When I was small, much of the elders around me had emigrated to the big city from smaller towns and villages in search of a livelihood. They obviously had tough times making a life for themselves in the big city and often missed their small places.
However, we kids who were born in the city, took to it like fish to water. We grew up naturally adopting some kinds of defence mechanisms that are required only in groups of large people. We learned to have an element of mistrust in almost every transaction, while at the same time learnt to expect and respect diversity in thought, languages and lifestyles from the population.
We also naturally learnt that cultures and social norms are ephemeral entities that keep changing over time. We actually expected cultural norms to change every once in a while, and even found life boring if culture did not change. We had no problems accepting multiple languages. We could speak Kannada with an English accent and English with a Kannada accent and found nothing wrong with it. We found it very natural to have a sentence with words coming from several languages. We primarily saw language as a means of communication and not as a vehicle of cultural pride.
In Bangalore specifically, one kind of division was particularly sharp -- the divide between the anglicized cantonment area and the traditional city areas. For us kids though, this divide was not a point of friction at all. In fact, going to cantonment from the traditional Rajajinagar was a trip to look forward to. We loved the masala dosa (and didn't find any problem with it being called either masala dosa or masale dose or whatever) as much as we loved plum cake.
However, the elders who were sorely missing their smaller havens and were struggling to make a life in the city, often found the behaviour of us kids rather shocking. It was quite routine to see some elder or the other remark something like, "The city kids of today have no morals. They don't know anything. They don't have pride in themselves. They are all decadent. We come from villages, we are hardened people. We have seen hardship. We have seen everything."
And what did the "immoral" behaviour usually represent? Things like eating in a restaurant, being comfortable in shirts and pants at home (and not with the traditional dhoti), eating from a dining table, using spoons to eat, not knowing the Kannada words for some things and instead using English words to substitute them, etc. Such horrible crimes!
We often heard stories repeated several times over and over again about how the elders walked several kilometers to their school, how the path to their school was lined with all kinds of trees, how they as kids could climb up and down trees very easily, how they would walk into jungles alone, etc. etc. etc.
As a result of such constant moral put-downs, many of us grew up with an innate sense of guilt and shame -- for having committed the crime of being born in a city! Often times when someone asked us where we were from, we replied, "Well I was born in Bangalore, but my roots are in this little village over there, several of my relatives are still there.." If you didn't show a link to a village, well, you weren't worthy enough to have been born in the first place. We felt morally responsible for all the banes of city life -- its pollution, its lack of safety, its sleazy people, its crowded busses -- onto ourselves. All these existed, because we were born in the city, instead of in the supreme village. And we resigned ourselves to the fact that we city-born kids are usually dumbos and ignorant and the real secret to good health and wisdom lies in being born in a village.
And several times we were subject to "indoctrination" sessions from the elders to "instill in us a sense of values and pride towards our culture." Which typically meant wearing a fancy dress (taking off the shirt and pants and wearing a traditional panche or dhoti) and chanting something obscure. And you had impeccable values and morals if you also gave up on your haircut, which was so western and morally inferior, and instead, shaved your head and sported a small tuft (juttu or kudmi).
Even today, I still go, "Er.. what?"
But with the hind sight of having travelled significantly and having met and argued and debated with people of different kinds from different countries, I think I'm somewhat better equipped to analyze this situation.
Much of what we experienced as city-kids-of-village-parents are now being experienced by the next generation kids of Non-resident Indians. I heard someone I know who has now emigrated to the US and has become a naturalized citizen, lament about their kids saying, "We are planning to come back to India. This is not a place to live; especially with daughters. It is going to be tough when they grow up. There is too much freedom here."
"Too much freedom"?? I thought that is why they went there and did all kinds of ..er.. things, to become US citizens in the first place! :-)
Not very different from their earlier generation who emigrated to cities in search of a livelihood and lamented about their children being comfortable with the city.
So, now they want to come back to India, but not give up on their US citizenship (of course), and because they are not used anymore to the ..er.. jungle that India is, they want to buy a house in a gated "lifestyle" colony that looks and acts just like a US town, even if it costs them a small, no big, fortune to do so. And all this because they can enjoy the "too much freedom" of a US town right in India without having their children become morally inept because of the "too much freedom."
God. What a mess. But I digress.
One question that has remained invariant in all these melee is the constancy of the "moral indignation." Whether it is village-city or India-US or even whose-language-is-better or whose-culture-is-better games, the one constant factor is that of moral indignation.
Moral indignation is a powerful weapon. It makes the other party doubt their own integrity as a person. When applied forcefully enough on a hapless and weak individual, it can shame them into taking extreme steps -- like committing suicide. Look at some of the saas-bahu (ok, ok, atte-sosey) stories of the yesteryears and you know what I mean. Like all those stories where this girl marries into a family following which there is a tragedy in the family and someone dies. Everyone now is morally indignant about the new daughter-in-law seeing her has a bad omen. Many such stories end in the daughter-in-law committing suicide "sacrificing herself" to the well being of the family, etc.
