wordpress.com seems to have a better interface for my lots-of-links posts.
please update : http://wordlimitreached.wordpress.com/
importing was a breeze!
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Whence the Social Sciences ? - 4: Sociology
Long time, yes, but I have not reneged on my promise to write something every week. Rather, writing has taken place in a different place. You can take a look at the appendix in this to find a more balanced argument regarding Utilitarianism in Economics, if you are inclined to actually to know something as esoteric. I was torn between writing this post or the factors for the rise of capitalism from my latest, exquisite reading, and finally settled down to write this, after keeping it in the pipeline for more than two weeks. Also, you will soon find Microeconomics notes appearing in 'different place', after reading all what Economics is not, thought it was time to read what it actually is. Warning, though, basic calculus required, the textbook I'm using is somewhat math-intensive. Macroeconomics, while probably more interesting for the stock market savant, will have to wait. Now, back.
Sociology has had an interesting life. Like the tussle between Capitalism and Socialism/Communism in the sibling discipline, sociology too has had its differences, notably between the liberal schools of the French and English and the German Romantics. (one thing though: the schools in economics agreed over the fact that unconstrained industrialization was the only way up, with the fight being as to who controls the means of production, i.e, the factories, whereas in sociology the divide was more fundamental, like what should sociology study)
The French and the English thinkers, notably Auguste Comte, Herbert Spencer and Emile Durkheim, were highly influenced by the Enlightenment, and sought to bring in scientific method into sociology. The Germans, notably Georg Simmel and Max Weber, strove to put the pre-eminence of Man in the study of sociology, i.e, society must be studied as a collection of individuals in relation to others. The west Europeans considered society to be an entity that existed independently from humans, and which followed it's own logic. The dialectic between these lines of thought has definitely left sociology a much richer subject.
Coming to the liberals, they sought to use the scientific method to discover the laws that govern the functioning of society, which was considered to be an extra-human entity, imposing it's will onto us poor humans. By this, they hopes, they could 'enlighten' the masses about the fact that 'Resistance is Futile', to quote a famous quote. Comte made it very clear that spirit of enquiry and free will are illusions and once people learn the laws of society, they will necessarily get rid of such notions, since trying to go against the laws of society would be equivalent to banging one's head against a brick wall. Needless to say, the others were not as militant in their views. Spencer used Darwinian notions of evolution (slightly before Darwin propounded them) to assert that society was the 'survival of the fittest'. This theory was a great hit in the United States, where Spencer became the patron saint of the cult of 'anything goes in love, war and business', who readily identified with what seemed to perfectly describe their society in the 19th century.
Durkheim stated that society was sui generis, and society could not be said to consist of individuals. However, sociology benefited by the stress on empiricism that the scientific method brought in, especially by Durkheim (who is considered the founder of modern sociology).
The Germans, influenced as much by Romanticism as by the Enlightenment, tended to stress on the individual more than the society, and how people influenced and were influenced by the set of all people. Though they developed generalizations as well, they were not all encompassing, everything-explaining theories, but were more of the form of a characterisation of the certain types of people or structures of groups of people that were encountered. Weber's methodology was very influential, and his influence continues to this day. The main contribution of these people was to stop the megalomania of people like Comte from seeping into what was supposed to be a objective scientific enquiry and set certain limits as to what sociology was meant to be.
Overall, if the Enlightenment removed Earth from the centre of the Universe, the sociology almost succeeded in putting Man in its centre.
Sociology has had an interesting life. Like the tussle between Capitalism and Socialism/Communism in the sibling discipline, sociology too has had its differences, notably between the liberal schools of the French and English and the German Romantics. (one thing though: the schools in economics agreed over the fact that unconstrained industrialization was the only way up, with the fight being as to who controls the means of production, i.e, the factories, whereas in sociology the divide was more fundamental, like what should sociology study)
The French and the English thinkers, notably Auguste Comte, Herbert Spencer and Emile Durkheim, were highly influenced by the Enlightenment, and sought to bring in scientific method into sociology. The Germans, notably Georg Simmel and Max Weber, strove to put the pre-eminence of Man in the study of sociology, i.e, society must be studied as a collection of individuals in relation to others. The west Europeans considered society to be an entity that existed independently from humans, and which followed it's own logic. The dialectic between these lines of thought has definitely left sociology a much richer subject.
