Devdutt Pattanaik - Mythology and the Clash of Civilizations

Well, my definition of a tragedy is a clash between right and right. Amos Oz

In class, we watched a twenty minute video addressing the issues of clashes of civilizations, my world vs. your world and the world, differences in mythologies etc

The video is extracted from TED talks and the speaker is Devdutt Pattanaik who is a ‘chief belief officer’. I had never heard of such a career before and so he immediately managed to capture my attention. Devdutt spoke a lot about different mythologies and beliefs and about how these lead to misunderstandings or clashes of civilizations. He also spoke about the ideas of my world verses the world and my world vs. your world.  The presentation got me to think a lot about differences in cultures and conflicts between people.

My world is subjective and personal. It is based on my emotions, my beliefs, my dreams etc while as the world is objective and universal. It is based on facts and scientific evidence. The world is all about HOW thing work and HOW they happen, while as my world is all about WHY these things work and WHY they happen. I have asked myself the following question: ‘Which one of the two is more important?’ From what I understand, MY world is all about my opinions and beliefs on THE world and my feelings towards THE world. MY world and I are part of THE world. THE world would be meaningless to me without MY world. Then there is also YOUR world. Each person is unique as has unique beliefs, moral values etc based on their cultural background, upbringing, religion etc and therefore each person’s world differs from that of the next. Devdutt explains that we will always believe that what we know or claim to know is the truth and that in our eyes, our world is better than that of another person and our beliefs make more sense to us than those of another person.  He claims that this misunderstanding and lack of open-mindedness leads to conflicts/clashes between civilizations.

I agree with him on these claims as all throughout history people have fought over religion for example. Every civilization claims that their religion preaches the truth. This is because of different understandings about why we are here and what the purpose of life is. Devdutt uses mythology and rituals as an example of the misunderstandings between people. I may believe that there is just one life and I therefore have to constantly seek success, while as someone from India may believe that he/she has many lives and therefore many chances to get it right and find his/her purpose. These opposing beliefs would be based on our religions and the different stories passed down to us from generation to generation.  Your truth is likely to not even be considered as ‘truth’ by me and vice versa. Why is this? Why can we not live with the belief and understanding that there is not one sole truth but that in the world there are many truths? As humans, it seems to me that we have a constant desire to oppose other people’s opinions and impose our own beliefs on others. We constantly try to teach others about truth and yet do we ourselves really know what the truth actually is?

The reliability of history

To know the truth of history is to realize its ultimate myth and its inevitable ambiguity.
Roy P. Basler

I came to the realization that history as a subject is closely linked with Theory of Knowledge. History is based on the accounts and records of people from the past. How far can we trust that these accounts are accurate? When evaluating sources in history, we are asked to apply a lot of critical thinking in order to determine their value.

Take for instance the following source taken from my textbook, ‘The Origins of the First World War’ by Giles Pope:

He (Bethmann Hollweg) reverted to the theme of the growing hostility of England, France and Russia against Germany and the “iron ring” they were pressing round her. “An iron ring!” he repeated violently, shouting out the statement and waving his arm to the whole assembled company (of British and German government ministers at an official dinner). “England is embracing France. She is making friends with Russia. But it is not that you love each other; it is that you hate Germany!” And he repeated and literally shouted the word “hate” thrice.

                                                                 David Lloyd George War Memoirs

                     Ivor Nicholson & Watson (London, 1933) vol.1, pp.29-30

In those years, there was a lot of tension between the powers in Europe. David Lloyd George was the British Prime Minister at the time, and Bethmann Hollweg was the German Chancellor. There was a lot of tension particularly between Britain and Germany and they were in the middle of a Naval Arms Race. How far can I trust that Hollweg was indeed acting in the way that is described by Lloyd George? Lloyd George could in his memoirs be trying to justify his decisions as a politician at the time and the source would therefore not be very valuable. The source could also very much be biased exactly because it is a view of the British Prime Minister of the time and he could be trying to get Britain away from any blame of the First World War. However, the credibility of the source lies in that it is an extract from the first volume of his memoirs, which suggests that there are other volumes and that his account is therefore very detailed and likely to be accurate. Determining to what extent the knowledge and information contained in sources can be trusted is crucial in history as it is in Theory of Knowledge. I have therefore found Theory of Knowledge to be very useful in my history classes and assignments.

Appeal to authority...but to what extent?

Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth – Albert Einstein

Looking again at logical fallacies, we watched a short clip in class of a man, whom I assumed to be a scientist giving a presentation on some new, highly developed scientific invention.

All throughout the presentation he spoke using extremely long, scientific terms trying to convince us of the invention’s worth. At first, it was quite convincing. As I watched the video for the second time and listened closely however I realized that most of the terms he used were probably not even actual words. The presentation seemed to be a classic case of ad verecundiam or in other words, appeal to authority. He was very convincing as he played the part well. He was a matured man wearing a white long jacket showing extremely complicated graphics and using equally complex language.

The clip led me to thinking about appeal to authority and about how often we are misled by this fallacy. We are constantly bombarded with marketing of things we know nothing about and yet we assume that what is said is the truth and we end up believing in their credibility because of the way they are presented and because of the people who present them. The clip led me to come up with the following question:

‘How far should we believe in authority as evidence for truth?’

Finding an answer to this question is far more complex that posing the question itself. Ever since we are little, we have been taught to appeal to authority. ‘Listen to your elders’ is an expression we are all used to. Taking into account the fallacy of ad verecundiam, I have begun to question authority more than I used to. Just because someone looks like a scientist and talks like a scientist, doesn’t necessarily mean that he is one after all. Another form of appeal to authority is using quotes from people with authority in speeches and essays as evidence to support an argument. My reason tells me to think about what is being said and to try to make sense out of it based on history and the evidence supporting it. At some point in the past, people used to think that the earth is flat. Why? Because they believed that the person making the claim was telling the truth based on his authority. Authority strongly influences our thinking but we need to determine to what extent we should allow it to affect our opinions and thinking.

I know I lie, but it's not my fault - Discovering Logical Fallacies

In class we started looking at some logical fallacies. To help us understand and find logical fallacies, we looked at an article titled ‘I know I lie, but it’s not my fault’. At first glance, the information in the article seems quite reliable as it is well presented and the language used is appropriate to the article’s claim that researchers have found a biological explanation for pathological lying. It also contained statistics and examples somewhat proving its reliability.

However, when I read the article again, this time applying critical thinking, I realized that there was a great deal of fallacies in it. The subtitle of the article states that researchers have found a biological explanation for pathological lying and yet the content of the article claims that researchers “may have provided a biological explanation for this kind of lying”, the keyword here being ‘may’.

Fallacies in the article include appeal to authority as throughout it, there are constant claims that scientists have found, or scientists have discovered etc. Taking a better look at the statistics I realized that they do not have much credibility and are rather a sort of hasty generalization as there were only 12 people with a history of lying, 16 with no signs of pathological lying, but who have suffered from anti-social personality disorder and 21 normal volunteers tested.  These numbers are far too little to act as evidence of such a major scientific discovery. I also false cause in the article as it states that “as the while matter expands with age, lying increases, so that by ages 10 to 12, kids become better at lying”.

The article also contains an example of a young 19 year old woman who is said to be a victim of pathological lying. This example was more of an appeal to pity as the woman is said to have a seven month old son with leukemia rather than supporting evidence to the topic of the article. The woman is said to be a pathological liar and yet there is no mention of how for example this is due to the increase of ‘”white matter” (as the article refers to it) in her brain.

The article got me to think a lot about logical fallacies and how they are a major part of our everyday lives. I have found myself constantly searching for a fallacy in almost everything I hear or read or am told is true. My developing skills in discovering fallacies have helped me develop better critical thinking skills which I have found to be very valuable in all my subjects in school.

Do you know?

Do you know?

Do you know who I am?

I don’t think you do

Do you know that I love Elvis?

And I adore the Beatles too

Do you know those little details that make me who I am?

At times I give up and I just don’t give a damn

Do you know I love the ocean and the sound of the waves?

And having my toes in the sand on warm sunny days

Tell me, do you know what I’ve lived through and how I’ve survived?

And the things I’ve had to deal with, and the times I’ve lied

Do you know from time to time I hide a tear and fake a smile?

Because I know time can heal the pain, it’ll just take a while

Do you know I often cry?

I also hate saying goodbye

Do you know that the gentle sound of a guitar soothes me?

And when the man with the loving voice sings, it moves me

But how could you ever know what it is like to be me?

You claim to know who I am, but it cannot be

Because some knowledge simply cannot be grasped

And what I know and believe is determined by my past

  Kristina G

I wrote the poem ‘Do you know?’ one day when I was thinking about people’s interactions with one another and how sometimes people jump to conclusions about other people without really knowing their story. I think in a way it might relate to Theory of Knowledge because it led me to thinking about whether or not you could ever say you really ‘know’ someone or how they are feeling. Sometimes people say, “I know exactly how you feel” but do they really? I don’t think it is possible to say that you know how another person is feeling because you can never know what it’s like being that person and you can never know what they’ve been through or their perspective on life. How can you say that you ‘KNOW’ someone? What is this knowledge based on? The feeling of knowing someone seems to be mostly based on emotions. Take for instance a very close friend of yours. You are likely to say you know them because you have been friends for a while and it is likely that you share the same interests and hobbies etc and you have developed a close bond. However, there are likely to be a great many things you do not know about that person. It could be something from their past that has shaped who they are today or it could be something else but people always have personal secrets that they do not share with anyone else. Then there is also the question of how could you know that what you know is true. After all, you friend, or the person you think you know could have been lying. The poem ‘Do you know?’ was just my way of expressing my feelings of frustration with the world and in a way eith knowledge issues as it was hard for me to grasp the concepts of Theory of Knowledge at first. It is in a way a message to people who think they know someone (and people who think they know me) to think twice.

My personality and ways of thinking

In our first two Theory of Knowledge classes we took a sort of psychological test designed by Ned Herrmann to determine our ‘way of thinking’. The main point of the activity was to better understand ourselves as thinkers. After getting my results back and looking through the expanded model of cognitive preferences and personality types, I discovered that I fall mainly under quadrants C and D.

 The traits of quadrant C thinkers are:

·        Conceptualization

·        Creative thinking and

·        Imagination

While as the traits of quadrant D thinkers are:

·        Need for affiliation

·        Desire for Harmony and

·        Capacity for warmth

Quadrant C thinkers are holistic, intuitive, synthesizing and integrating while as quadrant D thinkers are emotional, interpersonal, feeling-based and kinesthetic.

The results I got were what I expected because I welcome change and strongly dislike routines. The ‘new and unknown’ attract me and if I am doing something I have a passion for, I become very enthusiastic about it. In my life, the most important things are my family and friends and I tend to become very protective over them. I do tend to sometimes seek approval as quadrant D suggest, but mainly from the people I love and I hate criticism which isn’t one of my most positive traits.

In school, my favorite subjects are art, history, languages and literature. I love doing tasks that require creativity and ever since I was little, I have been writing poems. My results also suggest that I orientate myself around the past and the future, which is very much true and not really a good thing as I sometimes get lost in nostalgia or in day dreaming about what is to come.

I think that, my personality has taken the shape and form described by my results because I have been moving from country to country my whole life (Bulgaria, Zimbabwe, Seychelles, Kiribati, Malta, Fiji) which has exposed me to many different cultures, religions etc and made me very aware of other people’s feelings.