Moral indignation, when administered in the right doses to the next generation, can make them so unsure of themselves and incapable of independent thought. But their physical stamina and adrenalin are still there. They can then be used to do your bidding and push your agenda when you become old yourself. They will not question you. You are a demi-god to them; they are unworthy creatures unto themselves.
On the other hand, moral indignation is also the last weapon of the powerless. People do not usually resort to moral indignation when opportunities are within their reach.
The very same people who lamented about the city and its zest to adopt the "decadent western culture," went into overdrive in the mid 1990s to pack their kids to the US, when it opened H-1B visas to Indian IT workers. Morality did not figure when seeking US citizenship by manipulation of legal loopholes. Morality did not figure when walking out on the bond issued to their companies that they'll come back from the US and work here for at least a year. Morality and family values did not figure when marriage-contracts were plotted and executed as an alternative route to open American doors.
People primarily adopt moral posturing when they feel defeated by the system, not when they are on the top of things.
Which brings me to the main question of this post. Is an increase in moral posturing in the society a sign of fundamentalism brewing?
Almost all major cities, countries and regions that have seen rapid economic growth, have also had the problem of home-bred fundamentalist organizations. These organizations all typically have an agenda of "purity" and adopt a morally superior stance towards this purist agenda. These agendas are things like, jobs to locals, getting rid of the "outsiders", respect/adoption/mandation of local language and cultural norms or religion, etc. The agendas will be such that no local person can ever disagree with them without facing the prospect of moral ostracisation.
Trace the history of these fundamentalist organizations and it will not be hard to notice something common. These organizations would mostly be fuelled by second-generation folks who have been brought up with extreme ideas of culture and morality. It is the only world they know. Their first generation would usually comprise of folks who have been snubbed by the society or would have failed to assert their personality in a fast changing society.
So is moral posturing something to be worried about? Yes, I think so. At the very least it means that someone is unhappy. And while the posturing may talk about profound things like culture and morality, the real problem may just be the lack of opportunities and the dearth of "iterated games" -- which are necessary to bring about cooperative behaviour and fair play in a population.
Thursday, April 30, 2009
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24 comments:
Okay, this is too good to resist. ;) Especially for someone like me who gets hit all the time left, right and centre (pun intended). Apologies in advance for what will be a long posting.
Firstly, regarding the main point of the post. Do I find moral indignation worrisome? Definitely yes, in certain cases. But not always. Let me explain.
I think most people are morally indignant or something of that sort about one thing or the other. There's a stickler in most of us. Asking people to use a common Kannada word, (when speaking in Kannada), instead of a seemingly contrived foreign one is no more morally indignant than getting irritated by SMS lingo, or registering annoyance about fashionable nonsense. (Just to make it clear, I am merely using these as examples.) It is just the stickler in us. Most people don't lose sleep over these even if their audience does not heed.
But surely there are other forms that go beyond occasional complaints of sticklers. Like the ones you have talked about: cultural, lifestyle related etc.. They are part of the routine for some of us. Having said that, some of us have also felt the opposite effect. We have felt that we are not worthy enough to have been born, and have been convicted for crimes which are complementary to the ones you mention, but no less horrible! We've been chided as uncivilized for eating with our hands instead of spoons; ridiculed in the urban schools and societies that we moved to for several years for not being fluent enough in English; or for wearing clothes that are old fashioned; or for being unaware of western music and movies. And, no, this is not just some bullying kids in high schools. Even graduate schools, and the outside world. When we visited relatives in big cities, they used to conspicuously hide the TV remote controls because we small town kids might mess it up. All this causes no less shame, guilt, loss of confidence etc..
The purpose of all the examples I am giving is definitely not to make a rebuttal, but only to indicate that the moral indignation or whatever is pervasive.
Further, there is also the constant danger of creating "pseudo-stereotypes" as I have argued before. For example, a person being eloquent about the preservation and prosperity of a language does not necessarily mean the person is retrogressive or fundamentalist or narrow-minded. As long as the person is not forcing others to accept his views, there is no problem.
Moral policing is definitely bad. "Ideological policing" such as claiming certain viewpoints are better than others, is also bad. It is equally bad if one is censured for being "western" and another ridiculed for being "traditional". Freedom is when societies are liberated from all sorts of dogmas.
To come back to the original point, should we worry about moral indignation (of any sort)? I'll say, we should be careful about it. But the best way to deal with most of them is to simply ignore. But some of those go beyond just being moral indignation to being convictions. Those we need to worry about, and fight.
Forgot to make another point. Moral posturing is not necessarily about missed opportunities or being powerless. In many of the examples I have given it arises from a perception of being more powerful (in some sense, valid or not).
Er.. probably going a bit overboard with comments, but just remembered another important point I wanted to make.
