What is Culture?

What Is Culture?

In The Spectator of 26.7.2008 Aidan Hartley wrote an article, 'Uninvited guests', which starts thus:

"With a concussive 'thunk', another bird flies against our new farm house on the African plains. This happens a dozen times daily. They must be following flight paths established long before a human home went up. I designed our place to be solid. Construction used up 555 tonnes of sand, 1,476 bags of cement, 688 kilos of nails, 1,235 cedar poles, 16,500 running feet of timber, 1,833 wheelbarrow loads of rock ballast and 47 wheelbarrows (since it was all built by hand). An atom bomb could not destroy it.

"But Nature rudely ignores our claim over home. Tap! goes the bedroom window at dawn. Taptaptap! Pull back the curtains. It's a male hornbill attacking its own reflection in the glass. 'How charming, ' I say. Tappetytaptaptap! Many dawns later this becomes an ornithological version of Chinese water torture. The only solution is: 'Tappetytappetytappety BANG!' "

As you can guess, this is about the way nature finds a way into your house, merely a man-made construction. I found nothing offensive about it, taking the BANG! of the gun to be humorous remark. I do not think Hartley actually took a gun, went outside and shot the bird.

However, in The Spectator dated 9.8.2008, there is a remarkable letter from Andrea Weiss:

"Sir: I was distressed to read Aidan Hartley's account in Wild life (26 July) of how he dealt with what was presumably a ground hornbill pecking at the window of his new house -- 'Tappetytappetytappety BANG!' These unique birds are listed as 'vulnerable' and are generally not found outside of large game reserves in southern Africa.

"They are incredibly slow co-operative breeders, which means that the dominant pair in a group only successfully fledges a chick an estimated every nine years (see Roberts Birds of Southern Africa as a reference). Surely Mr Hartley could have taken other measures to stop the bird from attacking his window -- a film of non-reflective glass at the hornbill's eye level might have done the trick."

I think this kind of sensitivity, the courteous and measured reponse, is the mark of real culture.

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The Singur stalemate

Our last week's poll received 6 in favour of Tata's and WB governemnt adn 3 in favour of Mamta and Singur protesters. The stalemate continues to this date. Despite the positive noises created after Governor's meeting with opposite parties, Tata's haven't budged. Now even Srilanka wants Nano factory in their lands. With increasing competition for hosting Nano factory WB is in an unenviable state. But I blame for them for the current state of affairs. Set back after set back, setting comrades back. Singur, Nandrigram, No confidence motion, and now NSG waiver. Did anyone see Sitaram Yechury or Karat meeting an astrologer? Probably it is time they see one.

The Fog Index

There is a friend who sends me messages of heavy import everyday. He thinks them through, and has a serious tone. But the problem is, he is so ponderous, you have to decipher his message. I give you a message that I received:

*"The success of eminent people in society depends on their power of discrimination; they have to make right and quick decisions. Cultivate the discriminative intellect to achieve tremendous success in life. Discriminative faculty helps us to take right decisions, but it is the function of the determinative intellect to put them into practice without frequent changes of decisions or postponing actions. Cultivate the determinative intellect to execute plans and programmes"

I think the meaning of these messages are clear. But only after another reading.

Why am I quoting him? It is to bring to you the notion of Fog Index, which I read in that Charles Handy book.

Fog Index tells you how foggy a given text is.

To calculate the Fog Index, count all the words in a page and divide them by the number of full stops. This gives you an idea of how long your average sentence is. Then add one for every word above three syllable and one for every technical term. According to Handy, he averages eighteen, the Sun newspaper averages ten, The Economist averages thirty. Around twenty is optimum, esp if you are addressing a live audience.

The Fog Index of the text I have quoted is 25.5 by my reckoning.

There are many reasons for a text to be readable or not. But Fog Index is one of the easiest of the measures.

And, don't check the Fog Index of this post. I have kept my sentences short. Not a word above three syllables.

Will Philosophy Help Us?

There was a time when I turned to books on philosophy when I was faced with problems which seemed too hard to handle. They did make me feel better, though the problems did not get solved that way. I don't think even books on psychology would have helped me. The solution to most of our problems lie with people, with the way we relate to them and they with us.

There was a friend who told me once that even after imbibing Marx, Freud and Sartre, he felt sadness for his uncle who had passed away. "I think their words have not sunk in", he told me, as if they were the cutting edge of a bore machine that would drill to the rocky core of our heart and open the pool of wisdom.

I still read books on philosophy and religion, but I read them for the pleasure of words and ideas, for intimations of a well-ordered world.

I am saying all this by way of bringing to your notice an interesting article in http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2008/sep/02/healthandwellbeing.philosophy, which I happened to read.

It raises the question as to how useful a knowledge of philosophy is to the conduct of our lives. Whether, if we are sufficiently versed in the fundamentals of philosophical thought- the fruits of serious intellectual theorizing-  is it possible for us to live our lives so that we are happy, contented and find fulfillment in our endeavours?  And if we don’t know any philosophy, are we losing anything?

Julian Baggini, who is the author of the article, is in no doubt. To him, ‘philosophy is a rich resource among many, one that contributes to our understanding of the good life’; it would be a mistake to assume that it is an unique wisdom, and see in it prescriptions for the conduct of life. Philosophy is something like poetry, musir and paintings. They are to be enjoyed for what they are, but it would be a mistake to carry them any further.

Ultimately, questions of philosophy concern themselves with the value of our goals, and philosophy does not serve well when it is used as a means to attain the goal, be it freedom, happiness or contentment. Philosophy addresses the assumptions of our activities. It is best appreciated for its integrity, but to seek in philosophy a solace for the wounds of civilization is to ask too much of it.

