Tag: Society and Science

Recap

Quiz on Asch conformity experiments – but only one or two actually did the homework, so i skipped.

We have seen previously:

1. For a human being, survival and insecurity is always on the back of its mind, constantly.
2. Society and groups help comfort the insecurities, hence are essential to its being.
3. Its then obvious that, larger the group size – larger the sense of security. This was discussed.

What could happen as the group size increases? From say 2 people to 5, 10, 200 and so on.

1. Most commonly mentioned was rising differences between the group members as numbers go high, because everyone is an individual ultimately.
2. Rising insecurities due to resource sharing concerns.
3. Unfortunately did not strike then and so could not discuss – the larger a group, more variety of members and hence more chance of matching of needs, desires and interests. This could lead to formation of more friendships, relationships within.

We touched upon last time that traditions could be a binding force within a group, and also that leadership comes in. Here’s my take on it, though it was NOT discussed in class.

1. Small sub-groups based on “grouping” differences between individuals.
2. Sub-groups could have conflicting requirements, and hence clashes.
3. Two ways that could be necessary to define and sustain large groups:
   1. Common Traditions are set, which is the skeleton of the group. Needed to ensure individuals and subgroups obey the overall big group’s objectives and ideas, despite their inner differences. Also could act as unwritten laws to ensure clashes are kept at minimum.
   2. Common Leadership comes into play, charisma plays important role, non-human leadership comes in like belief in higher power, etc. But that’s another story.
4. It seems very interesting – the power and nature of traditions:
   1. Traditions could begin from observations and analysis of cause and effect by our ancestors. Does this happen always? – research required.
   2. Because everyone has many things on their minds, and attention span is limited, so one must believe that traditional practices are good and will remain good in the long run, and just follow them.
   3. Tradition also has an immense glue effect that keeps the social group’s identity and hence ensures its stability in time.
   4. Tradition spreads very easily because:
      1. Limited attention span.
      2. Conformity tendency – Our need to be included as part of group to relieve our insecurities, for assurance from our peers, etc.
      3. Tradition creates commonality – common ground for sub-groups or individuals to agree upon – hence averaging out major differences in groups = cohesiveness of the group.
      4. It feels safe if large number of followers of a tradition, it feels good to socially bond through a tradition, there’s no uncertainty to deal with as everything is laid out plain and simple.
      5. Its non taxing to the brain.
   5. But people are also interested in the basis of a tradition:
      1. Original context could often be too dull and dry.
      2. If it has to be orally repeated, and it would take all that effort to do so to the new-comers into the group, then why not spice it up? Its entertaining and benign right? All the while, the essence of the tradition is maintained with all its benefits (above). Also helps the tradition become more appealing to everyone because its a beautiful story of human beings.
      3. Add up some, kings and queens, some angels and demons with superpowers and all the fascination a kid can imagine but an adult dies and fails to see in its life.
      4. But what does not spread easily is THE ORIGINAL CONTEXT, the dull and dry facts.

We discussed on the issue of communication between members. As number of members of group increase, given the short attention span, one could only speak in minimal details to other. It would then be upto the other to pass on interpreted stuff to another and so on. Also the details of the message not felt relevant would need to be skipped, because time was short.

To test this within the class, we played a little game. I asked everyone to face away so one can not see the other. The idea was to pass around a secret message from one end of the class to the other and see if it changes. Then i conjured up 2 tricks and a statement : A) a pen play between the fingers, B) a trick that makes a coin appear as heads on both the sides and C) A statement “Do this and you will be enlightened”.

This was fun. First i delivered this message to MM who bluntly said “I cant do that”, but nonetheless it was passed around. Finally it came to PK, the last person in the chain, to display to the class what he received. It was very funny, he shook the pen, showed the coin but said correctly that if you do these actions you will be enlightened. We discussed then what were the observations, why was the message modulated? The common answer was that the remaining stuff was not important, important was the enlightenment part, and so that got passed around. KG observed interestingly that this behavior was similar to that of a tradition, where only the relevant stuff is passed around. However, there was one thing i felt was essential, the keyword of the exercise, which is : easy. Only those things that were easy to pass around got passed. Like the statement, the objects pen and coin. The tricks were lost. Why was this?

