The worst argumentation crisis lies in the family. For some of you this much said is enough said. You already understand what I am saying. In any case, I'll continue with this for the sake of completeness.
There is a lot of affection that binds members in the family. Plus there are certain values that are necessary to maintain stability in the family. Values like - give due respect to elders, take care of younger ones, don't indulge in any activity that may bring disrepute to the family, and so on. A lot of these are important, and most of us sometimes even go out of the way to ensure they are not violated. Perhaps it is necessary as well.
However, during the process of an argumentation, it would be great if rationality takes the driver's seat rather than emotions. No doubt emotions are great. And make no mistake. Values like respect and humility are necessary even during an argument, be it in the family, with friends or strangers. They help a great deal in maintaining the decorum of a nice argumentation set up. The trouble is when emotions start running high. They start occupying the place of rationality and will force the people involved to make fallacies. We then see that arguments degenerate to a bunch of ad hominems, appeal to authority, appeal to emotions, appeal to tradition. And more importantly "appeal to age": "What is you age? 23? I have more working experience than your age!", "I guess it's the generation gap. You'll simply not accept something new just because it wasn't so during your times." And on and on. A rise of a younger one's voice by a few decibels need not mean disrespect for an elder. It might just mean that the person is very passionate about the idea s/he is presenting. Similarly, an "appeal to age" and a following "shut up! Go to your room!" may be very necessary at times. But a lot of times, what could have been a vibrant and interesting argument loses out as emotions start creeping in.
The younger ones feel that elders have become "closed systems" and they simply cannot take in any new idea. (They cannot even take this idea, is the pity!) They have a set of ideas, theories, world views and a moral sense - their box. They are unwilling to budge from them. They want to paint everything in black or white based just on what the box contains.
The elders feel that younger ones are bordering on depravity. They are too individualistic and the family does not really matter to them "despite the fact that it is the family that made them what they are today". They are disrespectful, and hardly comply with the box.
It is just a redundant statement when I say they both are right, and they both are wrong. And, of course, I might have exaggerated. But then the above picture does hold true generally. It is not a faulty generalization. Also note that I have been saying 'the family' instead of 'a family'. A lot of times sensible arguments do not happen in the family. Either one of the parties virtually shuts ears whilst the other party runs riot, or both run riot and end up with disgruntled and frowing faces.
Solutions to this crisis are obvious. It is also obvious that they don't really work. "Winning" or "losing" an argument does not really matter in the longer run. A few differences in opinion don't matter; the family can still remain stable. Perhaps the family can do well even without arguments. But I would definitely like it if the family is more argumentative and more vibrant. Arguments, mind you, not fights! I feel it is important because I conjecture that that will help in reducing hypocrisy. It will also help minds open up. Individuals are hypocritical, and the family more so. If you note, we are a little less hypocrtitical outside the family. My hypothesis is this: A less hypocritical family means a less hypocritical individual, which in turn means a less hypocritical society.
By the way, my hypothesis is based on the assumption that there should be less hypocrisy. I also feel that less hypocrisy means less conservatism. It also means we can build better systems. Of course, all this is material for another post or two.
Wednesday, March 15, 2006
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13 comments:
I more or less agree with your point. But, I'd also like to highlight the point that the younger generation is no less a "closed box" than the other camp. They are often victims of faulty or "biased" generalisations (bias may be selection bias or in axiomatisation of existing knowledge). Then there is Pavlovian pseudo-skepticism. Some of us act like mere functions of what and how much information we're fed from various sources. My suggestion to avoid such fallacies would be to try giving the benefit of doubt to the other party and take up the burden of proof onto your side of the argument. Let argumentation start within. Of course, this is not a refutal to your basic message. For the problem stated by you, I try to be practical and keep trying to effect a change in their worldview steadily.
