Education, history, womanhood and a Facebook discussion

A provocative discussion started at Facebook by my friend Abhishek, worth mentioning here. There are many people commented in the thread – I am just pasting the conversation(with minor editing) between me and Abhishek.

Abhishek started the thread:

We say the education in early days was in-depth and substancial…..was it because all teachers were ‘Guru’ s (masculin gender)?? [This is an open question…nothing personal…so no offense please…]

I replied:

May be you shoud start by defining “we”. “Early days” needs clarification too.

Abhishek:

its very difficult to define we for you …. because that is different from your environment and don’t worry about the ‘early days’ that is black-and-white syndrome that many of us suffer many a times…..

My reply

Aren’t we talking about something universal? In that case, why the subjective reality should be different for me and you?

Beyond the sexist and misogynistic hint of the theorem you proposed, I think the problem is much deeply rooted. It’s the habit of mass generalization, which comes with sentiments like ‘Bengali’s are academically smarter and cultural’, ‘Scottish people are alcoholic’, ‘Men are incapable of multitasking’ etc. When narrowly defined, there hypothetical generalizations takes fundamental shape – e.g. Muslims = Terrorists.

The saddest part of the whole thing is, that we are the only species who can do these generalization and pattern matching. That’s our evolutionary advantage over others. But this nature also nurture a slippery slope. We try to find a pattern even where there is none. We prefer even a bad theory over ‘no theory’.

Coming back to the very topic you raised – let’s rewind a bit. When we started our journey, as caveman (and woman), we were hunter-gatherer. Men used to hunt and women used to gather and collect 80% of the daily necessities. The economic power of the women was equal or more than men. Then we discovered agriculture and men moved ahead in economic value chain ahead of women – by just sheer brute force. Fast forward couple of thousand years, beyond industrial revolution, at the era of knowledge economy, when brute force is becoming irrelevant – women are again reclaiming their position.

Talking about ‘Guru’ era, i.e. ‘Brahmacharya-ashram’ at gurukul, yes only men used to teach, but only teach men. That too, only an elite class of men (Bramhin and Kshatriya). There was no education for women and the circle perpetuated. Will you call that era as ‘golden’ or model?

Abhishek:

Actually I was trying to get people’s opinion over a few things. First, we know the world is not going in the right path considering the destruction of nature, the disappearing of human values, the failure of proper wealth distribution, etc. and I was trying to get to the roots of cause…..education.

Since we know most human being first get exposed to any data from his/her mother. Of coarse the other factors starts influencing the person as time progress. But the influence of mother is immense. Then comes the schooling where a huge influence comes from the teachers, majority of them are women.

So in this context of soul degradation period what role is expected from the feminine gender? Do they again (according to you) feel satisfied that they are now in competition with men (sometimes going ahead also)? Do they feel proud that they are teaching that stuff which only a small percentage of human population wants us to learn (and learn by heart so that we cannot even question other way)…or Do they ‘still’ surrendering to the so-called ‘System’ as they they have done always?

The matter of fact is a major chunk of education in whatever form comes from this feminine gender and thus a huge responsibility lies in their hand…..Responsibility of each individual….Responsibility of a society…Responsibility of a country….Responsibility of a planet ….Responsibility of humanity….

So to all my lady students and friends who is reading this please give it a deep thought and act accordingly…..

My reply

After 10 years living outside India – still I miss the ‘Adda’ and ‘useless’ debates. You can take an argumentative Indian out of India, but can’t take the Indian out of him! 😀

Again, allow me to disagree.

“…world is not going in the right path” – since when? Isn’t it almost since the beginning of civilization? Why crucify the current era only for that? Let’s do some further deconstructions.

“…destruction of nature” – Human beings are tinkering and disrupting the balance of nature since they learned agriculture. We just realizing the devastating causality of that recently. Why blame only the modern generation now?

“…disappearing of human values” – This is completely opposite of the truth. Look back. When the ‘values’ were in the epitome of human mind? 20th century? With two world wars, nuclear bomb proliferation, mass genocides and more? 16/17/18th Century? With imperialism, colonial subjugations and slavery? Beyond that history gets vague and only talks about King and Queens – not common man. But again, moral standards of that era remains questionable. In sixteenth-century Paris, a popular form of entertainment was cat-burning, in which a cat was hoisted in a sling on a stage and slowly lowered into a fire. According to historian Norman Davies, “[T]he spectators, including kings and queens, shrieked with laughter as the animals, howling with pain, were singed, roasted, and finally carbonized.” Today, such sadism would be unthinkable in most of the world. This change in sensibilities is just one example of perhaps the most important and most under-appreciated trend in the human saga: Violence has been in decline over long stretches of history, and today we are probably living in the most peaceful moment of our species’ time on earth.

In the decade of Darfur and Iraq, the claim that violence has been diminishing may seem somewhere between hallucinatory and obscene. Yet statistical evidence that seek to quantify the historical ebb and flow of violence point to exactly that conclusion.

In short – I have more faith on this generation, that I had in ours!

“…proper wealth distribution” – again, when on earth this was NOT the case? Just being conscious about a problem is the first step to solve it, and we just began to realize these. But, in no way you can drop the onus on this generation only.

Now, let’s come to the original issue – education! I will wholesomely agree with you on that. But why the responsibility is imposed only on women? Who stopped more men to become teacher?