1. The tricks seemed irrelevant to the beautiful and ‘main’ aspect of “enlightenment”.
2. It would have taken hours of practice for one to learn those tricks.
3. The other way would have been to write it down and describe those tricks accurately, so that the written document atleast could have been passed down.

Could this argument be extended to traditions too? Only those things that can be packaged as a story have come to bear upon us from many generations. Traditional practices are those that are passed on through oral and demonstrated acts. Yes, they are written down to keep them from changing much. Here’s the catch, if things are written down, they are preserved for longer time in the original form.

One observation was that writing of traditions and knowledge in India are scarce as compared to the length and number of people. It was only later that some of the traditional stories were written down. In a very interesting article in FirstPost it was the correct recitation of Vedas by the Brahmins, which helped them keep the authority of knowledge to themselves, and to maintain the topmost position in the Varna system. So reading and writing were discouraged, not only for other casts but as well as within the Brahmins. But its hard to capture the so many nuances written up in the article, i will stop here about it and refer to the reader to read it instead. Conclusion: If things are written down, they can also be propagated easily in the original form.

On Indian writing PK observed that there can be two forms of interpretation – the literal way and the metaphoric way. We had a discussion about it.

Somewhere during above discussions, KG mentioned her study on women not being allowed to enter sacred places during their menstruating cycles. She mentioned that original reason for this could have been so that since in such times the body is weak and requires rest, it could have been advised that such women take rest rather than follow the physically taxing rituals. PK countered that since the discharge of blood was involved, so the priests and men in general would shun such “impure” women out of the way. I didn’t know much about this, so i searched. Here’s an interesting paper :  Menstruation related myths in India: strategies for combating it which details the taboos in India about menstruation.

I cant recollect the context, but SD mentioned “The ethics of authenticity”  – by Charles Taylor and in it the first chapter “Three Malaises“. It was a very interesting read, thanks to SD and PK for bringing it up in class. However this was not discussed much because no one had any reading on it, except PK and SD. Here’s a summary of “Three Malaises“:

1. Individualism: Individualism at the cost of loss of a larger context. Following quotes:
   1. People used to see themselves as part of a larger order.
   2. But at the same time as they restricted us, these orders gave meaning to the world and to the activities of social life.
   3. The discrediting of these orders has been called the “disenchantment” of the world. With it, things lost some of their magic.
   4. People no longer have a sense of a higher purpose, of something worth dying for.
   5. In other words, the dark side of individualism is a centering on the self,
      which both flattens and narrows our lives, makes them poorer in meaning, and less concerned with others or society.
2. Instrumental reason: 
   1. By “instrumental reason” I  mean the kind of rationality we draw on when we
      calculate the most economical application of means to a given end. Maximum efficiency, the best cost-output ratio, is its measure of success.
   2. …once the creatures that surround us lose the significance that accrued to their place in the chain of being, they are open to being treated as raw materials
      or instruments for our projects. 
   3. The fear is that things that ought to be determined by other criteria will be decided in terms of efficiency or “cost-benefit” analysis, that the independent ends that ought to be guiding our lives will be eclipsed by the demand to maximize output.
   4. The primacy of instrumental reason is also evident in the prestige and aura that surround technology, and makes us believe that we should seek technological solutions even when something very different is called for.
   5. Patricia Benner has argued in a number of important works that the
      technological approach in medicine has often sidelined the kind of care that involves treating the patient as a whole person with a life story, and not
      as the locus of a technical problem.
   6. Hannah Arendt … argued that “the reality and reliability of the human world rest
      primarily on the fact that we are surrounded by things more permanent than the activity by which they are produced.” This permanence comes under
      threat in a world of modern commodities.
   7. A manager in spite of her own orientation may be forced by the conditions of the market to adopt a maximizing strategy she feels is destructive. A bureaucrat, in spite of his personal insight, may be forced by the rules under which he operates to make a decision he knows to be against humanity and good sense.
3. Citizen’s political apathy or loss of freedom
   1. … has also been widely discussed, most memorably by Alexis de Tocqueville. A society in which people end up as the kind of individuals who are “enclosed in
      their own hearts” is one where few will want to participate actively In self-government.
   2. This opens the danger of a new, specifically mod­ern form of despotism, which Tocqueville calls “soft” despotism. It will not be a tyranny of terror and oppression as in the old days. The government wil be mild and paternalistic. It may even keep democratic forms, with periodic elections. But in fact, everything will be run by an “immense tutelary power,” over which people will have little control. 
   3. Once participation declines, once the lateral associations that were its vehicles wither away, the individual citizen is left alone in the face of the vast bureaucratic state and feels, correctly, powerless.

