Monday, November 05, 2018
In psychology, what is illusion of control?
This refers to a form of cognitive bias that causes people to overestimate the extent of their control over external events. It often leads people to believe that they can influence things or events that are actually well beyond their direct influence. The phenomenon is named after a 1975 paper by American psychologist Ellen Langer. The illusion of control is prevalent among gamblers who believe that certain tricks or repeated routines can influence the outcome of bets even though bets are simply chance events influenced mostly just by luck. It can lead to overoptimism about the future and disappointment.
Source: The Hindu, 5/11/2018
Failing to lead by example
Kerala’s success in education is hard to reconcile with the palpable tension that the Sabarimala verdict has caused
Politics alone cannot explain the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s verdict in the Sabarimala case. This is because for the rest of India, Kerala has served as a model of progress guided by a long-sustained pursuit of welfare policies, especially in health and education. Kerala also has a history of social movements that mobilised people to let go of the grip of custom and ritual. Some of these movements were aimed specifically at propagating reason and knowledge. If the regime of modernity got a fair test anywhere in South Asia, surely it was in Kerala.
A patriarchal ethos
These common impressions are hard to reconcile with the discomfort and palpable tension that the Sabarimala verdict has caused. Conflict and the threat of violence can, and perhaps, should be attributed to political rivalry and administrative ineptitude. But there seems to be a wider unease with the verdict.
In a phone-in programme of the Hindi service of the BBC, a senior woman journalist, who knows Kerala socially, said that the verdict is ahead of the times, that it will take one or two more generations for people to accept the entry of women of all ages in the Sabarimala temple. That sober prognosis left me wondering about the value and meaning of Kerala’s achievement in public literacy and children’s education. Was it wrong to imagine that the spread of education would cause a deep enough dent in all forms of gender inequality? Persistence of dowry certainly suggests that. So does the acceptance of misogynist humour I have myself witnessed in the middle of serious discussion.
Apart from its failure to dilute a patriarchal ethos, education has also performed rather poorly in widening the space available for dialogue between contending positions. This is one reason why both the state and society are finding it difficult to appreciate a civic solution to a faith-related practice.
Promise of education
Education tends to arouse many expectations, both in the individual and the social mind. First, there are economic expectations. They are so strong that the educated do not mind enduring long stretches of unemployment. Equally complex is the political expectation association with education. It is widely believed that education nourishes democratic values and behaviours. But historical evidence suggests that education can nurture democracy as well as dictatorship. It depends on what is taught and how. If schools and colleges are intellectually exciting places, and if the curriculum encourages critical inquiry, we can expect education to strengthen democracy. If schooling stifles curiosity by regimenting the body and the mind at an early age, education can nourish authoritarianism.
Similarly, if language and literature are taught to train young minds for participation in open-ended dialogue, we can expect education to sustain an ethos where freedom to differ without fear is guaranteed and dissent is tolerated. The opposite may happen if language and literature are marginalised in the curriculum or subjected to mechanical testing and other means of oppression. Similar things can be said about the teaching of the subjects that constitute the social sciences. They can either be used for indoctrination or to encourage reflection.
Subject to regime change
The question why education has not improved Kerala’s capacity to sustain a culture of dialogue is not difficult to answer. Education did spread widely, but efforts to reform its inner world — curriculum and pedagogy — remained weak and somewhat confused. Significant initiatives were taken more than once, but the financial and intellectual resources deployed for this task were inadequate. Also, the effort remained subject to regime change. In teacher training, one had expected that Kerala would make a breakthrough by investing significant academic resources in this unfortunate area. That did not happen. Bridges between universities and schools remained half-built. As in other States, progress of education in Kerala remained confined mainly to expansion of the system. That too did not proceed coherently. Social and economic divisions got entrenched within the system of education. Successive governments remained indifferent to this trend and to the need to create a provincial policy.
Hailed as a model, Kerala has disappointed. Apart from failing to create an ethos where dialogue and deliberation are conveniently possible, Kerala’s progress on the gender front has also remained unimpressive. The grip of early socialisation into deep-set notions of womanhood has stayed tight. One consequence of this grip is the perpetuation of deeply negative beliefs about the physical aspect of maturation. At this level, gender disparity deserves to be understood as a far more complex cultural phenomenon than merely a matter of unequal opportunities. Education can influence gender roles and their relations by creating new predispositions in early childhood. This is a tough area for reform. It has remained on the margins of education, both in terms of funding and status as a policy sector. Few would admit that they do not fully understand it or its significance.
Moreover, not everyone believes/wants education to disturb established social patterns. In fact, many people feel unsure about the introduction of critical pedagogy in schools. Why Kerala disappoints us today is because it had fostered the hope of being different. It probably is, but not to the extent one had assumed. Its system of education is just as bureaucratised and compartmentalised as anywhere else. Complacent attitudes also block vision and direction. A common meaning of progress now is to secede from the local board and join the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) or its private counterpart. Kerala set the benchmark for total literacy and implementation of the Right to Education Act. Looking ahead, Kerala could have sorted out the tenacious points of confusion such as the crucial role of language, both in children’s growth and in enhancing society’s capacity for dialogue. The social incoherence one sees in Kerala gains strength from poor teaching of language and related fields of knowledge.
The Sabarimala prism
It is true of many other parts of India, but Kerala’s case hurts because a sound basis for putting in place a sophistical system of education existed there. Had its early advantages been used with greater focus and commitment, we might have witnessed a somewhat smoother transition in Sabarimala.
