Blissful Life

When you apply skepticism and care in equal amounts, you get bliss.

Author: akshay

  • Power is Useful

    In my post about giving up ideological purism, I talked about how it felt like activism was weak resistance, and not something powerful. I still hadn’t discovered an answer as to how to engage with and change the system powerfully. I have an answer now.

    Power.

    To make powerful change, one has to have power. Thinking about power as an anathema is not helpful.

    The first place I saw this articulated unambiguously is in a tweet thread by Jonathan Smucker. Jonathan talks in no uncertain terms about how “Knowledge of what is wrong with a social system and knowledge of how to change the system are two completely different categories of knowledge.”

    That’s true. And that’s where I was wrong too.

    What’s wrong with the system (from my perspective) is concentration of power in the hands of a few. My naive solution to this was to fight power itself. To not pick up power. To disown and discredit power. But it was indeed naive. One can’t defeat power structures by shying away from power.

    The rest of Jonathan’s thread is about how to organize politically and gain power. There was an article linked by someone else in reply about how to use words like “Power” and “Money” with transformational meaning.

    From the little I know, Ambedkar also was a proponent of this method. Ambedkar asked people to “educate, agitate, organize”. Ambedkar was essentially laying down the blueprint on how to change the system.

    Today I had a chat with Prashanth
    on these same topics. Through many examples, daktre articulated the
    same idea, although daktre used the words “legitimacy” and spoke through
    the field of academics and the power that academic work lends you.

    Daktre could also identify what was holding me back. The ambition of wanting to make large impact AND be perfect at the same time. The desire to make huge changes to the world (savior complex, but in an extreme scale) is fine. But the desire to be perfect while doing so is what causes problems. What if one is willing to let go of the want to be perfect? What if one is ready to make compromises in return of accomplishing a larger goal? One might personally become “blemished”, might get called out for being a hypocrite. But in the larger picture, one might be able to accomplish more.

    Yesterday Swathi and I were having a conversation over our lives and Swathi mentioned how it is screwed up to think that we can make large impact, that we can accomplish all we want. I was resisting by saying that we can indeed make large impact, we just have to find a way.

    I think the path in front of me is clear. Embrace pragmatism. Gain power. Wield it carefully. Be willing to make compromises (and be called out by others for it). Helpful to keep a group of close friends who can call out quickly. Don’t think of myself as the complete and perfect solution. Think of myself only as a piece of a larger solution.

    Now I know why Anivar was asking me to get a PhD. I think I won’t take the academic route to power. I’m looking towards the entrepreneurial route. Let us see where we reach.

  • With Great Power Comes Great Accountability

    Where should the line between ‘doctors should be held accountable for medical malpractice’ and ‘doctors are humans and they can make mistakes’ be? [Source]

    There is a world where this dichotomy/binary is not entirely false – medical negligence/malpractice jurisdiction. And the courts in such cases have a very nuanced approach to this question. For example, here is what the consumer court says:

    What is medical negligence?
    Negligence is simply the failure to exercise due care. It occurs when a doctor fails to perform to the standards of his or her profession. The three ingredients of negligence are as follows: 1. The defendant owes a duty of care to the plaintiff. 2. The defendant has breached this duty of care. 3. The plaintiff has suffered an injury due to this breach.

    What is medical malpractice?
    A medical malpractice is a claim of negligence committed by a professional health care provider — such as a doctor, nurse, dentist, technician, hospital or hospital worker — whose treatment of a patient departs from a standard of care met by those with similar training and experience, resulting in harm to a patient or patients.

    Does someone who is not satisfied with the results of their surgery have viable medical negligence claim?
    In general, there are no guarantees of medical results, and unexpected or unsuccessful results do not necessarily mean negligence has occurred. To succeed in a medical negligence case, a consumer has to show an injury or damages that resulted from the doctor’s deviation from the standard of care applicable to the procedure.

    These are intentionally vague about what the “standard of care” is supposed to be. Because it would be very unwise to define that in law. The only people who can reasonably inform a court whether a particular care delivered is standard or sub-standard is a group of experts (a group of doctors practicing that kind of care). That’s a double edged sword though.

    Because, for one, it puts doctors at an advantage. It is their own kind who will decide and therefore there is a conflict of interest in the design of the system itself. But on the other hand, this system can ensure that every case is judged through a medical practitioner’s gaze rather than through an outsider’s gaze.

    When it comes to practice, there are a few imperfections in the system.

