obedient son, student, brother, husband, father, and a ruler. That makes the actual native culture of eastern UP to be more serious, and thoughts-filled to achieve the standards set by their ideal god.
In western UP, in comparison, the land of Krishna,( centered in Mathura), he is playful, romantic, questioning, smiling, clever, --the more popular, and supposedly more pragmatic, Hindu god. The culture of western UP, thus , is that of joking-- trivialising, playful, non-ideal, --read (realistic and practical) people.
Jokes, in another broad view, are a sub-culture of the modern Fun-loving-ness Culture. The modern generation is all about being fun-loving. We are looking for fun everywhere. And a continuous flow of fun comes , among other sources, from the jokes which are on all means of public and private communications. Entertainment has become the theme of public gathering. And Entertainment is understood to be specifically Hilariousness. I love to imagine how was it like in the days of the Raj, when some bunch of Indian people would gather-up at some place. Would those also talk the pleasure-triggering things??? I mean they had a larger purpose to look up to. The philosophy was more surmounting than today's. The devotion to god and spirituality was still very much a part of life styles. Where could Jokes adjust themselves among all these??
As the new age philosophy of Hedonism started to take us over, money-earning became our theme, the middle-class life style of 'Work Hard and Party Harder' began to take us over. The consequence is the sub-culture of Joking-ness,- everything and every talk has to have some joke-- purpose or the point don't matter.
Some boys show a good sense of humor to girls only to have some more fun. ! Humor, then, is mark of their cunningness, not intelligence.
A joke is a playful and entertainment activity done by human. In most cases, it is a narration done with intentions to invoke laughter. A Wikipedia search shows the antiquity and kinds of joke. But apart from what ever is documented by the Wikipedia, Jokes , in my observations, serve other purposes as well.
Humor , in human beings , is a unique gift to the species, and in a sense depicts our intelligence. Jokes are a sub classification of the larger emotion, the Humor. In the classic socio-anthropology, intelligence is the pre-requisition for being a good at 'Providing' work by males. Thus, Jokes can also be taken as an approximate indicators for a good Intelligence, and thereby a good Provider. Females of human species very often succumb to the charms of a good humourist, -- read -- a good joke-cracker. Owing to this nature, Jokes have slowly risen to become the mark of a good and nourished status of person in his society. A person good at joking is a person- smart and trendy.
Jokes have thus moved into the field of mutual competition between males for courting the females. Thereby, jokes have now adopted the form of acute criticism, Sarcasm, hurled at the fellow competitor, aimed with reducing his popularity among the females. One can notice clearly that -- "jhela di' culture rising, or that 'de ghooma ke' one. The smartness is now measured, unwittingly, by promptness of reply to a statement, by promptness of cross-questioning, -- promptness being the word.
Humor is everywhere. One can hear jokes all through the day :- in the television, on radio FM, on emails, on mobiles, --everywhere. When I attempted the net search on Jokes, there were a thousand sites, but it was hard to find one which could provided the scientific aspects of the practices of Joking among humans. My actual concern, while doing this search was to look for reasons for lower IQ as reported by Dr Richard Lynn through his researches. The jokes and their insightfulness, as I attempt to assess, among Indians is no where inferior to what the best of high-IQ nations have.
Then, what signs are there for the low IQ among Indians, our galores of troubles which are attributable to us only, no external agency being the reason in the post-Independence era. I felt that the Jokes, in themselves, are supposedly not deep-delving means of analysing the cases. Surely, as the wikipedia put it, Jokes are a method to carry an inconvenient message across without getting confrontational, but they in themselves don't go too deep to help proper diagnosis. Thus they only open the door to the route on which a person himself has to walk a long way down through personal enquiries.
And then comes the path crossing aspect as well of the Jokes. While it is possible to have a joke to enlighten someone on some aspect, it is equally easy to have another joke, in the form of sarcasm, to lighten away the whole questioning self in that person. The cumulative effect could be that the person will stay un-awakened.
Perhaps this can explain the lower IQ case, despite a good Joking culture amongst us.
In a sense, the Jokes enlighten us about something, but the excess of it makes sure that we remain shallow in our thoughts, putting our energy to the job of fighting the sarcasm from our fellow being. A good analytical diagnosis does not happen for any issue with us people.
The newspaper writings, report-making, --everything attempts to become popular by adopting what is mostly accepted by the people-- the humor. A serious, but discerning, write-up matter hardly attract any readers for it.
While applying the above proposition to the heavy philosophical culture of Benaras (aka, Varanasi, my ancestral home town), I felt that the knowledge of the East has also dissipated away in the mirthfulness of the West. Over here , I am comparing the cultures of eastern UP with that of western UP. Eastern UP is the land of Rama, Hindu god, who was supposedly an Ideal Man, an obedient son, student, brother, husband, father, and a ruler. That makes the actual native culture of eastern UP to be more serious, and thoughts-filled to achieve the standards set by their ideal god.
In western UP, in comparison, the land of Krishna,( centered in Mathura), he is playful, romantic, questioning, smiling, clever, --the more popular, and supposedly more pragmatic, Hindu god. The culture of western UP, thus , is that of joking-- trivialising, playful, non-ideal, --read (realistic and practical) people.
Jokes, in another broad view, are a sub-culture of the modern Fun-loving-ness Culture. The modern generation is all about being fun-loving. We are looking for fun everywhere. And a continuous flow of fun comes , among other sources, from the jokes which are on all means of public and private communications. Entertainment has become the theme of public gathering. And Entertainment is understood to be specifically Hilariousness. I love to imagine how was it like in the days of the Raj, when some bunch of Indian people would gather-up at some place. Would those also talk the pleasure-triggering things??? I mean they had a larger purpose to look up to. The philosophy was more surmounting than today's. The devotion to god and spirituality was still very much a part of life styles. Where could Jokes adjust themselves among all these??
As the new age philosophy of Hedonism started to take us over, money-earning became our theme, the middle-class life style of 'Work Hard and Party Harder' began to take us over. The consequence is the sub-culture of Joking-ness,- everything and every talk has to have some joke-- purpose or the point don't matter.
My fairy tale Corruption Nation.
Once I dreamt of a fairy tale country where Corruption was free and unchecked. I discovered the problem was how to save its corrupt citizen the day one of them falls sick! There was no way to buy a genuine medicine , neither by bribing away the pharmacist, or the maker, who had all licences. Same with food, thieves..etc.
Moral: Anti-corruption is a social need, like corruption- an individual need.
The UN Convention against corruption
Here it is.
Much like how the UN sub-org team made legislations like MARPOL , and SOLAS, etc..here is another gem from them..UN Convention against Corruption.(which , obviously, India has NOT retified yet).http://www.unodc.org/documents/treaties/UNCAC/Publications/Convention/08-50026_E.pdf
It is based on four pillars: Prevention , Criminalization , International cooperation ,Asset recovery
And here is the gem, the compendium to UNCAC..the Technical guide the UNCAC.
http://www.unodc.org/documents/corruption/Technical_Guide_UNCAC.pdf
Here are some commentaries and excerpts from the Technical Guide:
1. It evisages creation or re-structuring an already existent Anti-Corruption body, which should be completely **Independent**. The Guide provides as "Practical Challenges and the Solutions" on how to achieve the standards of "independance' for such bodies on Page 8,9 and 11.
2. It calls for 'specialised staff and training' for such a corruption-prevention body. Page 12.
3. To quote from the Guide, how to keep check on the personael in AC Body:
Page 15:
It may also be advisable to explore ways to monitor lifestyles of certain key
officials. This would admittedly be a rather delicate matter and would need to be
approached with due regard to, and in compliance with, applicable laws for the
protection of privacy. Such monitoring may include looking for telltale signs in
living accommodations, use of vehicles or standards of vacations which may not
be consistent with known salary levels. Individuals’ bank accounts may also
need to be monitored, provided that such monitoring is approved by employees
in their contracts.
Unquote
4: 'Training public officials on ethics ' !( P.16, the biggest gem and the biggest point, methinks)
5. Transparency in campaign and political party financing (the first step to corruption in public life)
6. Standards of behaviour and codes of conduct for public officials . p.217.
Much like how the UN sub-org team made legislations like MARPOL , and SOLAS, etc..here is another gem from them..UN Convention against Corruption.(which , obviously, India has NOT retified yet).http://www.unodc.org/documents/treaties/UNCAC/Publications/Convention/08-50026_E.pdf
It is based on four pillars: Prevention , Criminalization , International cooperation ,Asset recovery
And here is the gem, the compendium to UNCAC..the Technical guide the UNCAC.
http://www.unodc.org/documents/corruption/Technical_Guide_UNCAC.pdf
Here are some commentaries and excerpts from the Technical Guide:
1. It evisages creation or re-structuring an already existent Anti-Corruption body, which should be completely **Independent**. The Guide provides as "Practical Challenges and the Solutions" on how to achieve the standards of "independance' for such bodies on Page 8,9 and 11.