Krishna Kumar is a former director of the NCERT
Source: The Hindu, 5/11/2018
No winners in the man-animal conflict
With about 3,900 tigers remaining in the wild, they need us now more than ever
A six-year-old tigress suspected of having killed 13 people over the past two years in the hills of central India was shot dead by hunters under controversial circumstances last week. While the killing of the mother of two nine-month-old cubs triggered celebrations by villagers in the area stalked by the big cat, wildlife activists were furious – and with good reason. The latest incident in the man-animal conflict, which comes just days after another tigress (Sundari in Odisha) was blamed for killing a woman whose post-mortem report was inconclusive, shows that we need to get better at dealing with such cases.
The hunter who fired the bullet that killed tigress Avni said he did so in self-defence after a tranquiliser dart failed to stop her from charging at him. A question being asked is: Should the wildlife officials not have foreseen such a circumstance? Experts feel a well-planned operation would have taken the possibility into account, ensuring safety structures to guard against this. While there is little doubt in Avni’s case that the tigress was responsible for human killings, we need to consider the larger debate surrounding the intensifying conflict between humans and wild animals.
Animal rights activists argue such big cats should not be called ‘man-eaters’ because they don’t trespass into human habitats to kill people — it’s the other way around. The World Wildlife Fund says tigers are mostly solitary and have large territories. The wild animal, however, is facing dogged pressures from retaliatory killings and poaching amid habitat loss to humans. Killing is the easy option. The world has lost 95% of its wild tigers since the 20th century began. With only about 3,900 tigers remaining in the wild, they need us now more than ever.
Source: Hindustan Times, 4/11/2018
Sahaja Is The Key
Sahaja means spontaneous or innate. In the Ramcharitmanas, Parvati blesses Sita with the promise of a husband who would be dark, handsome and sahaja. In Bengal, a cult began after poet Chandidas emphasised sahaja in life. The cult, however, narrowed the importance of sahaja, so that Chandidas had to cry out: Sahaja, sahaja, everyone speaks of sahaja,/ But who knows what sahaja means? The cosmos may be thought of as a system of macro dynamics. Components in the cosmos, including individual human beings, represent systems of micro dynamics. This relates to will. There is personal will of an individual, and the Cosmic Will at large. The personal will may either align itself to the Cosmic Will, or it may act counter to it, resulting in, correspondingly, peace or strife in life. Sahaja is to joyously subject the personal will to the Cosmic Will. Sahaja is not idleness. Idleness is desire-driven: It is willful resistance to the natural course of life; it is not to be doing what should be done. Sahaja is the opposite of this. It is to do what has to be done, without the interference of personal will and desire. Excited by the ego, we often turn impatient. Sahaja is guided by patience. It involves never striving to hurry up events or achievements in life. A tiny seed sprouts and gradually grows into a tree full of blossoms and fruits. Did the tree contrive its growth or hurry it up? Its growth was sahaja. So it is with all other components in the cosmos. So must it be with man.
Source: Economic Times, 5/11/2018
Friday, November 02, 2018
A Matter of Dignity
As the number of its elderly increases, India needs strategies to deal with dementia.
The 2018 WHO dementia plan focuses on the urgent need for a multi-phased approach and a multi-sectoral policy response to address the needs of people with dementia, their carers and families. The rapid increase in ageing population across countries requires national strategies to deal with age-related diseases — dementia care is becoming a significant issue.
Data from many parts of the world reveals age as a risk factor for dementia — though the debilitating condition, is not an inevitable consequence of ageing. Dementia is a form of cognitive impairment that affects memory and other cognitive abilities and significantly interferes with a person’s ability to perform daily activities. According to the WHO, it affects 50 million people worldwide; a number that is projected to increase to 82 million by 2030 and 152 million by 2050. According to some estimates, one person gets affected by dementia every three seconds.
Studies have revealed how the stigma attached to the disease leads to the social isolation of patients, their families and careers. Research has thrown light on the deterioration in the quality of their lives. There is an urgent need to treat dementia as a public health concern by raising awareness on all aspects of the disease including risk reduction, diagnosis, treatment, research, care and support for patients and care givers. The efforts of the Alzheimer’s and Related Disorders Society of India (ARDSI) and the initiatives of the Ministry of Health, based on directives of the WHO’s Global Dementia Action Plan, are directed towards that end.
Studies that draw on interactions with people affected by dementia, their families, and caregivers indicate that several of the needs of such people — social, economic or those related to health — remain unfulfilled. For instance, leave concessions at work, adaptable housing environments, adequate diagnostic facilities, treatment options,
care provisions and risk reduction measures for people with dementia are not in place. Many require psychological support, biomedical facilities, appropriate medications, counselling services and end of life care. But these are not available. The complexity of needs cutting across health, economic and social sector requires attention and policy responses.
Over a year ago, the World Health Assembly in Geneva adopted the Global Action Plan on the Public Health Response to Dementia 2017-2025. India endorsed the plan, confirming its commitment to improving the lives of people with dementia, their carers and families. The country’s commitment to Sustainable Development Goals — especially with respect to Goal 3 that deals with good health and well being — and the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities should push it into formulating a strategy to deal with this debilitating condition. Such a plan should incorporate public awareness campaigns and research.
As the percentage of aged people in the country increases, improving the lives of people with dementia and their families and carers must become a national priority. These programmes could be aligned with existing policies and care models.
The writer is a sociologist, gerontologist and social scientist who specialises on health issues
Source: Indian Express, 2/11/2018
What's 'indifference principle' in Economics
This refers to the proposition that unless people are special in some way, nothing can make them happier than the next best alternative. So, when they have to choose between two different choices, people prefer one over another until a point when they turn indifferent to both. This happens when the marginal utility that they derive from the initial choice drops gradually until it equals the utility derived from the alternative. A child, for instance, might prefer chocolates to ice cream until he has had too many chocolates. The indifference principle was proposed by American economist Steven Landsburg in his 1993 book The Armchair Economist.
Source: The Hindu, 2/11/2018
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