The posturing of the "elite" is rightly rubbished. But let's not forget the scoffing of the "hoi polloi". Some of us have never been able to be open about our hobbies and activities even with friends and colleagues. Because we have "obscure" interests which lead to embarrassment. My father cringes at most of the contemporary film music; while a friend of mine who has more than a first order interest in rock music flinches at the mention of classical or any other genre. No difference.
Nothing greatly to disagree with the points. Yeah moral posturing is everywhere. A small look into my earlier postings will make obvious my irritation about intellectual and moral posturing of the of the other kind that you mention (customer kind of person, zombie processes, etc.) So this post is about moral posturing, not rural-urban divides. I'm using the latter as an example to drive home the point.
But I can't resist certain things in the comments myself ;)
Asking people to use a common Kannada word, (when speaking in Kannada), instead of a seemingly contrived foreign one is no more morally indignant than getting irritated by SMS lingo, or registering annoyance about fashionable nonsense.Irritation about SMS lingo is one thing, but fashionable nonsense is something else. This is perhaps the point I've been trying to make for several years now (without any success, as I see now).
This is about language and meaning. Like the great poet Whatsisname has said, "What is in a name? A karela called by any other name tastes just as bitter." Irritation about the use of different tags to refer to an object is different from irritation about deploying an inconsistent and untested object into the end product.
Nonsense is about nonsense in meaning -- while calling something by a name is about tags.
This is one of the points that I try so hard to make; but fail at every attempt. Any attempt of mine to talk about objective truth often gets trivialized by the use of word play.
So let me repeat, irritation about inconsistent meaning is NOT the same as irritation about a certain language/label being used to refer to something.
Moral policing is definitely bad. "Ideological policing" such as claiming certain viewpoints are better than others, is also bad.Er.. Who ever said moral policing is bad? Who ever said ideology is bad? I would definitely want to protect my children from decadent influences of whatever kind.
The point is that, it is bad models of morality or ideology that are bad.
Forgot to make another point. Moral posturing is not necessarily about missed opportunities or being powerless. In many of the examples I have given it arises from a perception of being more powerful (in some sense, valid or not).The keyword there is "perception." If these folks were to be really powerful, they would not have to use moral posturing at all. People would flock to them and run around them even without their asking.
The posturing of the "elite" is rightly rubbished. But let's not forget the scoffing of the "hoi polloi". Some of us have never been able to be open about our hobbies and activities even with friends and colleagues. Because we have "obscure" interests which lead to embarrassment. My father cringes at most of the contemporary film music; while a friend of mine who has more than a first order interest in rock music flinches at the mention of classical or any other genre. No difference.Welcome to the real world. :-)
It is not very clear who in the above statement was the "elite" and who was the "hoi polloi" though..
Er.. I'm going a bit enthusiastic with comments too.. ;-)
So what exactly is the problem with a morality model based on preservation of a local cultural motif?
Well it fares, dismally with the universality metric for good models.
Morality is defined as behaviours that are strongly advocated, and at times mandated in the form of social pressure, in order to keep up the integrity of society.
Given that, a model that has a low universality factor is going to be worst hit in the face of changes like media, Internet, etc. that bring together people from disparate corners of the world.
This is of course, not to say that local culture should not be preserved. Just that, don't make it into a moral issue and insist on the population to adopt it. The integrity of society is not based on cultural norms; it is based on how meaningful (truthful, sensible, etc.) are its dynamics.
Too big a deal is made of this morality issue. How can someone else decide what morals (sic) I do or do not possess?
I can think of the time when my grandpa spoke to me at length on about how kids of my age have things easy and so we don't really care about anything. It was a shock for me then (still is) because I believed I was doing not bad as a son or grandson or brother or nephew etc etc. It is only now that I understand his 'you have it too easy' comment. Is it my fault that I haven't seen the difficulties that he saw in his life? Isn't he in a way responsible for making my life 'easy'?
Societies evolve over time, ideas evolve, lifestyles change, people adapt to new beliefs ... a natural progression. Trying to curb this progression under the pretense of conserving 'values' in the society is what I find appalling.
To be fair though.. you should ask yourself whether you would in fact be telling similar things to your grandchildren.. If not, then what strategy would you use to manage unreasonable demands from them ("I want to go to Harvard to study, on your expense, of course.." etc.)? :-)
Ok. Stumped! :)
this is not a personal attack, but reading this post gives me the feeling you're someone subjected to a lot of moral constraints at home and feel you have lost out on a lot in life due to that, and hence cannot see anything right about what your parents told you. forgive me if i'm wrong.
the reason why parents say the things they say is because in the so-called modern culture they don't see the values that have stood them well in life, like thrift, hard work, etc etc. they feel safe in following the culture they do, and experimenting with new culture isn't a risk they want their children to take... given that they know to deal with the pitfalls of their own culture but not a new one they are clueless about.