2. It calls for 'specialised staff and training' for such a corruption-prevention body. Page 12.
3. To quote from the Guide, how to keep check on the personael in AC Body:
Page 15:
It may also be advisable to explore ways to monitor lifestyles of certain key
officials. This would admittedly be a rather delicate matter and would need to be
approached with due regard to, and in compliance with, applicable laws for the
protection of privacy. Such monitoring may include looking for telltale signs in
living accommodations, use of vehicles or standards of vacations which may not
be consistent with known salary levels. Individuals’ bank accounts may also
need to be monitored, provided that such monitoring is approved by employees
in their contracts.
Unquote
4: 'Training public officials on ethics ' !( P.16, the biggest gem and the biggest point, methinks)
5. Transparency in campaign and political party financing (the first step to corruption in public life)
6. Standards of behaviour and codes of conduct for public officials . p.217.
The problem with India Against Corruption (www.indiaagainstcorruption.org)
So, It's happening in the same manner in which it should be envisaged by a low IQ nation as India.
The crusade of India Against Corruption has turned into a personal war between Five-off-Five! The one batch of five being that from the government and the another five from another organisation calling themselves 'India against corruption' working under the umbrella of an organisation called Civil Society group.
I dislike this and I dislike it more when i see Indians time and again falling into the trap of proving "who is honest"! U see, first they put the blame on Sharad Pawar, and now the blame is on Shashi Bhushan, who is trying to prove that he is not dishonest. And slowly the crusade is hijacked away into a personal battle to prove whether person X is honest or not.!!? Isn't it funny that we the nation of 1.2 billion people have failed to figure out where exactly does this dishonest and it's hypocrisy lies!! We think it is in those 543, the parliamentarians, or maybe additionally in those MLAs and MLC's of all states of India summed up.
Isn't that the biggest fault we are doing?? Our whole crusade is not yet prepared and planned to assume that the actual battle is not against those handful ,543+, but against the 1.2 billion itself ! the entire population of India is a victim and cause of corruption, and all, for our non-standard definition of what is corruption and what is honesty.
It again reminds me of my lesson in Maritime law and how democracy is excercised at the United Nations.
The proper plan to weed out corruption for a long time should be that-- as a decent civil society group we should first acknowldge that there is an extreme and most expeditious need to get rid of corruption. In doing so, the CSO should, first and foremost, avoid getting into the blame game, by asking Sharad Pawar to quit or , say, Laloo Prasad to quit, or Shashi Bhushan to quit. And for a very simple reason that when asked formally on camera, even Sharad/ Laloo/ Shashi Bushan will express there consent to that fact that there is corruption , massive, in our society and there is need to do something about it.But so will each of the Indians do, no matter how much corrupt he is being in the darkness of night. ..kya kare, karna padtaa hai, zamaana aisa hai...That's our most common excuse.
So, like the way it goes in the UN, we first need to develop Articles of Faith in the Convention (against corruption). That should include only the statements about what is our faith, the reason why all people have collected on some issue or point.
The second step, as it goes at the UN, is to form a committee of experts who may well describe through their intense study what exactly is the problem we all 1.2billions are faced with. Corruption by mere understanding from the ordinary english language interpretation will itself lead to more 'corruptions' to happen. Corruption also means -- not working as it should.. and that is what will happen if we do not have a universal, standardised, definition.
The bigger known problem with Indian masses is that our society tends to work on the basis of generalist, not the experts. So there we are at it again. In the Five from the CSO, there are lawyers, ex-police official, ex-income-tax man, but not a single of them with a proven qualification and declared work on what is his definition of corruption. Infact, if individually questioned, I am pretty confident, they all five will even fail to acknowldege that Corruption, in some sense, has also benifitted some groups of people, from whom , a secret support from corruption is rightfully to be anticipated, while they in their own beliefs, may not be wrong about it.
For example, a person from a poor set-up, if he has succeeded and managed to find his right place in the society all by grace of corruption, will actually be supporting it from inside, while on surface he too maybe with the crusaders of against-corruption. Rather, the crusaders may themselves be those lot of people who have failed to reach some table which they wanted to achieve and therefore putting the cause of their failures on a devil, only now recalled, the Corruption. It may be there guise to position themselves strategically somewhere on top. CAN ANYONE confirm to me it is not so, and with all those who are against corruption! ANYONE!?
It's here that the philisophy and experts have to be roped in, to provide a universal definition of it, AND more importantly the one which is finally approved by the common people through the process of ballot. U see, India is a democracy, and all the politicians and the government people are rightful to make a noise, which is quite logical to accept, that, how can one say that those same people who have been elected by the people, be treated a Corrupt people. The 'popularly elected ones' are being blackmailed and charged by a group of hooligans under the unbrella of so called the CSO, and working from behind the shoulders and back (and stomach) of a 73-year old, named Anna Hazare.
Any answers to this logical mystery???
I do not know the members of the CSO, and definitely not , anything better than the people and ministers in the Government and Politics. PLEASE NOTE MY STATEMENT.
So , MY DEMAND IS THAT THE SYSTEM HAS TO BE SUCH WHICH WORKS SO AS TO YIELD THE HONESTY OF DEVINE LEVEL, EVEN WHILE ALL COMPONENT MEMBERS MAY THEMSELVES NOT BE HONEST.
AND YES, THAT IS POSSIBLE.
An applied knowledge of sciences and philosphy will have to be invoked by our Experts Committee to describe/circumscribe/in-scribe what is Corruption and What is honesty. They might have to make use of statistical laws such as Law of Statistical Stability of Large Numbers; the fact that whole group can be zero-aware leading to a complete annihiliation of the above law; and the knowledge of public administration management systems, whereby, a divine righteousness may be yielded by group of people while each of them may or may not be honest. The limitations of Democratic Systems which occur because of its reliance on Polling and majoritism will have to be taken into account.
It is then, that we obatin our definition set, (as it happens in all martime laws and code which we the sea-farers study), that we begin to form procedures to cure the problem. The present Jan Lokpal bill is , in some philosophical equivalent terms, the last of the few regulations of maritime convention which I study often. It speaks of remedies in case corruption happens.
The whole Anti -Corruption convention should first mention the design-ingredients of the public administration system which have been planted to rule out the corruption. In my field, the maritime syllabus, the training of personal is the first important point, while the system has been properly designed. Therefore, no system, even if well and robustly designed to rule out corruption, can work effectively unless the people operating it are tarined enough. Of course, the need for a near fool-proof designing of the system has not been dismissed.
With a proper, legal and valid definition in hand, which is also publically approved, it will become much comfortable for the system managers to re-design or adjust or update the systems to meet the new requirements.
In the Universal Principles, the UDHR, the systems should not be working by way of creating fear, but rather by way of creating awareness. It is in the Asian (read Chinese -kind) principles that things work by creating fear/ deterrance.
I still wonder why did the managers of 'India Against Corruption ' choose the Hong-Kong type 'Anti-corruption commission' type of model (refer wikipedia search on 'India Against Corruption') instead of some liberal democracy type model. In the least, there should be an attempt to create one executive institution, which is independant of parliament, and although not having any public executionary powers, but still obiliged to provide a formal advise, that of experts, to all the governments, both at centre and in states.
Nothing has yet been done to how the UP CM is ruthlessly spending away public money, even while the law courts have failed to legal- faults--means to check on them. And even if we know that the purchases for whimsical constructions are designed to siphon off public ex-chequer funds into personal coffers, there is no definition to prove that it is a form of corruption too, and therefore illegal.
It is with the perpetual enthornement of a counsellor arm of a public institution of high public esteem that the government should be given a yardstick to measure its success or failure, before the goverment can be fustigated with the same public yardstick for being corrupt. It is only when a formal institution designs a yardstick that the Government will start measuring own success or failure and then stop blowing its own trumpets thorugh publicity songs such as India Shinning, ...Uttam Pradesh and ...Badal raha a... pradesh.
