Category: Philosophy & Worldview

  • Caste

    Isabel Wilkerson

    An artificial construction of human value, that deems one group of humans to be superior to another, based on ancestry and immutable traits, and rigidly enforced consciously, and subconsciously. Caste is not new, but surprisingly still a phenomenon in 2021. In the US, race is the visible manifestation of caste. But as the author points out, its underlying infrastructure is caste. That’s why Nazi Germany and India both serve as examples too. And that’s also why Martin Luther King, Jr., despite the initial discomfort, agreed to his introduction in a school in Trivandrum, India, as “a fellow untouchable from the United States of America“. Caste is also different from class, which is a measure of one’s standing in society marked by education, income, occupation, and taste, manners etc that flow from the socioeconomic status. This can be acquired, which is not the case with caste.

     Isabel Wilkerson sets up the context – “heat rising all around” – with the 2016 US Presidential elections, and the history of caste, including the arbitrary term “Caucasian” (on the basis of German professor Blumenbach’s favourite skull) that now denotes the white population, and the millennia-old varna system in India. It is interesting to note that while the Americans were considered heroes in World War 2, they had a history of eugenics that the Nazis took a lot of inspiration from for creating their own policies. And it wasn’t just eugenics, they even had tourism based on lynching scenes! It is also interesting that many pro-slavery losers of the Civil War are still celebrated as national heroes. Exactly the opposite has happened in Germany, where there are memorials for those who had suffered most under the Nazis. 

    She then proceeds to the eight pillars of caste – from heritability and endogamy to its enforcement, the cruelty it spawns and the presumption of inherent superiority/inferiority. When caste becomes deeply embedded, its tentacles spread everywhere, and so do its consequences. Any upliftment could be perceived as a threat to the dominant caste. Unfortunately, it also causes stratification in those who are in the bottom rungs, to the extent that many of them willingly role-play to maintain the hierarchy and acceptable forms of behaviour. 

    The election of Obama was a change in the order of things, and while it did give a few years of hope, the backlash has been strong ever since. It not only played a big role in Trump’s win, but also led to even more rigid mindsets and actions by the dominant caste. An interesting point that the author brings up is 2042, when for the first time, the white population in the US will be a minority. What will happen then if the current narrative of caste persists? A world without caste is better for all, even for the dominant caste, as various examples in the book show. The answer is conversations, and creating bonds through common interests. But one has to wonder how that is going to happen in this charged atmosphere that only seems to foster hatred and intolerance. 

  • Azadi

    Arundhati Roy

    As always, I must admit a bias for Arundhati Roy. For being an author who has consistently been vocal about rampant capitalistic greed, class prejudices, and more recently, the conversion of India from a democracy to a fascist state. And in doing all this, she holds an uncompromising mirror to those of us whose privilege affords us the luxury of living in bubbles whose walls are impermeable. For now. 

    The book has 9 essays that contain the above, and also touch upon the role of fiction in imagining, processing, and communicating it. Lal Salaam Aleikum, says Anjum, in The Ministry of Utmost Happiness. The book has recurring themes – Kashmir, NRC, CAA, RSS – but I think repeating them is worthwhile, so that the gravity is understood. 

    Kashmir, whose special status, or limited autonomy, granted under Article 370 of the Indian Constitution, was revoked on 5th August by the Indian government. Followed by Narendra Modi appearing on television on 8th August to announce a lockdown of 7 million people so that they could enjoy Indian democracy and progress while living under military occupation. Google Trends surges showed a repeat of plunder patterns from history – “marry a Kashmiri girl” and “buy land in Kashmir”. Women and land. But that’s only the larger population. The nation has higher ambitions. For instance, access to rivers and other natural resources. And so does the ruling party – “One Nation. One Constitution”. Enforced not just with the might of the state machinery, but the 600000 members of the RSS. 

    NRC, the seeds of which were sown in 1837 when the British made Bengali Assam’s official language. Though revoked in the 1870s, it set the stage. In the late 1890’s the British encouraged Bengali Muslims to become workers in the tea plantations, causing an influx that was first met with affection by the natives, but soon turned to discord. Borders were redrawn regularly, and 1947 and 1971 caused a further inflow of populations, and after decades of violence and antagonism, we now have the NRC, whose updated list was published on 31 August 2019. With 1.9 million missing. It didn’t really make the rulers happy because almost half of them are non-Muslims. Predictably, Justice Gogoi ordered the transfer of the chief co-ordinator of NRC, giving no reasons. 