another reason they might say what they say is probably because their younger generation don't seem to take pride in their own culture. and find mantras and hymns to be nonsense. this happens because the youngsters are not aware of their own culture... in the past, they didn't need to explicitly make every child aware of the culture... it somehow just was imbibed, and pride in oneself and one's culture came as naturally as breathing.
but in a big city, they are subjected to a different environment where this imbibition doesn't happen. they've never had to deal with such a thing before.
plus, city culture is not as open as people say it is... you might be a phd holder in sanskrit and john lennon's history, with a long list of accomplishments in the fields of womens rights, dalit upliftment and the like, and also kn but you'll still be laughed at and called backward if you wear a dhoti and marks on your forehead. by people who don't know their beatles from their led zep, no less. it's a culture which celebrates ignorance and mediocrity and worships false gods.
so hence this incessant pandering by parents is more of trying to prevent you from weakening to peer pressure.
in a similar way, westernized parents wouldn't probably take it coolly if their children were experimenting with sanatana dharma or become volunteers of the RSS.... they'd mostly turn in their kids to the police or a shrink.
in the US, that place with 'too much freedom' alarm bells ring in a home when kids are experimenting with veganism.
in the short term, not knowing kannada words or sanskrit hymns won't seem like much, but over a period of time, that amounts to erasure of a culture... like there being so much knowledge locked in aramaic texts but with too few people in the world who can decipher them.
cultures evolve, and get rid of things that plague them, but we can try our best to preserve that we perceive as good. like a stimulus package to bail out a company too big to lose to market forces.
as for 'too much freedom', the users of that phrase are probably guilty of faulty phrasing, nothing more. the US is certainly not a great place for freedoms other than the few that shock or awe us.
a year back, this lady in the US let her 9 year old son take the subway back home alone and got featured on national news as the world's worst mom.. how's that for freedom?
that apart, when any parent sees their kid do something that they are hardwired to believe is 'wrong', whether it is or not, they do anything in their power to bring kids back on the right track. that's what parents are for.
as for fundamentalists, im given to agree with what sanket says. You're in a cold western country, you don't know you have to spit out the bones as you eat herring, you get laughed at for speaking a funny english, for believing in a god most people haven't heard of, praying more times in a day than most people do in a week, and have dietary preferences that strike your hosts as downright weird... and they tell you so in their ignorance, attack your culture unknowingly thinking they are trying to reason with you, hurting your already-low self-esteem... what do you do? you'll just hold on more firmly to what you already know, and become more dogmatic about it than your conservative parents.... and there you go! you get kafeel ahmed, glasgow bomber, whose parents were foreign-returned doctors, who werent generally talking about 'khaum' and 'asli mussalmaan' to their kids.
fundamentalism is yet another form of rebellion. just like liberalism. or marxism.
So this post is about moral posturing, not rural-urban divides. I'm using the latter as an example to drive home the point. -- of course, it is not about any particular kind. I too have indicated it in my postings.
Nonsense is about nonsense in meaning -- while calling something by a name is about tags.
This is one of the points that I try so hard to make; but fail at every attempt. Any attempt of mine to talk about objective truth often gets trivialized by the use of word play. -- I did not equate the two. I did not say that the two types of objections serve the same purpose. There is no word play. My point here is the following. One might get irritated about usages that are not consistent with objective truth; another might get irritated about usages that are not consistent with her subjective local context. Probably we would like to be in a world where everyone strives for the former and not the latter. The latter exists anyway. That someone insists on the usage of proper grammar or words need not have anything to with 'moral indignation'. Or if someone is evangelical about a local language or culture or life-style. There is no danger of a potential fundamentalism in most cases. They need not be trivialized either, by tags such as moral indignation. When people are forces to accept a particular subjective viewpoint, it is an entirely different thing. But I keep seeing that this distinction is not made often and everything blanketed under moral indignation, regionalism, whatever.
Er.. Who ever said moral policing is bad? Who ever said ideology is bad? I would definitely want to protect my children from decadent influences of whatever kind.
The point is that, it is bad models of morality or ideology that are bad. -- Fine. I just said that in a manner of speaking.
Welcome to the real world. :-)
It is not very clear who in the above statement was the "elite" and who was the "hoi polloi" though..Er.. I've always been in the real world. I am using hoi polloi in the same manner in which you are using hoi polloi and popular. And the elite are the ones who apparently scoff at hoi polloi. And vice versa.
So what exactly is the problem with a morality model based on preservation of a local cultural motif?
Well it fares, dismally with the universality metric for good models. -- Fine. In fact, I have made it clear that the kind of society I would like to live in is one based on freedom, which for me is the most fundamental principle. The only thing here is that what is often seen as a morality based on local cultural motifs is not that.