    1) Doctors are sometimes the worst allies of other doctors. In many negligence cases, the group of doctors who inform the court on whether the standards of care have been met or not, intentionally raises the standard of care (with the benefit of hindsight). This has disastrous consequences for the doctor involved in litigation.

    2) It is difficult to navigate the legal system. The consumer court is the best place for patients to approach in the case of medical negligence issues because the patient is the favored litigant in consumer courts. These courts exist for the consumer and by default take their side. The other fora – medical council and criminal courts – are places where it is very difficult for a patient to win. And that would explain the low number of cases registered in such fora. I couldn’t find official statistics in consumer court websites, but a researcher claims that there were 3241 cases registered in consumer courts throughout India in 2018, and 2638 cases in 2019. I would think those numbers are true – yet they are very very low.

    But it would be a great mistake to rely on the legal system to improve healthcare. Law should often be the last resort to many complex social issues – because it is very difficult to get the law right in such situations. And case-by-case approach like in medical negligence above puts great stress on the legal system (if there are enough number of cases) which in turn leads to bad outcomes for whoever gets tangled in a case.

    For example, there are ethical issues where taking a side is not straightforward. Take the case of Ayurveda prescriptions by modern medicine practitioners. There are doctors who think that whatever satisfies a patient’s goals about their health is medicine. But there are doctors who would rather let the patient suffer than give up their ego regarding “evidence”. And then there are doctors who think that anything modern medicine throws up is evidence based and prescribe mercilessly.

    These are fundamentally hard ethical conundrums. Do you take every doctor who doesn’t agree with your way of thinking to the court? That’d be a good way to waste your life.

    There are solutions which work out much faster. Outside the courts.

    One is activism. Activism is where you constantly make noise and draw attention towards a particular cause. You can be as creative as you want. You can use various tools. But the end goal is that people start caring about your cause. This is political. And there will be lots of political opposition too. In issues where one side is completely non-existent, activism has very big impact in putting that side up as an equal cause. For example, in today’s India, patient rights is something that’s rarely discussed in healthcare. And activism on that is probably very helpful.

    Then there is frank politics. This is the kind where you influence an MP who’s kind towards your cause to raise the issue in Parliament or in the public sphere. Basically, politicizing an issue. Inviting the opposition leader to a protest is the sure-shot way to politicize something.

    Journalism works too. Journalism is kind of like activism in this case. But the advantage with journalism is that it is perceived more like research than like activism. There is a “truth” value to journalism. A lot of people consume journalism and take it to be “truth” by default. Propaganda in such spaces is very effective on such people.

    Research is another option. This gives an academic clothing to your advocacy. It legitimizes every other method by making them more “scientific”. Research takes considerable amount of investment, but if you are dedicated to one particular topic, you may as well wear this garb.

    There are probably many other things one can do to improve healthcare from outside courts. But these are just examples to show that we need not rely on courts/law for this.

    What should these methods of advocacy take up as their cause? I think a focus on accountability is a good thing. And by accountability, I do not mean a system where a scapegoat is found and suspended.

    Let me describe accountability with an example. In VMH, we used to do mortality meets. We meet, with all the relevant people present. We take deaths which happened after the last meeting. There is a person who leads the meet who would have identified a few cases where there is something critically wrong with the care delivered. The participants then discuss various concerns related to how that came about. They then find and fix critical issues in the system which contributes to the problem. Trainings on specific topics get scheduled, devices are bought or fixed, staff pattern is changed, physical layout of the hospital is changed, triage system is changed, … anything and everything that can be changed for a better outcome in the next patient is identified and possibly changed.

    Where is the accountability in this? The accountability is in a group of people who think it is the responsible thing to do to conduct a mortality meet. When they are working towards fixing the systemic problems. When they hold themselves responsible and do everything in their power to change things. That’s accountability.

    Lack of accountability is best demonstrated by the RTI responses of our government regarding COVID management. Wherever the government has said “we do not have the data” they are showing exemplary lack of accountability. That it is okay to say “we do not have the data” means that they assume no accountability of what is going on. That it is okay to blame someone else is the hallmark of lack of accountability. When someone takes accountability, they say “I have done this, this, and this, and I’m waiting for this, this and this.” When someone doesn’t take accountability they say “But my hands are tied.”

    Advocacy should be aimed at bringing in accountability in all parts of the healthcare system. Education, governance, administration, healthcare delivery, etc.

    Who should do such advocacy? Who should be responsible for healthcare system in India? I have written about it previously.

