A Complete Restatement of the Logic of
the Argument ...
From
the Very Beginning and with Additional Detail
It seems that some readers of this blog have difficulty in
grasping the implications of the argument put forward here – perhaps due to both
the seemingly complex nature of the problem and the necessary departure of the solution
from conventional wisdom. Although
highly unconventional, in reality, both the problem and the suggested solution,
once mastered, can be seen to be quite simple, in a similar way that E = mc2
is simple although it is the result of a highly complex mathematical argument.
And as mentioned in article #21, the content of this blog is
a pioneering work and as such readers are unlikely to find any references for
it; by definition, pioneering works don’t have precedents, and thus references
– and the validity of the argument
here can be judged only by following its own logic.
Let me also state that the central thesis of the argument
has been articulated adequately in article #13, World Basic Education System1;
the remaining articles on the blog are elaborations on it – variations on the
theme, so to speak. Thus it will be of
help if you read that article before proceeding further.
But for those who still need more explanation to comprehend
the picture, here is a more streamlined re-statement of the central argument of
the writings. Needless to say that if one desires to understand it, he or she
has to follow through its logical sequence
– a casual skimming over will just not do.
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A direct outcome of the nature of our interactions with the
outside world from the earliest days of our existence is that humans are innately self-centred and do not
have a natural affinity for understanding others. As stated at the beginning of article #13 (subheading
“Making Sense of the World”) we begin to comprehend the world while we are
still in our mothers’ wombs by attributing meaning to stimuli that reach us – like
outside sounds that penetrate to us in the womb; the rate of the mother’s
heartbeat; and so on. Even after we are
born, this sensing-state continues for a while, but diminishes and almost
completely dissipates over following months as the outside world impinges
increasingly heavily on our senses and virtually takes over completely – and
this would be clear to any astute observer.
Also, as we make our way from babyhood through childhood
into puberty and adulthood, our focus is by and large on ourselves vis-à-vis
outside world, including other people as well as other living beings. We may have a notion of how another human
being would feel if, for example, a sharp object pierces his/her body – by
virtue of our understanding of how we ourselves would feel under the
circumstances. Sometimes we also see
people endangering themselves to save another person without much thought or
giving up their lives for causes they believe in. But these are larger causes and largely exceptional
cases the numbers of which pale in comparison with the multitude of mundane
everyday interactions in which such empathy is lacking. A telling example to illustrate this
point is what psychologists call self-serving
bias. This is the phenomenon when we are aware of factors that lead to our failure in some endeavour, and
we end up blaming outside forces for it, whereas if someone else is seen to
experience a similar failure, we are quick to attribute it to his/her
inaptitude, without realizing or even pausing to think that outside factors may
as well be responsible for that outcome.
And for the same reasons given in the above two paragraphs
(and article #13) we also do not have an
effective language for interacting with others – even among those born and
raised in the same group; see the last paragraph of the one-page article #5 for the process/mechanism that leads to this outcome.
Not only do we not have an effective language for dealing with
fellow humans, but a more dangerous result of the above processes and a more
pertinent one to this argument is that by and large we lack the awareness that we do not understand others, and as a consequence have not developed an attitude
to overcome that most debilitating deficiency, and thus misunderstandings
and conflict become the norm.
Apart from our not having a common language, there are many other innate mechanisms that stand in
the way of smooth human interaction, some of which outlined in the second
end-note of article #18 – it will provide much insight into some reasons for
the failures of human interaction; I suggest you read it in order to understand
the kind of detail on which this argument
is based.
The contents of the paragraphs above reflect the roots of much of human misunderstandings, whence the
mistrust and ensuing conflicts among people – be it at dyadic and triadic levels
or groups small and large, as well as at the inter-group and inter-national
levels. Add to this the enormous ethnic
and religious divides and the attendant prejudices and hatreds and we have a
world that is perpetually on the brink of conflict waiting for an excuse to
ignite – or already aflame. This is, of
course, besides those conflicts that arise from self-interest as well as blatant
injustice and tyranny.