@wanderlust:
Let me step over the personal part of the comment, as this post is not about my personal life ;-)
Here are some responses to other points:
the reason why parents say the things they say is because in the so-called modern culture they don't see the values that have stood them well in life, like thrift, hard work, etc etc.Well, I'm contending that it is not true. This "modern" culture is no less about hard work or thrift than the traditional one. In fact, I've seen quite the opposite. I've seen people in the "decadent" West work much harder and far more efficiently than their Indian counterparts. In fact, Indian society is so people-oriented, it is extremely difficult to get anything done without getting personally attacked at some level. Would it not be good for our society to imbibe these values instead of complaining ad nauseaum about traditional values?
in the short term, not knowing kannada words or sanskrit hymns won't seem like much, but over a period of time, that amounts to erasure of a culture...This begs the question, am I obliged to carry on a culture just because I was born in it? I didn't choose to be born there.
In fact, the fears of erasure of culture is unfounded I would say -- especially in the unfolding world of the WWW and Wikipedia. I've learnt much more about the core philosophies that constitute our culture more from English language sources than from traditional sources. And the core philosophies of Hinduism (ok, Sanatana dharma, if you please) are debated much more in German and American universities, than perhaps in Indian ones.
In fact, ironically, embracing a global outlook has actually increased my pride to have been born in India. Some of the most profound philosophical thoughts and models of universe that I've come across have their roots in Indian philosophy.
And dare I say that the local rituals and cultural motifs, came nowhere close to even discussing any of these core philosophies that make up our culture.
you'll still be laughed at and called backward if you wear a dhoti and marks on your forehead. by people who don't know their beatles from their led zep, no less. it's a culture which celebrates ignorance and mediocrity and worships false gods.Er.. so who or what are beatles or led zepp? I've spent all my life in big cities and the traditional stereotype of cities (rock music, parties, booze, etc.) are totally alien to me. The only rock musician I know is Michael Jackson, if he is one, that is. And all my city friends are like me; as far as I know, no one has ever been to whatever are these "rave" parties, no one has ever smoked, and no one has ever stoned themselves in pubs.
And this last statement that these folks "..celebrate ignorance and mediocrity and worships false gods," sounds so much like our friendly neighbourhood fanatics..
a year back, this lady in the US let her 9 year old son take the subway back home alone and got featured on national news as the world's worst mom.. how's that for freedom?Let's not fall into this false dichotomy business. Just because I'm lamenting about moral posturing, does not mean that I whole heartedly endorse whatever is happening in the West. There are ample example from my previous posts where I've pointed out at such nonsense being postured as morally superior.
@sanket
That someone insists on the usage of proper grammar or words need not have anything to with 'moral indignation'. Or if someone is evangelical about a local language or culture or life-style. There is no danger of a potential fundamentalism in most cases. They need not be trivialized either, by tags such as moral indignation.
Let me define morality again, so that the use of the tag becomes clear.
Morality is defined as any behavioural trait that is insisted or imposed upon other humans either with or without their wilful consent, in an apparent bid to preserve some form of "integrity" or "purity" in the society.
Given that, an insistence of the use of "proper" words clearly falls under moral pressure.
If the propriety is about meaning, truth and sensibility, rather than tags, I would not mind endorsing such pressure.
I think the disagreement is merely about the values of some tweakable parameters in the definitions, such as "insist", "preserve", "meaning".
What you call a tag need not be merely that in my world. It might have more meaning and purpose, however trivial. Okay, masala dosa or masale dose is too weak an example that ought to be dumped. Let me take another equally trivial, but a little more expressive example. There is what is called rasam. There are what are called saaru, huLi, saambaar and many other local variants. One need not be aware of them and one need not care. But let's say someone puts all of these under the blanket tag rasam or 'spicy Indian soup'. And let's say I insist that it is not that, but it is this particular thing. Or if I insist in making a distinction between 'muruku' and 'chakkuli', 'roti' and 'rotti' etc.. What's moralistic there? For me vermicelli, noodle, sphagetti and whatever else there is, are all probably simply 'shaavige'. Many people might (indeed, do) find it stupid. Fine, there is no underlying truth across these food items except that they all taste great when prepared by experts. Naturally, there are more important things in the world than learning these subtle distinctions. So, simply ignore!
Words need be just tags. There are recipes, history, etymology, tales and proverbs associated with them. When words are lost due to non-usage (or replacement), those things and the good life associated with them are also lost. Some people care about these. Those who don't need not try and keep up just because some care. They should simply ignore them. But calling such things moralistic is a bit of an overkill, IMO.
Some people take offense if their names are not pronounced perfectly with all the right accents, whereas others hardly care. As Tagore said, what's in a name? But some people do seem to care.
i actually gave your post another thought, and i found an anomaly.
how does your theory expain osama bin laden?
he was born to luxury, in a family with no fundamentalist upbringing, exposed to liberal ideas, an expensive college education, and in school was said to be rather lax about his namaaz.
and we all know how he turned out.
from my experience, people with strict upbringings turn out to be extremely liberal as adults. it's a way of rebelling against all that you are brought up to believe, a way of asserting your personality. every kid goes through that process of self-discovery and rebellion.