Very very interesting. Although i cant recollect, i guess the mention of this “Three Malaises” was a reaction to my undermining traditions as being easy to spread and with intention to be spread rather than having an intent to spread knowledge. Some students, i now remember complained that traditions were also knowledge, which i must agree.

RR asked if one can say that all superstitions could be based on improper observations? Well, interesting question. Rather than building on it, i cut it short saying that on one hand this could be true but on the other this was necessary. Having all knowledge before hand is a tall order. For a body of knowledge to develop it takes huge amount of time, centuries and probably millennia, as we can very well see from our past (modern science is only 500 years old whereas humanity is at least more than 2 million years old). So more discussion on this would have been absolutely great.

So coming back to traditions, and science i think:

• Traditions helped us get this far by saying do this and this and you will be happy and safe and that you are a very important part of this universe. It helped us bond, generate communities and identities. Probably gave us meaning and made us part of bigger social picture dating back to millennia.
• But traditions suffer from lack of verifiable reason, and so science comes in. Scientific argument begins from “why?”. It kind of strikes at its basis saying we are but insecure and insignificant (as compared to the universe) pieces, bound by hearsay and authority of religions (which could be said as composed of traditions?), conformity and so on. But we can challenge all that and that challenging for the sake of truth is good.

Too short and inadequate a summery but that’s probably what it is. I realize i am too negative on traditions, while myself enjoying and made up of many. What a hypocrite!

Recap

Conclusions from the previous session:

• Insecurity as key constituent of human nature.
• Society as a safety net.

It was asked about if anyone had any problems with the above conclusions. It seemed all accepted it. On further investigation important feedback was given by multiple students about the previous session:

There were too many concepts discussed. No clarity was there as to why these were discussed and how they relate to Society and Science. It was confusing and It was vague.

I agree totally. But most of it was not intended and shows the instructor’s amateurishness in the subject as well as in the art of teaching.

Nonetheless, the objective of the previous session, it was explained, was to lay down a basis for formation of societies or groups of individuals who by themselves, alone would generally feel highly insecure and face sever challenges to their existence. This could be one of the significant reasons for formation of a society.

I proposed two more statements and asked about if they further agreed with these:

1. The pursuit of safety is the defining feature of all life.

Here, MJ disagreed saying “The pursuit of happiness” was the defining feature of life. Counter question: Can one be insecure and still be happy? Consensus was YES! which was very interesting to note as i thought otherwise. Although no examples were shared, i can imagine a poor family, insecure in resources and future, but still happy. Another counter question, can a ant pursue happiness? Someone replied it could, who knows. This was going in weird direction where i didnt know what to do, so we decided to focus back. In retrospect, this discussion could have continued as exploration, the main pedagogy of this course. It should not have mattered if one had a priory knowledge and facts about the case, one could still play around the ideas and think and try to be reasonable.

2. Self-perpetuation is another defining feature.

There were no specific responses to this statement. What i intended to keep on the table was the idea of procreation, which later on i wished to apply to “Social Organisms” – the concept that subcultures/traditions could be seen as living beings themselves. Anyways, i think this was a very point which i didn’t research well enough or know about enough, and yet introduced. Hence no discussion or responses. (Poor students must suffer!).

I asked about if the group had any specific disagreements from the statements made in the previous session, that dissent was lacking. However, SD mentioned that enough dissent was expressed, which is great, but could we have more? Dissent was essential to this class, and that brings about discussion and content. Ideally it would be nice if there are 11 people in class holding 11 differing opinions on the same subject, no binaries and certainly no singularities! However, lets see if this tall order will hold true. This was all good, the spirit was good for further journey!

I think JP raised an important question, related to dissent. I will try to paraphrase:

If the need of humans is to form groups and agree with each other to feel secure, then doesn’t science and dissent go against the “group-up to feel secure” idea?

JP mentioned the above with reference to falsification theory by someone name Karl Popper. Then stupidly, I just repeated the same as JP, but not knowing it was originally from Popper who first proposed it. I had probably read it in the wonderful first chapter of Conceptual Physics by Paul Hewitt (recommended by Dr. Priyadarshini Karve). So thanks to JP for enlightening the group!