    Sure, change is slow. Some work requires generations. But, we can’t not
    do what we should be doing, right? We should start by holding ourselves
    accountable, by asking us what we can do and what we are doing. That’ll give us greater courage in asking others to be accountable.

  • Merit is Entitlement, not Privilege

    In debates around reservation and merit, there is a recurring pattern.

    First, someone will say “There is no level playing field. Someone starts from privilege, someone starts from lack of it. Therefore, merit is just privilege.”

    Then, the opponent will say “What makes you think I’m privileged? My parents struggled to make their ends meet. I burned the midnight oil.”

    The first person says “Do you know what inter-generational trauma that people from X background goes through?”

    Then the opponent will say “Well, but the beneficiaries of reservation are from well off families”

    This debate goes circularly with both sides saying they’re being unreasonable.

    That’s when someone else will come in and say “Reservation is not a poverty alleviation measure, it is about representation”

    That particular argument has a lot going on in it, which I’ll try to unpack here.

    ***

    Is merit a result of privilege?

    This is complicated by two things – we don’t know how to objectively define merit, and we don’t know how to objectively measure privileges.

    What is merit? Is merit the ability to score very high marks in an exam with multiple choice questions? Is merit the ability to use language very fluently? Is merit the ability to impress an interviewer? Is merit the ability to get a job done in real world? Merit could be defined as any of these. Who should define this? That’s a tough question.

    What about privilege? Is privilege one’s economic status? Is privilege one’s social capital? Gender? Caste? Ability? Skin-tone? Body shape? Which of the countless things that gives a person an advantage in the society should be counted towards one’s total privilege? And how should their influence be added up? Which ones should be given more weight and which ones less? This is probably the subject of what is called Oppression Olympics.

    Both of these questions can be answered definitively in very subjective ways. But, it is next to impossible to arrive at a public consensus on such answers. Nevertheless, the discussions around these are very educational and thought-provoking. And discussions can happen even if consensus cannot be reached.

    ***

    What’s the importance of the statement “Reservation is not a poverty alleviation measure, it is about representation”?

    It shifts the perspective from the subjective field of defining merit and measuring privilege into the objective field of representative democracy and distributive justice.

    Not that that comes without questions. The questions shift to “What is democracy?”, “What is justice?”

    What is democracy? The naive answer to this is that democracy is rule of the majority. But that’s not democracy. That’s an elective monarchy – where the majority elects a monarch and the monarch rules over the subjects in an authoritarian fashion. Democracies stand in contrast to such monarchies. Democracies are founded on values – equality, justice, liberty, fraternity, etc. That there are elections in democracies is just a side effect of these founding principles.

    That’s where the value “justice” comes in. What is justice? Justice is possibly a subjective matter as well. But it can be (circularly) defined as “fairness”. What is fairness? It is easy to jump from here to the earlier point and say “Someone who has struggled should be rewarded – is fairness”. But that’s a very individualistic view of fairness. The questions around reservation are not about individuals. It is about the democracy. For a democracy to be fair, it has to distribute power and resources among its citizens in a way that is “fair”. And at the level of the nation, that involves distributing power to socially marginalized sections of the society. That is justice.

    ***

    See how switching from the discussion on individual privileges to that of democratic justice gives lesser loopholes for people to endlessly argue on?

    In that perspective, when you look at merit, you don’t see merit as privilege. You don’t say that “What we call merit is just accumulated privilege.” Instead, you see it as entitlement. You say “What entitles you to claim that your “merit” should be considered above the values of our democracy?”

    That, arguably, is a stronger way to make the case for justice.

  • Why Would Conservatives Change when Liberals Don’t?

    In the debates around “merit”, the conservatives have a very straightforward view – “hierarchy is natural, one should only care about oneself and getting ahead in one’s life”. The liberals, on the other hand, are the confused bunch. They have a hatred for hierarchy, but they live and breathe hierarchy too. They hate that people get ahead of others without caring for others, but they are compelled to do the same too.

    And conservatives are quick to spot this. They will ask the liberal who talks about equity – “Why do you hold on to your privileges and ask others to give up theirs?”

    I think they have a point. Why do liberals hold on to their privileges and ask others to give up theirs?

    In x + y, Eugenia Cheng talks about how the world is set up for competition. That the world rewards those who do not care about others and in turn those who don’t care for others “succeed”. And Eugenia Cheng also urges us to look for solutions all around us, to try and convert competitions into collaborations.

    But how many liberals are actually able to do that?

    Aren’t liberals using their accumulated privileges to accumulate more privileges?

    Aren’t liberals continuing in power hierarchies without destroying the hierarchy?

