Occasional Musings

An interesting article about the growth and the challenges faced in India:
“India’s 200m-strong middle class is the most economically dynamic group on the planet, but is largely uninterested in politics or social reform. Until it begins to engage politically, India will suffer from a lop-sided modernisation”

More of this here: [The Link]

IT HAS BECOME increasingly popular to speak of racial and ethnic diversity as a civic strength. From multicultural festivals to pronouncements from political leaders, the message is the same: our differences make us stronger.

But a massive new study, based on detailed interviews of nearly 30,000 people across America, has concluded just the opposite. Harvard political scientist Robert Putnam — famous for “Bowling Alone,” his 2000 book on declining civic engagement — has found that the greater the diversity in a community, the fewer people vote and the less they volunteer, the less they give to charity and work on community projects. In the most diverse communities, neighbors trust one another about half as much as they do in the most homogenous settings. The study, the largest ever on civic engagement in America, found that virtually all measures of civic health are lower in more diverse settings.

More of this from here: [The Link]

However on a more positive note the article indicates “….It turns out there is a flip side to the discomfort diversity can cause. If ethnic diversity, at least in the short run, is a liability for social connectedness, a parallel line of emerging research suggests it can be a big asset when it comes to driving productivity and innovation. In high-skill workplace settings, says Scott Page, the University of Michigan political scientist, the different ways of thinking among people from different cultures can be a boon.”

Most of the times when people demand respect they mean it to based on friendship, to be treated equally. But sometimes many people mistake respect to be based on inequality, often accompanied by special previlages. If that is the prevailing understanding of respect then I want to describe how the relationship between two people would look like. But first, what do I mean by friendship and respect.

Friendship between two people is about being open, honest, forgiving, having argmuents, supporting each other, it is about being EQUAL. There could be difference of opinion, difference of ideas, one person can make the other person angry, but inspite of all those they are honest and support each other and be there for one another. Establishing friendship is about establishing EQUALITY. Equality is the essensce of friendship. If any of these does not hold, then the relationship is not friendship, but something else (could be acquantaince, co-worker, pupil, ….etc).

Respect towards one person means holding that person in high esteem. Whatever that person say or do can go unquestioned, it is taken as given, to some extent taken on the basis of belief or faith. The person who respect the other feels inferior w.r.t to the other. When the question of respect comes in a relationship, then as a consequence there is inequality between the people in that relationship. Establishing respect in a relationship is all about establishing inequality.

By their inherent nature these two aspects conflict each other. If we want friendship then we
can cannot hope to have respect. If we want respect then we cannot hope to have friendship. We have to chose one or the other. What I am trying to do is describe the relations: what happens when we go for one or the other. The choice is ours, we are solely responsible of what we choose to do.

When both want friendship, then there is no problem.

When both want respect, then clearly it is a clash of ego. We can expect the relationship to be filled with friction and conflict. Basically both of them are trying to establish inequality, with one on top of the other. It is ones authority over the other. They are both competing for the same higher position, but only one can previal. It is a zero-sum situation. One of them wins other person loses. This relationship will be difficult.

The situation is more complex when there is a mix. We need to go into more details. We need to know who wants and who offers. In a relationship One person can either want(expect) friendship or offer friendship. Similarly, the other person can want(expect) respect or offer respect. Combination of these leads to the following four situations:

– When one wants friendship and other wants respect, both will be dissapointed and hurt. The person who wants friendship is dissapointed with lack of enthusiasm from the other. The person
who wants respect is hurt becuase the other person does not care about this persons status or accomplishments. This person wants to establish superiorty but the other person wants to establish equality. This combination usually leads to friction, uneasiness and conflict.

– When one wants friendship and other offers respect, then the person wanting friendship is embarressed and the person offering respect might be dissapointed. But this combination is usually ok, only that in the long-run one wanting friendship is dissapointed.

– When one offers friendship and other wants respect, then the person expecting respect is dissapointed & hurt. The person offering friendship might be ok, but the person expecting respect gets irritated by the other persons need to establish equality.

– When one offers friendship and other offers respect, then this combination is usually ok, in the long run they might turn out to be friends.

Does it mean, the relationship between people should always be friendship. Well it depends want one expects or wants and what consequences they can live with.

Till now the description was about relationship between two people. Now, should a person always seek respect or should a person always seek friendship? Well the answer is not so simple. It depends on the context of the relationship. Relationships are always set in some larger context: professional, personal, family, marriage, travel…etc Depending on the context, friendship or respect based relationship could be beneficial. e.g. for relationship between a child and and a parent. This should be based on respect when the childern are young. There is certainly an inequality between an adult and a child. If this relation is based on friendship, then the child is under pressure and could be detrimental for the childs grown. But, When they grow up the respect should gradually evolve into friendship.

Remember the saying -“it is lonely at the top”- there is some truth in it. One who always wants respect and if he/she succeedes, then inequality triumphs and person will be very lonely. It is our decision to make, but first know the consequences.

A clear-eyed defense of science needs to take seriously the original “bargain” that Haldane himself describes: that free research produces increased well-being. To investigate the meaning of well being, or doing well, means neither the dogmatic acceptance nor the dogmatic rejection of the moral values of one’s neighbors. It requires avoiding cynicism and utopianism about human motives and possibilities. It requires a willingness to look at the question of the human good with care and seriousness. And even if such an investigation yields a complex and mixed picture of what a good life is and how science contributes to it, the defense of science still requires the willingness to encourage what is valued and discourage what is troublesome, knowing that we will face many grave uncertainties and honest disagreements along the way. (more in this link).

An excerpt from
Consumer Vertigo, by Virginia Postrel

“Liberty and responsibility really do go together; it’s not just a platitude. The
more freedom we have to control our lives, the more responsibility we have for how they turn out. In a world of constraints, learning to be happy with what you’re
given is a virtue. In a world of choices, virtue comes from learning to make
commitments without regrets. And commitment, in turn, requires self-confidence
and self-knowledge.
Scwartz (Author of: Paradox of Choice) says We are free to be the authors of
our lives, but we don’t know exactly what kind of lives we want to write.
But, maturity lies in deciding just that…”

Interesting video by Barry Scwartz at Google about paradox of choice: [The Link]