Various students answered this. Unfortunately I do not remember the responses, but reflecting now on this question, let me put my take on it this way: For making groups, one must compromise on individual opinions and link on common needs (read as counter to insecurities?). However to lead the group to the right direction, much thought and discussion is needed, dissent must come about to keep broad scopes of an aspect.  This, kind of seems contradictory to the ‘agreement pact’? So there’s a conflict, but a necessary one. If done in a healthy way, this could be good for the members individually and the group. This is also why leadership becomes important for the group, someone who all parties agree to follow and trust as being the arbiter of truth and direction. I maybe wrong or naive in what is clearly an ‘opinion’, but i would be happy to update or correct it whenever in future.

Next came the discussion of size of groups. Previously, KG hinted at how as the group size increases, there could be rising insecurities within the group about resources. JP raised the same question here and that was discussed. Unfortunately i am not able to remember the discussion, but it seemed and interesting one.

What humans do to feel safe?

The group was next asked this question. What do we do to make ourselves feel secure, safe and healthy in all possible ways? Maybe i was not very clear, or didn’t give them enough time to reflect, the responses weren’t much. Also i guess the class seemed a bit sleepy and bored. So I am summarizing what i wised would come about in the discussions in response to the above question:

• Look before we leap, check out things from afar.
• Separate known from unknown and keep close to the former – familiarity – seek similarity in strangers
• Foresee tough times and plan for resources. (this we discovered through discussion)
• Go to ones who makes us feel good. (also discovered)
• Is feeling good same as feeling safe? (discussed but fizzled out)
• Handover our protection to stronger members. – the worry and stress of self-protection can be very high. Lookout for members with higher self-confidence and exuberance, associate with them. (some discussion here)
• Extend similar acts and thoughts to others whom we care about.

 

How groups help members feel secure?

Next i wanted to discussion on how groups form and sustain. Again, either memory is failing me or there discussion was just murmurs here and there, but not much came about. I think this could have been an interesting discussion.

• Formation of groups against a common fear.
• Trust – the glue that builds and bonds a society
• Large number of examples to follow! – traditions

BREAK

 

The penalty of security

What is the cost of achieving this heightened security – security from whom? – freedom – What is the price we, as social members, must pay in all the bonding and trusting and trying to achieve what at best could be described as a perpetually transient state of security ? Though not put across in such words, following videos were shown and discussed.

• On Attention – how little we have and can spare – the idea here was to emphasize how little conscious we are of everything around us. So less and narrow is our attentionspan, that even if we wish would can only fathom so much. The remaining is all in the subconscious and not accessible to us directly. The video seemed a bit fast and grainy. Also the projector and computer connection seemed occupied with its own self-doubts. End effect, the intended effect was disturbed by the noise.
• Failure of traditions – 5 monkey experiment     – Had a nice discussion on the video and how it related to traditions. While it was mentioned that the original reasons were lost, even new discovery was discouraged in a traditionally bound group. But why worry, why bother to inquire more for the bananas if otherwise the monkey group could be assumed to be regularly fed? A nice discussion ensued on “lost opportunities”. UB asked a very interesting and innocent question: how can we recover the original context if only we have been handed down traditions? Difficult to answer, i could only say that historians and anthropologists are probably also have similar pursuits. [Examples?]
• Conformity even in the face of obvious wrong – Asch exmeriments – this was given as a homework.
• Social organisms – is that a thing? – Can a tradition or subculture be considered as a living thing and if so wont it try its best to survive? – Makmurdo’s  essay , another one but mostly using biological examples – this was discussed only in the last 10 minutes.
• Some very interesting psychology experiments – only for reference here…

Intro

The idea of this lecture was to lay the basis of why society exists. Why is it needed in the first place.

The pretext: We are a fragile being, but unlike other living beings, with an immense power of perception. What this leads us to is this immense sense of anticipation of how things will turn out or how things were. We try to see well in advance of what is apparently visible. In fact we are forced to perceive rather than see because our senses are limited. This always keeps us on our toes, the lack of sensory understanding and comprehension make us insecure. So our very existence is thanks to the heightened sense of danger that we have normalized into our day to day lives. Probably just so much as other species, but we have extended this danger-alertness to a whole other level, thanks to our perceptive abilities. The struggle for survival in a good form is probably what it means to be alive.