    Aren’t liberals legitimizing the very structures they hold responsible for the problems?

    Aren’t liberals trying to get ahead of others? Aren’t they competing? Aren’t they reinforcing the very notions of merit that they oppose?

    If liberals don’t change how they live their life, why would conservatives do?

  • The Academic Publication Industry is Modern Day Feudalism

    Even if the cost of journals were low and affordable, open access to scientific knowledge is the ethically correct and practically useful position for humankind.

    Internet has made publishing costs near zero.

    Why do journals still continue to exist? And why are they so expensive to society?

    A common defense of journals is that “peer review” is important to ensure scientific integrity. We know from Retraction Watch and Pubpeer that peer review is not perfect. We also know how peer review can reinforce social inequities. 

    We have an alternate model too – post-publication peer review. After all, what is peer review if not the entire world reviewing an article and weighing it for its pros and cons? Can reviewer 1 and reviewer 2 do better than that?

    In the editorial ‘Open’ relationships: reflections on the role of the journal in the contemporary scholarly publishing landscape the authors state that there are a few more reasons why journals exist:

    “One could optimistically assert that a journal can be multiple: both a brand, with a value indicated by the impact factor and the level of income it can generate for a corporate publisher on the one hand, and on the other, the home of a community of scholars with a history and (we hope) a future of pushing the frontiers of scholarship in public health.”

    It goes without saying that there is a conflict of interest here because it is an editorial. And therefore let us critically examine the reasons the editors propose to justify their own existence.

    Are journals a brand with a value indicated by impact factor and income? Absolutely. Yes. Journals are blogs. But they are decades old. Sure, in “blogs”, peer review is rare. But platforms like medium.com, and ghost.org do allow private publication that can be reviewed by others. If peer review is a genuine need for which authors publish in journals, there are countless ways to achieve that through the internet using blogs, etc (combining with post-publication peer review as described earlier).

    Peer review is just a facade. It is the “impact factor” and the “brand” that authors use journals for.

    The reason why we should end the meritocracy of impact factor is the subject of a recent editorial (irony intended): The merit privilege: examining dubious claims of merit in public health and public policy

    Now, let us come to the only remaining argument for journals. 

    Are journals a community of scholars with a history, who push the frontiers of scholarship?

    First I’ll make the assertion that the editorial doesn’t include any citations on this claim. They use their belief and self-selected appreciation from readers to base this claim on. But I will take their word for it. Let us assume that people do appreciate this specific journal. But the editorial starts with the question “What are academic journals for?” We cannot generalize the experience of the editorial team of one journal to all academic journals. Therefore let us examine this claim more objectively.

    First, we will examine whether it is reasonable for a community of scholars who share a history to work together.

    We do know that human beings are very social. Shared history gives a shared sense of purpose and shared sense of identity. But it can also come with disadvantages. Identity as a group has the tendency to create conflicts with people outside the group. There is also chance for nepotism and favoritism. While scrutiny and skepticism is good for academic rigor, nepotism and favoritism are not good. So, shared history can be advantageous and problematic.

    The next question is whether frontiers of scholarship is pushed by communities. Communities reinforce the beliefs of each other and help people go to extremes. And it is at the extremes that scholarship needs to be pushed. But communities can also reinforce falsehoods and false methodologies. We know in psychological experiments that humans tend to conform rather than stand out. Communities could cause this effect too. It can make people take less risks for the fear of being ousted from communities. Again, pushing frontier through communities has disadvantages and advantages.

    Now let us come to the most important question. Are journals communities?

    My answer is that they aren’t.

    Wikipedia says that a community “is a social unit (a group of living things) with commonality such as norms, religion, values, customs, or identity.”

    What is the commonality among groups around journals?

    One might be tempted to say that the group has a common vision – the vision that the journal articulates.

    But in my experience, most journals have a broad vision that makes them non-unique.

    For example, let us take the journal from which the editorial is quoted:

    Critical Public Health (CPH) is an international peer reviewed journal publishing critically engaged research in public health, health promotion and related fields.

    Critical Public Health provides a dedicated forum for innovative analyses of theory and practice and to explore new ways of thinking about public health, bringing together international scholarship from social scientists and health researchers.

    The journal explores issues of equity, power, social justice and oppression in health and covers contemporary empirical and theoretical work from a wide range of disciplines including anthropology, sociology, politics, cultural studies, health studies, medicine, psychology and nursing.

    Now, this is a broad vision that I subjectively think most journals in public health will have. So I went to google and search “public health journal” and came up with the aims & scopes of some other journals.