Coming to the liberals, they sought to use the scientific method to discover the laws that govern the functioning of society, which was considered to be an extra-human entity, imposing it's will onto us poor humans. By this, they hopes, they could 'enlighten' the masses about the fact that 'Resistance is Futile', to quote a famous quote. Comte made it very clear that spirit of enquiry and free will are illusions and once people learn the laws of society, they will necessarily get rid of such notions, since trying to go against the laws of society would be equivalent to banging one's head against a brick wall. Needless to say, the others were not as militant in their views. Spencer used Darwinian notions of evolution (slightly before Darwin propounded them) to assert that society was the 'survival of the fittest'. This theory was a great hit in the United States, where Spencer became the patron saint of the cult of 'anything goes in love, war and business', who readily identified with what seemed to perfectly describe their society in the 19th century.
Durkheim stated that society was sui generis, and society could not be said to consist of individuals. However, sociology benefited by the stress on empiricism that the scientific method brought in, especially by Durkheim (who is considered the founder of modern sociology).
The Germans, influenced as much by Romanticism as by the Enlightenment, tended to stress on the individual more than the society, and how people influenced and were influenced by the set of all people. Though they developed generalizations as well, they were not all encompassing, everything-explaining theories, but were more of the form of a characterisation of the certain types of people or structures of groups of people that were encountered. Weber's methodology was very influential, and his influence continues to this day. The main contribution of these people was to stop the megalomania of people like Comte from seeping into what was supposed to be a objective scientific enquiry and set certain limits as to what sociology was meant to be.
Overall, if the Enlightenment removed Earth from the centre of the Universe, the sociology almost succeeded in putting Man in its centre.
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Review : Religion and Society among the Coorgs in South India
This book is written by one of the foremost social anthropologists in the world during his time, M. N. Srinivas as a Ph.D thesis. Working with the golden generation of anthropology in Britain during the 1940s, he readied the thesis for publication, under the influence of distinguished anthropologists, tracing a lineage back to Emile Durkheim.
As is probably expected of a person under Durkheim's considerable influence, Srinivas is preoccupied with the question of social structure, and how culture, which is the subject matter of anthropology, either affirms or is used to note the change of a person's place in the extant social structure. The Durkheimian concept of 'functional analysis' or the study of the functions of human behavior in preserving the social structure resonates throughout the book. However one may disagree with the conclusions drawn by Srinivas, the book provides a pretty thorough picture of an interesting people around the 1940s.
Srinivas' analysis of the social structure of India mainly focuses on the caste system, and certain vertical (i.e, geographically local) organisations, such as the village, family and nad, which is a cluster of villages. Certain ties between people, such as those of caste, tend to emphasize horizontal or geographically widespread relations whereas some others, like those which arise due to division of labor, tend to emphasize vertical relations.
Most of the book concentrates on the various rituals and customs and festivals of the Coorgs, and the role they and other castes play in them. He brings about an interesting correlation between the various customs and rituals, and how they emphasize and tend to preserve the social structure. For example, if a person dies, the mourning period for the relatives increases with increase in intimacy of the relationship shared with the deceased, formalizing what is a purely social bond into a custom or ritual.
People who know Kodavas will inevitably know their clannish behavior, especially with regards to their family (i.e, all sharing a surname). Srinivas spends a lot of time describing the structure and customs within a Coorg joint family, which is the strongest unit of organisation in the Coorg society, far more than any other kind. It is so strong, that a person without a family name (such as a child born out of wedlock) is as good as extinct. Therefore, family members usually try to place an illegitimate child in either parents' family.
The major theoritical contribution that this work makes to Indian anthropology is the concept of Sanskritisation, which is essentially the way outlying tribes and communities get absorbed into mainline Hinduism, which he calls Sanskritic Hinduism. He describes how the puranas have contributed to the inclusion of various local myths and folklore into the mainstream of Hinduism, performing has a dual function : regionalising Sanskritic Hinduism and globalising local cultures. This, he argues, is a preliminary step which eases the way for complete Sanskritisation of a culture, while retaining its distinct identity, since it's own deities are now part of or identified with Sanskritic such as Shiva or Brahma or Vishnu. He gives an example of how contemporary educated Coorgs tended to identify village gods with Shiva (Coorg was ruled by Lingayat kings for a considerable amount of time, so Shaivism was popular there when the book was written. This no longer seems to be the fact) and explained the deities' liking for liquor and meat as a consequence of 'losing their caste' while crossing over from Malabar to Coorg. He also documents the occurrence of the origins of Kaveri, a sacred river among Coorgs and generally most of South Indian Hindus, in the Skanda Purana, which eased the way for the integration of Coorgs into mainline Hinduism, since their river deity was now a part of the Hindu pantheon.