The crusade of India Against Corruption has turned into a personal war between Five-off-Five! The one batch of five being that from the government and the another five from another organisation calling themselves 'India against corruption' working under the umbrella of an organisation called Civil Society group.
I dislike this and I dislike it more when i see Indians time and again falling into the trap of proving "who is honest"! U see, first they put the blame on Sharad Pawar, and now the blame is on Shashi Bhushan, who is trying to prove that he is not dishonest. And slowly the crusade is hijacked away into a personal battle to prove whether person X is honest or not.!!? Isn't it funny that we the nation of 1.2 billion people have failed to figure out where exactly does this dishonest and it's hypocrisy lies!! We think it is in those 543, the parliamentarians, or maybe additionally in those MLAs and MLC's of all states of India summed up.
Isn't that the biggest fault we are doing?? Our whole crusade is not yet prepared and planned to assume that the actual battle is not against those handful ,543+, but against the 1.2 billion itself ! the entire population of India is a victim and cause of corruption, and all, for our non-standard definition of what is corruption and what is honesty.
It again reminds me of my lesson in Maritime law and how democracy is excercised at the United Nations.
The proper plan to weed out corruption for a long time should be that-- as a decent civil society group we should first acknowldge that there is an extreme and most expeditious need to get rid of corruption. In doing so, the CSO should, first and foremost, avoid getting into the blame game, by asking Sharad Pawar to quit or , say, Laloo Prasad to quit, or Shashi Bhushan to quit. And for a very simple reason that when asked formally on camera, even Sharad/ Laloo/ Shashi Bushan will express there consent to that fact that there is corruption , massive, in our society and there is need to do something about it.But so will each of the Indians do, no matter how much corrupt he is being in the darkness of night. ..kya kare, karna padtaa hai, zamaana aisa hai...That's our most common excuse.
So, like the way it goes in the UN, we first need to develop Articles of Faith in the Convention (against corruption). That should include only the statements about what is our faith, the reason why all people have collected on some issue or point.
The second step, as it goes at the UN, is to form a committee of experts who may well describe through their intense study what exactly is the problem we all 1.2billions are faced with. Corruption by mere understanding from the ordinary english language interpretation will itself lead to more 'corruptions' to happen. Corruption also means -- not working as it should.. and that is what will happen if we do not have a universal, standardised, definition.
The bigger known problem with Indian masses is that our society tends to work on the basis of generalist, not the experts. So there we are at it again. In the Five from the CSO, there are lawyers, ex-police official, ex-income-tax man, but not a single of them with a proven qualification and declared work on what is his definition of corruption. Infact, if individually questioned, I am pretty confident, they all five will even fail to acknowldege that Corruption, in some sense, has also benifitted some groups of people, from whom , a secret support from corruption is rightfully to be anticipated, while they in their own beliefs, may not be wrong about it.
For example, a person from a poor set-up, if he has succeeded and managed to find his right place in the society all by grace of corruption, will actually be supporting it from inside, while on surface he too maybe with the crusaders of against-corruption. Rather, the crusaders may themselves be those lot of people who have failed to reach some table which they wanted to achieve and therefore putting the cause of their failures on a devil, only now recalled, the Corruption. It may be there guise to position themselves strategically somewhere on top. CAN ANYONE confirm to me it is not so, and with all those who are against corruption! ANYONE!?
It's here that the philisophy and experts have to be roped in, to provide a universal definition of it, AND more importantly the one which is finally approved by the common people through the process of ballot. U see, India is a democracy, and all the politicians and the government people are rightful to make a noise, which is quite logical to accept, that, how can one say that those same people who have been elected by the people, be treated a Corrupt people. The 'popularly elected ones' are being blackmailed and charged by a group of hooligans under the unbrella of so called the CSO, and working from behind the shoulders and back (and stomach) of a 73-year old, named Anna Hazare.
Any answers to this logical mystery???
I do not know the members of the CSO, and definitely not , anything better than the people and ministers in the Government and Politics. PLEASE NOTE MY STATEMENT.
So , MY DEMAND IS THAT THE SYSTEM HAS TO BE SUCH WHICH WORKS SO AS TO YIELD THE HONESTY OF DEVINE LEVEL, EVEN WHILE ALL COMPONENT MEMBERS MAY THEMSELVES NOT BE HONEST.
AND YES, THAT IS POSSIBLE.
An applied knowledge of sciences and philosphy will have to be invoked by our Experts Committee to describe/circumscribe/in-scribe what is Corruption and What is honesty. They might have to make use of statistical laws such as Law of Statistical Stability of Large Numbers; the fact that whole group can be zero-aware leading to a complete annihiliation of the above law; and the knowledge of public administration management systems, whereby, a divine righteousness may be yielded by group of people while each of them may or may not be honest. The limitations of Democratic Systems which occur because of its reliance on Polling and majoritism will have to be taken into account.
It is then, that we obatin our definition set, (as it happens in all martime laws and code which we the sea-farers study), that we begin to form procedures to cure the problem. The present Jan Lokpal bill is , in some philosophical equivalent terms, the last of the few regulations of maritime convention which I study often. It speaks of remedies in case corruption happens.
The whole Anti -Corruption convention should first mention the design-ingredients of the public administration system which have been planted to rule out the corruption. In my field, the maritime syllabus, the training of personal is the first important point, while the system has been properly designed. Therefore, no system, even if well and robustly designed to rule out corruption, can work effectively unless the people operating it are tarined enough. Of course, the need for a near fool-proof designing of the system has not been dismissed.
With a proper, legal and valid definition in hand, which is also publically approved, it will become much comfortable for the system managers to re-design or adjust or update the systems to meet the new requirements.
In the Universal Principles, the UDHR, the systems should not be working by way of creating fear, but rather by way of creating awareness. It is in the Asian (read Chinese -kind) principles that things work by creating fear/ deterrance.
I still wonder why did the managers of 'India Against Corruption ' choose the Hong-Kong type 'Anti-corruption commission' type of model (refer wikipedia search on 'India Against Corruption') instead of some liberal democracy type model. In the least, there should be an attempt to create one executive institution, which is independant of parliament, and although not having any public executionary powers, but still obiliged to provide a formal advise, that of experts, to all the governments, both at centre and in states.
Nothing has yet been done to how the UP CM is ruthlessly spending away public money, even while the law courts have failed to legal- faults--means to check on them. And even if we know that the purchases for whimsical constructions are designed to siphon off public ex-chequer funds into personal coffers, there is no definition to prove that it is a form of corruption too, and therefore illegal.
It is with the perpetual enthornement of a counsellor arm of a public institution of high public esteem that the government should be given a yardstick to measure its success or failure, before the goverment can be fustigated with the same public yardstick for being corrupt. It is only when a formal institution designs a yardstick that the Government will start measuring own success or failure and then stop blowing its own trumpets thorugh publicity songs such as India Shinning, ...Uttam Pradesh and ...Badal raha a... pradesh.
The Point of Inflection of Indian Society
Point of Inflection, in mathematics, I recall, is the point at which a graph changes its tendency, although it continues to proceed along.
For example, in a graph of y=Sin(x), the inflection occurs at Sin(180 deg) and Sin(90 deg), when the upward rising graph takes a dip, alternately.
The characteristics of this point is that it reflects the maximum valve that the curve can attain in it's that leg of motion.
Here, I was thinking about what are some Inflections of our society which seem not-conforming to what our original , i.e, the starting motion was.
1. We called ourselves the leaders of spirituality in the world. Our philosophy was well developed. Our universities of Nalanda and Tuxshila are supposedly the first of the Universities founded. Our knowledge was once supreme.
That makes me question as to how did we become one of the leading corrupt nations in the world.
The abundant source of our knowledge was primarily researched and owned by people, whom we would call the Brahmins. They were the keepers of our faith, and unlike the west where Aristotle and Socrates had a very sad treatment meted out to them by the society, the Brahmins, in our case were and even today the highest "caste" of people. and today they are as much prone to corruption as any other.?
What happened in between which created the Point of Inflection leading to all this?? I quite often think about this within myself.
The custodians of our history very well know provide a factual profile of the events which happened during course of time, but the impact of those events on the overall evolution of our society is left to all us to conclude our reasoning.
The history of invasions by the Greeks, Muslims, Moghuls, British and their assimilation in our culture has created some of its own man-made confusions in our thinking.
