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Saturday, May 11, 2013

Re: [mukto-mona] Link between Racism and Stupidity



For Mr. Shome and others who have been commenting on this topic in this forum lately, I would say that a lot of otherwise brilliant people have stupidic compartments in their brains.
 
Belief structures that are kept beyond questioning are necessarily stupidity and contrary to intelligence.
 
As for Big B's thoughts on women, this kind of thoughts is deeply ingrained in many societies of the world. It takes intelligent and caring minds to challenge this kind of prevailing thoughts. Accepting this old societal norm is certainly not as bad as accepting two women's testimonies to be equal to one man's testimony in a court of law. However, an intelligent and fair world would certainly stop this kind of norms; and many countries of the world have progressed quite significantly in this regard.
 
Obviously, no society would change fast by natural evolution. Good changes would come from and be led by only a fraction, the better minds, of the society. That is why I feel too frustrated to see otherwise brilliant people in some societies who keep some compartments in their brains too stupidic, mostly due to religious beliefs.
 
Sukhamaya Bain
 
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From: saurav shome <shomesaurav@gmail.com>
To: mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Thursday, May 9, 2013 1:30 AM
Subject: Re: [mukto-mona] Link between Racism (samprodayikota) and Stupidity
 
Hi,

I have some reservations regarding the definition of intelligence and tools used by the researchers in this study. These studies are designed to find "co-variance" and we need not to take them as "co-relation".

Further the tools used for measuring intelligence is highly controversial for several reasons. One safe conclusion would be, these tools at the best can find limited evidences on a particular aspect of intelligence. Intelligence is highly context specific. There are studies on these aspects (Barbara Rogoff and others).

Another point is, our behaviour and attitude is guided by our belief structure rather than our knowledge or intelligence. Now knowledge is part of belief or belief is part of knowledge, that is something we can discuss. Our belief structure is very complex, personal and difficult to change unless they are challenged. Challenge means creating a cognitive conflict (Piagetian view).

For example, yesterday I was watching an Interview of Amitabh Bachchan. He made a point that women's first priority is taking care of her home. Once she completes her domestic work she can do anything she wants to do. She should not be domesticated by the male. She has been created to do household work, take care of children and other family members and it is her pride to do so. And no one should take away her rights.

People can find rational arguments as well as irrational arguments in this piece of conversation. Is it reflecting intelligence alone? No, I think it is something more than intelligence, it obscures your "rationality". The reason would be, every rational argument is based on some basic premises and you can not challenge those premises (mostly, those are not based on empirical evidences). And these premises are mostly personal construct and not necessarily unique. Sometimes challenging those premises in isolation would result more despair than any desired change.

And these desired changes must come from shared goals and vision.  It is a process of social deliberations. Entire education system need to be structured to attain this shared goal. Obviously no goal should be fixed as absolute but required to evaluate and let them evolve with time. Probably, strong political will is required to bring any change.

Finally, it is a complex task and we need to re-define "rationality" and poses cognitive challenges to each other. It would be an interesting task to challenge each other !!!!!!!!!!!

Thanking you.

With best regards,

Saurav 

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On Thu, May 9, 2013 at 5:54 AM, Sukhamaya Bain <subain1@yahoo.com> wrote:
Pretty common sense finding. I generally use a phrase "religious stupidity and hatred" in the Bangladeshi context. We can certainly extrapolate that to "all kinds of hatred by ordinary people are due to stupidity." Note that I said "ordinary people." People who exploit the stupidity and hatred in ordinary people are generally not stupid. They are corrupt and do gain personally by exploiting the stupidity of ordinary people.
 
From a Bangladeshi context, when I see too much of religious stupidity in a Ph.D. degree holder, it bothers me too much. Because, that example generally propagates hatred (due to stupidity) among many other ordinary people. And the vicious cycle of hatred, exploitation of hatred, and sufferings for innocent humanity continues.
 
Sukhamaya Bain
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-- Saurav ShomeResearch ScholarHomi Bhabha Centre for Science EducationTata Institute of Fundamental ResearchV. N. Purav MargMankhurd, Mumbai, India, 400 088shomesaurav@gmail.com, saurav@hbcse.tifr.res.inhttp://www.sauravpeace.wordpress.com/http://www.continuinglearning2teach.wordpress.com/http://www.pblteachers.wordpress.com/Phone: (O) 022 - 25072220 (M) + 91 - 9969872306


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