Like much of common sense, this is something that we know intuitively. But Baggini is knowledgeable as well as sensible, and he illustrates his argument with pertinent examples.

The Panicky Brain

Yesterday, I took the kids to the ground for a game of cricket. The ball was new, so it bounced high from good length. S. who batted first, swings every ball to leg. He stays where he is and just takes a swipe at each ball. So obviously he could not connect. He got frustrated, and started to cry. 

I bawled at him. Next in was An. K., who is a cute cricketer. He moves his feet well, he moves them forward and across,  plays almost every ball high over the fine leg. If you want him to hit straight, you have to bowl full at him. That was what I had to do, because the ball was jumping high, and right behind him was the shed; should the ball go up there, it is lost. There is no way to fetch it back. The first few balls, he dangerously got close to the roof, so I was bowling full tosses and over-pitched deliveries. An. K. could not hit them to his favourite place, so he started to weep.

The next one in was Ad. K. He is a mature one. To his off side, there were a group of old men playing football. If the ball got there, we would have to go elsewhere. Some distance away to his left was the road. So he had to block every ball, which he did. But the problem was, the other two kids got competing as to who would get the ball first. So, they started to bicker. I shouted at them, which was a neat excuse for them to sulk and walk out. They went and sat on a bench, refusing to have anything to do with the game.

I completed Ad. K's quota of balls and returned home. The kids wanted to play more, but I refused to let them because I wanted to punish them for their anti-social behaviour.

So we all came back feeling worse than when we went out to play.

If it were you, I am sure you would have handled it better. 

But, I am always on the edge these days, quick to take offence and shout. In the office, I postpone as much as I could get away with, and concentrate on the immediate and urgent tasks at hand. I know this doesn't make a good profile for me. I don't know how I got this way. There are reasons and reasons, but the problem is, I find it difficult to change this.

It is tempting to blame the brain. There is enough evidence to show that we are not in total control of the way we act and think. We struggle, but may be, our struggle is doomed at the very beginning, because of the way our brains are wired.

Recently I read a review by Sasha Abramsky in www.prospect.com. It discusses two books on the neurology of the brain. What they basically say is that the brain has evolved over time. And the parts of the brain that came first have more control than the parts that came later. It means, when there is a crisis, the animal brain shoves the human brain aside and seizes control of our body and thought-process.

Sasha Abramsky gives some fascinating instances of this dinosaur-brain acting in the private and public sphere:

* We know liquor, cigarette and drugs are bad for us. But we take them, because they make us feel good in the short term.

* If you go shopping, and see happy faces around there (even pictures of happy people will do), you are likely to buy more.

* After 9/11, people stopped flying for some time. But riding is more risky than flying, so in the next twelve months, 1,595 more people died by road accidents.

* Each year, 36,000 Americans die of flu and more than 1,00,000 pass away from obesity related illnesses. But post 9/11, billions are spent to combat terrorism, which as on date, has claimed fewer lives.

And so on and so on.

(Kosi is a bigger disaster for us than Katrina was. But it did not exercise our emotional muscles as much as the distant floods of New Orleans. We were wondering why. It is to do with the visuals we got through the media, right? They gave us powerful pictures, professionally presented.)

There ought to be a way to make the reptile brain obsolete, to override our animal instincts. Then we all will live ordered, measured and disciplined lives.

The Sigmoid Curve

I am posting this blog with two purposes.

One is, as I said, to bring to you the things I found interesting and want to share. By which I mean, I want you to go over it and tell me how you feel about it.

The other use I make of blogs is, I keep them like a set of note-books. My notes are here, and because they get discussed I can see what value they have.

About twelve years back, the previous pay commission report came in. I used the arrears money I had, to get myself married, and for about three of four years, lived very comfortably. Then the prices started to climb, but my income did not. The last two three years have been terrible. It was as if you had a very short tether. There was nothing extra to spend on anything, in fact debts were climbing alarmingly, only, you managed to stop yourself from screaming, and tottered about, somehow getting to your destinations.

And now, here has come the next pay panel recommendations, and starting this month, life will be a piece of cake. I am not going to get rich, but I won't have to worry about money for expenses. But for how long, you will definitely ask.

So, this time, can it turn out to be a happy story?

I recently made a post on Handy's idea of a good-life.

In this post, I would like to bring to you Handy's concept of a Sigmoid Curve as an indicator of our growth and decline.

Sigmoid curve is a S-shaped curve, rotated ninety degress to its left. Handy says that everything, empires to organisations to products to people can be placed somewhere on the S-curve.

First, there is the period of growth when you put in money, time, effort, education. Results come in, output builds up, you grow, your firm grows. You have  a system which works well, you use up your resources, and you grow along nicely. Sooner of later, new challenges come in, times change, competitors catch up, new lessons have to be learnt. But you are peaking, so you feel comfortable, you are not aware of the different rules coming into play, and you ignore the pitfalls that lie ahead. As long as you were struggling, you were alert, but once things settle and you are living comfortably, you tend to get complacent.

Handy says that sooner or later, every curve will turn down. If you are going to wait for the inevitable downturn to trigger you into thinking about change, you are in for a hard time. Your reserves are spent, you are frightened, stressed and depressed. So it is better to think about changing, putting in investment and education, before the turn down begins, better to start the second sigmoid before the first one peaks.

So for you and me, the right time to think about developing a new life, to start involving ourselves in a different profession or interest, is when things are going well. When you feel totally comfortable and in command of your life and work, you are falling into complacency through trusting the illusion of security. It is always dangerous to rest on your past deeds, in private life and in your business.

So says Handy. You have to start at the bottom of the ladder, ground zero. Results won't come in quickly, it may be years before you see the upturn, but you are on your way. It is a optimistic, proactive way of life, right?

I suppose he is right.