Known unknowns, unknown unknowns, unknown knowns

Is ignorance a thing of laughing at or lamenting the inanity and mental indolence of most of us, or a thing of identifying educational failures which could be remedied?    

Daniel R DeNicola, in his book Understanding Ignorance: The Surprising Impact of What We Don't Know (MIT Press, 2017), puts ignorance under three categories:

Known unknowns: what we know we don’t know

Unknown unknowns: what we don’t know, we don’t know

Unknown knowns: what we don’t know we know    

Most of us mistakenly see ignorance as just the absence of knowledge. Given that philosophical literature lays more emphasis on having broad discussion on knowledge than ignorance, we think the latter doesn’t warrant weighty philosophical attention.    

It’s philosophically difficult to explain accurately what ignorance is. Even if it is just the absence of knowledge, ignorance has a right for philosophical attention of its own in an expanded array of philosophical debates. 

Bring Our Birds Back

A research published recently by the journal Science suggests that the total breeding population of birds across the United States and Canada has declined by 29 per cent over the last five decades.

Grassland birds are specifically worst hit, with approximately 53 per cent contraction in their population - around 720 million birds. Shorebirds, which were already at precariously low numbers, have lost more than thirty per cent of their population.

The Magpie (1868) by Claude Monet

The findings indicated that of around 2.9 billion birds disappeared since 1970, ninety per cent belong to twelve bird families, including finches, sparrows, swallows, and warblers – widespread, common species that play important roles in food webs and the functioning of ecosystem, from seed dispersal to pest control. Habitat loss is believed to be among the driving factors in these declines of avifauna population.

However, Ken Rosenberg, an applied conservation scientist at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and who is also the lead author of the research, has optimistic views about all this. He says, ‘Even if thirty per cent of North America’s birds are lost, there are still seventy per cent left to spur a recovery if conservation measures can be implemented. I don’t think any of these really major declines are hopeless at this point, but that may not be true ten years from now.’

The disappearance of almost three billion birds bespeaks an imminent crisis that we have the ability and means to stop. The need of the hour is to bring a societal shift in the significance and values we place on living alongside healthy and sustainable natural systems.

To begin with, we can do our bit by following some simple actions to help birds, as suggested by the #BringBirdsBack movement, which is spearheaded by various agencies and groups including American Bird Conservancy, Smithsonian, The Cornell Lab of Ornithology, and Georgetown University, which have all come together to create better protections and support for birds.  

A Silent Ecocide

Often referred to as Earth’s 'lung' because of its large swathe of forests releasing oxygen and storing carbon dioxide, the Amazon plays an instrumental role in processes that make our planet fit to live in.

The vastness and richness of the Amazon forest is such that a new species is discovered there every two or three days. Amazon expert and leading ecologist Thomas Lovejoy says, ‘every species in this incredibly biodiverse system represents solutions to a set of biological challenges — any one of which has transformative potential and could generate global human benefits. This rich wealth of species brims with promise, awaiting discovery.’

A forest fire in Para, Brazil | Photo courtesy: Victor Moriyama/AFP - Getty Images

The ongoing fires in the Amazon have provoked uproar among global leaders, celebrities, and social media users worldwide (#PrayForAmazonas has been one of the top trending topics on Twitter in recent days, as images of the fires spread across the internet). French President Emmanuel Macron has described the fires as ‘a real ecocide that is developing everywhere in the Amazon and not only in Brazil’.

The ravaging of Amazonia by fires or other forms of deforestation is not a new phenomenon. According to an estimate by the World Wildlife Fund, humans have cut down seventeen per cent of the Amazon forest cover over the last fifty years. Data released by from Brazilian satellites indicate that about three football fields' worth of Amazonian trees are falling every minute.

Debating whether the Amazon fires are a political problem or an environmental one will not help remedy the issue. According to reports, once lost, it will take around ten million years to replenish Amazon forest (the timeline is thirty-three times longer than humans, as a species, existed.

