Wednesday, December 2, 2009

Linguocracy: Fable One

Once upon a time, a woman put her elbows on her dining table and was asked to remove them and  be cultured.
 
“Cultured?”, she said, “If it’s my ancestors culture you are speaking of, I believe they didn’t eat on tables, so their elbows weren’t governed by any rules. If it’s my part of the world you referred to, most people eat sitting on the floor. If it’s your culture you want me to follow, give me one good reason I should. If it’s the culture of the dominant races, perhaps the nations that had colonized my community in the past, then I should reject your advise on principle. If you’re asserting that believing in this sort of culture makes you superior, then you’re unbelievably elitist. If culture is exclusively your property, then what do you call lifestyles of other communities? If the act of keeping your elbows off the table has been historically relevant, it doesn’t show me how it’s relevant today.”

Because you think you're always right

One of the most important lessons I’ve learned from having studied all sorts of political science in the last five years, and from living in one of the world’s most multicultural and diverse democracies for over two decades is the importance of keeping your ears open.


There’s a lot in this world you don’t want to hear. But there’s a lot you’re saying that no one else wants to hear either. So the only way out is for both of you ask each other to tea and listen more than you’ve spent your life saying.


Feminists need to talk to most bigoted, conservative chauvinists. If they don’t face each other, all they’re doing is handing out fliers on sidewalks.


Gandhians need to talk to governments waging war. And here’s the trick. They need to open their ears and listen to why war is justified.


 The staunchest freedom loving liberals need to listen to why social regulation and market intervention have advocates.


 All those who know for a fact that the world needs to be demilitarized, or that everyone in society must have equal opportunity, or that philanthropy is a virtue, should, in my opinion, do a little research on deterrence, differentiated rights and the merits of not being responsible for your own community.


We’ve reached a point where our function in society has reduced to championing our worldviews, instead of questioning them every now and then. Think about the last time you were wrong about something and what made you change your mind. And given that particular experience, what makes you think you’re absolutely right about every Goddamned issue in the world now?


The moment I get too fixated on the validity of something, I want to run to the first person who has a diametrically opposed Weltenschaaung from my own. And believe me; you learn a lot more from interacting with people who think differently, than you would from hobnobbing with those who are ideological clones.
This is not about tolerance, or cooperation, or democracy or an equal opportunity. It’s about genuinely expanding yourself. I advocate this as a purely selfish exercise. I’m going to listen to someone who disagrees with me, not in a condescending way, just to prove that I’m very tolerant to diversity. I’m going to listen because there may be something I’ve overlooked while I was so busy cementing my stands.