    Here are some.

    European Journal of Public Health

    The European Journal of Public Health is a multidisciplinary journal in the field of public health, publishing contributions from social medicine, epidemiology, health services research, management, ethics and law, health economics, social sciences, and environmental health.

    The journal provides a forum for discussion and debate of current international public health issues with a focus on the European region

    Global Public Health

     Global Public Health is an international journal that publishes research on public health including the social and cultural aspects of global health issues.

    Global Public Health addresses public health issues that come to the fore in the global environment, such as epidemics of newly emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases, the globalization of trade and the increase in chronic illnesses.

    The journal is characterized by a global and multidisciplinary focus, its emphasis on significant global health issues and its concern to understand resource-poor and resource-rich countries including the public health challenges they face as part of a single, interacting and global system.

    Journal of Community Health

    The Journal of Community Health, a peer-reviewed publication, offers original articles on the practice, teaching, and research of community health. Coverage includes preventive medicine, new forms of health manpower, analysis of environmental factors, delivery of health care services, and the study of health maintenance and health insurance programs. Serving as a forum for the exchange of ideas and clarification, the journal features articles on projects that make a significant impact on the education of health personnel.

    BMC Public Health

    BMC Public Health is an open access, peer-reviewed journal that considers articles on the epidemiology of disease and the understanding of all aspects of public health. The journal has a special focus on the social determinants of health, the environmental, behavioral, and occupational correlates of health and disease, and the impact of health policies, practices and interventions on the community. BMC Public Health does not publish clinical research: this should be submitted to the relevant BMC Series medical journal.

    Of course you wouldn’t find an article about public health in the Nature journal or a paper about cellular pathways in a public health journal. But within each broad field of “public health”, “life science”, “medicine” there are many journals with similar aims & scope. So, I do not think the aims & scope of a journal are unique to a journal.

    Nevertheless, as the editorial claims, it might be possible to build a shared history around a particular journal’s aims & scopes.

    In fact, I know a few such journals. The Indian Journal of Medical Ethics, for example has a very vibrant community with people who have a shared history in the public health movement of India. But here is a very important thing about IJME:

     As a policy, since its inception, the IJME has never charged authors for publication of their writings, and all material available on the website of the journal is free and offers open access to all

    How is IJME possible to publish all articles as open access through just donations? My answer is that they have a real community behind them.

    In essence, it is indeed possible to build a community with shared history through a journal – through a democratic spirit of openness and accessibility.

    But is this generalizable across all academic journals? My hunch is that it is not. My hunch is that most academic journals have a group of editors who care for the chance to build a community like that, but cannot do so by design.

    If journals could truly form communities, they wouldn’t struggle with the problem of underrepresentation.

    If journals could truly form communities, they wouldn’t have to make meritocratic excuses like “the underrepresented are underrepresented because they do not have the privilege to volunteer time or because they do not fulfill the prerequisite of a broad network”

    Journals are part of a feudalistic system. One where the title of the journal is owned by a publisher (the feudal lord), who give powers to a set of editors (vassals) in return of profit (fief), and the authors have no choice other than writing articles in these journals (serfs). The only difference, one might say, is that serfs in the academic publication industry have the mobility to change journals. But wherever they go, they are serfs indeed.

    If this is true, this also gives us a way out of this feudalistic system. Here’s a paragraph from a law library article:

    Predictably, the relationship between lord and vassal became a struggle for a reduction in the services required by the fief. Lords, as vassals of the king, joined their own vassals in revolt against the high cost of the feudal arrangement. In England, this struggle culminated in the MAGNA CHARTA, a constitutional document sealed by King John (1199–1216) in 1215 that signaled the beginning of the end for feudalism. The Magna Charta, forced on King John by his lords, contained 38 chapters outlining demands for liberty from the Crown, including limitations on the rights of the Crown over land.

    As seen in the CPH editorial, there is already tension between publishers and editorials. Publishers are also in a strained relationship with the King (through initiatives like Plan-S). The logical conclusion is that within a few years, there will be a revolution where the right to own knowledge will be taken away from the academic industry and be given back to the producers of knowledge themselves.

    Until then, the current generation of journals will try to justify their existence.

  • The Difference Between a Politician and an Academic in Politics

    If academics and politics seem like separate fields to you, that’s because your definition of academics has been corrupted by the academicians you have seen and their self-centredness.

    Academicians can be of two types. The ones who “care only about science (or “truth”)”. The ones who care about society in addition to science.