Deforestation and other environmental disasters are ecocides that are developing not just in the Amazon but in all other parts of the world. According to a report from the University of Maryland, the world in 2018 lost about thirty million acres of tree cover, including around nine million acres of rain forest, an area bigger than the size of Belgium. 

While identifying and acknowledging deforestation as a global problem by leaders, activists and the public has been easy, the tougher challenge is to implement the changes needed to rein it in, and that includes good governance, active participation of local populations and NGOs, and, most importantly, finding ways to prevent pervasive industrial deforestation.

Hong Kong: British Past, Chinese Future

Katherine Anne Porter, one of the most distinguished writers of America between the nineteen-thirties and nineteen-fifties, said that the past is never where you think you left it. The past, quite sometimes does not stay in the past, especially the past of a place - be it a remote rural province, a city, or a country. However, attempts to move forward by residents of Hong Kong, a former colony of Britain, have often unfailingly brought back memories of the past, even imagined ones.

Hong Kong was occupied by Britain in 1841, which established a colony there, obtaining a 99-year lease there in 1898. The city returned to Chinese rule in 1997, and has since been governed under a ‘one country, two systems’ policy that allows it to have independent judiciary and freedom for residents to protest - independences not cherished on the Chinese mainland.    

However, fears have grown in recent years of Chinese erosion of ‘one country, two systems’ policy on the island. This has been underlined by a string of troubles that has affected the relationship between Hong Kong and mainland China, with the latest being the extradition bill, which, if passed, would have allowed China to extradite citizens of Hong Kong.          

A Go-Go Girl, Maggie Li Lin-Lin (Yau Yat Tsuen Park, 1965) by Yau Leung

Hong Kong residents have been increasingly upset by a range of issues – including an inflow of Chinese immigrants and excessive property prices, in part, due to investment by business groups from mainland China. Many locals accuse China of extensive meddling in Hong Kong affairs, including interference with elections and obstruction of reforms related to self-governing.  

Speaking to Reuters about China’s impingement on Hong Kong’s civil liberties, Chan, a thirty-something man, recently said, ‘It’s like there’s a burglar in my house and I’m the one who’s forced to leave because I couldn’t defeat him.’ He is one of thousands of Hong Kong’s residents who have left the city and moved to proudly democratic Taiwan in recent years to start a new life.

A city’s greatness is not determined by its vastness, but by the breadth of its vision and the tallness of its dreams. While Hong Kong stands tall as admirably vivid representation of a city’s changing culture and how the past shapes present of a place, it vacillates between a British past and a Chinese future, trying to discover and, at the same time, uphold its self-identity by fighting for democracy. 

Slow Thought

We live in highly opinionated times, and between an unrelenting news cycle and bottomless ideological divides, we feel pressure to take sides hastily, often on situations and issues that are still developing, or on subjects we have little knowledge about.  

Le Penseur (The Thinker) at the Musée Rodin in Paris

While the ability to think and act swiftly is regarded as a necessary skill in many situations, research suggests that slow thinking requires more orderly thought and pay out more productive decision-making than quick reactions, which are often less accurate or useful. Lao Tzu was one of the foremost philosophers who spoke fervently in favour of cognitive patience. To him, simplicity, patience, and compassion were three greatest treasures of a person. He also believed that a person who knows does not speak, and one who speaks does not know.

Daniel Kahneman, an Israeli-American psychologist and one of the most prominent advocates of slow thinking research, in his book Thinking, Fast and Slow (2011), says that people mostly rely on speediness, but it's actually the slowness that assists better decisions to be made.      

When we’re not quickly jumping to conclusions or expeditiously taking actions, we’re free to weigh ideas and adjust our minds, or just be intentionally undecided. Having no fixed position is sometimes a liberating way to navigate the situation.         

As, in an Aeon article, Vincenzo Di Nicola, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Montreal, says, slow thought is playful, and it ‘appeals to reflection before conviction, clarity before a call to action.’

