Friday, July 12, 2013

the on-the-bench- attitude

Some people have the uncanny narcissist ability to make mockery of their ignorance too. This, they do , by openly, blatantly admitting their ignorance once there conceit is defeated by the light of a newly exposed knowledge. The trick of Narcissist source, now, is to call the light of knowledge as 'Mr White', 'mr know-all', 'you know it more, don't you', etc. The absence of humility , politeness, is a mark of pleasure being derived from ridiculing what had just dried up their 'Narcissist Source of pleasure' from the prevailing ignorance. There is an 'on the bench' attitude.

Thursday, June 13, 2013

Types of reasonings

Reasoning can be non-critical, normative , positivist and so many.
    To a question such as 'why should we drive on the left side of the road' , some people may give reasoning such as 'because that is the requirement of law'. This is a non-critical reasoning where the reasoning being given is itself not explaining the cause but only stretching farther our reach from the causation.
     Some may give the reasoning that keeping on left side of the road will all the traffic in the same direction along the same line, thereby avoiding the cross-traffic. This is normative, where he is explaining 'what is ought to be', i.e., what is desired to be. Does it explain to us why the choice of 'left side' over the 'right side' to achieve what is desired?
      There can be reasoning of how in the historical perspective the design of the car in the early days lead to choice of left side over the right side. However this positivist, based on facts. But it misses out the legal requirement and the desires, the purposes.

Tuesday, April 16, 2013

the faulted criticism of education system in India

     Fallacies pertaining to Linguistics and Philosophy have very frequently and deeply permeated the criticism work on Education system in India. When our faulted critic talks of freedom in education system, he mistakes away the freedom with "freedom to not to study". Although Right to Education is a highly criticized article of the UN Decl of Human Rights, but such a criticism on this article of UNDHR cannot be brought into relevance and play when the Criticism of Education system itself is the issue. Obviously because the criticism of Education System cannot logically amount to mean that people should not be forced to undergo a schooling; the criticism has to restrain itself only to highlight what is not right with the present education system.
     This aspect of logic has a been a very significant cause of problem with the Critics, such as Shri Anupam Kher, when they worked in movies such as "Paathshala" and "F.A.L.T.U", or even "3 Idiots".
       Anti-educationism is not a logically worth criticism of Education System.
      Can the learning process ever be detached away from books, reading and writing? A man surely 'learns' from his own mistake, but does that process of learning also mean 'education', that which can be reasoned as a 'intended action to bring in some desired and planned change in human behaviour'. learning from own mistake is an accidental learning and cannot contribute to the development of society, because each individual will have to keep doing the same sets of mistakes again in each generation to learn from its own mistakes. Such a learning is personalised learning of the individual from his personal upliftment, the social and collective upliftment of humans through its generation will be a negated aspect in such a learning.
    Therefore, learning has to come about through learning from books or whatever process which upholds study of the compilation of knowledge in some form or the other. This will mean that a collection of worthwhile knowledge in each field will have to be created , collection of the individualised learning of the people from the past who had "learned something from their own mistakes", and then such a collection be given the noun called "books". The faulted critics have focused to hard on having the education 'freed' from the books, calling it by references and names such as "books worms", "bookish knowledge", "book knowledge is not everything", etc. Perhaps the critics should have emphasised on the correct philosophical meaning of what is a Book and discuss the limitations of book-learning instead of name-calling all the books.
            Listen to beautiful and soulful song from movie '3 idiots', "behati hawa sa tha woh, udati patang sa tha woh..". The songs surely calls for "freedom" when it calls references of blowing wind, flying kites, et al. But is the relevance of "freedom" in education correctly understood by our dear the faulted 'critics of Education system in India'. Isn't freedom in the political and social context mis-represented in this song, thereby imparting, however unwittingly, the wrong meaning of Freedom (in the political and social context), to its listeners.
           Can students and learning ever be separated away from discipline aspect which is required by one to impose on himself to acquire understanding of the complex topics in natural science ? The what sort of 'freedom' was the worthy criticism of Education system ? To answer to this question, references will have to be drawn from ancient times when the Education system was just beginning to find birth in human societies. In "3 Idiots", the character of Aamir Khan simply roams around in the campus with his hands slipped in the pockets, and yet coming 'first' in all the subjects? How casually , simplistically and "easily" have they portrayed 'freedom' to be the winner, dumping the relevance of self-discipline, hard-work, all that is traditionally understood to be mandatory for a scholar. Some of the learning process have to come around only when humans have luxury and freedom to think it out on their own accord those aspects of nature and natural sciences, but the context of "freedom" is about the freedom of individual level, constrained through a self-imposed discipline and hard-work. Freedom from social obligations is not to correct meaning of freedom in this reference , that a teacher Mr "Virus" can be fooled off so simplistically.
          In ancient times, when philosophers such as Aristotle were laying the first stones of what would become Educations System when centuries later, the criticism and debates had rolled off between charity teachers such as Aristotle, and Money-oriented teachers who were opposed to Aristotle's belief of "education is a must for the upliftment of human race , so it should be given away free to everyone". The beginning of commercialised education had found existence at that very moment when Education system was founded. And then, the rise of 'profression education' was a posteriori to Commercial teaching. Against this charity teaching of Aristotle could not find as many "scholastic learning" students. Although the aspect of expansion of human advancement has been that most of the new researches have come from the non-profressional learners, who did their work out of hobby, or simply the love of learnining something. From Newton, to Darwin, to Einstein, the names of be to many more such 'learners'. The criticism of "professional" purpose learners was about not having "freedom" to work in their own direction , in researching and trying new things but simply doing away with what have been acquired from the money-oriented commercialised teachers.