    Those who “care only about science” also care for something besides science. They care for themselves. They care for their own intellectual satisfactions or humane curiosities.

    So, academicians can be of two types. Those who care only about themselves, and those who care about society too. (Of course, it is a fluid spectrum. At any point one can care x% about themselves and y% about the society. I’m using a strict binary for convenience.)

    The academicians who care predominantly about society automatically engage in politics. Because that’s the only way to change the society. Like I wrote about earlier, politics isn’t just party politics. Politics also includes advocacy, activism. Academicians, by asking the right questions and “generating evidence”, influence policy making and politics. They can give legitimacy to certain questions that go unasked. They can strengthen or weaken anyone’s politics.

    So what’s the difference between a politician and an academic in politics?

    Their willingness to lie.

    An academic who is willing to lie for their politics is a politician. No matter how much they are in politics, an academic who will not lie for their politics is still an academic.

  • Anger is a Valid Emotion; Conflicts Bring Real Peace

    I have seen “triggered” being used as an insult at social justice activists when they become angry. People hold anger itself as an invalid or incorrect emotional state to be in. That is not very smart.

    Anger is a perfectly valid emotion. Anger is a reaction to a provocation, hurt, or threat. Anger is a form of expression. It means that one has been triggered. 

    The problem is not anger. The problem is the original violence.

    The violence that triggers someone is the one that needs to be corrected. Not the anger that follows.

    This is where conflict becomes important. Conflict is a situation where two parties who have two versions of “truth” negotiate and try to arrive at a common version of “truth”.

    Whether a conflict gets resolved quickly or not depends on both sides wanting to and being able to find a common ground.

    Emotions like anger are commonplace in conflicts. And that makes people averse to conflicts. More than the outcome, they are scared of the emotions.

    It might be evolutionary. Anger could have been a sign of imminent danger in the past.

    But, we are not monkeys anymore. We are humans.

    Being scared of anger is not necessary anymore. On the other hand, expressing it and getting into conflicts are very much necessary.

    Because only through conflict can there be a negotiation. Only conflict can change someone’s “truth”. And only when that happens will there be real peace.

  • x + y by Eugenia Cheng – a Roadmap to Collaboration Between Social Justice Movements

    Spoiler alert: I discuss the central theme of the book x + y by Eugenia Cheng in this post. In the book, this theme isn’t revealed till the middle. In the first chapters, the author explains the context from which the book is written so as to eliminate bias from those who believe in social justice and those who oppose it. If you are a person who makes quick conclusions, you are better off skipping this post and directly reading the book.

    —

     

    It sometimes happens that feminists are accused of casteism, anti-caste activists are accused of sexism, etc. How can that be? Can someone who understands the oppressive ways in which patriarchy works not understand the same oppression in caste system? Or vice versa?

    What is the lowest common denominator of various schemes of oppression?

    Why do scientists lie? How can we replace competition with collaboration?

    Why does capitalism seem to be the “natural” state of society?

    Why are hierarchies so hard to get rid of? And how to get rid of them?

    These are some of the questions that are answered in x + y: A Mathematician’s Manifesto for Rethinking Gender by Eugenia Cheng.

    Imagine a bus stop where 100 people are waiting for a bus with 50 empty seats. What happens when the bus comes to the stop? In some places you see almost all of the people rushing towards the bus door in a tiny stampede with some folks staying back for the rush to settle down. 50 among those who rush do get a seat. All of the folks who stay back get no seat. If you don’t rush, you don’t get a seat.

    At this point, the debate can be about whether it is ethical to rush or not. There can be nuanced statements made about who should be given priority in seat. Whether the physically stronger should be made to wait while those who are vulnerable gets a seat. Whether those who have been waiting the longest should get the seats first. Whether those who have the most urgent things to attend to should get the seats. And so on. These are all valid ways to analyze this situation.

    But one can also discuss the reasons why there are only 50 seats. The reasons that force people to rush. And the possibilities of changing the system altogether such that there are no advantages to being selfish. Such that people can stop worrying about individuals and start thinking about everyone.

    That’s the central theme of Eugenia Cheng’s book. The individual centered (selfish) character traits are called “ingressive” characters and the society centered character traits are called “congressive” traits. And Eugenia Cheng is eager to ensure that readers look at this as a different dimension of looking at the problem and not as a way to replace the existing dialogues.

