There are some values that run through a culture, values that the culture holds to be very “important”. For example, sexual conservatism is a value that runs through most cultures with a high religious quotient. This post is about a couple of such “values” that the Indian Culture is quite saturated with.
One of them is: humility. Consider its converse counterpart, arrogance. In the typical Indian society, it’s considered a fairly evil thing to be arrogant. For example, when Jayalalitha was first booted/routed out in the election after her numerous corruption cases, many an opinion poll of the people revealed that the principal gripe of people was that she was arrogant. That’s right, here was a chief minister who was so manifestly corrupt, and people felt that her arrogance was the most important issue.
We all have this ingrained into our psyche, right from our childhoods really:
that humility is one of the most important “values”.
It ranks way up there along with our other protagonist – self-sacrifice – in the list of must-have values. Take any Hindi movie, and the “hero” would have at least one or two self-sacrifices to don in his cap. He’d selflessly sacrifice his love, his wealth, his well-being for some vaguo thing and that’s why he’d be called a hero.
Now I believe that it is these two “values” that are responsible for much of the degradation in Indian Society.
Over-obsequiousness, self-effasement, societal unimportance accorded to qualities like entrepreneurship and risk-taking, an overwhelming emasculation of society. And of course – socialism.
Regarding humility – all I want to point out is a statement by Sherlock Holmes in one of his books, where he puts down humility quite simply – if to lie or to shade the truth is considered bad, why should shading the truth about one-self be considered good?
Regarding self-sacrifice, I hardly need to repeat the familiar Ayn-Rand arguments of the evils that shall result from a culture that values self-sacrifice very highly. The suppressing of merit, the demotivation and languidity, the works.
If you look at it, the evils and utopian-idealism of these two “values” quite mirror the evils and utopian-idealism of socialism. Frankly, I’d say that it’s these two values that are far more responsible than Nehru or our cheery CPI comrades for our society being sucked into the cesspool of socialism. If we want to wean the Indian society off socialism, we’ve to wean it off these two values first.
42 – I think Adams would have been proud of this post:)..
A longer post would have helped understand your position better, considering you only say Ayn-Rand said so or Hindi film hero did so.
Values like self-sacrifice were necessary to make independent nations – it is quite impossible to think of the formation of an independent nation with men/women who care two hoots for anyone but themselves. That brings us to even stop talking about the idea of a nation – and hence ideas like socialism,capitalism – that would apply to nations as units.About humility, in my opinion it is a more redeeming virtue than arrogance – arrogance is more of an exalted expression of one’s ego while humility is not necessarily self-effacement.
Your view of the world with self dependent,free individuals working for individual good is an antithesis to society,nations,groups or any such units.
Navin
About humility, in my opinion it is a more redeeming virtue
Navin, that’s precisely the indoctrination I’m attacking.
You see it’s vitally important that people be proud and self-confident. If a person is great, there is nothing wrong in his being perceived and projecting himself as great. Conversely, if he projects himself as something less than great, it is not “redeeming” or praiseworthy in any way. In fact, there are evils associated with such behavior.
A culture that values humility too much shall necessarily reduce the continuum between rightful pride – and being overconfidently arrogant. Also note that we don’t need a special value to accord to not being overconfidently arrogant because – if there is over-confidence and bluster, it is by definition unoptimal. Why not have a fear of unoptimality as a value?
My post was more of a rant, I shall have a follow-up post soon…
Well Said. Agreed – the overrated “values” of “humility” and self-sacrifice in the Indian society. V.S. Naipaul depicts this quite well in his novel: “A house for Mr. Biswas” wherein the woman who has had a tiff with her husband and is suffering becomes the heroine of the household for the given time. Its primitive and regressive.
To the point though: It won’t be entirely fair just to tie these issues with Socialism. Ayn Rand tries to depict a very sorry picture of those suffering from vows of a communist society. Yes, its worthy to espouse natural pride and productivity. But wait! There are Michael Moore’s of the world to tell us the evils of Capitalism…how corporations are really nothing more than a new dictatorship ruling the community.
The truth: as all truths probably lies somewhere in the middle. And logically various people call it Socialism. Some kind of a socialist fibre is important in any society for a “sustained” prosperity. It is not wholly and entirely an evil.
I still believe humility is a quality that pushes one to achieve 1 notch higher than what one has done till that point of time. In that sense, it is definitely a redeeming virtue than “assumed greatness” and/or “arrogance”. Humility and low self worth need not be synonymous.
I believe humility can never be an overrated characteristic considering human beings will always be limited individuals who are slaves to their egos. There is nothing right/wrong with that per se, except for the fact that humility is a show of the fact that while one may have done quite a bit in one’s area of expertise to get where he/she is, perfection has never been a human trait.
I’ll await your follow-up post.
Navin
Why Indians are socialists?
The reasons are varied.
Partly cultural and historic reasons like the caste sytem, social system(protector-client system), repeated invasions from foreign hordes etc creating a defensive collectivisation for survival. These sytems have crystallised over two millenia, so much so that even the so-called Indian libertarians show aspects of it.
Second, a society that is mostly poor and in some cases desperate for survival. This prioritises short-term solutions for the sake of survival in the present rather than incentives that will come in the ‘long run.’ Socialism talks about good things in the long run but also promises sops in the short run mainly some form of wealth transfer.
Thirdly, a lack of comprehensive land reforms. Every capitalist society had moved from feudalism to a capitalist society through land reforms. This happened gradually in Western Europe but more drastically in countries like S Korea and Taiwan. The US itself redistributed large tracts of land to new immigrants.
There are more reasons. But I think the ones I stated above are enough.
Going to Amit’s post. Recent psychological studies make me feel that both liberatrians and socialists share a ‘Utopian Vision.’ The only ones possessing ‘Tragic Vision’ are politicians and the hapless poor.
Values like humility and self-sacrifice maybe inefficient in peaceful,law-abiding times. But in face of oppression, brutal invasions or both these values become extremely important for collective survival. India has been relatively peaceful for only about 30 years. I use the word ‘relatively’ because there is a lot of internal strife in different parts of our country.