Overall, an interesting read, though the attention to detail which is an anthropologist's forte, tends to be tiresome for someone used to reading engineering definitions and terse prose. The analysis of Hinduism itself is rewarding enough to stick with the book till the end.
As is probably expected of a person under Durkheim's considerable influence, Srinivas is preoccupied with the question of social structure, and how culture, which is the subject matter of anthropology, either affirms or is used to note the change of a person's place in the extant social structure. The Durkheimian concept of 'functional analysis' or the study of the functions of human behavior in preserving the social structure resonates throughout the book. However one may disagree with the conclusions drawn by Srinivas, the book provides a pretty thorough picture of an interesting people around the 1940s.
Srinivas' analysis of the social structure of India mainly focuses on the caste system, and certain vertical (i.e, geographically local) organisations, such as the village, family and nad, which is a cluster of villages. Certain ties between people, such as those of caste, tend to emphasize horizontal or geographically widespread relations whereas some others, like those which arise due to division of labor, tend to emphasize vertical relations.
Most of the book concentrates on the various rituals and customs and festivals of the Coorgs, and the role they and other castes play in them. He brings about an interesting correlation between the various customs and rituals, and how they emphasize and tend to preserve the social structure. For example, if a person dies, the mourning period for the relatives increases with increase in intimacy of the relationship shared with the deceased, formalizing what is a purely social bond into a custom or ritual.
People who know Kodavas will inevitably know their clannish behavior, especially with regards to their family (i.e, all sharing a surname). Srinivas spends a lot of time describing the structure and customs within a Coorg joint family, which is the strongest unit of organisation in the Coorg society, far more than any other kind. It is so strong, that a person without a family name (such as a child born out of wedlock) is as good as extinct. Therefore, family members usually try to place an illegitimate child in either parents' family.
The major theoritical contribution that this work makes to Indian anthropology is the concept of Sanskritisation, which is essentially the way outlying tribes and communities get absorbed into mainline Hinduism, which he calls Sanskritic Hinduism. He describes how the puranas have contributed to the inclusion of various local myths and folklore into the mainstream of Hinduism, performing has a dual function : regionalising Sanskritic Hinduism and globalising local cultures. This, he argues, is a preliminary step which eases the way for complete Sanskritisation of a culture, while retaining its distinct identity, since it's own deities are now part of or identified with Sanskritic such as Shiva or Brahma or Vishnu. He gives an example of how contemporary educated Coorgs tended to identify village gods with Shiva (Coorg was ruled by Lingayat kings for a considerable amount of time, so Shaivism was popular there when the book was written. This no longer seems to be the fact) and explained the deities' liking for liquor and meat as a consequence of 'losing their caste' while crossing over from Malabar to Coorg. He also documents the occurrence of the origins of Kaveri, a sacred river among Coorgs and generally most of South Indian Hindus, in the Skanda Purana, which eased the way for the integration of Coorgs into mainline Hinduism, since their river deity was now a part of the Hindu pantheon.
Overall, an interesting read, though the attention to detail which is an anthropologist's forte, tends to be tiresome for someone used to reading engineering definitions and terse prose. The analysis of Hinduism itself is rewarding enough to stick with the book till the end.
Friday, October 19, 2007
Travelogue - The Timbaktu Collective
Like I had mentioned in the previous post, am just back from a visit to a place close to Dharmavaram in Andhra Pradesh, called the Timbaktu Collective. It's beginnings and philisophy are best read about on the website itself, will just narrate my experiences there.After 2 hours by train to Bangalore and 5 hours of navigating somewhat substandard roads to Chennekothapalli, was picked up and packed off for some lunch at the school run by the Collective here.
The school has an interesting philosophy of no competition and no extracurricu
lars. No competition would mean no grading and exams and rankings, student progress is monitored via worksheets that they fill up regularly. No extracurriculars simply means that everything is in curriculum! They have daily crafts, singing and other arts, sports and studies which mainly focus on language and math. Their idea is that if a student masters a language well, then learning knowledge in that language will be facilitated. Most of the students here are from socially and economically backward backgrounds, and some with a history of family violence and others who have been rejected as failures in the local government school.This is the only school that I have seen that actually encourages making paper rock
ets in class! The picture alongside is the classroom, The students being engaged in their song and dance practice.Close by is a children's learning centre, with a well furnished library, computers, tailoring machines, physics and chemistry labs, woodworking tools which the children not only of their own school, but the local government school as well can use. The only restriction is that there is no teaching here, if the students have doubts, they ask the elders present, else they essentially freak out in what which way they like.