Looking at the massive support that Anna Hazare is drawing in his campaign, it is again baffling that when everybody-- from common man, private organisations, government authorities, all minister, -- is supporting him -- then who is it who is being a hypocrite?!?
how did the forward moving graph of intellectual growth of India, although continued to proceed forward but hit its point of inflection whereby it's tendency suffered a change?
The social viewpoint,as described by this researcher in his dissertation - Combating Corruption in India, Role of Civil Society -- for World Congress of Political Science Association (July 2000, Quebec City, Canada), Mr Sunil Sondhi, Reader in Political Science in University of Delhi, as impressed me a great deal. There is a social recognition given to the corrupt as well, and same or more , but not less, than a honest man (page 12 and 13 of the report).
I have an opinion that the modus operandi for corruption to come about despite all that philosophical achievements and spiritual advancements, is this:-
There is vast plurality in the cross section profile of our society. The Islamic rulers were primarily military styled people , with a clear support for their religion only. They perhaps accorded recognition to Brahminism as a caste, and not a status, as it was earlier being perceived with the Vedic society. Overtime, with the mingling of Vedic culture and Islamic culture, as the two started becoming friends with each other, the overall ethos were put at some confusion mark, perhaps to suit the convenience of both friends from different viewpoint. Maybe the Muslim ruler adjusted his Islamic beliefs to help his hindu friend and maybe the Hindu friend forgot the islamic suppression to gain closeness with the incumbent ruler.
Corruption was sown with the fabric of our society. (well, i strictly don't intend to put any of the two people from two religions to be anyway responsible for it and plainly because neither of them is the cause. It is the way nature works and perhaps may again work somewhere deep in future. Thus my only wish is understand the mechanism of it by being objective to figure out how 'adjustments' lead to corruption).
Obviously such gainful friendships would have troubled a lot of followers of both the groups. A servient hindu would see his high status friend to be enjoying from the apparently in-agreeable friendship; and so would the other muslims be perceiving about his ruler.
Lessons of how and why to keep closer to the people in power were learnt at large by the society. The knowledge of brahmin, who have over course of time become land-owning from a simple preacher and alms-surviving renounced person, was modified. Spirituality become only a course of talk, to be delivered to another receiver, with no or less practical applications. The power ethos of our society were carved out, which only dictated-- to be in power and/or to serve those in power.
Otherwise, it is plain to note that neither the muslims are naturally so corrupt, as in Gulf states, nor are the hindu people , as described in their vedic beliefs. But the sum total of the two is definitely not so. Like the case of water , forming from its core elements hydrogen and oxygen.
The culture continued to the british era, where both the people adopted and learned to serve the british. And once they are gone, here we are , serving our new powerful people, our new masters.
That might perhaps explain how the Point of Inflection came about.
For example, in a graph of y=Sin(x), the inflection occurs at Sin(180 deg) and Sin(90 deg), when the upward rising graph takes a dip, alternately.
The characteristics of this point is that it reflects the maximum valve that the curve can attain in it's that leg of motion.
Here, I was thinking about what are some Inflections of our society which seem not-conforming to what our original , i.e, the starting motion was.
1. We called ourselves the leaders of spirituality in the world. Our philosophy was well developed. Our universities of Nalanda and Tuxshila are supposedly the first of the Universities founded. Our knowledge was once supreme.
That makes me question as to how did we become one of the leading corrupt nations in the world.
The abundant source of our knowledge was primarily researched and owned by people, whom we would call the Brahmins. They were the keepers of our faith, and unlike the west where Aristotle and Socrates had a very sad treatment meted out to them by the society, the Brahmins, in our case were and even today the highest "caste" of people. and today they are as much prone to corruption as any other.?
What happened in between which created the Point of Inflection leading to all this?? I quite often think about this within myself.
The custodians of our history very well know provide a factual profile of the events which happened during course of time, but the impact of those events on the overall evolution of our society is left to all us to conclude our reasoning.
The history of invasions by the Greeks, Muslims, Moghuls, British and their assimilation in our culture has created some of its own man-made confusions in our thinking.
Looking at the massive support that Anna Hazare is drawing in his campaign, it is again baffling that when everybody-- from common man, private organisations, government authorities, all minister, -- is supporting him -- then who is it who is being a hypocrite?!?
how did the forward moving graph of intellectual growth of India, although continued to proceed forward but hit its point of inflection whereby it's tendency suffered a change?
The social viewpoint,as described by this researcher in his dissertation - Combating Corruption in India, Role of Civil Society -- for World Congress of Political Science Association (July 2000, Quebec City, Canada), Mr Sunil Sondhi, Reader in Political Science in University of Delhi, as impressed me a great deal. There is a social recognition given to the corrupt as well, and same or more , but not less, than a honest man (page 12 and 13 of the report).
I have an opinion that the modus operandi for corruption to come about despite all that philosophical achievements and spiritual advancements, is this:-
There is vast plurality in the cross section profile of our society. The Islamic rulers were primarily military styled people , with a clear support for their religion only. They perhaps accorded recognition to Brahminism as a caste, and not a status, as it was earlier being perceived with the Vedic society. Overtime, with the mingling of Vedic culture and Islamic culture, as the two started becoming friends with each other, the overall ethos were put at some confusion mark, perhaps to suit the convenience of both friends from different viewpoint. Maybe the Muslim ruler adjusted his Islamic beliefs to help his hindu friend and maybe the Hindu friend forgot the islamic suppression to gain closeness with the incumbent ruler.
Corruption was sown with the fabric of our society. (well, i strictly don't intend to put any of the two people from two religions to be anyway responsible for it and plainly because neither of them is the cause. It is the way nature works and perhaps may again work somewhere deep in future. Thus my only wish is understand the mechanism of it by being objective to figure out how 'adjustments' lead to corruption).
Obviously such gainful friendships would have troubled a lot of followers of both the groups. A servient hindu would see his high status friend to be enjoying from the apparently in-agreeable friendship; and so would the other muslims be perceiving about his ruler.
Lessons of how and why to keep closer to the people in power were learnt at large by the society. The knowledge of brahmin, who have over course of time become land-owning from a simple preacher and alms-surviving renounced person, was modified. Spirituality become only a course of talk, to be delivered to another receiver, with no or less practical applications. The power ethos of our society were carved out, which only dictated-- to be in power and/or to serve those in power.
Otherwise, it is plain to note that neither the muslims are naturally so corrupt, as in Gulf states, nor are the hindu people , as described in their vedic beliefs. But the sum total of the two is definitely not so. Like the case of water , forming from its core elements hydrogen and oxygen.
The culture continued to the british era, where both the people adopted and learned to serve the british. And once they are gone, here we are , serving our new powerful people, our new masters.
That might perhaps explain how the Point of Inflection came about.
A formal training course on Moral Philosophy,-- method to resolve the Ethical Deficit/Corruption crisis
Dear All
@: India against corruption
I was just thinking-- why not make a compulsory certificate course in 'Moral Philosophy (ethics) ' for all governement employees above Grade 3. This will be more humane, less punitive, more professional treatment of a practical problem of corruption in Govt Offices, and longer standing solution, gradual and not revolutionary thus less disturbing to the prevailing systems. For the purpose of achieving "need for training in Democracy" ,as envisaged by Anna himself, this case-stuady based course can br introduced, courseware prepared by some real high class institute such as IGNOU/JNU, and will aim to achieve a uniform knowledge/interpretations for some basic issues such as : what is a nation, what is democracy, what is a government and its role in democracy, what is corruption , etc. So far, in my opinion, many eposides of corruption are happening because of non-linear, self-styled interpretations.
this course should be a of 5 year validity only, and the employees' salary increment and/or promotion be attached to performace in the course....Six months, may be, and cyclic, turn by turn for all employees.
I am a mariner by profession, a ship captain. I would want to express my views of method to overcome the menace of corruption based on my professional experince.
Changing the mind of millions of people or keeping them under moral checks has always been a very very tedious task. As a sailor, who are probably the oldest of the traders that came to human species, and who have a history of being the most notorious bunch of professionals for their unlawful and value-less speeches and actions, I now feel the the present breed of mariners is really a improved and more intelligent group than before. Sometimes that makes me think as to how did this miracle come about.
When I look back in the history, i find that most of the changes have happened only in recent years and the mechanism for this change was a Oil-Major companies (Such as Exxon, BP, Shell) orginated plan to introduce courses for training us in various aspects , particularly industrial-safety matters.
Later in time this courses-type training method was adopted by the International Maritime organisation(IMO), through their STCW(Standards for tarining, certifications and watchkeeping for mariners) code. Then, the contarcting governements to the IMO and the UN adopted these course modules, which has truely brought about a huge change in our conduct today.!
