Argument vs. Discussion

Debates, discussions, and arguments are the ways by which any democratic and progressive society shares its ideas and views about various issues. These are the ways that we all use to exchange our thoughts, ideas, and concerns with each other. The main aim of these interactions is to try to share and understand each other's point of view. Debates normally happen in a very formal setting, but discussions and arguments are more informal, so informal that they can be a part of any social or family gathering. I am sure each one of us can relate to the fact that arguments and discussions have become such an integral part of our personal and professional lives we do not even realize how often we engage in such exchanges. With the invention and immense popularity of social media we are not even restricted by geographical boundaries, we can discuss or argue with anyone, anytime, from anywhere in the world. At the same time, with the internet, we have instant access to a vast amount of information, it is entirely up to us how much information we can consume. However, there is one question we need to ask, did all this improve the quality of our interactions with each other? No doubt, all the progress in technology did improve the number of our interactions. We do interact very often and with many more people, it was physically impossible without social media to keep in touch with so many people at the same time, that hurdle got removed, thanks to various social media platforms. But what about the quality of our interactions? Do we understand each other better? Are we more tolerant of each other's views? Do we have more consensus about certain political or social issues? OR, do we argue unnecessarily? Are we more polarized than ever? Do we only oppose each other on partisan lines but more venomously? Are we more segregated than united? I am sure if each one of us honestly asks these questions to ourselves, and seek honest answers, we might be able to improve the quality of our interactions and take full advantage of this unique opportunity provided to all of us by this amazing technological revolution for the betterment of our society.

Arguments and discussions are fundamental parts of any democratic society, they both serve unique purposes. Arguments are normally about asserting our own point and rebutting the other side's arguments, there is a confrontational premise from the beginning, both parties know that there is a difference of opinion and they are on opposite sides (debate is one such example of an argument is a very formal setting). However, the discussion is supposed to be more friendly and conducive where we try to understand other's points of view and explain our side to them. Both of them involve the give and take of thoughts, but the intentions and styles are different. In an argument we want the other side to accept that our point is more valid than their own point. However, in the discussion, the aim is not to convince but to understand each other, the intention behind the discussion is to explain our side and try to understand what's the logic and rationale behind the other side's views on the same topic. Discussions can be more useful in social settings than arguments to understand different views about the same topic. We first need to understand each other before we start arguing to convince each other who is right. Both arguments and discussions require certain skills, but the problem is that we all think that we have those skills and it's the other person who doesn't know how to argue or discuss. Let's reflect on our own behavior and try to discuss more and argue less. After all, if we all claim that we want to do something better for humanity then how come our common goals cannot even allow us to have a civilized discussion about any issue, no matter how sensitive that issue is.

Thanks for reading and please share your opinion about this topic. 

Smriti Irani ko gussa kyon aata hai?

Yes, believe it or not, I am also going to discuss now very famous speech by the HRD minister Mrs. Smriti Irani. She delivered a very charged, emotional, and extremely dramatic speech in the Indian parliament. It became a talking point of various debates and a highly watched event on the internet for a couple of days. Finally, someone from the current breed of Indian politicians broke the monopoly of Mr. Narendra Modi and Mrs. Sushma Swaraj to give charged and emotional speeches in Hindi. The effect of this speech was so much that most people including opposition party members of parliament were completely stumped by it. There were mostly two types of reactions to it. People who opposed her went on the complete back foot and didn't know how to counter this furious attack on them. People who supported her started celebrating the way she annihilated opposition mercilessly without even bothering to check what she actually said. No doubt that it was a treat to watch, it is always a pleasure to watch a good orator in action. She used all her strengths to her advantage, she used all her experience from theater to deliver punch line after punch line effectively. The content was very emotionally charged. After listening to such speeches people hardly bother to check the facts, most of them get overwhelmed by the way the speech is delivered. In this case, the same thing happened. Maybe now slowly after coming out of that spell, they might ponder on what she actually said. I am sure opposition parties must be wondering, "Smriti Irani ko gussa kyon aata hai?"In the storm created by that speech people totally ignored two very sensible speeches delivered on the same issue, these were from Mr. Sugata Bose and Tathagata Satpathy. Maybe because both these people spoke right up to the point and without any unwanted drama and theatrics. 

