12 - Empathy and Fundamentalism

On Empathy and Fundamentalism

The following is based on an account I wrote to a professor of psychology, and dwells on two topics: one relates to efforts for inculcating an empathetic attitude in children and the other to religious fundamentalism. 

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Thus far, I read only the abstract of the article, but as I read it, I gained the feeling that the right kind of teacher-group (equally, parent-children) interaction would be far more effective in inculcating empathy in children than any kind of gadgets.  For example, asking one kid in a group setting about the meaning of what was said by another, and dissecting the whys, whats, etc, of that statement, while the colleagues listen actively.  This way, youngsters would learn to focus on the actual meaning of what was being said rather than jumping to the first conclusion that pops to one’s mind, in which case each is likely to reach a different conclusion that doesn’t have much in common with the speaker’s actual intentions – since we interpret the world based on info bases in our own brains, which are different for each person; the situation also being made worse by semantics, each word or expression having multiple or shades of meanings.  This kind of exercises would lead to forming in children the habit of focusing on what is being said, which in most cases would also involve asking clarifying questions about “what is meant.”  Of course, meaning would involve feelings and emotions, which are integral to communication.  Understanding another person as fully as possible is the essence of empathy.  What is required therefore are classroom interactions that would help make this kind of thinking an ingrained habit in children, or an “attitude,” so to speak! 

I’m also more optimistic on the religious front, on which you seem to be depressed, with justification, I admit.  This is particularly true given what we see on current news.  But if we understand the underlying factors of the issue that is seemingly complex, potential prospects don’t lend to despair; for on the one hand, we do have a realistic understanding of the nature of the problem (see the second part of the post titled “2 – “Education and Fundamentalism”) and on the other, we know the path to a lasting solution, which is implicit in my writings in general, given the nature of the problem just cited (see also below).  What is really despairing, for me at least, is the lack of action on the part of the world academics/educators, who are in fact blocking the path to progress, even if unwittingly – see the boxed account on the short post titled "7 – Two Methods of Science."  (Please read the writings again – I’m attaching the full set as PDF docs to help, as they will be easier to read than a webpage; they can also be selectively emailed to colleagues, if you desire so.  But the webpage articles in general would have some additional details that are missing in the PDF docs, given the limits imposed by the latter's page size; PDF docs would nevertheless cover the topics in adequate detail and thus have not been compromised.)

There are at least two more ways towards understanding the nature of the problem and the path to a solution, besides what is in the specific pieces cited here.  One is through the outcomes of implementing the “attitude” program mentioned above, supplemented with the theoretical basics of both communication and associated psychology, second part of the program, which has been elaborated in numerous locations in the writings, in particular the post titled "4 – Reason for Sending My Writings."  Equipped with both an attitude to inquire into what one hears or reads about and tools to analyze it, a generation versed with the program will not be so submissive and swallow any nonsense thrown at it in its social environment.  We know how inquisitive children are and how, as they grow up, that innate characteristic is hammered into submission by societal norms and convention; this is particularly true in view of the naturally increasing burdens of living.  Individuals in current societies are not thus equipped and it is easy to conform them into societal straight-jackets.  I believe that a generation equipped with the right attitude and tools to go with it will fare much better.  It is also heartening that people’s perceptions in general have much improved over the decades.  But sadly, current generations are more on the rebellious side than are equipped with an understanding of the nature of the world to be able to formulate a balanced philosophy of life.  This, again, is an outcome of flawed education – see the footnote of my email, which became the attached PDF doc labelled “11 – Cover Note.” 

A second way to understand the situation is to look at it through the lens of “Social Judgement Theory,” with its latitudes of “rejection,” “non-commitment,” and “acceptance.”  Given that we make sense of the world based on the information bases in our brains, is it any wonder that the Moslem fundamentalists, for example, whose knowledge is based solely on what they have rote-learnt from centuries old religious texts, are unable to think with any sense of rationality about issues in our fast-changing, complex world?  The situation is further aggravated by the distortions that have happened to the “religious” teachings on which they rely so heavily.  The result is that their perceptions of “religion” have little realistic basis – see the second part of the post “2 – Education and Fundamentalism,” referred to above. 

[Parenthetically, it would be interesting for you to know that I have a solid religious background.  It is tradition in the Maldives that children are taught to read the Koran (rote-learning, without understanding the meaning, as the book is in Arabic) and associated prayers.  Fortunately, I was sent to Egypt to study religion at Al-Azhar (check Wikipedia) given that I did well in school.  I was a good student in Egypt as well and progressed rather quickly, and, although I rebelled and built a science foundation and studied architecture in another university (Ain Shams) in Cairo, I do have a very good grounding in both Arabic and Islam.  Thus when I speak of Islamic fundamentalism, I have solid and authentic knowledge of what I’m talking about.] 

Given this state of affairs – the fact that their whole information base is centuries old, and a distorted one at that – we have to look at the situation through their eyes, call it empathy if you will, and interpret what we see on the daily media about their behaviour in that light.  This is the same as viewing the behaviour of a wild animal in the light of “its nature,” or, for that matter, viewing behaviour of your forefathers when they went about subjugating the rest of the world to their domination – in case of north America, wiping a continent of its people and calling it home.  (This example is not meant to embarrass you, but only to drive the point home.)  Those who go about genocides have a parallel mindset: for them, their victims are not human.  An example to similar effect was described by Alain de Botton in Consolations of Philosophy about the way Spaniards looked at the natives of what is now Latin America – subhuman, even if not entirely non-human.  (Later examples of such mindsets include: the Nazi treatment of the Jews, the Serbian treatment of Bosnian Moslems, and the mindset underlying the Rwandan genocide.) 

Thus if what we see on the media are manifestations of the mindset of religious fundamentalists, and if we want to improve the situation, the solution leaps forth – change their mindset!  This can be achieved by the proposals of my writings – in fact as a by-product of their original purpose, namely, enabling and enhancing effective societal interaction processes or communication.  At least it is the first of two parts to a viable solution.  (This first part aims at the next generation while the second part aims at active adults.)  The second part was alluded to in the first of three boxed accounts at the end of the post titled "1 – Introduction."  I don't want to go into the details of it for now, in part because not everything is clear in my own mind and also that such understanding would call for a deep knowledge of the tenets and history of Islam, which I don't think you have.  But there is an aspect that you will understand – the psychology associated with their behaviour, which plays a central and pivotal role in transforming ordinary Moslems into diehard fanatics.  (I believe that this is about the same kind of process thru which unrelenting socio-psychological pressures transform susceptible but otherwise normal people into schizophrenics – or those with equivalent social pathologies.)  