While thinking about the problem of education system in India, the problem of moral-deficit in people -- both Governement employees and private organisations, and other issues such as lack of creativity/ less innovative, seldom breakthroughs in field of science and technology, I have, along with many other thinkers as well, stumbled upon the issue of zero-exposure to a subject -Applied Philosophy. Once reading a book, Fuzzy Thinking by Bob Kosko, as Univ of Calfornia based researcher, I was too much impressed by his comparison of Buddhist Philosophy as practised by the Japanese , versus, the Aristotlean philosophy as practised by the western nations. Kosko, although was wanting to tell , through this comparison, as to how the idea of fuzzy logic and computer circuits based on these philosophies came about. His basic theme was to do a research in artifical intelligence, where machine may be able to understand things in same 'vague' terms that we humans do, such as "How is your job" /answer" "It's okay". In the binary systems, machines understand only "good" and "bad". But human world lives in answers which lies in between too, which is the Buddhist "Middle Path" kind of thinking, reason why the Japanese were so keen to find material which may learn to respond to the in-between current voltages too.
well, the summary was, how philosophy, which Bob Kosko held a degree in, helped making of such logic-circuits. That was too impressive for me to think how Philosophy a subject which we common people despise so much, was turned into so much enriching and encashable thought.
Then, i thought, why not should we have this subject introduced in our schools and colleges and places such as IITs. The deficit of knowledge in Philosophy was severly felt by me.
While reading about the arguments on menace of Corrpution, i read many people writing as to how a lack of moral awakening can lead to corruption, even if a Jan Lokpal is introduced. there arguments sounded reasonable to me.
It is from the combination of the two, my professional experience and from Kosko's 'best -selling' work, i though why not help growth of philosophy, which as it is india claims to be excelling in by way of its "spiritual leadership" , to become a part of everyone's learning. (well, at this point Baba Ramdev and his band can be incorporated too, although the Philisophy teaching that I am talking about is a different, applied version of it, also absorbing the western concepts too, in it. This will help the overall promotion of the subject too.
secondly, we need to aim at increasing the internal philisophical friction betweem the people so as to churn out a good ethical society. Thankfully as a nation we are already secular, democratic, and endorsing the Universal declaration of Human Rights (UDHR).
maybe, then, all that is required is to just take a lead while many of our government policies are already in favour to impart us a good headway in this direction.
Please think about it, and respond to my suggestion.
________________________________________________________________________________
Anubha Shukla: They are going to cheat there also...
Me:
Yeah, but Professional Training Course do not work on the basis of closed book exams. Over here, the purpose of the tarining course is to increase psychological friction between two people when they meet each other for any job-dependency reason. For example, A meet B for getting his work 'Alpha' to be cleared. Until now, due to our social culturing, the event is that B, if he is govt officer, will look for some personal gains, to help A clear away his work Alpha faster. With the course module done, A might be formally competing, mentally, with B and rest all the people who are around as to what they might be thinking about what's in his mind.
Caught red-handed in cheating will also help increase friction ! the society has a natural tendency for competeing against each other, that 'neighbours envy'. the adjacent guy will habitually tease or finger-point at the one who is caught cheating, no matter what is the exam! the blaming-game in this is about too-dull-to-not-be-able-to-cheat-successfully. it is also known that everybody uses unfair means if he gets any oppertunity.
Corruption has a socio-economic aspect as well. At the same time as curbing down the economic growth, corruption has helped many people to make quick money and thus rise in their social status. Remember that one of the research study says that people do give more or same status to those who earn money by corruption means, as any other honest people. Infact, many reserved class people, who were both socially and economically backwards today feel empowered only because corruption has given thme enough financial strenght to feel themselves like a victor. The wealth of the non-backward classes have neither been anything honestly earned.
In summary, the war between the groups of people is all about earning more money, nomatter what means.
During this, a few educated or exposed groups have started showing hesitations for corruption , all credit to small awakening that could be achieved by some scattered knowledge obtained from movies/tv etc. This success is only due to the fact that such people have fomal learning into various subjects of sciences/art. The movies, which mostly do not convey a good knowledge on what damage the corruption does, but only show a public apathy or frustration towards it, still succeed in giving some more organised thoughts about damages due to corruption.
At this point, it is important to recall that Corruption DOES NOT compleyely destroy our economic progress. It only slows it down by putting money on some unorganised route.
So, the idea of course is to formally introduce knowledge on corruption and other related philisophical matters, so that a competetion begin in the groups of people about what the other might be thinking. whether the opposite favours it, or opposes it? The honest will get a formal place to show up their honesty , and the course programs become a platform for a formal and regulat debate to happen between such people, so that knowledge will be gained by the course organisers as well.
Then it will create a place for hypocrisy to be built, and then later exposed, if someone is doing good in course-exam and still involving in the corruption ,as his antagonist may begin finger-pointing game on each other during the courses. that bwill be sever social pressure to come out of corruption's socially accpeted regime..
@: India against corruption
I was just thinking-- why not make a compulsory certificate course in 'Moral Philosophy (ethics) ' for all governement employees above Grade 3. This will be more humane, less punitive, more professional treatment of a practical problem of corruption in Govt Offices, and longer standing solution, gradual and not revolutionary thus less disturbing to the prevailing systems. For the purpose of achieving "need for training in Democracy" ,as envisaged by Anna himself, this case-stuady based course can br introduced, courseware prepared by some real high class institute such as IGNOU/JNU, and will aim to achieve a uniform knowledge/interpretations for some basic issues such as : what is a nation, what is democracy, what is a government and its role in democracy, what is corruption , etc. So far, in my opinion, many eposides of corruption are happening because of non-linear, self-styled interpretations.
this course should be a of 5 year validity only, and the employees' salary increment and/or promotion be attached to performace in the course....Six months, may be, and cyclic, turn by turn for all employees.
I am a mariner by profession, a ship captain. I would want to express my views of method to overcome the menace of corruption based on my professional experince.
Changing the mind of millions of people or keeping them under moral checks has always been a very very tedious task. As a sailor, who are probably the oldest of the traders that came to human species, and who have a history of being the most notorious bunch of professionals for their unlawful and value-less speeches and actions, I now feel the the present breed of mariners is really a improved and more intelligent group than before. Sometimes that makes me think as to how did this miracle come about.
When I look back in the history, i find that most of the changes have happened only in recent years and the mechanism for this change was a Oil-Major companies (Such as Exxon, BP, Shell) orginated plan to introduce courses for training us in various aspects , particularly industrial-safety matters.
Later in time this courses-type training method was adopted by the International Maritime organisation(IMO), through their STCW(Standards for tarining, certifications and watchkeeping for mariners) code. Then, the contarcting governements to the IMO and the UN adopted these course modules, which has truely brought about a huge change in our conduct today.!
While thinking about the problem of education system in India, the problem of moral-deficit in people -- both Governement employees and private organisations, and other issues such as lack of creativity/ less innovative, seldom breakthroughs in field of science and technology, I have, along with many other thinkers as well, stumbled upon the issue of zero-exposure to a subject -Applied Philosophy. Once reading a book, Fuzzy Thinking by Bob Kosko, as Univ of Calfornia based researcher, I was too much impressed by his comparison of Buddhist Philosophy as practised by the Japanese , versus, the Aristotlean philosophy as practised by the western nations. Kosko, although was wanting to tell , through this comparison, as to how the idea of fuzzy logic and computer circuits based on these philosophies came about. His basic theme was to do a research in artifical intelligence, where machine may be able to understand things in same 'vague' terms that we humans do, such as "How is your job" /answer" "It's okay". In the binary systems, machines understand only "good" and "bad". But human world lives in answers which lies in between too, which is the Buddhist "Middle Path" kind of thinking, reason why the Japanese were so keen to find material which may learn to respond to the in-between current voltages too.
well, the summary was, how philosophy, which Bob Kosko held a degree in, helped making of such logic-circuits. That was too impressive for me to think how Philosophy a subject which we common people despise so much, was turned into so much enriching and encashable thought.
Then, i thought, why not should we have this subject introduced in our schools and colleges and places such as IITs. The deficit of knowledge in Philosophy was severly felt by me.
While reading about the arguments on menace of Corrpution, i read many people writing as to how a lack of moral awakening can lead to corruption, even if a Jan Lokpal is introduced. there arguments sounded reasonable to me.