The baton of responsibility is for all of us to bear. It’s not gender specific. Saying that, and seeing all the mess created by men for last few centuries, I’d rather take my chance with women on lead and give the fairer sex a chance to steward us out of this mess.

Did you notice, in every religion, people refer to omnipotent god as ‘He’ / ‘Him’ (masculine gender)? You might argue different reasons for that, but I strongly believe (being an atheist) – the god must be a man indeed. This massive screwup is not possible by a woman!

Cheers!

UPDATE 10:01 PM May 6, 2010

From Abhishek

I absolutely agree on the points that this nature of human that is disturbing us is not that we have manufactured recently and i do also have a massive faith on the present and coming generations (and thats why i am surviving as teacher)…..

But basically i was trying to emphasize on the point that puts the women ahead of men anyway….as i talked about their greater responsibility (with great power comes the greater responsibility)…..I always felt that it is the women who can play the most important role in re-structuring the world around us…only thing i was worried and wanted to discuss was the about the structure of it….i expected more women (or girl) to participate in this debate…!!

…And still so long lets all thank to this ‘man’-made ‘man’- GOD of ours to allow us discuss so ‘valuable’ points and present us a hopeful generations….

The conversation continues…

But as Facebook threads are not open to all, I thought of posting it here and hope to get some more perspectives.

Diamonds and Rust – Joan Baez

Joan Baez and Bob Dylan, Civil Rights March on Washington, D.C. 08/28/1963

About 3 years ago Tinkerbell first introduced me to the works of Joan Baez, and soon ‘Diamonds and Rust’ by Baez made its way to my ‘Top 25 played songs’ in iPod/iTunes. In the song, written and performed in 1975, Baez recounts an out-of-the-blue phone call from an old lover, which sends her a decade back in time. If I try to summarize the song in one sentence, it will be –  “memories bring ‘diamonds and rust’”, i.e. time turns dirty charcoal into beautiful diamonds and shiny metal into ugly rust.

It is  believed that the song describes Baez’s relationship with Bob Dylan, ten years prior. The fact was confirmed by Baez herself during an interview with music writer Mike Ragogna.

MR: “Diamonds And Rust” was another magic moment. You’ve said when you began writing the song, it started as something else until Dylan phoned you. Then it became about him. That must have been one helluva call.

JB: He read me the entire lyrics to “Lily, Rosemary, And The Jack Of Hearts” that he’d just finished from a phone booth in the Midwest.

MR: What was the song about originally?

JB: I don’t remember what I’d been writing about, but it had nothing to do with what it ended up as.

But in Baez’s memoir, And a Voice to Sing With, she recounted how she told Dylan that the song was actually about her husband David Harris.

The following excerpt shows Baez’s rendition of this conversation between her and Dylan:

“You gonna sing that song about robin’s eggs and diamonds?” Bob had asked me on the first day of rehearsals.
“Which one?”
“You know, that one about blue eyes and diamonds…”
“Oh”, I said, “you must mean ‘Diamonds And Rust’, the song I wrote for my husband, David. I wrote it while he was in prison.”
“For your husband?” Bob said.
“Yeah. Who did you think it was about?” I stonewalled.
“Oh, hey, what the f*** do I know?”
“Never mind. Yeah, I’ll sing it, if you like.”

Here goes the lyrics of “Diamonds And Rust”

I’ll be damned

Here comes your ghost again

But that’s not unusual

It’s just that the moon is full

And you happened to call

And here I sit

Hand on the telephone

Hearing a voice I’d known

A couple of light years ago

Heading straight for a fall

As I remember your eyes

Were bluer than robin’s eggs

My poetry was lousy you said

Where are you calling from?

A booth in the midwest

Ten years ago

I bought you some cufflinks

You brought me something

We both know what memories can bring

They bring diamonds and rust

Well you burst on the scene

Already a legend

The unwashed phenomenon

The original vagabond

You strayed into my arms

And there you stayed

Temporarily lost at sea

The Madonna was yours for free

Yes the girl on the half-shell

Would keep you unharmed

Now I see you standing

With brown leaves falling around

And snow in your hair

Now you’re smiling out the window

Of that crummy hotel

Over Washington Square

Our breath comes out white clouds

Mingles and hangs in the air

Speaking strictly for me

We both could have died then and there

Now you’re telling me

You’re not nostalgic

Then give me another word for it

You who are so good with words

And at keeping things vague

Because I need some of that vagueness now

It’s all come back too clearly

Yes I loved you dearly

And if you’re offering me diamonds and rust

I’ve already paid

Recharging – will be back soon

In case you are wondering, why there is no new post here for last 3 months – life is sucking out a little bit more than expected time for both of BBB bloggers.

We are not dead (not yet), just recharging. and will be back soon.

Photo credit: recharging, originally uploaded by Don Solo.

The Four Horsemen

Image via Wikipedia

30th of September 2007, my favorite 4 ‘militant atheists’, Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens sat down for a first-of-its-kind, unmoderated 2-hour discussion, convened by RDFRS and filmed by Josh Timonen.

All four authors have recently received a large amount of media attention for their writings against religion – some positive, and some negative. In this conversation the group trades stories of the public’s reaction to their recent books, their unexpected successes, criticisms and common misrepresentations. They discuss the tough questions about religion that face the world today, and propose new strategies for going forward.

Here goes the complete 2-hour discussion in 2 parts – enjoy!

Part 1

Part 2

This video is provided free online by The Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science (RDFRS) and http://RichardDawkins.net .