Part 1

A situation was presented to the students :-

An unknown large room.Your senses are there but have been dumbed down. You can see, but not so clearly, you can hear but only swishes and whispers, you can smell but only a wiff here and there, you can taste, but only a little. Its cold and humid. Basically physically uncomfortable. You’v got to live there now for sometime.Room’s large enough for many things and its cluttered.It looks as if you are not the only one there, but you cant make out initially. There are many objects protruding out, sharp and blunt, some hurt, some are comfortable to keep nearby. Some are heavy, some light, some rough , some smooth, etc… There are two kinds of sounds. One is a regular one that repeats periodically. The other randomly.

What will go through your mind? – A discussion was encouraged and the students were asked to write their questions in different pieces of post-it. Some example questions:

• Why am I here? Any reason?
• Am I alone?
• I’ll probably search for food.
• I’ll probably fall asleep, because i am stressed and do not know what to do.
• What are my possessions that I need to save?

And many more.

Next, a graph was drawn as shown in the following figure. Students were then asked to place their chits, on discussion and popular vote in appropriate sections of the graph space. A large number were placed in the first quadrant which signifies the students raised most questions with a curious outlook intended to ensure or enhance chance of survival. It showed a rational behavior. However, while designing this thought experiment, I felt that a stressful and uncertain situation like this will throw up most thoughts that will fall in the 4th quadrant – between survival and hopelessness. This curious development was discussed with the students and some agreed that the outcome was too rational to be realistic. Most probably because either the scene was not created well enough to actually feel as intended or because the class is generally more rationalistic than the instructor. I prefer the latter view.

The objective of this exercise was to bring out the acknowledgment that we are not very good with uncertainty. What should have happened after that was to be able to logically drive the discussion and consensus from ‘difficulty in dealing with uncertainty‘ and ‘inherent insecurity’ as starting points leading to how groups of similar/familiar individuals help in overcoming our insecurity, a.k.a. society. The latter was discussed but not to the effect. Also a student raised an important point, that if too many humans are there in the above situation, because food is a concern now, this could lead to conflict. A resources issue. Could not take upon this lead to discuss more, and was a bit pleasantly surprised. This was all going great! So students were OK till this point.

Then, i realized i am loosing track of the mentally prepared lecture. I wanted to drive the group towards articulating human flaws, based on the above discussion, that make us vulnerable to skipping truth and so on. But i could not orient gracefully from a participant in the discussions to taking up the position of driving a group of youngsters to a certain direction. This ordeal lasted about 15 minutes. It was crazy.

Part 2

After a much needed break (encouraged by the instructor himself who was facing existential challenges), the class resumed. We sat together, this time like in a closer circle for further discussions. A bit informal helped me ease up. We began analyzing the previous graph again, more focused on understanding human tendencies in a tough situation. I tried to put through a discussion on the repeatable sound vs random sound aspect in the above scenario. Some wanted to explore the random sound more as it seemed interesting (Why act so rational?) and some seemed to prefer the repeated sound as it seemed safe. I put it as a line:

A known devil vs an unknown angel – which one is better?

A good discussion could have resulted, but i could not drive because i didn’t know how to. Some students seemed convinced that a known devil was better, but that’s about it.

Next the topic of traditions was opened, cant remember how we got to this… Anyways, this was very interesting, albeit out of plan. Many thoughts were exchanged. Summary:

1. Traditions help us know who and where we come from.
2. Because of traditions we do not have to think much, or for every small thing. It tells us what to do in a situation.
3. We could be in trouble if we do not follow traditions.
4. If things have worked so far as traditions say, then they must be good and relevant now and in future!
5. And a few more.

There was also a mention of casteism and social hierarchy, but we didn’t pursue it this time.

On conclusion i summarized as follows:

1. Human beings are always insecure.
2. Society helps in making us feel secure.

But the above seemed enforced by me, rather than discovered by everyone through this class. Surprising no one dissented and that’s bad. Need to take up this issue next – why my opinions were not countered!

Conclusion

Class went OK. ‘Uncertain room’ situation was a good exercise. Hopefully the students got some idea of what i was trying to convey. But i left the group with much confusion probably.

• Need to be prepared with two exercises for each of the 2 hours so that there’s enough content at hand.
• Need to allow students to discover and lead in some areas and come to common conclusion rather than enforce my thoughts onto them.