I still don't understand why these two issues which are respective university's internal matters are being discussed in the Indian parliament. One case is about a Hyderabad University student's suicide and it is alleged that the university administration was directly or indirectly responsible for creating the situation that forced that student to take such an extreme step. The other case is an anti-India sloganeering by some group of students at JNU. Both these issues could have been dealt with at the university level, but I don't know why and how the government of India got involved in this mess. I also wonder how a country like India can afford to spend so much of its resources and energy on such issues when it has so many more burning issues that need urgent attention from its citizens as well as the government. 

There is no point in analyzing the entire speech or commenting about both issues as it will take a lot of time and space. I already wrote one post about the JNU issue a few days back, in this post I just want to discuss a few points from her speech. She repeatedly referred to Rohith Vemula as a 'baccha' (a kid), but Rohith was a 26-year-old man doing her Ph.D. research. Of course, for any parent their child is a kid no matter how old he or she gets, but I don't think she was addressing him as a parent, she was speaking as an HRD minister of a country, so she should have addressed him properly but I don't think anyone noticed this and even if they did it didn't bother them.
Another interesting thing that she said and got away with was that according to her this suicide case was not important because of the caste of Rohith (he comes from the Dalit section of society). Sorry madam, this issue is so fiercely debated and discussed specifically because of the caste of the student who died. Otherwise, tell me when many students die in India every day for various reasons, some of them commit suicides, but how many of these incidents manage even to make it to the front page of newspapers and forget about being discussed in the parliament. Just a few days before 13 students from Pune drowned at some beach in Maharashtra, did anyone bother to look into the real reasons behind it? Just a few days back one young man associated with your own organization (RSS) was killed in Kerala, did anyone bother to discuss the reasons behind it? So, I wonder why she said that caste is not an issue in this case. Rather caste is 'the issue' in this case, and both sides are playing very pathetic politics over it. Sadly even today caste plays a very important role in Indian politics and all political parties make use of the caste card whenever and wherever it suits them. No one was debating the problems of students or struggles of Dalits or university campus-related issues in parliament, it was a tragic display of political wrestling by major national parties that are only interested in political gains and nothing else, so, please don't try to fool us.
I was also surprised when she retorted that she was taking some of the allegations and remarks personally. She said it in a very dramatic way, it almost reminded me delivery mode of my favorite actor Amitabh Bachchan. But seriously Mrs. HRD minister, you take criticism or allegations personally? That too after being in politics for so long? Just imagine if Sonia or Rahul Gandhi or Mr. Modi or Mr. Sharad Pawar or any political leader who is being targeted on a daily basis in parliament and outside start taking things said to them or about them personally. Just imagine the scenario if they start reacting to every allegation or criticism or even abuse thrown at them in as strident manure as she did. I want to offer one unsolicited advice to her from my side, please don't take anything personally in the future because even if you do take it personally no one will give a damn about it, people will keep on throwing those things at you and I wonder how many times you will react like this?
The last point is about this facetious line said by her, "My name is Smriti Irani, I challenge you to tell me my caste." This was again a very dramatic peak point of her speech. I guess she was trying to be cynical here, but anyway who cares about her caste, how does it relate to any of these two issues. It sounded like a lame attempt to deliver a punch line by using famous dialogue from a popular Bollywood flick, but I didn't expect to hear it in the Indian parliament that too from the HRD minister of India. I must say it sounded really dramatic and I am sure it had some desirable effect on some of the audience who watched her speech.