It is from the combination of the two, my professional experience and from Kosko's 'best -selling' work, i though why not help growth of philosophy, which as it is india claims to be excelling in by way of its "spiritual leadership" , to become a part of everyone's learning. (well, at this point Baba Ramdev and his band can be incorporated too, although the Philisophy teaching that I am talking about is a different, applied version of it, also absorbing the western concepts too, in it. This will help the overall promotion of the subject too.
secondly, we need to aim at increasing the internal philisophical friction betweem the people so as to churn out a good ethical society. Thankfully as a nation we are already secular, democratic, and endorsing the Universal declaration of Human Rights (UDHR).
maybe, then, all that is required is to just take a lead while many of our government policies are already in favour to impart us a good headway in this direction.
Please think about it, and respond to my suggestion.
________________________________________________________________________________
Anubha Shukla: They are going to cheat there also...
Me:
Yeah, but Professional Training Course do not work on the basis of closed book exams. Over here, the purpose of the tarining course is to increase psychological friction between two people when they meet each other for any job-dependency reason. For example, A meet B for getting his work 'Alpha' to be cleared. Until now, due to our social culturing, the event is that B, if he is govt officer, will look for some personal gains, to help A clear away his work Alpha faster. With the course module done, A might be formally competing, mentally, with B and rest all the people who are around as to what they might be thinking about what's in his mind.
Caught red-handed in cheating will also help increase friction ! the society has a natural tendency for competeing against each other, that 'neighbours envy'. the adjacent guy will habitually tease or finger-point at the one who is caught cheating, no matter what is the exam! the blaming-game in this is about too-dull-to-not-be-able-to-cheat-successfully. it is also known that everybody uses unfair means if he gets any oppertunity.
Corruption has a socio-economic aspect as well. At the same time as curbing down the economic growth, corruption has helped many people to make quick money and thus rise in their social status. Remember that one of the research study says that people do give more or same status to those who earn money by corruption means, as any other honest people. Infact, many reserved class people, who were both socially and economically backwards today feel empowered only because corruption has given thme enough financial strenght to feel themselves like a victor. The wealth of the non-backward classes have neither been anything honestly earned.
In summary, the war between the groups of people is all about earning more money, nomatter what means.
During this, a few educated or exposed groups have started showing hesitations for corruption , all credit to small awakening that could be achieved by some scattered knowledge obtained from movies/tv etc. This success is only due to the fact that such people have fomal learning into various subjects of sciences/art. The movies, which mostly do not convey a good knowledge on what damage the corruption does, but only show a public apathy or frustration towards it, still succeed in giving some more organised thoughts about damages due to corruption.
At this point, it is important to recall that Corruption DOES NOT compleyely destroy our economic progress. It only slows it down by putting money on some unorganised route.
So, the idea of course is to formally introduce knowledge on corruption and other related philisophical matters, so that a competetion begin in the groups of people about what the other might be thinking. whether the opposite favours it, or opposes it? The honest will get a formal place to show up their honesty , and the course programs become a platform for a formal and regulat debate to happen between such people, so that knowledge will be gained by the course organisers as well.
Then it will create a place for hypocrisy to be built, and then later exposed, if someone is doing good in course-exam and still involving in the corruption ,as his antagonist may begin finger-pointing game on each other during the courses. that bwill be sever social pressure to come out of corruption's socially accpeted regime..
The 'Need for Training in Democracy'
Anna Hazare, recently during his fasting as a protest against the Lokpal Bill, and to bring about acceptance of Jan Lokpal Bill , made one statement. He said that he would want public servants to be 'trained in democracy'. The news reports by Times of India, where I read this commenat from the legendary activist, put this with quotation marks to, maybe , remain un-manipulative on his words. This septagenarian social activist had for one give me a shock with his discerning view on what's wrong with the public administration system in India, which is also one of the contributing reasons for rampant corruption.
It is often that the public servants have short views on how to handle a case when there are no clear reasons to help them decide about their stands. well, many times this situation arises from the point that the piblic that they are dealing with is too un-educated to give them a clear reason or a decisive opinion so as to help the public servant decide on his stand, the public servant, in turn slips into doing what later turns out as Un-democratic and obscurist, and finally corruption breeding. The employees below the officer take advantage of such situation to spread a word about the 'manipulable' behaviour of such public servant , all to make their booty. Often , what is required by the employees is simply to figure out some clear decisive point from the grievance given by the member of the public and then make his 'undertable money' to help the 'sir' understand it, so as to help him out. It serves lots of people; It serves him by way of that money; it helps 'sir' to stay clear and justified on the case through the precious advisory; it serves the employee built good trust with his 'sir' ; and lastly , it serves that ill-fated member of the public who is otherwise little un-refined , un-polished, in his knowledge of how should a democratic government employee should conduct himself.
If I were to make a list of what sort of training be given to Public servants on the matters of democracy, here is what I would put:
Explaining a democratic leadership (which applies to all leadership cases, including ship captains):
1) Democracy should not become majoritanism. Which means decision should not be made voting alone, as there is a risk that democratic rights of minorities may get suppressed.
2) polling is no substitute to evidence any wisdom. the right voice may get suppressed by a popular voice.
3) there is a right to be wrong.
4) there is always a room to have sustainable or logical self-contradictions. Just because there appears some self-contradiction, a case should not be turned down. Many a times , many of the cases are just for sake of money, while some good and pious cause is deputed to the case only for the coner-up. Even when such cases are identified, one should not obstruct or reject them.
5)Hypocrisy is something different from the above sustainable self-contradictions . Experience and wisdom in combinations are required to handle these. e.g. 'A' is a drinker but supports prohibition on alcohol. This is only a self-contradictions, not hypocrisy.
If 'A' hides the fact that he is a drinker/ alcoholic and then supportss prohibition , and later is found drinking even under Prohibition, this is hypocrisy. (refer Wikipedia search to learn more)
6) Polling has to be carefully used, only as a tool, to know the popular choice. one method of achieving this is to break-down the issue such as to put to polling test, a right against one right, or one wrong against another. One must not pit right of one issue against its wrong. right will always win, besides , a thorough brain-storming will never happen.
7 ) Discretion is quite an anti-thesis of democratic leadership. Should be avoided. In Democracy, decisions are knowledge based, advise based, recommendation based, - - in any case, need a justification.
8) in democracy, the human substitute for evolution law of 'survival of fittest' is Arguments and Debates. things run by arguing, not by Fighting and armed struggle. leaders should be ready for arguments and Debates.
9) Psychologists will have a tough time differing Madness from 'it's different'. Nevertheless, madness exist.
It is often that the public servants have short views on how to handle a case when there are no clear reasons to help them decide about their stands. well, many times this situation arises from the point that the piblic that they are dealing with is too un-educated to give them a clear reason or a decisive opinion so as to help the public servant decide on his stand, the public servant, in turn slips into doing what later turns out as Un-democratic and obscurist, and finally corruption breeding. The employees below the officer take advantage of such situation to spread a word about the 'manipulable' behaviour of such public servant , all to make their booty. Often , what is required by the employees is simply to figure out some clear decisive point from the grievance given by the member of the public and then make his 'undertable money' to help the 'sir' understand it, so as to help him out. It serves lots of people; It serves him by way of that money; it helps 'sir' to stay clear and justified on the case through the precious advisory; it serves the employee built good trust with his 'sir' ; and lastly , it serves that ill-fated member of the public who is otherwise little un-refined , un-polished, in his knowledge of how should a democratic government employee should conduct himself.
If I were to make a list of what sort of training be given to Public servants on the matters of democracy, here is what I would put:
Explaining a democratic leadership (which applies to all leadership cases, including ship captains):
1) Democracy should not become majoritanism. Which means decision should not be made voting alone, as there is a risk that democratic rights of minorities may get suppressed.
2) polling is no substitute to evidence any wisdom. the right voice may get suppressed by a popular voice.
3) there is a right to be wrong.
4) there is always a room to have sustainable or logical self-contradictions. Just because there appears some self-contradiction, a case should not be turned down. Many a times , many of the cases are just for sake of money, while some good and pious cause is deputed to the case only for the coner-up. Even when such cases are identified, one should not obstruct or reject them.
5)Hypocrisy is something different from the above sustainable self-contradictions . Experience and wisdom in combinations are required to handle these. e.g. 'A' is a drinker but supports prohibition on alcohol. This is only a self-contradictions, not hypocrisy.