Ok let me take them one by one.
What you call a tag need not be merely that in my world. It might have more meaning and purpose, however trivial. Aha, the 'm'-word appears. When a tag has a meaning, that means what is important here is not the tag itself, but the semantic object that it refers to. In that case, that same semantic object could have different tags in different cultures. And haggling about which tag is the "proper" one is meaningless. That is the point.
Let me take another equally trivial, but a little more expressive example. There is what is called rasam. There are what are called saaru, huLi, saambaar and many other local variants. One need not be aware of them and one need not care. But let's say someone puts all of these under the blanket tag rasam or 'spicy Indian soup'. And let's say I insist that it is not that, but it is this particular thing. Or if I insist in making a distinction between 'muruku' and 'chakkuli', 'roti' and 'rotti' etc.. What's moralistic there?Basically what you are saying is that the different tags refer to different semantic objects and so ought to be refered to differently. But as you note in the next sentence:
For me vermicelli, noodle, sphagetti and whatever else there is, are all probably simply 'shaavige'.The distinction between the different objects need not be important to the person who's refering to all of these using a single tag. Basically, he's refering to the general class of these semantic objects, all of which can be clubbed under 'rasam' for instance.
When words are lost due to non-usage (or replacement), those things and the good life associated with them are also lost.I don't think so. Meanings (semantic objects, experiences) are not so tightly bound to language. If that were the case then languages would have been heavily guarded against change throughout the ages. While in fact, languages have kept continuously evolving and changing over the ages. If a semantic object or experience is important enough, a word will soon occupy its tag, either by design or naturally.
Examples are words like tsunami. There was no word to describe what happened on Dec 26th 2004. But the Japanese, who'd seen such things earlier had a word for it, and the same tag is now used in English, Kannada and just about any language of the world.
Has this use of a Japanese word "corrupted" our language in any way? Should we now invent a Kannada word for this kind of occurrence? Should we dig up our ancient texts to see whether there was a word to describe this? And having found one say in the texts of Ramayana, should we then insist that this word with its proper pronounciation be used by the population? I think it is an exercize in futility.
When we say a word is lost, it is usually because the associated experience behind it is lost and not the word itself. If people refer to different kinds of stuff like saru, huLi, etc. with one word, it does not mean that the language is getting corrupted. It means that people are no longer interested in the fine distinction between these objects. Maybe they are now interested in something else.
@wanderlust
i actually gave your post another thought, and i found an anomaly.
how does your theory expain osama bin laden?
he was born to luxury, in a family with no fundamentalist upbringing, exposed to liberal ideas, an expensive college education, and in school was said to be rather lax about his namaaz.
and we all know how he turned out. Good observation; but as you'll see it actually reiterates my assertion, than refute it.
Osama bin Laden has personally committed *none* of the Jihadi attacks. In fact, all of the attacks were committed by the *next generation* who were systematically subject to an intensely "pure" system of morality right from their impressionable ages.
Bin Laden is not the fundamentalist. He is just a strategist -- a mastermind -- who wants to get back at Western powers and India, for god-knows-what reason. His strategy involves creation of an army of fundamentalists, who can be convinced to kill themselves and others using moralistic rhetoric of virgins in heaven or whatever. The fundamentalists are those who are created by him and by sects like Taliban with their intense interpretation of morality.
i'd love to post inline, but it'd mean scrolling up and down and disturbing my train of thought, even if i collapse all comments.
the way i see it is, 'values' are all about the priority values you set for various aspects of life.
indian society gives a higher priority to familial and social relations, and hard work and dedication tends to be associated with austerity. it is this way because it has worked for us, and done the right way, will continue to do so. western society's rules work for them, and hence has sustained itself. there are advantages and disadvantages of both. they can be attributed to the way they have evolved.
comparing the two is like asking whether an ostrich has evolved better or has an albatross.
there are slackers and sloggers in every culture, you can't judge any culture based on just anecdotal evidences. culture evolves in a largely utilitarian fashion. whatever works, stays.
what irks old-timers is that their younger generation picks up only the decadent aspects of newer cultures. atleast, that's what they happen to notice. no one heard a dad complain about his son working too hard late at night or his daughter being very professional in her outlook.
w.r.t things like pub culture, you should take into consideration the traditional position of alcohol in the Indian society. we were taught to revere gandhi and that alcohol is a social evil, and saw public-service ads about (against) wife-beating and alcoholism on doordarshan everytime we tuned in... now isn't it going to be hard for someone brought up like that to think of pubs as a place where creativity flows? it not only takes time, but pubs should prove themselves as a beneficial aspect of society before they gain widespread acceptance.
it is not fundamentalism. it is called sticking to your stand.