Also, we sometimes abuse the term "hypocrisy" as a blanket term for things as disparate as euphemisms, cunningness, conservatism, hypnosis, and what not! (This kind of hypocrisy-saturation has happenned because of my own overuse.) There has been some scholarly work that talks about certain things that we commonly brand as hypocrisies as being a part of an evolutionarily stable strategy. Oh now we are into whether being a part of an ESS is a vindication! I don't want to start that all over again.
Forgot a punchline: "The worst argumentation crisis lies within."
Sundar, your comment adds a lot to the post. Let me respond to some points you raised.
Indeed the younger generation is no less a "closed box". Let me quote something from "about this blog": [...] It is a strange new period in which we are fighting old dogmas by replacing them with brand new ones! It is also ironic that on one hand we advocate irreverence and debate towards old dogmas, we are intolerant about such irreverence and debate towards the new dogmas, branding such a thing to be retrogression. [...] That's a huge grouse I have. Here, I just gave a general picture. Did not want to make this post look overtly "balanced".
I agree with the other points you make there as well. In fact, I think I have expressed most of them in some form throgh different posts. Of course, the argumentation should start within. No denying that. And the punchline is nice. May I quote more: [...]I am not a polemicist, and this blog is of course not a cookbook on the art of argumentation. I have written all this because I have been under an argumentation crisis since a long time.[...] And also this: [...] My intention is only to help myself to address my argumentation crisis. For all I know, the crisis may only get worse. The others may get smitten as well, but that's incidental.[...]
I understand what you are saying about hypocrisy. I concede that I have not been very precise when I used the word. Plus I don't consider "hypocrisy" to be a derogatory term at all. Your pointing to it being part of an ESS supports this. So, it is all the more reason for me to be more discrete on that. Right now I can only hope that I can think more clearly on what I exactly want to put forth when I say "less hypocricy --> better systems".
Oops.. in the last paragraph of my previous comment I rather wanted to write - Plus I don't consider "hypocrisy" to be strictly a derogatory term at all.
Err.. and I meant discreet, of course, in that comment. 8-}
Plus I forgot to add one more thing. Argumentation should definitely begin within. But since the family is a miniature society, I wanted to point to that facet as well.
(Will come back if I feel I have made sense more mistakes. Note to self - Multitasking in the Morning Considered Harmful.)
I haven't read many of your earlier posts. From what you quote, I understand that you'd expressed the same views as the above comment.
By the way, let me warn you not to attempt defining hypocrisy, if you haven't started yet. ;) I found (as well as others pointed at) myself engaging in meta-hypocrisy trying to tweak my definition of hypocrisy to suit myself. Of course, it works for me as I concede to prescriptive grammars only for languages, that too because I happen to like them.
I'll take your warning. :)
Even when rationality takes the front seat, family conversations are far more complex than business, professional or peer conversation.
My theory is that it is because family conversations are usually cross-generation conversations. The worldview that the different players have within the conversations are vastly different.
What the elders see as trivial may really be a very major issue for a youngster; but then the elders would also be right in that the youngster would probably look back at this behaviour years later and laugh. Looking back at teenage now and laughing is one thing, but to be "wise" at teenage itself, and to have the infinite wisdom of the elders... I'm not sure whether such a world would be nice.
I am not talking about stuff like wisdom. The usual social, cultural, political discussions don't seem to happen a lot of times. We can consider several instance of stupidity. One - Some one has a particular political inclination because his grand father and father had it. Another - Some guy considers her mother stupid because he is an atheist whereas his mother goes to temples everyday.
Wisdom and socio-cultural differences aren't all that unrelated. Socio-cultural differences arise due to differences in worldviews, which are in turn molded by experience, priorities and wisdom.
At one point in time, the son may consider the mother stupid because she goes to temples. Maybe at a later point in time he would do so himself. But then, at the present time, it is maybe stupid for the son to not question religious beliefs or to blindly follow traditions.
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On a related note, I have found that teaching is a much more emotionally draining profession than working on specific projects for specific objectives.
Teaching has to be generic and has to appeal across different worldviews at different levels of depth.
Thank you!
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