If 'A' hides the fact that he is a drinker/ alcoholic and then supportss prohibition , and later is found drinking even under Prohibition, this is hypocrisy. (refer Wikipedia search to learn more)
6) Polling has to be carefully used, only as a tool, to know the popular choice. one method of achieving this is to break-down the issue such as to put to polling test, a right against one right, or one wrong against another. One must not pit right of one issue against its wrong. right will always win, besides , a thorough brain-storming will never happen.
7 ) Discretion is quite an anti-thesis of democratic leadership. Should be avoided. In Democracy, decisions are knowledge based, advise based, recommendation based, - - in any case, need a justification.
8) in democracy, the human substitute for evolution law of 'survival of fittest' is Arguments and Debates. things run by arguing, not by Fighting and armed struggle. leaders should be ready for arguments and Debates.
9) Psychologists will have a tough time differing Madness from 'it's different'. Nevertheless, madness exist.
the Dualism world
Moral dualism simply implies that there are two moral opposites at work, independent of any interpretation of what might be "moral" and - unlike ditheism/bitheism - independent of how these may be represented-- Wikipedia source on 'Dualism'.
Hypocrisy is an unconscious self-contradiction: a state of incongruence between one's professed beliefs and feelings and one's actual beliefs and feelings, or an application of a criticism to others that one does not apply to oneself.-- Wikipedia source on 'Hypocrisy'.
Hypocrisy is not simply a lie, saying something which one knows to be false. Neither is it simply failing to practice those virtues that one preaches
Let's see how many of us can get these :-
- It is possible for two statements to be correct at one time
- It is possible for two mutually conflicting statements to be correct at the same time.
- It is possible for two mutually conflicting statements to be correct at the same time and yet be different and belying the sum effect of those two statements.
- That the first three statements hint towards a philosophical idea called Dualism , and the 'sum effect' of two conflicting but true statements often yields what is 'Hypocrisy'.
- Therefore, it is possible to have Dualism and not agreeing to Hypocrisy.
Think of this:-
- Do u agree that there is a thing called Right of Privacy, infact even talked and approved by Human Rights-- the UDHR, the Cairo Declaration(or the Islamic HR), and also the Bangkok (Asian) HR
- Do u agree that for the purpose of good governance , u require good ethics, good and transparent administration or the management?
- Do u agree that Corporates enjoy a right in regard to keeping their Trade Secrets?
- Do u think the Transparency in management is a violation of Right to Privacy at some point?
What do u think is the method to resolve this entangle?
Ethics??
I think we need to also discuss a few other trivia before we proceed to finding a solution.
Silence and Right to be Silent.
Disclosures and Duty of Disclosure
Ordinary Common Law works on a generally accepted terms of Caveat Emptor. Thus, it puts the primary responsibility on the buyer to look for defects in the goods/services one is purchasing. Thus it provides a Right of silence on the seller of the good/services.
Ask a shopkeeper, "Are your sweets fresh and okay?'
The shopkeeper has a right, therefore, to say, "Yes Sir", nomatter he made them some one week ago!
Because you have right to ask for a sample , and then smell and taste the sweet before you buy it.
But the law also enforce Duty of Disclosures at certain situations, for example, in the case of Insurance, the insured has a duty of disclosures towards the insurer.
The general condition is that if the buyer has now means of discovering the truth except without by a general disclosure by the seller than Right of Silence does not apply.
Question?!?! Who decides whether a case is hanging on the condition of 'Truth cannot be discovered except by a disclosure from the seller"??
Answer: I think it is here the the good ethics again come into play because, LOOK AT THE THAT IRONY, by a good ethic one decides whether the case required a essential General Disclosure or not, and in the second case of 'Not', one decides NOT TO disclose, thereby going UNethical via his Ethical route!! Because he is not being transparent!!!
Isn't it a funny situation?
Such situations happen many times when only the commercial gains between the buyer and seller are at stake, and as I understand, the statutes and the courts of law do not accept Non-disclosure events when issues of general public concern, such as life of person, environment pollution, etc are at stake.
Only our regular Karma help us develop the Dharma sense on the matter, basis which we decide.
Suggest me something, if anyone has anything.
The NMD fun
05th April, 2011
Today was national maritime day. It was celebrated (with much fan fare??) in the IGNOU convention centre.
It left me with lots of questions inside. there were many things which were just not matching with how things should ideally be; but there was complete helplessness, chaos, about "what 's wrong with the present event"? It is hard to relate, but I will not want to quit it down, because I feel it is this very narration where our sense of Objectivism, a neutral-point-of-view, should develop and teach us lessons of good leadership, good democratic leader, unbiased, neutral , and just leader...
.........a truly marvellous leader....
............a real master and commander.
to begin with, we first need to develop some trivia, which I will use for further building up the quadrivium.
Rhetoric: a type or mode of language or speech; also : insincere or grandiloquent language
as the function started, the head of the organising committee of National Maritime Day Celebrations(NMDCC) , Captain S (I conform with my policy of 'No names, son'. ) makes a speech. In his speech, he tells us that there was a query with him by a cadet as to why no awards would be given in the Cultural Events which would happen soon after his speech. Capt S , then , through his speech, takes permission from the chief guest to use the opportunity to provide answer to that anonymous 'puzzled' cadet. He says that culture is something which is built upon many many years, and is different for each individual . There it cannot be put to Competition.
Claps and thunders all over there for the beautiful answer that came by. I clapped it too.
But soon enough, the mettle in the statement started to uncover and reveal.
a series of wild thoughts ran up in my mind. How , if I speak those thoughts as a Skit presentation.
Skit 1: If I were Capt S, and I had to award away prizes for Cultural Events to, maybe this is how I would have justified,...Son, even essays and extempore are result of one's philosophy and linguistics developed from one's culture. But since everywhere these things are put for judgements and thereby for awards, Cultural show, u would give, are results of your education. We will adjudge these too.
Skit 2: Were I, as Capt S, not to give any award, even for essays and dabates, I would say, 'Son, language is what we get from our mothers. Speaking in foreign language is no acheievment that you should get any award for that.'
Skit 3 : Were i not to give award for a debate,--"Son, u people have not even been to sea as yet, so how do expect to come out with any concrete point so that I may judge you on that. do u want to get award for ur good english only'?"
Speciousness of the answer by Capt S had began to reveal by itself, however. The first institute presented a show which was about how two 'Jats' from the state of Haryana were teasing a local village girl who is fetching water from a well. It was too hilarious , and perhaps cultural too, to speak an objection. Then , came a guy who adorned very rustic accent of Hindi, and delivered some jokes. the intellect and purpose were far from anything high calibre,. they had purely the entertainment value, tickling the laughter muscle alone, no provocation of thinking mind of the audiences.
The next institute to be take up the stage , came with even a higher degree of cultural potpourri of us. It was a vulgar, double meaning, show of what happened when Akashvani Rohtak interfered with Akashvani Dilli way in 1980's, with two different shows being broadcast-- Women and Family welfare, Krishi darsharn - how to grow potatoes.
I kept wondering -- what was wrong there? Or, if at all anything was wrong there??
an old quotation came to my mind. "Education is what remains when everything that you have learnt is forgotton." Often times this quotation is shown with word Education replaced by Culture. And people do justify the substitution, saying that Culture, in one sense, is no different from your education.
The first regulation of Colregs, 1972 also circled around. What was the summary of it? I spoke to Captain V, isn' the first rule that local regulations will prevail over the international ones.
Captain V, immediately replied , yes, but local regulations also have an obligation to be as closely conforming to the international ones as it can.
How much did it apply on the case of cultures? Don't the cultures collide too, unless some steps are taken help theie conjoining.
Then, what can be the remedy to prevent this 'mishap' from college students in the name of cultural shows?
And the remedy has to conform to the natural principles of justice, honor human rights as also conforming to principles of democracy.
You cannot say a straight 'no' to it, for people have a right of expression and take pride in their cultures. You cannot insult them. You cannot bann them, control them, regulate them, scrutinise them.
Perhaps all that one can do is to advise them, influence them motivate them.
So how would the NMDCC do it next time. here I attempt to make a possible guideline to reslove the entangle.
1. Provide a written advisory to all the participating institue telling what all surfaced as an opinion among the audiences after the function, in the previous celebrations.
2. What would be appreciable, and what may not be: example: Vulgarity, double meanings, crude native cultures shows ( as , the world-travelled aducience may not feel conformatable with such shows).