    Eugenia Cheng thereby introduces two very valuable words to discuss problems in the society. These words are not connected to the background from which people come. Gender/race/caste doesn’t directly lead to ingressive traits or congressive traits. There are indirect correlations. But the point of the book is to avoid looking at the correlations and start looking at the traits in each individual in an intersectional way. x + y is a classic in intersectional thinking.

    More importantly, x + y is an extremely practical guide on what to do about the deeper problems. Awareness of the problem doesn’t equate to solving the problem. x + y introduces a framework of thinking through which we can systematically destroy the oppressive notions ingrained in our societies. It is a tool of liberation for all victims of the system, irrespective of their privileges. It is an effective way of changing the “system”.

    It is a must-read for everyone who cares about social justice movements and equity.

  • Hatred Based on Stereotypes Weaken Social Justice Movements

    This post talks about stereotypes, emotions, justice, etc from the point of view of a savarna, cis-het male who lives in a metropolitan city. Like the post claims, nobody can eliminate stereotype/bias from their worldview and therefore this post includes some stereotypes/biases too.

    Trigger warning: Detached discussion of emotions that makes it sound like I’m judging the emotions.

    Axioms

    Let’s assume a few things as truth.
    One: Individuals cannot completely avoid stereotypes/biases. The human brain is a pattern recognition machine. It thinks through mental models of the world. It thinks through patterns. It thinks through stereotypes. The best an individual can do is to have a fairly nuanced and complicated outlook.
    Two: There is a strong component of stereotypes in various kinds of oppression that we see in the society. Stereotypes are reinforced by other cognitive biases and logical fallacies. Human beings are susceptible to all these things. They use anecdotal evidence to “refute” comprehensive statistics. They think through emotions.

     

    Arguments

    I make three arguments in this post.
    One: Hatred is sometimes/often used in social justice movements.
    Two: Stereotypes and hatred are connected.
     
    Three: Stereotypes that strengthen hatred makes the politics of social justice movements weaker.
    In this post, I do not make a judgement on whether the hatred is justified or not (It is almost always justified). I also do not talk about whether hatred is used in oppression (Oppression thrives on hatred).
    What I do talk about is how some of the hatred in social justice movements arises from stereotypes and how avoiding this component of stereotype/hatred maybe beneficial to social justice movements.

     

    Hatred in social justice movements

    This might be amplified by twitter, but the specific emotions of disgust and hatred is sometimes/often seen used by activists who engage in social justice movements.
    It can manifest as angry rants, snap judgement, judgemental comments, monologues, etc.
    Activists might be using hatred intentionally as a tool to evoke response/engagement. They might also be using it unintentionally as a result of being psychologically triggered. This can be due to stress, burn-out, and other discomforts. This can be due to the burden of lived experience and/or trauma. But I argue that stereotypes also contribute to this emotion.

     

    Contribution of stereotypes to hatred

    Like I posited, stereotypes are unavoidably human. Activists in social justice movements also accumulate stereotypes and biases.
     
    The logical fallacy of false dichotomy also maybe involved. Some activists start seeing people as “either for our cause, or against our cause”.
    This can contribute to hatred.

     

    When hatred is based majorly on stereotype, the politics is weakened

    Hatred based majorly on stereotype is harder to justify than hatred not based majorly on stereotype.
    If hatred is based on stereotype, it also opens the opportunity for political opponents to call it as hypocrisy.
    Such hatred can evoke reactive emotions from others and cause weakening of the political cause.

     

    Arguments against my arguments

    One: This is tone policing.
     
    This is about tone. But I don’t intend to make a blanket judgement about whether hatred is justified or not. I am suggesting a sharper use of hatred such that hatred does not become counter-productive.
    Two: This ignores the hatred spewed by the opponents.
    Yes, my target audience is social justice activists who are already aware of the context of how debates happen in social media, etc.
    Three: It is easy for the privileged to say these.
    Yes. I acknowledge my privileges in saying these. It is a suggestion for people who have the privilege to consider this.
    Four: Read up “righteous indignation”
    I have. I am on your side. I’m talking to you about strengthening your own politics. I’m not saying don’t use hatred. I’m talking only about a specific instance of hatred that is based on stereotypes. And I’m not saying I’m right. I’m saying, perhaps this can be considered.
     
    Five: This is not empirically tested.
     
    True. I have not tested this empirically. This is just a theory now.
     
    Six: This is sealioning.
    Consider whether any friendly, meta-level discussion should be labeled as sealioning.
    Seven: This post can be used by our political opponents as fodder to strengthen their politics against us.
    I suppose. I’m sorry for posting this. But it’s a thought I had.