Taking the above factors into consideration, a most
important, and obvious, conclusion we can draw is that the roots of human behaviour lie deep down and beyond our conscious
control, and reside in the dynamics of the interaction of various constituent
factors of our nature with the external environment.
And this is where our
problems lay – they are the
downsides arising from those interactions, which manifest in the form
of ineffective/messy interactions that lead to the problems outlined above. Thus any
sound solution should be based on effective action targeted at overcoming those
downsides.
Given that those downsides arise from factors beyond our
control, the next logical step to overcome them should involve: i) raising our
awareness of the buried processes responsible for those downsides, and ii) helping
us to internalize mechanisms that can effectively counter those downsides. But given both the complexity of issues under
(i) and that we have to be dealing with children (as we shall see in a moment)
I shall focus on (ii) – ie, developing
internalized mechanisms to counter those downsides.
This is where basic
education comes to the fore as the prime instrument for solving our
problem.
As outlined under the subheading “Understanding the Social
World …” in article #13, the foundation of our behaviour (which is inevitably
based on internal dynamics mentioned above) is laid when we’re children, and as
adults we largely sail by the autopilot guiding systems we had acquired then.
A significant part integral to that foundation is the values
and attitudes and habits we acquire/develop as children. Given that i) we lack an innate ability to understand others due to the nature of the process of making sense of the world since the earliest days of our lives (see above), and ii) a mechanism for the compensation for this vital downside is lacking
in the current world basic education system, it is necessary to counterbalance for this critical deficiency by the modification
of the system by adopting a totally new approach as to the purpose of “basic education” – see beginning of article #13 for a brief but fleeting evaluation of the current
system as compared to the rationale for the new thinking. For critical modifications suggested to
the world basic education system to achieve our goals, see account under subheading
cited in above paragraph, and most importantly, the first paragraph of article #12; for the rationale for the education system to bear
the burden of instilling in children proper values/attitudes/habits, see account
under “Values” at the end of article #9, labelled “Last Explanation.”
The decisive factor
or crux of the solution lies in the novel abilities that will be instilled in
children by the modified world basic education system whereby they
will become highly alert to the nuances of meanings they will encounter in
their interactions with fellow humans; the new system will also instill in them
an attitude of inquiry about meaning until they get those meanings as close to
what they were intended. Additionally,
the system will instill in children the foundations of rational thinking, which
is of utmost need in our increasingly complex and problem-ridden world but is sorely
lacking in virtually all societal interactions.
(The recent high-profile so-called “debate” between Mr Trump and Mr
Biden amply illustrates my point2; besides, the immature and totally
irrational performance by Mr Trump3 is utterly alarming given that
the power to annihilate the entire human race is literally at the fingertips of
the person occupying the chair of the president of the United States.) Children will carry on their newly acquired skills
and attitudes throughout their lives, improving and perfecting their abilities all along. Compare this with the current
state of affairs (outlined above) in which people are both unaware that they
don’t understand others and, as a result, have not developed an attitude to
inquire to ascertain whether or not they have properly understood their
counterparts in interactions. While some people do have a natural knack/flair for understanding others, for
the vast majority, it might as well be Greek!
Nor did all those philosophers and education theorists and psychologists
over the past two-and-a-half millennia had any clue about such a debilitating/crippling
societal flaw that was dangling right under their noses! Hence the world education system to-date has
miserably failed to address that vital issue so critical for human wellbeing –
one cannot address a problem that one doesn’t know existed! Should we be surprised at the current
pathetic state of human existence?
Although the process of making sense of the world that we have
acquired beginning from our foetal stages may have hindered us from developing effective
abilities for interacting with others and while humanity to-date has not wised
up to the critical societal flaws cited above, I believe that the vital and
important process proposed in the first paragraph of article #12 (remainder of
the article is not related to that paragraph; it was based on an email I sent
to a Canadian psychology professor that deal with different issues) along with
the few but critical suggestions under the subheading “Understanding the Social
World …” of article #13 cited above have the capacity to wield the power to
make a decisive difference and bring about virtually all the best results that
we can realistically hope for.