considering you've never boozed or smoked or been in the company of people who do so, or that you don't even listen to evil, evil rock music, you must have been quite the ideal kid at home... what sort of moral indignation were you subjected to? if you weren't, it explains why this post is as stale as second-hand smoke.
as for my "celebrate ignorance and mediocrity and worships false gods" line, tell me what part of that isn't true. chetan bhagat, rakhi sawant and aravind adiga being a big hit is a fine example.
as for the 'false dichotomy' you mentioned, i just brought that in to say that people are guilty of using the wrong phrase when they say 'too much freedom'. sorry if it led you to believe i was going on in the mould of 'west is bad india is good'.
aren't you being an anti-fanatic fanatic that you see fanaticism every time someone stands up for what they think is right or what they believe in?
going by what you say, my english teacher from school would be a 'grammar nazi' and a 'vocabulary vulture'. stallman would be a gnu/linux fundamentalist. and i wonder what you have to say about linux fundamentalists on LKML or their Benevolent Dictator.
and if you say 'yeah, so what?', do tell me if your post means to say that fundamentalism is evil, or not?
@wanderlust
I am not clear what exactly is the point in the post. And let me again step over what happened or did not happen in my personal life; as that is not the issue.
If the question is whether fundamentalism is "evil" -- well to the extent that it impedes critical thought, the quest for truth and life in general; it is.
I'm not sure whether there is any such thing as anti-fanatic fanatic. It is like calling Atheism yet another faith.
Sticking to one's stand is fine as long as it makes sense to do so. But the moment it stops making sense, that is where the problems begin.
Of course, what is important is the semantics. But tags are first-class objects. Can we have multiple tags referring to the same thing? Definitely. Can tags get added/modified/replaced over time? Sure. Then, what's the problem? The problem is that some of us tread a thin line. What appears to a lot of people prima facie as conservatism is far from that.
Has this use of a Japanese word "corrupted" our language in any way? Should we now invent a Kannada word for this kind of occurrence? Should we dig up our ancient texts to see whether there was a word to describe this? And having found one say in the texts of Ramayana, should we then insist that this word with its proper pronounciation be used by the population? I think it is an exercize in futility.Yes, there are people who want to guard languages against external influences. But there are others who just want languages to be more expressive. It can be by including foreign words; and it can be by not losing useful native words. When such people insist on a certain word, it is not about propriety or purity. It is rather about accuracy in expression, and about providing the right intuition. They might also get irritated by someone's usage of a made-up, non-intuitive Kannada or Sanskrit word, where a common English word would do a better job.
I am not too keen about making up local equivalents to all the scientific words there are. At the same time, I am not against it. Such efforts wont make a language less expressive anyway. I've heard some talks on localization in which the speakers mention a bunch of obscure sounding Kannada words, and regard that as a difficulty. There is no problem there if the focus is on accuracy and intuition. If one uses 'aarakshaka' 'tantraamsha' or whatever and says people don't understand, it's a self created problem, when common words like 'police' and 'software' are as Kannada as English. I think Google Kannada's search page had the word 'anvEshisu' for 'search'! If one wants to make something artificially difficult and uninteresting, well, nothing can be done about it.
Wee tags are first-class objects if the subject of study is language.
But in daily life that is besotted with immediate and large problems like struggle for survival, crumbling infrastructure, a melting down economy, etc., I would not blame people if they used language as a means of communication, rather than as a subject matter in itself.
I would not blame them if they got irritated with insistence of propreity when they are trying to communicate in order to solve more desperate problems.
Language as a subject matter of study is best relegated to classrooms and not brought out in the open to interfere with real life that are tackling real problems.
I would definitely lose my cool if on the one hand I'm struggling to find funding sources and sustain work by competing against bigger giants; and on the other, the waiter refuses to take my order for malasa dosa, because it is masale dose.
I am not sure if I am being unclear as I am facing a straw man. Of course, the problems of the real world are far more important than any cultural motifs. Even people who worry about such things wont do it on a daily basis unless they are being paid for it. I would not blame people who use language only as a means of communication even when they are not solving problems. At any rate, I would not blame them anymore than the blame I receive from them for insisting propriety! (I did say it is not about propriety at all, anyway.) Hardly anybody would be bothered to find out if a local motif was used or not in a busy restaurant. In fact, the examples of google and others I gave was to point out that what matters most is the communication of ideas. Neither a pure local nor an impure foreign word is of any use if it does not serve the basic purpose of communicating ideas.
The only point I was trying to make was that there is a real danger of misclassifying when we use labels such as moral indignation.
@sanket
I typically choose my words carefully.. ;-)
So let me again try to explain why "moral indignation" is in fact, moral indignation. It may not correspond to something that you have said; but this post is about moral indignation, not about you ;-)
This is the case when a former colleague of ours was going in an auto rickshaw in Mumbai who was driving very rashly. He asked the driver, "zara dheere challna bhaiyya." (Please go slow brother.)