  • Changing The “System”

    People of all kinds routinely blame the “system” for many things. They’re absolutely right. It is the system that shapes human behavior. In a system where certain behaviors are rewarded, those behaviors are repeated. And vice versa. We are all Pavlov’s dogs in that sense.

    That’s why awards and honors are instituted. To reward the right kind of behavior even if that’s not the expected norm. Awards motivate extraordinary people. What motivates ordinary people? The system.

    The “system” is the system that encourages and supports ordinary people to do things that they do in their ordinary life.

    The system includes written laws, unwritten laws, stereotypes, hierarchies, economic condition, political condition, geographic and physical condition, infrastructure, feelings, mythology, myths, news, fake news, communication, … literally everything you can think of forms the system.

    Who builds the system?

    The naivest answer to this and the most convenient answer for “ordinary” people is to blame politicians for building the system. This is especially true for people who consider themselves apolitical. Sadly their politics is that of selfish avoidance of responsibility. It is not always the fault of intention. People who can’t stand oppression and feel like there is so much to do that they cannot be responsible for any of it will unconsciously try to talk about why it is not their responsibility. But often it is selfish laziness.

    The better answer is that “we” build the system. Who are we? Anyone who can be involved in building the system builds the system. By commission or by omission.

    Who can change the system?

    Intuitively, the people who built the system can change the system. True. But not all have equal role in building the system. Neither do all have equal say in changing the system. The people who can change the system the easiest are the people with most agency, privilege, and voice.

    Who can not change the system?

    People who become a slave to the system, who sacrifice their agency, privilege, and voice to the system instead of questioning it. They absolutely cannot change the system.

    Why does the system perpetuate?

    Because it is easier to continue the system than to change the system. Anyone who wants to change the system has to find ways of sustaining and motivating themselves. Then they have to question the system and work against it. They have to do this at the peril of losing access to their accustomed rewards from the system. They have to stand up against their acquaintances who enjoy the benefits of the system. They have to shake things up. They have to stand out. They have to put themselves at great risk.

    The biggest enemies of people who want to change the system are the people who do not want to change the system. The people who benefit from the system usually do not want the system to change, because of inertia, even if they superficially blame the system for everything.

    How to change the system?

    If you agree with most of what I said above, the answer to this is straightforward.

    Prerequisite: Have a lot of privilege. Have the mental space to take on challenging things. Have help, support, guidance. Have plan B, plan C. Privilege is a gift.

    (An aside on privilege. A lot of the privileged folks think that they’re not privileged. When they hear the word “privilege” they imagine Mukesh Ambani’s inheritance with Narendra Modi’s popularity and influence. If you can read this blog post, you’re already more privileged than a lot of people on this planet. Reading is a privilege. English is a privilege. Internet is a privilege. Time is a privilege. Sure you might be facing oppression in many ways. But that doesn’t take your privileges away. Everyone on the planet faces some or the other oppression, and a lot of them face more oppression than you do. It is a lot easier if you count your privileges and use them.)

    The first step is to find loopholes in the system to build yourself sustainable income outside the parts you want to change. This might look like joining pre-existing teams doing what you want to do, finding scholarships or grants, monetizing on a rare skill, etc. Creativity is key here. If you do not have any privilege that you can leverage to achieve this step, then you’re out of luck. The best thing you can do is continue being part of the system and silently help those who are trying to change the system.

    The next step is to find motivation. There is so much to do and so many generations worth of work. Find problems that you can solve. Find problems solving which will give you satisfaction. Find cracks that make it easier to break the system. Define short-term successes. Think and act with purpose.

    Then help others who want to do the same. Amplify voices. Volunteer effort. Offer support. Build friendships. Build capacity. Build community.

    Things not to do

    When thinking idealistically, it can be easy to develop hatred to those who are doing things differently from you. If people are trying to change the system and they are doing it in a way that you do not approve of, engage in respectful debates with open mind. Sometimes they might be doing it right and you are wrong and you can change your ways. Sometimes vice versa. Sometimes both of you can find useful elements to do things differently. Even when there are unsolvable disagreements, it is easier to think about those as fundamentally hard questions with no one right answer. Do not develop hatred for people who do things differently.
    Do not become intellectually arrogant. Intellectual humility is when you keep your intellectual outlook about the world detached from your ego. And you’re ready to take a hit on the outlook at any moment. And you’re willing to change them. Intellectual arrogance is when you refuse to change your outlook from what you formed in early adulthood.
     

    Validity of this strategy

    This may not be the only way to do things. But this seems like a reasonable way, to me, at the moment.