    And then there is the Citizenship Amendment Bill, passed on 11 Dec 2019 as the CAA. Students of Aligarh Muslim University and Jamia Millia Islamia University reacted first. Shaheen Bagh followed. The larger agenda of both NRC and CAA – controlling citizenship. After all, as Hannah Arendt said, “Citizenship is the right to have rights.” And what we are seeing is the systematic disenfranchisement of Muslims and making them second class citizens. 

    All of the essays lay out how the RSS and BJP keep things on boil at all times- NRC, Pakistani Jihadis, Kashmiri terrorists, Bangladeshi ‘infiltrators”, Ram temple, and always, Muslims. Ready to be poured gasoline on, and lit. And backed by a propaganda team – from Bollywood A-listers to sportspersons to media. All components of the fascism playbook, and the regime has the checklist – strong man, ideological army, Aryan superiority, dehumanising of the “internal enemy” and mob justice (113 deaths by mob violence since 2015 – The Quint), propaganda machine, the attacks on academia and assassinations when required, the coteries of businessmen and film stars.

    And the systematic takeover of democratic institutions, as the police get communalised, judiciary abdicate their duty, and the media just want to be lapdogs. Case in point -“Desh ke gaddaron ko, Goli maaro saalon ko”, said Kapil Mishra, who is back in the streets after a very brief interlude. Meanwhile, Justice Muralidhar who was furious with the Delhi Police for not taking action against Mishra, got midnight orders to move to his new assignment in the Punjab High Court. 

    The pandemic is an opportunity to set many things right. But it doesn’t seem to be going in that direction. For instance, the early days saw vast populations being forced back to their villages and small towns just so they could have some dignity. A reminder of the days of partition – class being the driver instead of religion. 

    There is a high likelihood that reading this book and reviewing it will soon be deemed anti-national. As a college lecturer pointed out to Arundhati Roy, among the items recovered from alleged couriers for the Maoists were books she had written. “They’re laying a trail – building a case against you.” Meanwhile, with plans for Nepal and Sri Lanka, the RSS seems to be seeking its version of the German Lebensraum (living space), which the Nazis used to formulate their Generalplan Ost policy – genocide, ethnic cleansing, and colonisation of Central and Eastern Europe . The world can pay heed now, or pay the price again for letting a fascist regime pursue its will. The voices in Kashmir and against NRC and CAA is the same – Azadi. And as Kanhaiya Kumar stated, not from India, but in India.

  • The Tyranny of Merit

    Michael J. Sandel

    If I go by my blog posts, it was in 2004 that the thought first occurred to me – “humankind protests against all kinds of disparities – race, sex, age etc..but aren’t institutions like IIMs promoting discrimination based on intellectual aptitude“. I did not know the word meritocracy then (coined by Michael Young in 1958, who saw it as a dystopian concept), but since 2015, the word and the world it has created has been appearing in many of my posts. That’s why this was a book I was looking forward to. And it didn’t disappoint. Despite an American context, it peels the layers, and the insights are universal. 

    Meritocracy began as a remedy, and its earliest proponents probably understood that while it may not be able to bring about equality, it could help create mobility across the levels of society. Unfortunately, it has increasingly moved away from that purpose too, and has now created a system where those are already privileged have a disproportionate advantage over those who do not. And no, education, especially the way it is now, is not a solution. And anyway, mobility can no longer compensate for inequality. Meritocracy was a means to an end, but I can’t help but think that its progress is mirroring that of a related “inter-subjective” concept – money, which is now an end in itself. 

    The author begins with the recent success of populist movements – Trump, Brexit – some of which are a threat to democracy, and provides his perspectives on why they were able to rally people. The answers lie beyond the usual suspects – backlash against racial, ethnic, gender diversity, and the dislocation caused by globalisation. In short, a technocratic way of conceiving public good, and meritocratic way of defining winners and losers. The former removes moral arguments from public discourse and treats them as matters of economic efficiency. The technocratic version of meritocracy de-links merit and moral judgment, by defining the the common good only in economic terms, and equating it to GDP. The latter creates hubris among the winners by deeply embedding the thought that their success is all their own doing without luck or privilege playing any part, and humiliation and resentment among the losers, by making it seem that their status is purely their fault. The author does an excellent job of highlighting this change through the American political rhetoric, and the “you deserve it” narrative in everyday life. 