To which the driver replied, "bhaiyya nahin bolne ka, bhai bolne ka!"
(Don't refer to me as bhaiyya, call me bhai!) With the bhaiyya refering to the Bihari population against whom there were a lot of resentment as they were "outsiders."
That is what is an example of "moral indignation" against a purported pollution of the local culture by outside influences.
Very interesting discussion :)
I will digress a little and would like to make a point to the "You kids have it easy..." argument.
I vehemently disagree with the argument. Sure, I don't have to "walk" a kilometer to reach my school but, nonetheless I may have to commute more than 5 kilometers in mind numbing traffic. (not to mention lack of pavement or qualified drivers).
Like @sanket pointed out, the social dynamics of a school or when you are growing up in a big city with all its cultural influences is different. One is constantly judged. There is a constant need to form new social connections. Don't underestimate the power of peer pressure. If you are not successful here you may end up being a social reject. (There is nothing wrong with it but, its so much harder to fend for yourself when people around you are more co-operative. That brings up another interesting question: Is co-operation necessary just for the sake of it?)
Growing up in a middle class family in a expensive town is no easy on the nerves either. Think of the suicide rates in the big cities compared to villages. (Just for fun think of suicide rates compared to "more freedom cities" versus the Indian cities. Bangalore can be called the suicide capital of India). Most elders are either oblivious to the mental factors or extremely underestimate them.
In fact I mention to my parents that how easy they had it. ;)
Less competitive, lazy afternoons in the fields, wide open spaces, no rude auto drivers and definitely better food. (I can just go on.... :) )
I would say that the next generation also faces difficulties. Its just that its not the same as faced by the older one (or quantifiable on the older generation's scale).
Moral indignation may not be a major reason one would turn to fundamentalism. Mostly its obsession, vanity or just plain frustration and the lack of the ability to think in such a situation. I would say its a good mix of both :)
Think of the situation Hitler was in when he started making anti-Semite comments. (jobless and poor with no prospects)
The same is in the case of the current group in central Asia.
Both attracted wealthy individuals to their struggle.
If we analyze the situation from a higher plain, such people emerge form a poorer section of society where there is no hope or where the educators do not instill a good idea of hope and self respect. Its actually a flaw in our own self-regulation mechanism (our so called society). If we ignore the slums it will start biting at our feet sooner or latter.
The same is happening with the African nations.
I think at this point we come a full circle. The solution it seems is that we should behave more community like no matter what the scale (global or your residential locality). Which is exactly what the elders used to do!
I think at this point we come a full circle. The solution it seems is that we should behave more community like no matter what the scale (global or your residential locality). Which is exactly what the elders used to do!The last line reminds me of the lyrics of this song (http://www.teacheroz.com/fire.htm):
"We didn't start the fire,
it was always burning since the world's been turning.."
Anyway, this "walking to school" bit seems to be the most common metaphor of hardship that is commonly used.
But has anyone thought of how we used to go to school as kids? Our school was 10 kilometers away -- too far to walk. We had to take two busses. Which were invariably so crowded that so many times we had to travel footboard, with just half a leg and one hand firmly holding onto a railing. The other hand and leg flailed precariously out of the bus, supporting our school bags.
That is affluent, snobbish, party-going, city life for you. :-)
@sri:
Of course, it's not about me or anybody in particular ;) The disagreement was mostly about the boundary conditions anyway. Yes, the kind of moral indignation is on the rise. Such a thing makes people get stuck in local optima, at best, and at worst, fragments societies. Over the period of last couple of years, I too have been thinking about the reasons for that. Insecurity (or the frustration out of being powerless that you mention) is definitely a cause. But I am more scared of the powerful people. The ones such as some chaps in Bombay, the leaders of the language protectors in Bangalore, the Bin Ladens etc.. These guys themselves may not be fundamentalists in any sense, but they are power hungry. And they have the resources: rhetoric, cleverness, money, position. Nothing intoxicates like power. Having never been powerful in any real world sense, most of us can never completely understand what power can do to people.
---
That aside, to lighten up a bit, this walking to school or doing routine hardship is a bit overplayed. Luckily for me, I too have my own medals to show off ;) I have done the whole range, attending classes under a tree (literally!) for a few months, spending a couple of years in a residential school that had horrible conditions, travelling on foot-boards and bicycles in crowded cities. I am ready to concede that previous generations had much more hardships. But they also had some things easy. Being a graduate would give you a good executive job with quarters, a jeep and servants. Today people kill each other to admit their kids to "kindergarden". It's stupid if these measures of hardships and ease remain absolute. I might glorify my travails before my grandchildren. But stupid is stupid anyway.
Today IT professionals are blamed for an overall increase in the cost of living. My father used to tell me how employees of nationalised banks had to face impatience 25-30 years ago because they, with their fat pockets, were allegedly responsible for the increase of house rents in smaller towns.
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