In all, we do have a clear understanding of not only the nature the problem but the path to a viable and lasting solution.  But as I mentioned above, it is your colleagues, world academics/educators, who form the obstacle blocking forward movement.  Unlike a few academics/educators like you, the majority of them are not even interested in thinking about the problem, let alone striving to achieve a solution; they are largely content to be engrossed in their mundane daily routines or pet projects!***  Just last night, a full professor in the education department of your own university requested removal of his name from my mailing list.  After crossing out his name and address on my mailing list and while informing of the fact, I wrote the following in the reply email: “It’s a pity that a full professor of education like you has no interest in an education-related problem that has devastating impacts on humanity at large, which includes Canadians”; emphasis added.  

Luckily, I anticipated this tendency at the outset, for it was part of the reason why I cast such a wide net – sending my writings to some 35,000 academics/educators in 103 universities in 22 nations.  [A second part of the reason relates to the logic of networks: if one wants to propagate an idea to a large number of people and in a hurry, one needs to seed widespread nodes and and their gatekeepers with the idea.  A third part of the reason has to do with stealing of one’s ideas by others and claiming them to be theirs and depriving one of the credit one deserves; I saw this vital for two reasons: i) the global positive potential of the ideas of my writings, and ii) my first-hand experience of it while in Hawaii after graduate studies – a professor at a UHM department plagiarized original ideas of my masters thesis, claiming them to be his own; my response (in 1992) was to make copies of the thesis and send them to libraries that would carry material related to the development of small island states (focus of my thesis): two at the UHM, one in ANU in Australia, and one at the University of South Pacific in Fiji – so that people would be aware of where the ideas originated.]  

Notwithstanding the downsides, I’m happy to report that, although most recipients of my writings were not responsive for one reason or another, there are quite a number of people, mostly senior – again, as I expected – who are in fact interested, from all over the world: USA, France, Germany, Canada, Britain, Sweden, Belgium, Netherlands, Italy, Austria, Switzerland, and others, and to my surprise, from nations to which I was unable to send emails, including Russia, Ukraine, Poland, Romania, Spain, Portugal, Turkey, China, India, Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, Peru, Chile, South Korea, and Vietnam.  So may be we’ll get somewhere after all!  I hope it will be sooner rather than later.
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***  They don't seem to be interested in the "big picture," where their own professions fit in the larger scheme of things – typical of the inductive, as opposed to deductive, mindset.  That is to say, by a little amateurish speculation, that the vast majority of people can handle only limited issues; they don't have the capability to handle complex issues with a large number of variables to create coherent synthesis – which in turn relates to their modes of thinking and propensities for information processing, or linear thinking vs multidimensional thinking, all of which would vary over time, and significantly so for some people, depending on the kind of use to which one puts one's brain; this latter is a finding of recent neurological research, from which had emerged the generic mantra "use it or loose it."  But given this reality, it won't be quite correct to say that most of those people are just "not interested," period; it would be more accurate to say that they don't have what it takes "to get it," and because they “don’t get it,” that they also would not be commensurately interested.  We've an old saying in the Maldives, "You can't squeeze from something what isn’t in it."  I had been at the receiving end of this philosophy when I was a student of architecture some 40 years ago: our then head of department reputedly would, in his final-year design classes, pass those who he thought were working hard enough although they many not have the talent, but he'd put a hard squeeze on those who he thought had potential but were not delivering.  Perhaps this is also true for graduate programs, so that those who had "worked hard" would crawl up the "status ladder," though they my not have what it takes to live up to the expectations of their positions – thus there are professors and there are professors, or as claims another adage of ours, "Five fingers are not equal," or to hijack George Orwell, "Some are more equal than others."  If this is true, it is natural that those who are "not so equal" and who would form the bulk of the lot, are likely to drag down progress, and society, along the lines suggested by Francis Galton, who coined the term "regression" in statistics science – "towards mediocrity"; "stagnation" is another word descriptive of the phenomenon.  The minority who "do get" would therefore have a moral responsibility thrust upon them that is far beyond their fair share of the burden.  But then, who said the world is fair?  

11 - Cover Note

Cover Note

Email Being Sent to World Academics/Educators with PDF Print of “A Summary …”

(For the Benefit of Those Readers to Whom I Don’t Have Email Access)

Greetings for a Happy New Year 2015! 

Attached is a summary of the ideas explored in the writings I sent you over the past two-and-half years or so about a global problem that significantly impacts human wellbeing for the worse. 

Thesis of the writings was that while our ability to understand the world and interact with others is dependant on information bases in our brains, they are largely unique to individuals, and thus that there is no adequate common ground for people to smoothly interact among themselves for optimal, or even satisfactory, societal functioning.  The writings suggested an effective but a partial solution to the problem through a small but vital modification to the world basic education system – a partial solution since a comprehensive one is virtually impossible given the nature of the functioning of the human brain (see also “1 – Introduction”) and will be effective for future generations rather than the present one. 

While there are numerous areas that are in need of urgent improvement in the world education system, most importantly regarding the purpose of education in today’s complex world (the current system is the outcome of haphazard incremental tinkering over historical time to already flawed entities in futile efforts to meet ever increasing societal demands, but has not kept pace and is thus hindering to human wellbeing, not to mention progress),*** the writings have, by and large, kept the focus on the crucial problem area mentioned, given its widespread devastating impacts on humanity at large. 

I hope you find the summary and this email helpful in putting in perspective the ideas in the writings and the education scene in general.

Yours faithfully,

Rifat Afeef (from the Maldives)

***  In my opinion, much of the societal problems can be traced to flawed education – the designers of the system tend to be unaware of the crucial need to cater for broader societal goals (primary suggestion of my writings deals with only one of them; societal values that are consistent with today's complex world form a second group), which leads policy makers to try to cope, using mostly knee-jerk measures, with the massive and pervasive consequences of the oversight of that most fundamental aspect. 
  

10 - A Summary ...

A Summary …

Based on Excerpt from My Recently Updated Résumé 

  

October 1997 – To-date

The direction of my thinking had totally changed following an insight of earthshaking proportions that I gained in 1997 and expanded and perfected since, and, coupled with my ongoing experience in the development setting of the Maldives, I had come to the conclusion that development efforts would be largely in vain without overcoming, or at the very least minimizing, the massive ill effects of the problem underlying that insight.⁽¹⁾   Consequently, my subsequent work had been directed towards that end.  The essence of that problem is that while our ability to understand the world and interact with others is dependent on the information bases in our brains, they are largely unique to each individual and, as a result, that there is no adequate common ground for people to smoothly interact among themselves for optimal, or even satisfactory, societal functioning.(2)  To make matters worse, people do not have a clue that such a problem even exists.  The ramifications of the problem would therefore have devastating global impacts and make it arguably the worst enemy of human wellbeing.  The nature of this problem and a realistic albeit partial solution to it are explored in the writings on this blog.  As expounded in the writings, this solution lies in a rather small but crucial improvement to the world education system, which requires both the awareness and support of world educators which are currently lacking.  (People cannot support a concept that they don't know exists.)  To help rectify the situation, the writings have been sent to some 35,000 of them in 103 universities in 22 nations in the core areas⁽³⁾ of education, philosophy, psychology, sociology, political science, and communication.(4)  

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⁽¹⁾  For the process of this transformation, see the post labelled “5 – Further Illumination” on this blog.  

⁽²⁾  For an overview of the concept, see the short paragraphs 2 – 5 of “9 – Last Explanation,” below. 

⁽³⁾  For the criteria for deciding the core areas, see paragraph 9 of this same post (Post 9). 

⁽⁴⁾  For a complete list of their names and affiliations, see www.rifatafeefthelist.blogspot.com.  

9 – Last Explanation

Last Explanation … Hopefully

The following is based on an email I sent to a senior academic/educator in a world renowned university. 

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.....  I feel that you haven’t quite grasped the essence of their (my writings) message; your concern about my exclusion of the economics discipline and sending the writings to only those of the six disciplines cited in the writings is indicative of this inference (more on this below).  (See also PS)

The core problem discussed in my writings is very simple and fundamental – elementary, if you will, and arises simply from the very nature and functioning of our brains. 

More specifically, it has to do with the disposition of our brains that limits our ability to understand anything to what is in the information bases in them (see paragraph 3 of boxed quote in “8 – A Fresh Viewpoint” on this blog).  This is the basic cause of the problem and leads to the natural/inevitable outcome of barriers to our understanding of fellow humans (and also issues) since the information base of each individual would differ from that of another person.  This is the essence of the problem my writings had tried to deal with. 

The differences in the information bases in turn arise from three primary overlapping sources: i) differences in individual experiences, which are outcomes of each person’s interaction with the outside world and thus would be different for each individual, including identical twins brought up together; ii) differences due to our belonging to different cultures – both at the macro level such as various ethnicities or tribes or localities and at the micro level such as in family settings within these more or less homogeneous larger groups; and iii) differences arising from specialization, which is the global norm today.  Of the three areas, (i) is basic, and (ii) and (iii) can be seen to be subsets of it, but given their weight, they have been given due emphasis. 

The two-step solution outlined in the writings is a direct measure to counter the effects of these differences by providing an effective means to bridge the gaps that result from those differences and minimize and/or eliminate the damage those differences are responsible for inflicting on humanity at large. 

Given the nature of the problem outlined above and given the lack of an effective measure to counter that problem in the current world education system, it can be said that it now lacks the necessary awareness.  To be sure, there are vague notions of “awareness” and correspondingly sporadic efforts in the academic circles aimed at finding “solutions.”  And yet the nature of the “problem” is not clearly understood, and as such, “solutions” put forth to counter vague notions of “problems” are no more than efforts to grope in the dark.  A clear and precise understanding of the nature of the problem is necessary for effective remedy – the same way modern medicine relies on clear and precise understanding of how the human body works rather than the dubious practices of the centuries past which had relied on trial and error (this kind of hocus-pocus, though, can be effective for a very small group of illnesses that respond positively to the “placebo effect”).  

This is not to say that every problem can be expressed in simple terms; in fact, most complex problems cannot be reduced to simple terms.  But as we saw above, our problem, while complex, could fortunately be reduced to its root causes that can be expressed in simple and accurate terms.  And we now have a crystal clear understanding of the nature of our problem.  Given the nature of the problem as outlined, the simple and straightforward two-step solution suggested, while partial, also seems to be logical and reasonable.

The purpose of sending my writings to the 35,000 or so world academics/educators is three fold: i) to get them to assess the nature of our problem, and whether or not they find my analysis accurate; ii) to get them to come up with an alternative analysis, if they have any; and iii) to pave the path for incorporating agreed-upon solutions into the world education system so that the current sad situation can be improved and a high level of human wellbeing achieved.  Of course, foremost in the effort was raising awareness – which most of them presently lack; if they had, they would have already solved our problem.  The continued existence of the problem with its devastating impact on humanity is clear evidence that the world education system currently lacks the required understanding and, as a direct result of this lack, the willpower to rectify the problem; for when we are genuinely convinced that something is terribly wrong, we act strongly to rectify the situation, as evidenced by the multitude of social movements the world over.  Hence their indifference may very well be indicative of their lack of awareness of even the existence of a problem, or regarding those with vague notions of “a problem,” a lack of clarity of its nature and thus how it can be effectively rectified.   

(Paragraph 9)  As to the exclusion of the economics discipline, it is clear that my writings are not about social policy; they’re about the failure to come up with viable policy and which failure is caused, in large part, by the problem outlined.  Here are the reasons for the choice of the six disciplines mentioned in the writings: education was chosen because, as would be clear from them, the solution to our problem resides with that discipline; philosophy was included because it is the integrating discipline of human knowledge (please refer to the long quote from Professor Will Durant’s book The Story of Philosophy at the end of “2 – Education and Fundamentalism”); psychology and communication were included since the essence of the problem is rooted in them both – one talks of one’s inability to “reach another across gaps”; this is psychological and communicative in nature at one and the same time; in fact, in “5 – Further Illumination,” I described them to be “two sides of the same coin”; and sociology and political science were included since our problem has widespread sociopolitical repercussions globally and the analysis of such impacts falls within their domain. 

I don’t see any scope for the economics discipline in this scheme of things – in our effort to analyze the various facets of our problem and to come up with a viable solution.  If we were discussing social policy, the economics discipline would certainly be central to the effort.  And if we were to broaden the scope and aim for comprehensiveness, mathematics would be a most eligible candidate since a high level of analytical capability is central to it, but given its rather abstract nature, I chose not to include that discipline. 

As to the source of the concept of “simplicity” vs “complexity” of knowledge, I believe I read fragments about it in numerous sources; I don’t remember exactly.  Regardless of where I read about it, or whether I read about it at all, the concept is a direct corollary of the discussion of my writings: those with knowledge limited to one discipline would have a simple mindset while those with knowledge that covers multiple disciplines would have a complex mindset.  The “Social Judgement Theory” of social psychology sheds ample light on the different approaches to social situations by those two groups – hence the notion of “social judgement.”   I believe that the concept underlies the saying “travel broadens the mind” – for those exposed to cultures other than one’s own would know that there are other ways of life, and that it is not as simple as it appears.  If I’m not mistaken, Plato was beneficiary to this; during his travels to cope with his grief following the death of his mentor and friend Socrates, he encountered more viable ways of organizing the state than he had in mind when he left Athens, and modified his views to incorporate the new knowledge and insights he gained.  And in the Maldives, we have the adage of “mentality of the frog in the well,” and many talk of an “island mentality.”  These are all variations on the same theme – the concept of “simplicity” vs “complexity” of knowledge, which we encounter frequently in daily life.  Thus it does not require reference to a scholarly treatise for one to make use of the concept in a piece of writing. 

I suggest you read the writings again carefully – slowly and reflecting / contemplating on what is being said rather than in the manner you’d read a student’s term paper, with an eye on finding faults / inconsistencies; the frame of mind arising from this falls into what psychologists call “counter-arguing” and would naturally and inevitably divert one’s focus from the logic presented.  It is quite likely that this unfocused state of mind is the main reason that made you loose sight of the big picture. 

I hope the above discussion was useful and clarified issues that were hitherto vague.  And I apologize if the way I chose to express my thoughts had made you uncomfortable.  (I’ve a reputation for being blunt, which is apt to make people feel uncomfortable.)

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PS:  I’m uploading this email to my blog; in fact, it has been written with this in mind.  The reason is, given that an eminent professor of your stature at a respected university could not quite grasp the simple central message of my writings, it is likely that it would be the case for a significant number of others to whom they were sent.  And I thought I’ll make a last effort to help them understand – which, after all, cannot be forced. 

PPS:  To help you with easier reading, I’m attaching the PDF version of all the eight pieces I wrote thus far, which were sent to the academics/educators on my mailing list, yourself included, plus this new one. 

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Besides attending to our problem outlined here, there are other areas that are in need of improvement in the world education system if it is to contribute optimally to create a better world.  Instilling in children values that are in tune with the world we are living in is one such important area, since the right values instilled in them would help make them better adults, and the world a better place.  I’ve referred to values (see below) many times in the writings, but I purposely avoided dwelling on them and similar issues for numerous reasons, among them: i) the problem being discussed is core and apparently rather difficult to comprehend, perhaps because one’s vanity can’t quite accept its inevitable psychological implications; ii) to keep focus on the most important issues, which in turn would help keep discussions manageable; iii) any discussion of “values,” in particular, would be a thorny/sticky issue since everyone would want to include their beliefs in discussions; iv) core issues could be agreed upon through an international effort, perhaps a forum gathered specifically for the purpose, and those core concepts can be adapted by different nations to suit their specific needs.

Naturally, any international forum would require careful preparation.  What I have in mind in this regard is that this phase should require informal cross-discipline and in-depth dialogue among a sufficient number of senior academics / educators from all the six disciplines and an agreement on core issues should be reached.  There should not be any papers.  (No single person in any given field is likely to produce a comprehensive, balanced, and viable solution; papers with unrelated, divergent side issues would form a big impediment to reach agreement.)  An agreed-upon communiqué should do.  And only those who can provide their expertise for promoting human wellbeing – rather than enhancing academic fame by promoting their papers – should be invited.  Funding also need be sought to provide the participants sufficient / reasonable compensation. 

Given that basic agreement on core issues is to be reached in these informal encounters, the bulk of heavy lifting would be done at this stage, and the larger gathering would primarily formalize or ratify agreed-upon concepts of this preparatory stage.  Even at this larger forum of (limited) international stature, participation would be limited to academics/educators.  But to enhance smooth implementation, it would help to include in it (academic) representatives of key governments involved and relevant international organizations such as UNESCO.  Also, to facilitate a smoother ratification process in the formal setting, issues agreed-upon in the preliminary stage should be passed to participants of this larger quasi-international forum and their informal online dialogue with the preparatory group enhanced before the face-to-face meeting in the larger forum.  

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Values:  I believe that currently there is a vacuum of responsibility as to who is to instil appropriate values in the young, and this is a global phenomenon.  Unlike earlier eras when adults used to pass on the wisdom of the past to the young, the modern family, often with both parents working, seems to be unaware or unable or unwilling to face this responsibility; this may be largely due to the fast-changing nature of today’s world in which many values of one generation become practically irrelevant for the next.  And neither the parents nor the school system currently takes that responsibility, perhaps each implicitly thinking that it should be the responsibility of the other, and children grow up without proper guidance to the right path.  But in view of both the fast-changing and complex nature of today’s world, parents, even if willing, would be largely ill-equipped to handle the task.  This naturally shifts the burden to the system.  It would also be more practical / feasible since today children are at the disposal of the system from an early age and for increasingly longer periods on a daily basis, and since it also has the potential to undertake the task.  Thus what is required is to gear-up the system to do a good job – to transform it from the current state of a total lack of awareness about the societal need for core values in its young that will enable them to be good citizens (meaning, be able to deal with responsibility and compassion both fellow human beings and the environment, both natural and human-made) to the state of being both aware and able to handle the job effectively and efficiently.  (This is apart from its being geared to instil in children an attitude to communicate with their mates and also adults with empathy and to teach the youth the basic techniques of effective communication and related psychology.) 

8 - A Fresh Viewpoint

Human Wellbeing … A Fresh Viewpoint

This is a follow-up on the writings I sent you earlier; their central thesis is summarized at the end.

The piece is based on part of an article I sent to several hundred local professionals and politicians just this week.  And it looks at the problem outlined in those writings from a slightly different perspective, given its local context.  The change of perspective would shed additional light on what was said in the earlier writings.  (This blog contains all those original writings.)

Boxed below is a quote from that article sent to the locals, and the explanation that follows is based on it.  (The original article from which the quote was excerpted is also available on my complementary blog: www.rifatafeefmaldives.blogspot.com under the heading "Positive Socio-Political Atmosphere.") 

Quote:
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Three:  Basing Public Policy on One’s Limited Knowledge and Dogged Refusal to Learn

Part of this problem lies in that public or development policy is broad, multifaceted, and intertwined on the one hand, and on the other that the specialized education one can obtain through the world education system is only partial and thus limited.  Add to these limitations the intricacies arising from the local context and the complexity of policy formulation becomes enormous.  (This part of the problem is not limited to the Maldives but manifests globally; an account of its root causes and action to counter some of the down-sides arising from them on a global scale are given in the writings on this blog.)  The other part of the problem is that the Government is totally oblivious to the challenges arising from this situation and goes about adopting any surmise by anyone as valid policy.  In spite of repeated explanations of the impossibility of devising valid policy the way they go about now (see below) there has been little inclination to date to face reality and adopt the right methodology of formulating policy.  

Given the many areas comprising of development policy, the flawed conclusion most people tend to jump to is this: “If policy involves so many specialities, we’ll get people knowledgeable in those areas to discuss the issue among themselves and they’ll come up with the right policy.”  It may sound like systematic thinking, but the approach will not work (even if adopted, which people usually don’t but rely on some person’s self-proclaimed pseudo-knowledge).  To understand why it will not work, we need some preliminary background.  

We all understand that the ability of a physician (as medical doctors are called nowadays) to cure an illness depends on how well he or she had mastered the profession of medicine, besides the availability of required facilities and medications.  Similarly, the ability of a structural engineer to do a good job depends on his or her mastery of that profession.  The physician understands his/her profession and the engineer understands his/her profession.  We all know that much.  Here is the tricky part most people find difficult to comprehend: neither the physician nor the engineer has any meaningful knowledge about the other’s specialized area, and as a result, neither can speak meaningfully with the other about either medicine or engineering.  And it is the same story with, say, an economist and a sociologist, or a financier and a psychologist, and so on.  In short, those specialized in all areas are in the same boat: they don’t have a common language to talk meaningfully with another person of a different specialization.  

Thus getting people of different backgrounds together is a useless endeavour.  In fact, it is a misleading endeavour, as we are usually under the mistaken belief that gathering people of different specializations can produce viable development policy and thus go about adopting the outcomes of such processes as valid policy.  We are therefore faced with a difficult dilemma: those of different specializations cannot converse meaningfully with others in a different field, while policy making involves many different fields that are entwined in complex ways. 

But the problem can be overcome if a single individual has mastered, or at least has acquired the basics of, the central areas of development planning; this will enable the integration of fragmented and disjointed info into a coherent and meaningful synthesis.  And that is precisely what I had done over the past 24 years, by sacrificing, basically, all else.  …

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End Quote

The last paragraph describes a process few can afford to go through in normal life and thus, given the logic of the paragraphs preceding it, societal processes will continue to be ineffective and inefficient.  But as advocated in my writings, given that specialization is indispensable for human advancement, the way to improve the situation is by taking effective measures to overcome the downsides mentioned.  As explained in the writings, this has two components: i) instilling a more conducive attitude of mind at early stages in life (see “4 – Reason for Sending the Writings”) and ii) equipping them in subsequent years with techniques that would improve interaction among them – ie, teaching them the basics of both communication and related psychology as an integral part of their basic education.  This will help them as grown-ups specialized in various fields to be equipped for minimizing, if not totally overcoming, limitations arising from specialization.  And as explained in the writings, this would be besides being able to mitigate the downsides arising from human uniqueness to begin with (see “5 – Further Illumination,” last paragraph).  It can be clearly seen that this modification to the world education system will bring about positive long-term impacts on both human well-being and human advancement that will be nothing less than spectacular! 

And it is not only societal decision-processes that fall victim to the lack of a common language, but all interactive processes at all levels of society – including international relations.  And the myriad of current measures to overcome the downsides of interactive processes, including the many books on the subject, fall far, far short of addressing the real issue; they tend to treat symptoms and not the root causes.  More importantly, as mentioned in “1 – Introduction,” people are not even aware of the existence of a problem that is beyond the interacting parties; they invariably assume that the problem lies with the other party!!  (The complaint "Am I talking to a brick wall?" would be familiar to most readers.)  The writings have made it clear that it is not the case, and that the lack of a common language is the culprit!  As dwelt in the writings, the problem lies in that, on the one hand, human understanding depends on the information bases in their brains, which are not only different across cultures but vary from person to person, lending to their lack of awareness that a problem even exists, and on the other hand, they are simply not equipped to handle the situation even if they were aware (see "2 - Education & Fundamentalism," paragraph 9).  It is therefore a logical conclusion that the two-step process outlined above will go a long way towards minimizing, if not totally overcoming, the downsides arising from our problem.  

The ball is now squarely in the court of the educators to whom these writings are addressed.  It’s time for decisive action; the time for leisurely intellectual amusements is over … people around the world are suffering because of the inaction of those who should have acted a long time ago! 
  

Central Thesis of the Writings:  The writings have made clear how a downside arising from the nature of the functioning of the human mind (“5 – Further Illumination,” last paragraph) which is aggravated by the way the world education system is currently setup, is causing widespread misery on a global scale.  The writings also suggested a partial but pragmatic solution to this problem.  And the last piece (“7 – Two Methods of Science”) had made clear how the indifference of the world’s educators is responsible for the continuation of this sorry state of affairs globally; their lack of awareness being responsible in the first place for the aggravation mentioned (footnote 2i of “1 – Introduction”). 

An Afterthought

This note is aimed primarily at those who have difficulty in comprehending the message of my writings and its global impact on humanity at large over time; those who do understand it can, of course, benefit from it by letting it help them to expand their thinking to wider horizons and let their imaginations soar. 

In my opinion, the direct benefits that would be accrued to humanity by the intellectual revolution that will be unleashed by implementing the two-step process outline above will go someway towards being comparable to the indirect impacts of the Copernican revolution in the sixteenth century. 

Indirect because, in my opinion, again, it is not the direct impact of that revolution that helped humanity to be set on the path of its unprecedented advancement; for knowing that it was the Earth that revolved around the Sun rather than the other way around would hardly matter in terms of human wellbeing.  But it was the thinking process that revolution helped unleash, which is an indirect outcome of it, that in turn helped give birth to the scientific method, which was responsible for the huge strides humanity had made towards bettering its condition.  For it was the scientific method (which in fact began with Aristotle) that helped us to better understand the nature of the world around us, which underlie the many advances that had helped raise humanity from its pathetic early existence; this is in addition to the revolution this thinking had helped to bring about in our understanding of the universe itself.  My claim is that the suggestions proposed have the power to better the human condition in a comparable way.  I'm not saying that our better understanding of the Solar System as a direct result of that revolution is to be ignored; all I am saying is that a better understanding of which body revolved around which has a rather minimal direct impact on human wellbeing. 

Of course, prior to Copernicus, the Greeks had been on the right path towards a better understanding of the world around us.  But treading that path demanded mental exertion which, human beings being rather lazy and thus opting for the easy way out, didn’t sit well with the masses, which led to those responsible being persecuted – in the form of Socrates being forced to end his life, or to exile himself.  Not too long after, “the easy way out” triumphed massively, plunging Europe into the Dark Ages.  For few bothered about cause-effect relations of events and assigning that burden to a "higher power" deemed sufficient.  George Orwell had it right – in Animal Farm, he saw the masses as sheep whose reasoning ability was limited to "four legs good, too legs bad," much like "the frog in the well," a comparable example from the Maldives.  It is a similar mental lethargy and an ensuing indifference that is largely responsible for the current sorry state of humanity in our fast-changing world which calls for urgent adaptation to unprecedented and accelerating change.

I believe it is this human tendency to shun any significant mental exertion in preference for easy answers that is driving those who have a hard time in understanding my thesis; for such understanding would call upon them to face some mental exertion and follow through the logic presented in the writings, stated in most simple language.  Of course, this mental laziness merely complements the much bigger impediment to understanding (which is in fact the root cause of the former and inducing the laziness) that is the essence of my thesis: given that people make sense of the world based on what they have in their brains and that their information bases are usually limited, they're unlikely to have an easy grasp of most societal issues.  It is here that a little diligence can help – in particular, dialogue with those knowledgeable in the areas where one falls short, instead of attempting to reinvent the wheel.  In the case of my thesis, this requires a person in any of the six areas identified (education, philosophy, psychology, sociology, political science, and communication) to engage in dialogue with those in at least some of the remaining five areas.  While the suggestions of my writings imply educational action, the essence of our problem is rooted in both psychology and communication, and thus if those in the business of teaching education try to do it alone without the involvement of the professionals in those disciplines, they are likely to jump to erroneous conclusions and lead to ineffective action.  Needless to say that cross-discipline dialogue is not an easy task, as can be seen clearly from the boxed quote at the outset; to succeed, one has to work at it, as one necessarily has to work in any relationship.  Meaningful dialogue will also be facilitated if one can come to terms with one's own insignificance in the bigger scheme of things – however knowledgeable one may think he or she is.  (A little humility would also go a long way to lowering defensive psychological barriers and to fruitful interaction.)  It is the failure to engage even modestly (primarily due to the root cause mentioned above) that is the real impediment that stands in the way of understanding.

7 - Two Methods of Science

The following is based on an email I sent to one of your junior academic colleagues and will illuminate the nature and methodology of the writings I sent you; it will also underscore the criticality of the problem they dwell-on as well as the limiting constraints.  Rifat Afeef from the Maldives (www.rifatafeef.blogspot.com)

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I think you are leaning towards one way of finding out about reality at the expense of the other, towards the inductive approach (specific to generic) to the exclusion of the deductive approach (generic to specific).  Both approaches are accepted methods of doing science, of generating valid knowledge. 

Yet the inductive approach seems to have taken over the social sciences, along with the natural sciences, in recent decades and has led to a most tragic outcome, eloquently described by Professor Will Durant in the quote incorporated into two of the articles on my blog – namely, to a debilitating loss of perspective. 

The deductive approach was defined by Descartes formally as “an operation by which we have insight into something which follows necessarily from others that are known with certainty” (The Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy).  My writings are mostly based on the deductive approach since the scope covered by them is too vast and their entanglements too complex for inductive treatment, and draw “valid inferences from necessary premises.”  Thus, for example, since humans make sense of the world based on the information bases in their brains, the inference that those with only specialized knowledge most likely cannot understand fully issues beyond their rather limited knowledge bases is a valid one, in the same way that you understand Dutch and hence can engage in meaningful interactions in that language while I don’t and thus I can’t.  (In the Maldives we have an old saying about the “mentality of the frog in the well,” since such frogs live their whole lives in their wells and as their knowledge would be limited to the occurring in those wells.)  Given that our knowledge bases are generally limited, this unfortunate situation is the inevitable fate of humanity. 

The mental uniqueness arising from this situation creates a multitude of societal problems globally, and as expounded in my writings, the way to reduce the devastation arising thereof is to help compensate for the gaps due to that uniqueness – the gaps arising inevitably from the very nature of our brains; there being nothing anyone can do about it (see the last paragraph of article #“5 - From a Local Focus to a Global One”).  The writings also make it clear that the world’s education system contributes decisively to widen those gaps, aggravating an already bad situation.  Yet even those academics / educators who are now aware of the situation still cannot muster the needed courage to face their moral responsibility to help rectify the situation – by discussing the topic among themselves and across disciplinary lines and internationally, as well as at faculty meetings of their own departments, thus raising awareness of the others.  This apathy is all the more worrying given that the remedy calls for the modification of the system, and yet any change in the system cannot be realized if academics / educators stay indifferent.  It is clear that the mindset of the world’s academics / educators is the biggest impediment to a solution, not to mention that the aggravation mentioned is a direct result of their lack of awareness to begin with – otherwise they would have already rectified the situation (footnote 2i of “1 - Introduction”).  Human progress results from the realization, and a belief, that there are better ways than business as usual. 

Consider also the following, a sampling of complex phenomena that do not lend to inductive reasoning:  

####  Einstein’s Theory of Relativity: it was considered mere speculation until a phenomenon that its tenets predicted would happen – bending of starlight by Sun’s gravity – was experimentally / empirically verified;

####  Darwin’s Theory of Evolution: no conclusive “proof” of it is thus far at hand, but it has now become widely accepted as multiple phenomena in biological & other sciences are seen to conform to its reasoning;

####  To my limited knowledge, most theories in the field of sociology don’t have such “proof” and yet are taken as valid; experimentation on society being impractical, not to mention being considered unethical; and

####  “Complexity” and related concepts as “self-organization” and “emergence” also don’t lend themselves to reductionism or, in general, to simplistic explanations; dealing with them requiring a holistic approach. 

These are all theoretical fundamentals of modern science based on the deductive method of reasoning; their being too complex to be subject to inductive and/or reductionist methods.  One might want to keep in mind that the “scientific method” is merely a tool and that the choice of any tool is dependent on the task at hand.   

Given the broad scope and complexity of the topic of my writings, one will have a hard time in understanding them if he or she resorts to nit-picking.  Instead, is vital to read them with an open mind and view the topic holistically, which calls for focusing on the logic being presented rather than be sidetracked by one’s usual biases and prejudices.  I suggest that you read them slowly, reflecting on what is being said, and keeping in mind that understanding comes from within when the relationship between the elements of the topic being viewed begins to make sense.  No one can make another person understand but only help him or her to understand.  

1 - Introduction

Greetings! 

In these days of global concern about terrorism, fundamentalism, the senseless killing of the innocent, and the revival of deep-seated social conflicts of many stripes, the world academics could play a vital role in making the world a very much better and safer place for everyone.  My writings (the articles on this blog) can help you towards that end via an insight of global importance I arrived at in 1997 and have written about since, although one of its central aspects is not new, as will be clear by the quote from Professor Will Durant’s book The Story of Philosophy incorporated into the two main articles.⁽¹⁾  Significantly, the insight relates to your area of expertise (ie, of those to whom the writings on this blog have been sent by email) and, as reasoned in  footnote 2 below, rectifying the crucial problem underlying that insight is a collective moral responsibility of the world’s academics.  

The insight pertains on the one hand to a downside of the way the human mind works and on the other to the way the world education system steadily, although inadvertently, contributes to the exacerbation of that downside.  The nature of this problem and why and how it comes about is explored in the paper labelled “Education and Fundamentalism,” which was originally written in October 2009 for a somewhat different purpose than global circulation.  The paper also suggests a partial but pragmatic solution to the problem; a more comprehensive solution to this crucial problem being rather unlikely given the innate human nature as well as cultural differences of human societies and specialization requisites of human advancement (added later: see also "9 - Last Explanation," the first four short paragraphs).  

Further, the pervasiveness of the problem and its central role in thwarting human wellbeing and thus the massive damage it inflicts upon individuals and families and communities and nations (while none the wiser) would make it one of the gravest problems faced by humanity; its illusiveness would also make it highly dangerous since it is in fact the root cause and culprit behind a multitude of other societal problems and since it operates without giving its victims even a clue about the existence of a perpetrator! 

Given the broad scope of the problem, the writings necessarily treat it in a rather condensed manner, thus increasing chances for misperceptions in spite of my having made the utmost to write in clear and precise language.  This therefore calls for an open mind and not jumping to unwarranted conclusions.  

I hope you find the articles informative and interesting and that you will reflect on the problem and the (partial) solution I have suggested and discuss them with colleagues, thus help minimize the devastating impact of the problem globally and hence uplift human wellbeing to a hitherto unprecedented level.⁽²⁾ 

Yours faithfully,

Rifat Afeef (from the Maldives) 
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⁽¹⁾  It should be mentioned that I actually read the book some five years after I first wrote about this insight in 1997 in the second main article on this blog labelled “Integrative Planning,” which was circulated widely in the Maldives and to a lesser extent abroad, and thus that the quote was added to the article much later. (But the problem’s multidimensional nature and its complexity had not crystallized in my mind then.) 

⁽²⁾  You may be sceptical as to how individual action on your part can lead to change at a global level.  The answer is simple and based on two realities: i) education systems are shaped primarily by what goes on in the collective heads of the academics, and ii) ideas trickle down and percolate across all sorts of boundaries, particularly in our Internet era.  Two unflattering corollaries also result from them: a) the deplorable aspect of world education system outlined in my papers – its failure to instil a sound foundation for productive interaction among humans and the multitude of societal problems resulting thereof – can be at least partly attributed to the state of collective mind of the world’s academics, since educations systems are shaped primarily by them, and b) the vast majority of them do not have a clue that a problem of such magnitude as described in these writings even exists ⁽ⁱ⁾ – irrespective of how highly knowledgeable they may be in their particular fields of specialization.  In fact, it is precisely because one is highly knowledgeable in one’s own filed that it becomes so difficult psychologically to come to terms with the hard-to-swallow truth: that specialized persons are knowledgeable only in their highly specialized fields and thus, bluntly put, that they are literally ignorant of what is beyond their specific fields,*** hence that there is no common language for high-level dialogue among those of specialized fields (in addition to the lack of a shared language for everyone for interacting effectively with others due to both human uniqueness and differences of their upbringings and cultures).  This is an inevitable outcome of the facts that on the one hand it is through specialization that humanity advances and on the other that it will be impossible for any individual to master every field of human knowledge.  It is this momentous reality and its unfortunate downside that I have dwelt on in my writings – a reality and outcome that humanity must face if we are to avert their devastating ramifications.  A little reflection will reveal that the simple but partial solution suggested has the potential to significantly reduce those devastating outcomes.  And your discussion of this important issue with your colleagues – within and beyond your own department, thus across professional boundaries (our problem is multidisciplinary, as you will no doubt infer from the papers) and also beyond the borders of your own nation – will help propel the process into motion, and the thus accumulated momentum, if sufficient, will home-in on the solution.⁽ⁱⁱ⁾  Before you could get motivated into action, however, you have to be convinced of both the existence of our problem and its destructive nature, and the rest will follow naturally.  To achieve this, keeping an open mind is imperative, given the multidisciplinary nature of the problem and the odds that at least part of what was dwelt on in the writings will fall outside your area of specialization, and as such, you would do well to talk to those knowledgeable in those areas before drawing any conclusions – and that would be central to the process of “keeping an open mind.”  If you’re relatively young (ages of direct recipients of these writings by email would vary from early twenties through mid-sixties and beyond) I urge you to engage in fruitful dialogue with older colleagues, particularly emeriti professors, who would have had wider experience of the spectrum of humanity’s problems and thus opportunity to have had observed with some detachment the workings of our crucial but illusive problem in real life. 