But it should be noted that for all its worth, the impact of
our program, even when its full potential has started to accrue on a global
scale (see next paragraph), will be constrained by the fact that it is trying
to counter an innate force that is largely hidden, and hence what we can hope
for should be tempered by that reality – see the first three paragraphs of
article #19, labelled “Positive and Flexible Mindsets,” for more on the scope
of action realistically available to us.
There is also another multi-faceted factor that should be included in
our calculus of what we can realistically hope for – that while the scope of
the program is global, the usual myriad of variations common to all educational
endeavours will apply both within and among nations; that is, outcomes will not
be uniform for everyone – that “some will be more equal than others,” as George
Orwell would wont to say. Nevertheless, move
forward we will!
It should also be noted that given that human behaviour is
shaped largely by those values and attitudes we acquire while children, working
on adults (whose values and attitudes are already set – fossilized is my
favourite expression4) to alter their behaviour will be in vain and
a waste of time. Hence our focus on
children – consequently it will require two
to three generations from the inception of the program for its full potential
to materialize. For more details, see
the second and sixth paragraphs of the second part of article #15, labelled “An
Email and Two Parallels.”
We should also note that such novel and far-reaching ideas
as suggested here will naturally/inevitably clash with existing ideas/systems,
and its resolution requires thinking big and out of the box. To help such radical/innovative thinking, attached
at the end of this article is a quote from Michael Crichton’s novel The Lost World, labelled “Life at the
Edge of Chaos” 5 – which I found very helpful.
Considerable insight can be gleaned about how the internal
dynamics of the program will function to achieve our goals (to vastly improve
human interaction processes and thereby raise human wellbeing from its
currently pathetic state to unprecedented heights) by a survey of the three
end-notes of article #19 and the second part of article #15. I suggest you don’t skip them if you really
want to understand!
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As explained above, our
problem is the downside or undesired outcome of the dynamic interaction of
constituent factors of our nature with factors of the external environment,
and is generally beyond our conscious control.
There are also some human-made
factors that work in tandem to varying degrees to exacerbate those outcomes. Both
groups of outcomes are unintended consequences – the former are results
of innate processes beyond our control; the latter are derived from facets of the
human success story. Just as we tried to
understand, above, how the workings of the innate group of factors contribute
to the detriment of human wellbeing, understanding how the latter group inadvertently
contributes to relegate the human condition to our current pathetic existence is
essential for finding a way out of the conundrum, in turn helping to pave the
path for raising human wellbeing to unprecedented heights.
The first of the human-induced factors is
specialization. The extent to which human
success is due to specialization is impossible to fathom, for it is the
foundation on which virtually all human advances rest – from the primitive
division of labour in hunter-gatherer communities that helped them survive to
ultra-specializations in our post-industrial societies that have helped transform
the world into an interconnected and interdependent “global village.” And yet, as mentioned in article #13,
specialization is a double-edged sword – while it constitutes the bedrock on which
human societal advancement is built, it also exacerbates the downsides
described above beyond comprehension.
For example, for a group of people, the expanded vocabulary and
interactions required for performing their jobs effectively will constrain their
ability to interact with other groups who would have their own sets of
vocabularies and interaction patterns – given that there are natural limits (though
varying from person to person) to the capacity to which each individual can accommodate
in his/her working memory at a given time.
The result is the lack of or a deficient common language that hinders effective
interaction between those groups. Generalized,
this would help create the kind of fragmented societies we witness in advanced
nations today with their high levels of stress, alienation, divorce, suicide,
and so on… The quote from Professor Will Durant’s book The Story of Philosophy attached at the end of this article eloquently
describes some of the downsides of specialization that contribute massively to
societal havoc, which article #20,
labelled “Closing of Minds,” had tried to elucidate. Given that the innate forces described
earlier in this article will be at work at all interaction levels described in
the above example (which is only a tiny sample of interactions vis-à-vis those
in the society at large), readers can imagine the huge extent to which specialization
will contribute to aggravate the outcomes of societal interactions. (See also end-note six for yet another set of
equally debilitating impacts of specialization.)
A second area that has detrimental human-induced impacts arises
from the way modern mass media function.