The entire speech was largely condescending and strident with very few relevant or logical arguments. It sounded like an emotional outburst rather than a balanced reply from some responsible and sensible minister. I might be wrong but this is my personal opinion. But on the performance level, I must admit that it was a stellar performance, worthy of grand applause. As per public perception, she clearly won this debate hands down. Mr. Modi and Mrs. Sushma Swaraj now have some serious competition from their own party colleague. I am sure her speech will give many sleepless nights to key opposition party leaders, they will be wondering how to counter her rhetorical arguments with equally pompous statements. They must be desperately looking for someone from their side to match that pitch. I am sure people are waiting to watch this spectacle on the floor of parliament.

But somewhere deep down in my mind, I still hope that in the future some sensible and logical discussions will take place in the Indian parliament without any excessive theatrics and drama. I hope that to hurt the opposition, our Minister didn't inflict some serious wounds on her own government. I hope that in the future Indian parliament will try to discuss more relevant and pertinent issues that affect the citizens of the country rather than only focusing on some political controversies. 

Thanks for reading and please share your views on this topic.

[Copyright: Vinay Thakur. Please contact the author for re-posting or publishing]

Links:

1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PlGs8NCMWE

2. http://www.scoopwhoop.com/tathagata-satpathy-sugata-bose-speech/

3. http://selfrealization-vinay.blogspot.com/2016/02/jnu-oh-jnu.html?spref=tw

Freethinkers

A few days back I read this quote by Leo Tolstoy on Facebook "Freethinkers are those who are willing to use their minds without prejudice and without fearing to understand things that clash with their own customs, privileges or beliefs. This state of mind is not common, but is essential for right thinking; where it is absent discussion is apt to become worse than useless."

I like the quote, but then a question came to my mind, are there any true freethinkers in our world? We get trained by our parents and mentors, schools, colleges, or society. All these entities knowingly or unknowingly condition our minds in a particular way. When we think we look at the world with that conditioned mind. So, how can we claim that we are independent or freethinkers? No doubt, there were many philosophers or writers who with their own imagination or thinking process created new ideas and philosophies, they tried to think out of the box and many of them were successful in producing some brilliant work that we still study even after centuries. We all can become freethinkers and break the boundaries of our conditioned minds, we all are born with this ability but we rarely use it, because whenever we try to go out of that well-defined secure box we either feel very uncomfortable and guilty, or we are scared about people's reaction and therefore, we reject those thoughts before even testing them for their validity.

So the question is, do we have any freethinkers? Are they some special people or anyone can be a freethinker? Anybody who is not afraid of challenging well-established ideas, who dares to propose something new that was never thought before, who can even challenge their own ideas and is not ashamed if proven wrong is a true freethinker. Even though they are the product of the same educational or social system through which we all go they dare to think something different. They dare to face the contradiction that exists in our lives and have the courage to express uncomfortable thoughts and pursue new ideas even if their outcome is unknown. It's not necessary that always these types of people will be successful or their ideas are accepted by society, but freethinkers don't worry about the acceptance of their thoughts, they just care to express them. Such freethinkers could be present in every family, every society, and every neighborhood, we all meet them and see them but just because they are not that famous don't notice them. If we can overcome our prejudices and biases any of us can become a freethinker. Not only do we restrict our thinking by all our inhibitions but while doing this we also fail to recognize and appreciate others' thoughts. We reject new ideas before even evaluating them. We need to overcome these inhibitions not only to think freely but also to appreciate the new ideas and philosophies of others. 

Let us try to make ourselves free from many inhibitions that stop us from welcoming new ideas. The same inhibitions stop us from questioning or criticizing age-old beliefs that we accept blindly in the name of tradition or culture. I know that it's not easy to get rid of them so easily, they have been part of our society for centuries, but without such reform, we cannot become freethinkers. Being a freethinker is better than being a blind follower, so let's give us a chance to become a freethinker.

Thanks for reading and please share your views on this topic.