    For the longest while, education was the ticket to the “American Dream”, but this has created damage on multiple counts. It has eroded the self esteem of those who have not gone to college, devaluing their contributions, and making it seem the sole reason for their lot in life. It has also promoted credentialism, the “last acceptable prejudice”, making a college degree a pre-condition for dignified work. “Smart vs dumb” began to replace “just vs unjust” and “right vs wrong” in public discourse and policy. Democratic institutions too became the exclusive preserve of the credentialed class (in the West) making it less representative. The author shows how the support base of various parties have changed over decades, alienating the working class and adding to polarisation. 

    There is a fantastic section on whether we deserve our talents, or are responsible for the value that society happens to place on them. While he acknowledges the effort involved in success, there really is no question on the importance of talent in the overall equation. Another part that really proved to me how I was conditioned to accept meritocracy was the exploration of free-market liberalism and welfare state liberalism’s alternatives to meritocracy. In the first, the author quotes Friedrich A Hayek, when pointing out that “Market outcomes have nothing to do with rewarding merit. Merit involves a moral judgement about what people deserve, whereas value is simply a measure of what consumers are willing to pay for the goods and services sellers have to offer“. In the second, he quotes John Rawls, “If people competed on a truly level playing field, the winners would be those endowed with the greatest talent. But differences of talent are morally arbitrary as differences of class“. Later in “Success Ethics”, he uses Frank Knight’s “..meeting market demand is not necessarily the same thing as making a truly valuable contribution to society.” Also useful was the nuance between deserving and entitled, and the rabbit hole of moral thinking it opens up. The author also provides recommendations on how we can attempt to fix this tyranny – in the domains of education and economics. 

    Why is all this important? Technology is making more and more jobs extinct, and my generation is already feeling the pain. Beyond the economic aspects, work also makes huge contributions to meaning, dignity, and does its share of removing our fear of becoming obsolete and irrelevant. Contributive justice, as opposed to the distributive justice that both sides of the political spectrum are attempting to achieve. To quote R.H.Tawney, “Social well-being… depends upon cohesion and solidarity…Individual happiness does not only require that men should be free to rise to new positions of comfort and distinctions; it also requires that they should be able to lead a life of dignity and culture, whether they rise or not.” By promoting meritocracy and free-market evaluations of our contributions, we are increasingly removing that agency from a human’s life.

  • Figuring

    Brain Pickings has been one of my favourite websites for a long time, and thus, this book automatically went into the wishlist. But as with many good things, it took a while to get into the cart! This is not a book that one can (or should) categorise easily, but as a reader, what I got was an appreciation of the essence and texture of life, and its interconnectedness. The book, I’d say, is poetry delivered in prose. A good thing for people like me who cannot appreciate the former! I read the title -“Figuring”, both as exploration and understanding, as well as mathematics being the language of the universe, but I am guessing it’s the first that the author intended. 

    The narrative is guided by the lives of many people. Some of them easily known, and some others not famous enough, unfortunately and unfairly. The book begins with Johannes Kepler, who would “quarry the marble out of which classical physics would be sculpted”. The stargazer, writer of science fiction, whose North Star was the discovery of truth, irrespective of what society thought of it. Including an insight far ahead of time – “The difference between the fates of the sexes is not in the heavens but in the earthly construction of gender.”

    Maybe the narrative was constructed with intellectual successors in mind too. And it’s probably through the years of sifting through content for the blog that the author found connections between the historical figures – events, mutual friends, pure chance, dates. And thus it is that we reach Maria Mitchell, “besotted with the splendour of the cosmos”, all of 12 years old, catching an eclipse, and beginning her journey towards becoming America’s first professional astronomer. She would hold Mary Somerville, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and Caroline Herschel as examples of the era’s “few women of genius who have become the successful rivals of man in the paths they have chosen.” Ada Lovelace has a brief cameo here too. 

    In 1825, Margaret Fuller is fifteen, and writes that “I am determined on distinction”. In 1845, she would author “Woman in the Nineteenth Century” that “lit the Promethean fire of possibility for women”. Even as her intellectual life soared, there were very few highs in her personal life. 
    Much like Emily Dickinson, whose hundreds of poems were “verses of unambiguous beauty that thrill and taunt with their ambiguous meaning”. Though she was not well-known during her lifetime, she is now regarded as one of America’s foremost and unique poets. 