In primitive times, and even in ancient and medieval cities, there were
no media, while there were people engaged in persuading others to do their
bidding. But given that it would have required
direct contact and the ensuing word-of-mouth effects for propagating the messages,
and given that the number of people engaged in such work would also be limited,
impact of such efforts would have been vastly constrained, despite those publics
being generally ignorant and thus susceptible to persuasion 6. The advent of the printing press enhanced the
process but given that the cost of printed materials was prohibitive and thus inaccessible
to the general public, its impact also would have been limited. As a result, people were relatively free in
earlier times, devoid of much assault on their minds. For the last century and a half, radio and
newspapers dominated the scene, but even their impacts on the public must have
been limited given that the public had the choice of not using them. But today the situation is entirely different. The world has become much more complex and
for a better educated and more sophisticated public, the media had become a necessity,
which outcome was enhanced by two factors: the continued innovation of message
delivery systems and their relatively lower costs. Consequently, we are bombarded by the media from
all sides and have become victims of information overload as well as being afflicted
with numerous physical/psychological ailments.
Under the banner of freedom of expression and using tactics as distortions
and right-out lies, the myriad of media outlets work 24/7 to shove their
agendas down the throat of an unsuspecting public. And then we have the social media such as
Facebook and Twitter, and what I consider middle-ground media as YouTube. While these are useful for many purposes,
some are highly addictive and many experts predict dire consequences of their
long-term use at both individual and societal levels. This is besides the extremely damaging role such forums play in driving societies towards extremism. In concert, “news” and social media have a
decisive debilitating impact on the state of wellbeing of most societies today. See article #20 for more on this; and the
three end-notes of article #19 for how our program will help counter such trends.
The last factor that can be discerned to be influenced by
humans to be included here is psychological defence mechanisms7. While I’m not an expert on the topic (nor on
other areas included here and thus the technical aspects of what I say should
be evaluated by those qualified to do so) I have nevertheless included it for two
reasons: i) the devastation I had observed both in the Maldives development
context and the world at large that can be attributed to those mechanisms; and
ii) my belief that their impacts can be minimized significantly by the program
proposed here. As mentioned in the
definition given in end-note seven, defence mechanisms are unconsciously generated
behaviours that aim at averting the consequences of our inability to cope with aspects
of what we encounter daily, and the concern here is related to interactions that
are integral to the complex world that humans encounter. The process by which this program will deal
with and minimize their impacts arises from a number of sources: i) just like
any other psychological ailment, they grow like tumors, that is, their effects
begin small and grow steadily in response to increasing stresses; ii) our
program starts with children who would have only mild cases at their age; and iii)
given that our program will facilitate interaction from an early age on, elements
of the program will start acting on stresses felt by children in their
interactions and help “nip them in the bud,” minimizing/eliminating stresses that
have potential to grow. As children
mature into adulthood, our program will keep working as inner-guiding
systems for them. See the first end-note
of article #19 for an outline of how this process fits in the broader scheme of
things.
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As stated at the outset, an account of our problem and suggested
solution are given in article #13, and this present article re-states both the
problem and the solution more systematically; they are also complementary to a
large extent. Therefore reading both
articles to begin with, followed by articles in-between8 will help to
get a clear picture of both the nature of our problem and how well the proposed
solution (by redefining “basic education”) addresses that problem. This solution is not only vital for enhancing
human interaction and the wellbeing that will ensue, but as stated at the end
of the second end-note of article #20, titled “The Closing of a People’s Mind,”
given both human nature and the state of the world as described in that article
(as well other articles on this blog), if
we are unable to garner the wisdom and the courage to
incorporate such vital/pivotal modifications to the curricula of today’s young – thereby create conditions for
bridging the growing fragmented/polarized societal perceptions, in turn pave the
path for viable future policies – we
can kiss good bye to a better future for humanity.
If the
logic of any point/concept of the argument put forth here is not clear, instead
of jumping to an erroneous conclusion and giving yourself a pat on the back (a
variation on “self-serving bias,” outlined in the sixth paragraph from the
beginning), please contact me9 and I shall be glad to help and elaborate.
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1 The logic of my reference to a “world” education system is
outlined in the first end-note of the article #13.
2 As does the “debate” between Mr Macron and Ms Le Pen during
the 2017 French presidential election campaign.