[Copyright: Vinay Thakur. Please contact the author for re-posting or publishing]

Difference between understanding and agreeing

Last week I had a long chat with one of my friends on the subject of religion and God. This was not the first time we had this discussion and I also know that this subject is a never-ending subject and almost everyone has strong beliefs or opinions about this subject. During this discussion many times my friend said that I was not able to understand what he was trying to tell me. I was surprised by that because we were talking in English (the language which I understand reasonably well) and I understood very well what he was trying to tell me, but I didn't agree with him on some of his points and that's when he repeatedly used this sentence. I think this happens during most of our discussions, whenever someone doesn't agree with what we say we tell them that they are not able to understand our point and that's why they don't agree with us. As if if they really understand our point of view, then they will or must agree with it. It might be true in some of the cases (that they really don't understand and that's why they don't agree) but this may not be the case all the time. Many times (like in this case) the other person may understand totally what we want to say and may still disagree with us. I think this is very normal in most arguments and we don't take it personally when that happens. But if we are arguing or discussing something that we totally believe or are passionate about (like religion or God), then we don't want to accept the fact that our core beliefs can be wrong (as another person is opposing it or arguing about them) or people might have some alternatives to these beliefs (their own beliefs which are totally different than ours). 

This made me think about the topic of today's post, why do we always think that if people don't agree with us they don't understand us and they don't know about that subject as much as we know? Why can't we live with the fact that we all have different personalities with different thinking patterns and are bound to have totally different views about the same issues? It's always good to share our views with others and discuss them or debate about them, it helps us to update our knowledge and improve our thinking process, improves our communication skills. Discussions and arguments are very essential part of our life and very necessary for our intellectual growth, but why can't we agree that we can have some disagreement and that's totally fine? I guess the root cause of this problem lies in our traditions or the way in which organized religion is preached. If you read most of the popular scriptures they have their own style of preaching and most of them want their followers to believe that all people who don't follow that particular religion are living the life of ignorant or fool. Nonfollowers are often considered as people walking on the wrong path, who fail to understand what is 'real' or 'ultimate truth' which that book claims to reveal to us. The same mentality makes us believe that people who don't agree with us don't understand what we want to say.

I discuss with many people various subjects ranging from science, politics, and religion. My aim is to share my views and get to know others' views, I started this blog with the same intention. This helps me to improve my own knowledge. I don't want everyone to follow what I say or believe, that's not the purpose of my discussions or blog posts. I just want to share my thoughts. Many times during our discussions I and the other person involved in the discussion agree that we both are right and there can be more than one way to solve the same problem. But this rarely happens when the subject of discussion is related to religion or God simply because we are never taught in those books that there can be any alternate way to whatever that book wants to teach us. I think still human race has not evolved to such a level where we all understand that it's foolish to kill others over religious differences. I agree that it never happens as frequently as it used to happen in the past but still, religious intolerance is one of the major problems and reason for riots and hatred in many societies and cultures.

So how to solve this problem or is there any solution for this? Of course, those books are not going to offer any solution even though they all try to teach us kindness, truthfulness, and love because they never teach us that there can be more than one way to reach the same destination. So, even after learning about love, kindness, tolerance, patience, and many good things from those books people are ready to kill others just because they don't agree with some of the things mentioned in that book or they follow some other book. It is true that in general people are tolerant towards each other and that's the reason our species still exists on this planet otherwise we have enough power and weapons to destroy this whole planet because of any disagreement. In business no company can say or accept that another company's product is better than theirs, are we doing the same thing in the case of religion? For me best possible way to solve this problem is to accept the fact that there is bound to be some disagreement on whatever opinions or beliefs we have and that's totally fine. If another person understands my point of view then it doesn't matter to me whether he/she agrees to it or not. I can explain to him/her my point of view until he/she understands it and after that, it's totally up to that person to decide whether he/she wants to agree with me or not. Discussions and debates are not battles or wars where one party has to win and the other should lose. Why can't it be like a duet song, where both say their part and express their feelings and end it with some or no conclusion. Let's stop fighting wars and start singing duets.


Thanks for reading and please share your views on this topic.