Timbaktu is slightly outside the village, and the person you see with the vehicle in the children's learning centre, Mr. Subba Raju was my official guide and contact. A member of the Collective almost since its inception, he is a PhD in Power Systems from IIT Powai, and takes care of the educational initiatives here.
Playground, with a scenic view.
The reason I had visited Timbaktu was to demo a motion sensor based lighting system, like what is available commercially nowadays. They have installed LED based pathway lighting, which is left on the whole night. Considering that they run the whole Collective on solar power, anything that can cut consumption is welcome, and hence my proposal.
This is Subba Raju's house in Timbaktu. Like everything else in Timbaktu, a
ppropriate to the social, economic and environmental conditions found in this area, which boasts of being one of the driest places in Andhra Pradesh, with annual rainfall of 300mm. We reached at around 5 PM, and spent the rest of the evening demoing the system, as well as discussing LED lighting. After a great dinner which was well suited to my tastes (salty, not too spicy), talked a bit about how civilization is progressing and other miscellaneous heavy matters, and dropped off by round 10 PM to rest.Another incredible initiative of
the Collective has been the protection and regeneration of the forests around. The forests have been severely degraded due to forest fires, over grazing and wood-cutting. 15 years of protection have allowed Nature to regenerate the forests, unlike Forest Dept initiatives to bring in fast growing varieties from nurseries and plant them in foreign conditions. The contrast can be seen in the following photos. One is of a hill which is not protected and the other which is. Timbaktu takes care of an area of about 100 acres of forest, and supported an initiative of join
t village ownership of forests on revenue wastelands which spans a mind-boggling 10,000 hectares. These forests have made streams perennial, revitalized the economy of artisans and forest produce harvesters as well as providing the local animals with shelter.I left back for the other kind of reality the next day morning. On the whole, a very refreshing experience, with the added bonus of a kilo of really tasty chutney powder which was made that morning. Timbaktu is an interesting experiment to seek alternate forms of social organisation which are not necessarily parasitic upon the surrounding ecology. Though it will remain an experiment for atleast a few more decades, time will come when the lessons learnt here will be taken seriously by 'advanced' civilizations such as ours. Their entire outlook can be summarised by the next photo. As you might have guessed, this is the same stone that says 'Welcome to Timbaktu'. You will see this on the way back.
Thursday, October 18, 2007
A fine example...
... of human creativity breaking the boundaries of formal planning. This was on a train (Jaipur Mysore Express) from Dharmavaram to Mysore, more on that trip later. The woman, a Rajasthani, was extremely hesistant to get her picture taken, hence the face covering. Had to take the picture against her wishes :)
How watertight can we be ?
Was reading a book that I previously mentioned, about an introduction to the notable sociologists from when the term was coined. Among one of the greatest among these was undoubtedly Max Weber, and a small section of the chapter devoted to him talks about his prophecies of doom, that social organisation would tend to more and more rational organisation in terms of efficiency, run by a scientifically guided bureaucracy.
Thankfully, we do not yet live in an age where managers rule every aspect of our lives, from what we eat to who we sleep with. Though it is obvious that an efficient bureaucracy will lead to maximally efficient organisation of human productive output, it is far from obvious that that is what people want, and far less obvious whether it can really be implemented.
An incident narrated by a friend working in a company in Bangalore comes to mind. A romantically involved couple, both working for the same company, were said to be seen smooching in the office. Now, the reaction was one of complete disbelief and shock at how unprofessional people can be. Looking at it from the other side, can one not question as to why a person in love (with what/who ever) cannot show her/his affection where and when one feels ? The answer would be that the office is a place to act in a certain way, and there are unwritten codes of conduct which govern osculatory behaviour here. Why are certain modes of behaviour permissible and others unprofessional ? Because they cause a disturbance, a distraction from the normal activity of efficient production ? While it definitely not my intention to condone smooching in corridors and cubicles, it is definitely my intention to question why any person is required to curb certain parts of her personality. It is hard to see how such an environment would help in formation of a well rounded personality. Also, one finds a tinge of hypocrisy in such attitudes. One is told not to bring home worries into work and vice versa, but one never hears about people told to leave their happiness at home and wear a surly mask at the workplace. Certain things which are beneficial to production are always welcome, the rest, please excuse, please.
Romantic escapades apart, there are many instances of companies cutting employees off the Internet, and similar restrictions in the name of 'distractions'. But employees find creative ways to overcome such things where possible, and a purely machine-like worker will hardly ever surface. To the horror of the top brass, people seem to want to waste time in idle chatting, gossip, tales of woe, trip discussions and many other such uneconomic behavior (I almost forgot the coffee machine ;). Nowadays, many companies seem to have recognized (or resigned to) the fact that people do not enter the office in the morning just to work continuously for 8 hours and then get back to their normal lives, and provide a much more liberal atmosphere, where one gets an opportunity to explore other aspects of social behavior and grouping. Far from Max Weber's tight bureaucratic dystopia, bureaucracy now seems to recognize human inability to divide space and time into watertight compartments, each requiring a kind of behavior that provides maximum efficiency to the task at hand.
Similar to the managerial expectations and frustrations, are our own wishes that sometimes go unfulfilled. We would like a park to be neat and clean and we end up seeing beggars and homeless bums in them. We would like our roads to be clean and free from disturbances but find religious processions and bales of ragi put out for drying. We wish to watch movies undisturbed but end up covering our ears against the cat calls as soon as Bipasha comes onscreen. We want our footpaths wide and safe, but end up walking on the road due to the sudden appearance of a temple overnight on the footpath. Just like human behavior, his cultural creations overflow and confound the best laid plans of the urban planners and middle class.
Just as we want to do things 'our way', so do so many others. About time we recognized and respect the non-watertightness that is so natural in the world.
Thankfully, we do not yet live in an age where managers rule every aspect of our lives, from what we eat to who we sleep with. Though it is obvious that an efficient bureaucracy will lead to maximally efficient organisation of human productive output, it is far from obvious that that is what people want, and far less obvious whether it can really be implemented.
An incident narrated by a friend working in a company in Bangalore comes to mind. A romantically involved couple, both working for the same company, were said to be seen smooching in the office. Now, the reaction was one of complete disbelief and shock at how unprofessional people can be. Looking at it from the other side, can one not question as to why a person in love (with what/who ever) cannot show her/his affection where and when one feels ? The answer would be that the office is a place to act in a certain way, and there are unwritten codes of conduct which govern osculatory behaviour here. Why are certain modes of behaviour permissible and others unprofessional ? Because they cause a disturbance, a distraction from the normal activity of efficient production ? While it definitely not my intention to condone smooching in corridors and cubicles, it is definitely my intention to question why any person is required to curb certain parts of her personality. It is hard to see how such an environment would help in formation of a well rounded personality. Also, one finds a tinge of hypocrisy in such attitudes. One is told not to bring home worries into work and vice versa, but one never hears about people told to leave their happiness at home and wear a surly mask at the workplace. Certain things which are beneficial to production are always welcome, the rest, please excuse, please.
Romantic escapades apart, there are many instances of companies cutting employees off the Internet, and similar restrictions in the name of 'distractions'. But employees find creative ways to overcome such things where possible, and a purely machine-like worker will hardly ever surface. To the horror of the top brass, people seem to want to waste time in idle chatting, gossip, tales of woe, trip discussions and many other such uneconomic behavior (I almost forgot the coffee machine ;). Nowadays, many companies seem to have recognized (or resigned to) the fact that people do not enter the office in the morning just to work continuously for 8 hours and then get back to their normal lives, and provide a much more liberal atmosphere, where one gets an opportunity to explore other aspects of social behavior and grouping. Far from Max Weber's tight bureaucratic dystopia, bureaucracy now seems to recognize human inability to divide space and time into watertight compartments, each requiring a kind of behavior that provides maximum efficiency to the task at hand.
Similar to the managerial expectations and frustrations, are our own wishes that sometimes go unfulfilled. We would like a park to be neat and clean and we end up seeing beggars and homeless bums in them. We would like our roads to be clean and free from disturbances but find religious processions and bales of ragi put out for drying. We wish to watch movies undisturbed but end up covering our ears against the cat calls as soon as Bipasha comes onscreen. We want our footpaths wide and safe, but end up walking on the road due to the sudden appearance of a temple overnight on the footpath. Just like human behavior, his cultural creations overflow and confound the best laid plans of the urban planners and middle class.
Just as we want to do things 'our way', so do so many others. About time we recognized and respect the non-watertightness that is so natural in the world.
Monday, October 15, 2007
Interesting comic
This comic caught the eye, coming coincidentally at round the same time I was griping about scientific method :)
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