Wired for Bias

The human brain may be a natural wonder, but it is often an irrational snarl of biases. With around 100,000 chemical reactions every second and over 50,000 thoughts every day hitting our brain, our judgements are often wrong because our brain trusts cognitive biases more than strong evidence.

An article published recently by the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania explains how racial and gender biases are hurting our economy. It mentions a survey by the American Economic Association which acknowledges an alarmingly high level of gender bias in the field of economics, with around 50 per cent of the female respondents alleging they experienced discrimination. A staggering number of the female participants in the survey - around two-thirds - said their work isn’t taken as seriously as that of their male colleagues.

Additionally, around a third of non-white participants, from both sexes, admitted they had experienced racial discrimination, compared to barely four per cent of white respondents.                         

Corporate organisations and universities have procedures through their HR departments to address issues emanating from biases and discrimination, but measures taken to counter the problems are often toothless. Biases are so hardwired, appearing to be beyond any change, that most attention is paid not to counter them, but to avoid them.      

Our brain is wired for biases, but is it really possible for us to overcome our in-built biases or significantly mitigate them? Its answer cannot be precise or sharply defined. Corporate organisations, schools and universities, and government institutions have been only partially successful in their approach to a diverse and inclusive culture. Cognitive and implicit biases are natural, but the key is to understand that they have damaging consequences.                 

Yemen: Cholera in the Time of War

According to a recent report on Yemen by the United Nations, ‘cholera is starting to spread like wildfire across the country,’ with around 200 deaths and more than 110,000 cases of the disease outbreak reported over the past three months.

The Yemeni Civil War that began four years ago, involving Iran-supported Houthi movement and internationally recognised Yemeni government backed by Saudi Arabia, has brought around ten million people on the brink of famine and starvation. Around seven million people are malnourished, and, according to the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, around 80 per cent of the population needs humanitarian protection and assistance.

To make the situation worse, the cholera outbreak - the third major one since the civil war commenced in late 2014 - have pushed Yemen to face the world’s most pressing humanitarian crisis.            

The ongoing conflict has cut off transport routes for aid urgently in need including food and fuel. Incomes of families have been lost because of non-payment of salaries. The UN and international aid agencies have largely increased their response to assuage the grim situation, but only five per cent of $4.2 billion 2019 Yemen Humanitarian Response Plan has been funded.

With no end of the civil war in sight, conditions in Yemen are so extreme that it may take long before the situation begins to normalise after a ceasefire between warring sides is agreed, if that ever happens. 

On How to Read Dangerous Philosophers

He who thinks great thoughts often makes great errors.

~ Heidegger

Reading and accepting even the most malicious forms of writing hold a high value in liberal democracies. A progressive society gains from provocative ideas that its members are exposed to in multiple ways. John Stuart Mill, one of the most influential thinkers and philosophers in the nineteenth century best articulated these liberal values in his celebrated work On Liberty (1859), in which he discussed the relationship between liberty and authority, and asserts that being open to ideas that are disturbing and challenging can be constructive.    

But how should we read and decipher writers and philosophers whose work has often been associated with totalitarianism?   

For many critics, philosophies of Jean-Jacques Rousseau as well as Karl Marx carried destructive influence, and were dangerous and proto-totalitarian. Nietzsche disliked social and moral conventions as he argues they smother individuals. A recluse and an iconoclast, he ‘philosophised with a hammer’, in his own words, and was justly or unjustly accused of being fascist or racist (this remains a controversial issue). In philosophers’ circles of the twentieth century, he was a black sheep, regarded as Nazism’s official philosopher. Heidegger, one of the greatest philosophers known for his immense contribution to existentialism and phenomenology, was actually a member of Nazi party.

Anti-democratic thinkers have inspired American and European conservative and radical elites since French Revolution, but they also share with us indispensable truths about the society we live in that can propel us to think in a deeper manner about our own adamantly held beliefs and viewpoints.