I bet readers will find plenty of such meaningless and, importantly,
misleading “debates,” be they presidential or otherwise – “misleading” because such
interactions give the general public the false impression that they are
significant and have the potential to make a difference in their lives (which
incidentally is the aim of elections as well as public debates); the vast
number of people who watch those debates I believe attests to this view of
public perception. (The two interactions cited here at least are no more than
shouting matches – and they involve those at the top of national hierarchy in
both countries, which does not provide a flattering view of the state of
wellbeing of those respective societies; also, given that both the US and
France are among the most “developed” of nations, this gives one pause as to
what it should mean to be developed.)
3 This is not to mention his irresponsible attitude towards
handling Covid-19 in the early days of its arrival in the US, the direct result
of which had such a devastating impact on the American population. Besides all this, I would not be
surprised if he gets reelected, given his expertise in media psychology and its
tactics (which was amply demonstrated in the 2016 election) and given the frame
of mind of a significant segment of the American general public. And if this intuition is realized, it will lend
further support to the basic thesis of this blog – that people’s rational
abilities are severely limited and are very much below the level of what could
be achieved by the effective implementation of the program proposed here.
4 This rather harsh expression is not a mere verbal gaffe
but arose from my experience in the development context of the Maldives for
more than 30 years. While the details
are beyond the scope of this article, readers who want to get a feel for the
situation may want to refer to both article #5, titled “From a Local Focus to a Global One,” and the postscript of the first part of article
#15. In fact, my motivation to work on
this blog as well as to email (earlier) articles to some 35,000 of world educators
in 103 universities in 22 nations was fueled by both my local experience and an
early realization that at the core of local problems of the Maldives are
largely human problems (topic of this article) and thus are common to all
nations.
5 The quote was originally prepared for an article on
planning in the Maldives, which can be found on my “local” blog www.rifatafeefmaldives.blogspot.com
as article #6, labelled “Plan’g Min Role Redirection.”
6 Concerning the latter, modern societies do not fare any
better. In spite of the majority of
their publics being schooled and have highly developed technical capabilities
they hardly have integrated views of the world, for their narrowly specialized
educational backgrounds bar them from broader thinking, and thus are equally
gullible and susceptible to be taken in by any which piece of effective nonsense that comes
their way. This is also an outcome of
otherwise defective education systems that do not provide a sound background of
how the world works. For some major
devastating consequences, see article #20 and article #13, under subheading “Understanding the Nature of the World.”
7 According
to Wikipedia, “In psychoanalytic theory, a defence mechanism is an unconscious
psychological mechanism that reduces the anxiety arising from unacceptable or
potentially harmful stimuli”; they are “psychological strategies brought
into play by the unconscious mind to manipulate, deny, or distort reality, to
defend against feelings of anxiety and unacceptable impulses and to maintain
one’s self-schema.” These
processes are beyond our conscious control.
8 Articles
preceding article #13 are somewhat abstract and broader in scope (I had gained
a new insight into the nature of our problem by/thru that
article) and can be skipped initially
without adversely affecting the understanding of both the nature of our problem
and the solution suggested for countering and neutralizing it. But of them, readers might find article #5
helpful, since it is a step-by-step account
of the process through which I had arrived at my conclusions. Likewise, article #1, which
is an introduction to these writings, outlines the strategy and/or mechanism through
which the ideas intellectualized in them can be translated to effective policy
that can practically achieve the goals we seek (raising human wellbeing globally);
at the end of the article, you’ll also find a list of world’s
universities to faculties of selected departments of which the first
articles were sent in mid-2012 – departments selected: education, psychology,
communication, sociology, political science, and philosophy; for those
interested, the rationale for selection of these disciplines instead of any
others is given in paragraph nine of article #9. And the first paragraph of article #12 is of vital importance and will be referred-to in the discussions of both article #12 and #22 – its end-note would also be of help in explaining my limited success to-date.
9 Contact details are
in the piece titled “About Me,” following article #20. To deter junk mail, I haven’t given my email
address, but for any party interested enough to contact me, a short phone call
can easily solve the problem.
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