    Harriet Hosmer started her battles against expectation and convention fairly early in life, but with that also came the awareness that “everyone and everything we love is eventually swept away”. And yet she gave humanity a distinct perspective of what is possible as an artist and a human being. 

    The last recipient of the intellectual torch (in the book) is Rachel Carson, a relatively more contemporary figure. In another show of narrative mastery, the author links Carson’s story to its beginning – Lise Meitner, a pioneer in nuclear physics, whose scientific discoveries would have malevolent applications. A turning point for science and humanity. As Rachel Carson would observe years later, “We still talk in terms of conquest. We still haven’t become mature enough to think of ourselves as a very tiny part of a vast and incredible universe.. We’re challenged, as mankind has never been challenged before, to prove our maturity and mastery – not of nature but of ourselves.” Rachel Carson showcased and ignited the questions and fights that have now become global environmental movements. 

    The book forces us to ask the essential and existential questions – what makes a good life, what does it mean to live one that positively impacts humanity? And to me, whether it is worth it. Meanwhile, to note that along with these personalities, there are also giants in the periphery, who are probably more popular – Ralph Waldo Emerson, Charles Darwin, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Walt Whitman, and so on. 

    As I wrote before, the book is difficult to categorise not just because of its narrative style and content, but also because of the multitude of themes it covers – feminism, Transcendentalism, queer relationships, the stars in the sky and the life on the ocean floor – all from the perspective of “the pale blue dot” and its sentient beings. 

    P.S. With 100 pages to go, I had a visceral experience of the transience of life – a heart attack! Such is life.

  • The Psychology of Money

    Morgan Housel

    My job is at the intersection of marketing and personal finance, and that’s the reason why I appreciate this book even more. It is a difficult subject to communicate, but a job that needs to be done. What makes The Psychology of Money really good is that it views money not (only) through the technical lens, or the “get rich” advice, but explores the emotional aspects of personal finance, and then articulates in a way that is relatable. I might be a little biased because I subscribe to the author’s worldview, and apart from index fund investing, have exactly the same approach. But I think everyone should read this book, because, as the author quotes (Voltaire), “History never repeats itself; man always does.”

    I will try not to paraphrase the lessons because they need to be read in the author’s narrative style for them to (hopefully) sink in. He begins with calling out the fact that personal finance is well, personal, and while there are definitely rules in finance and investing might, one’s behaviour is based on one’s experiences and emotions. And some of it is very generation specific. For instance, the idea that one is entitled to a dignified retirement life took root only in the 1980s! 

    He then moves on to risk, and the role of luck, followed by the importance of knowing what you really want, and then, some excellent illustrations of the “magic pill” – compounding – at work. The next couple of chapters make some key points that are often ignored- the difference between getting wealthy and staying wealthy, and the importance of “tail events”.

    The definition of “freedom” is something I could completely relate to. I’d flip the original maxim for a quick understanding – “money is time”. The more agency over time I have, the happier I am. The next two chapters about wealth are extremely insightful – no one is as impressed as your possessions as you are, and spending money on showing others that you have money is the fastest way to lose it! Wealth is income not spent, and it increases optionality. And while, one cannot control externalities, what is possible is an efficiency in savings. “One of the most powerful ways to increase your savings isn’t to raise your income. It’s to raise your humility.” 

    The following chapters get deeper into the how emotions play a large role in financial decision making, how it is better to be reasonable than trying to be coldly rational, and also, how important it is to leave room for error. I really loved the Benjamin Graham quote – “the purpose of margin of safety is to render the forecast unnecessary.” This is also important because our own desires and notions of happiness change with time. There are also some nuanced perspectives on optimism, and my views about it have changed now! 🙂

    Another extremely important lesson is not taking financial cues from others without really understanding what game they are playing – what are they optimising for, and why. e.g. day traders vs long-term investors, at a transactional level. The author uses the final chapter to show what he is aiming for, and therefore the rationale behind his own investments. 
    As I mentioned earlier, the author’s goals resonate with me – “..you only do the work you like with people you like at the times you want for as long as you want.” But at the risk of repeating myself, I think this book will help you frame your relationship with money, irrespective of where you are in your thinking and understanding of personal finance. So I insist you read it! Now!

    P.S. The postscript is an excellent read on how the US economy and its people got to where they are, both in terms of macro economic events and trends, and expectations. It’s superbly insightful in terms of understanding consumer psyche. Wonder if someone has done this for India.

    The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel