J Alfred Prufrock, the pseudonymous civil servant of the blogosphere takes exception to Amit’s generalisation of a government servant’s attitude, not because the generalisation is inaccurate, but because it hurts his feelings and will discourage those few who do not fit into that generalisation.
Well sorry about those hurt feelings, but a generalisation doesn’t have to be 100% accurate to be useful. If they were, we’d call them laws of nature, not generalisations. When I say that the traffic police are corrupt, I don’t mean that every single policeman is corrupt. It simply means that if I am stopped by a cop for jumping a red light, I can safely assume that he is out looking for a bribe and he is not out to fine me.
I can also safely assume that the cop will make it as inconvenient for me to pay the fine. Believe me, I’ve tried. He will never fine me on the spot. He will always say that he has to take my license and I will have to get myself to the police station to pay the fine. If that doesn’t budge me, he will bring up all kinds of other violations. He will ask for my insurance and registration papers. If they are in order (and they are) he will threaten to book me for rash driving, a more severe charge.
I think that I will stick to my generalisation. Apologies to the memory of the unknown traffic policeman who does not take bribes.
And Prufrock, an honourable man (for they are all honourable men) says that it is I who is responsible for corruption among policemen, because, you know, if everyone like me didn’t pay bribes, we’d get honest cops. It is bad enough when he says that about middle-class people like me, but I’d like him to tell the same thing to the mother who has to pay bribes to get her infant released from the government-run maternity home.
If anything, the problem is not that we generalise too much, but that we do not generalise enough, as Nimish Adani learnt to his cost. He is the one who got beaten up and scammed by railway policemen for not having a platform ticket. He sincerely believed that not all policemen were corrupt, and listened to the senior officials who “requested him” to take back his complaint as a matter of goodwill, as the railway policemen had already regretted their actions and would not do it again. He woke up to find his reputation in mud. Apparently, it was he who was drunk (in the daytime, and while seeing off his fiancee and her mother!) and it was he who misbehaved with the cops. This, he learnt from the newspapers.
This is the sort of thing that has us libertarians banging our head in frustration. How many more incidents would it require before people will take our advice and as a precautionary measure, treat every government official the same way they’d treat a mafia don? But Prufrock says that it is wrong to generalise, because it will discourage some of the dons who, though they are dons, have a heart of gold. And Prufrock is an honourable man.
If these “unfair” generalisations are going to discourage honest civil servants from doing their job, they might as well give up, because people don’t have to come under the machinations of us evil libertarians to come to these conclusions. Millions of people who have never even heard our rants come to the same conclusions as they go about their daily lives. If being upbeat and enthusiastic about the honesty and competence of government officials really made any difference, the time for it was immediately after independence, when the respect for politicians and bureaucrats and expectations from them were at their peaks. At that time, an honest man could actually say that he was joining the IAS to serve the people without eliciting sniggers. I don’t see that this attitude made much of a difference. The decline in honesty and competence started right then, and has continued since.
If there is anything unfair about the whole state of affairs, it is that the few exceptions to the rule give people a false sense of hope, rather disproportionate to their number. People see the rare honest government official and say “See? We unfairly demonise government servants. This (honest/competent/upright) official has proved that it is not the system that is screwed up, it is the people who run the system that matter”. The one honest or competent official inadvertently provides cover to a thousand other dishonest and incompetent ones.
While I agree with the overall point you are trying to make – I would like to point out that your “us libertarians” vs “you the government” stance is not doing the debate any good.
And you blatantly encouraging all to see every govt. official the same way as a mafia don – seems to be like trying to counter the debate, point for point rather than seeing the overall purpose of it. They might give you a lot of comments on this post – but I don’t think they will serve the debate. And more importantly, I think it is way off from the point Amit (or anyone else lamenting the state of the Deccan Odyssey) was trying to make.
Not every view needs to be radical.
By the way, I would also like to point out that my main problem with Mr. JAP’s response to Amit’s post is that it is out of place. I don’t understand his problem with Amit’s post at all!
First of all, I see Amit’s post as a general comment on what typically happens when there is no accountability. JAP takes this as an insult on government (and all government employees!!!) and responds, saying not all government is bad! Of course, anyone can come up with counter-examples. But is that the point?
The one place where some relevance was there was him citing examples of private bodies that are as bad (or even worse) as the government (BCCI). Even there, it seemed like seconding the “lack-of-accountability” argument as opposed to anything pro-government. BCCI is just a standing example for the fact that lack of accountability can make private bodies function just like a majority of govt. bodies function. No other conclusion makes sense.
The only logical reason then, for why Mr. JAP responded the way he did, is – to talk about the two specific govt-body achievements that he was part of. And yes, he could have done that without linking to Amit’s post!
You’re in the papers!
Todays DNA….4th page from the end or someting.
Congratulations and shatter more keys!