Defining a term, for example, "Democracy", "Appopiate", etc by the exculsions of it makes it more convenient for one to understand what these terms might be including.
3. To learn and appreciate that education brings about a change in one's culture. The shows should, if they can, showcase the good education administered by the faculties in the institutes.
4. Try being creative, instead of just presenting the 'hollywood--bollywood songs saga'.
5. Cultures compete under some natural laws, or Darwin's evolution principles. but maybe humans have chosen not to aggravtae that natural happening competition .
Today was national maritime day. It was celebrated (with much fan fare??) in the IGNOU convention centre.
It left me with lots of questions inside. there were many things which were just not matching with how things should ideally be; but there was complete helplessness, chaos, about "what 's wrong with the present event"? It is hard to relate, but I will not want to quit it down, because I feel it is this very narration where our sense of Objectivism, a neutral-point-of-view, should develop and teach us lessons of good leadership, good democratic leader, unbiased, neutral , and just leader...
.........a truly marvellous leader....
............a real master and commander.
to begin with, we first need to develop some trivia, which I will use for further building up the quadrivium.
Rhetoric: a type or mode of language or speech; also : insincere or grandiloquent language
as the function started, the head of the organising committee of National Maritime Day Celebrations(NMDCC) , Captain S (I conform with my policy of 'No names, son'. ) makes a speech. In his speech, he tells us that there was a query with him by a cadet as to why no awards would be given in the Cultural Events which would happen soon after his speech. Capt S , then , through his speech, takes permission from the chief guest to use the opportunity to provide answer to that anonymous 'puzzled' cadet. He says that culture is something which is built upon many many years, and is different for each individual . There it cannot be put to Competition.
Claps and thunders all over there for the beautiful answer that came by. I clapped it too.
But soon enough, the mettle in the statement started to uncover and reveal.
a series of wild thoughts ran up in my mind. How , if I speak those thoughts as a Skit presentation.
Skit 1: If I were Capt S, and I had to award away prizes for Cultural Events to, maybe this is how I would have justified,...Son, even essays and extempore are result of one's philosophy and linguistics developed from one's culture. But since everywhere these things are put for judgements and thereby for awards, Cultural show, u would give, are results of your education. We will adjudge these too.
Skit 2: Were I, as Capt S, not to give any award, even for essays and dabates, I would say, 'Son, language is what we get from our mothers. Speaking in foreign language is no acheievment that you should get any award for that.'
Skit 3 : Were i not to give award for a debate,--"Son, u people have not even been to sea as yet, so how do expect to come out with any concrete point so that I may judge you on that. do u want to get award for ur good english only'?"
Speciousness of the answer by Capt S had began to reveal by itself, however. The first institute presented a show which was about how two 'Jats' from the state of Haryana were teasing a local village girl who is fetching water from a well. It was too hilarious , and perhaps cultural too, to speak an objection. Then , came a guy who adorned very rustic accent of Hindi, and delivered some jokes. the intellect and purpose were far from anything high calibre,. they had purely the entertainment value, tickling the laughter muscle alone, no provocation of thinking mind of the audiences.
The next institute to be take up the stage , came with even a higher degree of cultural potpourri of us. It was a vulgar, double meaning, show of what happened when Akashvani Rohtak interfered with Akashvani Dilli way in 1980's, with two different shows being broadcast-- Women and Family welfare, Krishi darsharn - how to grow potatoes.
I kept wondering -- what was wrong there? Or, if at all anything was wrong there??
an old quotation came to my mind. "Education is what remains when everything that you have learnt is forgotton." Often times this quotation is shown with word Education replaced by Culture. And people do justify the substitution, saying that Culture, in one sense, is no different from your education.
The first regulation of Colregs, 1972 also circled around. What was the summary of it? I spoke to Captain V, isn' the first rule that local regulations will prevail over the international ones.
Captain V, immediately replied , yes, but local regulations also have an obligation to be as closely conforming to the international ones as it can.
How much did it apply on the case of cultures? Don't the cultures collide too, unless some steps are taken help theie conjoining.
Then, what can be the remedy to prevent this 'mishap' from college students in the name of cultural shows?
And the remedy has to conform to the natural principles of justice, honor human rights as also conforming to principles of democracy.
You cannot say a straight 'no' to it, for people have a right of expression and take pride in their cultures. You cannot insult them. You cannot bann them, control them, regulate them, scrutinise them.
Perhaps all that one can do is to advise them, influence them motivate them.
So how would the NMDCC do it next time. here I attempt to make a possible guideline to reslove the entangle.
1. Provide a written advisory to all the participating institue telling what all surfaced as an opinion among the audiences after the function, in the previous celebrations.
2. What would be appreciable, and what may not be: example: Vulgarity, double meanings, crude native cultures shows ( as , the world-travelled aducience may not feel conformatable with such shows).
Defining a term, for example, "Democracy", "Appopiate", etc by the exculsions of it makes it more convenient for one to understand what these terms might be including.
3. To learn and appreciate that education brings about a change in one's culture. The shows should, if they can, showcase the good education administered by the faculties in the institutes.
4. Try being creative, instead of just presenting the 'hollywood--bollywood songs saga'.
5. Cultures compete under some natural laws, or Darwin's evolution principles. but maybe humans have chosen not to aggravtae that natural happening competition .
The Arguments within: Skit: Dream Chasing
The Arguments within: Skit: Dream Chasing This Skit was finally put down, for want of brevity, humor, and purpose. That led me to find out more about what is a skit so that some modifications caould be done , so that deep in future it may be used up elsewhere.
Here a few ideas on skit I have thought of, :
1) A skit to show that a young school student joins Merchant navy to escape from education, thinking that life as seafarer is all about seeing the world, sightseeing, having fun, good money etc, but the facts slowly turn out that It was even more heavier learning process, because the modern seafaring is very sophisticated, heavily regulated with lots of rules (e.g D & A policy, quick turn arounds) -- so no 'having fun', no time to go sightseeing, and lots of exams and courses, so no money left.!
2) A skit to show that even after a class room introduction of rules, people are able to derive fun from ignorance of young cadets for having experienced with is taught through the books. In summary the 'Knowledge know-to', cannot substitute for 'Knowledge How-To'.
A cadet is told about the SOLAS, LSA code ,and Capacity of LifeBoat criteria, and when he goes on board, his seniors misguide him to write an emotional appeal to ship captain to allot him a seat in life boat, for the girth-at-waist size he provides to the captain in his letter. The captain looks at the cadet, understand the secret farce for once, and attempts to make it a memorable event for the cadet, by asking him to provide the center point of the 'girth-at-waist'.
3) A skit to show learning at class room level is about knowing how things work, but practises on board are all about filling the checklist,, recording the data. E.g, in Bridge equipment , a fersh cadet is taught how a radar works, but when he goes on board, he sees a radar, which is as simple as operating a TV or a DVD, but the heavier task is to everyday fill up the Radar Log , and so many other log for all the equipment-- a echo sounder log, a compass error log, a VHF log, a moment book, etc
Here a few ideas on skit I have thought of, :
1) A skit to show that a young school student joins Merchant navy to escape from education, thinking that life as seafarer is all about seeing the world, sightseeing, having fun, good money etc, but the facts slowly turn out that It was even more heavier learning process, because the modern seafaring is very sophisticated, heavily regulated with lots of rules (e.g D & A policy, quick turn arounds) -- so no 'having fun', no time to go sightseeing, and lots of exams and courses, so no money left.!
2) A skit to show that even after a class room introduction of rules, people are able to derive fun from ignorance of young cadets for having experienced with is taught through the books. In summary the 'Knowledge know-to', cannot substitute for 'Knowledge How-To'.
A cadet is told about the SOLAS, LSA code ,and Capacity of LifeBoat criteria, and when he goes on board, his seniors misguide him to write an emotional appeal to ship captain to allot him a seat in life boat, for the girth-at-waist size he provides to the captain in his letter. The captain looks at the cadet, understand the secret farce for once, and attempts to make it a memorable event for the cadet, by asking him to provide the center point of the 'girth-at-waist'.
3) A skit to show learning at class room level is about knowing how things work, but practises on board are all about filling the checklist,, recording the data. E.g, in Bridge equipment , a fersh cadet is taught how a radar works, but when he goes on board, he sees a radar, which is as simple as operating a TV or a DVD, but the heavier task is to everyday fill up the Radar Log , and so many other log for all the equipment-- a echo sounder log, a compass error log, a VHF log, a moment book, etc
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