(Copyright: Vinay Thakur. Please contact the author for re-posting or publishing)

You’re Either With Us, or Against Us

This is a very popular line, used by many people many times. This line and its variations are used by many leaders and their followers in polarized situations. This line represents a philosophy that is also present in religion, politics, and part of the human psyche, especially during any debate or discussion about some sensitive subject or topic. Often, this means that if the person or a group is not interested in joining your team, then they are considered enemies. This can turn into a very rigid attitude and also propagate hatred towards people who don't agree with our views. Nowadays, we see this attitude a lot in various forums and discussions; people are becoming intolerant towards others' views and opinions.

President Bush used a similar line after the tragic incident of 9/11. People were very emotional at that time, and this statement polarized world opinion. It's not that terrorism never existed before or was not an issue before 9/11, but that incident resulted in taking this issue to a totally different level. Terrorism is a very complex issue and has many reasons and angles associated with it; it's not easy to see it in black and white. This statement unfortunately polarized opinions about a particular religion (Islam) rather than highlighting the issue of terrorism and looking for the reasons behind it. 

During our course of life, we come across many situations that teach us many things. These teachings, along with our formal education, form our beliefs and opinions. Everyone doesn't go through the same experiences in life; people also come from different regions and places, so it's obvious that different people can have different opinions about the same thing. The problem of conflict of interest and clash of opinions between individuals and civilizations has happened many times in the past. It also resulted in many wars and massacres, and it's still happening; it seems we still haven't learned our lesson from them. 

Why do people feel so upset if someone challenges their views and beliefs? Debates and discussions are ways to share our knowledge. Normally in debate, no one is right or wrong; people are just sharing information by making a rational argument. Everyone has freedom of expression; they can express their views and opinions in democratic ways at the same time, others also have freedom either to agree or to disagree with them. Most people know about their rights, but very often they forget that others also have the same rights. We should understand that sometimes there can be more than one truth, more than one correct answer to the same questions. If some group insists that only their version of the truth is the absolute truth and all other versions are wrong, then a situation of confrontation arises. This rigid attitude is the reason for whatever hatred we see in today's world. One group of people hates other groups just because they don't subscribe to their views and ideas. The conflict between capitalism and communism, issues between countries with nuclear arms and countries that want to acquire them, and communal riots are a few examples of this intolerant attitude towards each other.

I think recent outbursts by some social groups in the media and on Facebook against some of the episodes of Amir's show Satyamev Jayate fall into this type of attitude. We should understand that some articles, posts on blogs, movies, or shows like Amir's ongoing show on TV have certain purposes; they want to highlight some issues or problems, or want to discuss only certain aspects of a big issue. Many times, it's not possible to cover all aspects of certain issues in one single article or episode because of so many reasons, and people should understand this. They have full right to disagree with the contents or put their side or even prove the contents of the show or article wrong by giving counter-evidence. But just to criticize that particular person for bringing out that issue or highlighting that problem is totally wrong. In all these emotional outbursts, that particular person becomes the target, and the main issue gets sidelined. I have seen this happen many times. If people don't agree with anyone's opinion, just show the proof and prove that he/she is wrong; it's a very simple thing to do, but people choose to shut that person up. It's easy for them to try to shut that person up rather than solve the issue, accept the mistakes, or tackle the problem. I don't know when people will mature enough to understand that we have many issues in this world that need to be addressed. Rather than trying to cover it up or take criticism personally, we should try to encourage debates and discussions about these problems and try to solve them together.

Whatever work Amir or any other person or many organizations throughout the world are doing is not easy; they are highlighting some sensitive issues, and want to have debates about these things. Sweeping the issue under the carpet and pretending that nothing wrong is happening or has happened in our society, religion, family, or country is a very easy thing to do, but unfortunately, that doesn't solve the problem. It takes courage to show the mistakes of our ancestors and take on some established institutions or beliefs. Many topics are sensitive, and people don't feel comfortable discussing them, but that doesn't mean they should not be discussed. Let's stand in support of such individuals or organizations, and if we don't agree with their views, then let's try to prove them wrong by showing proof against their argument rather than shutting them up.

Thanks for reading, and please share your views.

(Copyright: Vinay Thakur. Please contact the author for re-posting or publishing)