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⁽ⁱ⁾ Any system not satisfactory to a majority cannot last for long in a free (or a quasi-free) society and will be replaced by a more satisfying one.  Had the world’s academics understood the devastation an aspect of the world education system was inflicting on humanity, they would have acted to change the situation, and the problem would likely have been rectified – and at a global level too, being enhanced by the instant access now ubiquitous globally.  (In fact, such global change now occurs routinely – for products and services as well as worthy ideas/concepts.)  Thus given that education systems are shaped by what goes on in the collective mind of academics,  ⁽ⁱⁱ⁾ the momentum generated by an understanding of our problem by you and your colleagues (via dialogue among yourselves both locally and internationally) will home-in on the solution.  And since the problem is largely an attendant outcome of the mindset of the world’s academics and a lack of awareness thereof, they have a moral responsibility to rectify the currently deplorable situation and help raise humanity from its state of widespread misery. 

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*** Of course, there are many with wide backgrounds and thus have a more comprehensive perception of societal affairs – and some recipients of this email would be among them – but the vast majority of the college-educated do not have such backgrounds and thus would have rather limited perceptions.

Summary List of Distribution of Those to Whom the Writings were Originally Sent by Email and of Their Respective Departments and Universities Among Nations

Nation                                     No. of Universities      No. of Departments        No. of Academics

Australia                                  07                                38                                2,718

Austria                                     05                                23                                2,002

Belgium                                    03                                15                                1,244

Canada                                    07                                41                                3,305

Denmark                                  01                                07                                0,615

Egypt                                       01                                06                                0,101

Finland                                     01                                09                                0,525

France                                      06                                23                                0,577

Germany                                  06                                31                                2,295

Hong Kong                              02                                12                                0,519

Ireland                                     02                                11                                0,255

Israel                                        04                                22                                1,288

Italy                                          12                                50                                3,871

Netherlands                              05                                30                                2,953

New Zealand                            05                                28                                1,600

Norway                                    01                                08                                0,698

Singapore                                 01                                01                                0,058

South Africa                             01                                05                                0,080

Sweden                                    04                                25                                2,486

Switzerland                               05                                29                                2,082

United Kingdom                       11                                64                                2,776

United States                            13                                58                                2,728

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22 nations                               103 universities          536 departments        34,776 academics

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[The number of academics exclude those to whom the writings would have been delivered via their departments; although I have no way of ascertaining the exact number – since I could only request – my requests would relate to more than 500. The number of academics also reflect the original list compiled during the 12-15 months or so before I started emailing, but during the process, some emails were returned as undeliverable, a few requested removal of their names from the list, some switched institutions, and others left the academia altogether; the numbers given above do not reflect these changes.] 

List of Universities to Departments of Which the Writings have been Sent: (departments involved, if they exist, are: education, philosophy, psychology, sociology, political science, and communication; sometimes, where they were non-existent, related supplementary departments have been selected) 

Australia: ANU, Macquarie, Melbourne, Queensland, Sydney, UniSA, and UNSW;         Austria: Graz, Innsbruck, Salzburg, and Vienna;             Belgium: Antwerp, Libre Brussels, and Vrije Brussels;         Canada: Alberta, McGill, Montreal, Ottawa, Quebec, Toronto, and UBC;                    Denmark: Copenhagen;                     Egypt: AUC;               Finland: Helsinki;      France: AUP; Lyon 2 Lumiere, Lyon 3 Jean Moulin, Pantheon-Sorbonne, Provence, Paris Descartes (Education);               Germany: Free Berlin, Humboldt Berlin,  Bonn, Frankfurt, Hamburg, and Munich;           Hong Kong: CUHK and HKU;                     Ireland: Trinity College Dublin and University College Dublin;       Israel: Hebrew U,  Tel Aviv,  Haifa,  Open U;                  Italy: Bologna, Florence, Genoa, Milan, Milano-Bicocca, Napoli-Federico, Palermo, UniRomaTre,  Sapienza Rome,  Turin, Napoli SU (Psychology), and Napoli UniSOB;   Netherlands: Amsterdam, Erasmus, Groningen, Leiden, and Utrecht;             New Zealand: Auckland, Canterbury, Massey, Otago, and Victoria;           Norway: Oslo;            Singapore: Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy;        South Africa: Cape Town;         Sweden: Gothenburg, Lund, Stockholm, and Uppsala;        Switzerland: Basel, Bern, Geneva, Lausanne, and Zurich;                UK: Birmingham, Cambridge, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Leeds, London, Manchester, Newcastle, Open U, Oxford, and Ulster;                         USA: Chicago, Columbia, Georgetown, Harvard, Houston, MIT, Princeton, Stanford, UC Berkeley, UCLA, UHM, Yale, and Santa Fe Institute

List of recipients mentioned at the outset, although already containing about 35,000 names, is somewhat deficient.  The list I originally intended was much wider in scope (that is, more nations and universities) than it is now, but given the large amount of time taken in downloading email addresses, translating needed info on non-English websites, and other difficulties it has been narrowed down considerably. 

In a sense, the list that resulted also places more emphasis on “world education” vis-à-vis “religious funda-mentalism,” the two topics of the basic paper “Education and Fundamentalism,” since it now excludes, for one reason or another, most populous developing nations currently plagued by Islamic fundamentalism, such as Egypt, Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, Indonesia, the Philippines, Nigeria, and even Russia.  But given that the flaws in the current world education system is “at the root” and fundamentalism largely a branch emanating from it in spite of many other vital factors being involved in the process (see the basic paper, paragraph 15) dealing with the former is the more crucial step forward at present – a step that will serve as the springboard for subsequent tackling of the latter.  Notwithstanding its origins, religious fundamentalism also has a very different set of rules of engagement, thus by necessity, it should be dealt with separately and on its own terms.  But I do not see how this can be practically done without first tackling the flaws in the current world education system and the solution being accepted publicly and globally, as that solution is the starting point and the foundation on which the solution for religious fundamentalism could be based.  Thus expeditious tackling and compensating for the flaws in current world education system is the starting point forward.  And while the benefits of this spread across the globe helping to improve human wellbeing, it will lay the firm ground works for tackling religious fundamentalism.  Moreover, even if it is not dealt with separately, if we have a popular “education solution,” and given the logic of the paragraph referred to above, my prediction is that the intensity of religious fundamentalism rampant currently will diminish on its own.  This makes such a solution, as the partial one suggested in the basic paper initially and dwelt on variously in subsequent writings on this blog, all the more critical.