Rousseau expounded on how the thoughtless pursuit of self-interest can lead to a deep sense of inauthenticity. Marx’s thoughts about capitalism - how it is a radical mode of production, and has ability to turn upside down traditional societies and their values - was a dazzling insight. Nietzsche’s genealogical insight into the history of moral truths was ground-breaking. Heidegger’s works and writings remain notoriously difficult, but they incite gaping reflection on various rationalistic dogmas that are ubiquitous today (he criticised Western philosophy, and even spoke of nihilistic values of modern technological culture).

We have not so much to fear from these philosophers than we do from those determined to construe them in a malevolent manner. We should not moralise about dangerous writers and philosophers, and straightaway condemn those who seek something of value in their work. Exposing ourselves to different ideas and philosophies - ‘the marketplace of ideas’, as Mill says - helps us cultivate a better understand of our society and the world as a whole.

Centre of the Universe Syndrome

We spend significant portion of our time seeking the approval of others. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and what not. We are everywhere – trying to develop a phony sense of belonging, redefining our way of being, and, to a huge extent, seeking extrinsic recognition. Bought a pricey phone, cooked something fancy to eat, feeling exultant with your partner? Happy? Yes, but not happy enough, until you post online the photographs of the phone you got, of the fancy food you cooked, and of your seemingly perfect relationship and get likes and retweets.         

Nicolaus Copernicus, a Renaissance-era astronomer and mathematician, formulated a model of universe, according to which the Earth went around the Sun instead of the other way around. He had had the idea long before, but it was only after several years of working to develop the mathematical proofs that he got assured it was true. His idea, published in his book De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres), was so earth-shattering that he didn’t publish it until the year he died (in 1543). The book was immediately withdrawn from circulation because its ideas differed from the Bible, which made it clear that the Earth, not the Sun, was the centre of the universe.

The Copernican Revolution revolutionised the way people, in those days, conceived about the universe, the world, and themselves. It brought a paradigm shift and made people acknowledge that they were no longer at the centre of the universe.     

Our behaviours and attitudes are shaped by multitude of factors, including social, biological, psychological, and spiritual. Often, these components form one or more types of personality disorders, including narcissistic personality disorder.

The American Psychiatric Association’s 2013 update of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (popularly known as DSM-5) has a number of criteria to identify people with narcissistic personality disorder, i.e. the people suffering from ‘Centre of the Universe Syndrome’. These include:

• Having an exaggerated sense of self-importance
• Expecting to be recognized as superior even without achievements that warrant it
• Exaggerating your achievements and talents
• Being preoccupied with fantasies about success, power, brilliance, beauty or the
• Requiring constant admiration
• Expecting special favors and unquestioning compliance with your expectations
• Taking advantage of others to get what you want
• Having an inability or unwillingness to recognize the needs and feelings of others
• Being envious of others and believing others envy you
• Behaving in an arrogant or haughty manner

Such people tend to believe they are of primary importance in others’ lives or to anyone they meet. The disproportionate exposure to social media may have also further contributed to more people being influenced by this ‘me first/me only’ attitude.      

It’s harsh, but it’s spot-on: people are too self-obsessed to think about you, and you are not the centre of the universe. Sorry to burst the bubble. You are not the centre of the universe: it’s a powerful insight, but only if you accept it.

Another Year of Moral Outrage

Our feelings about right and wrong are so immediate, self-activating, and compelling that they influence us as being as (one-sidedly) correct as our perceptions of objects around us. As another year passes off, there linger incessant expressions of outrage that typifies every year. 

Digital culture has shaped our mind to an extent that we think being outrage has become our duty, and in the process of fulfilling that duty we often neglect how this outrage has become replaceable and forgettable year after year.      

An angry society is not an unhealthy society. Moral outrage, mostly sounded off on Twitter and Facebook, recently proved to be a major force for holding wrongdoers accountable during the #BlackLivesMatter and #MeToo movements by democratising and loudening the voices of disempowered sections of people.

 

Nonetheless, there are fears that social media may be moulding our moral emotions in manners that could ultimately make it tougher for us to reshape society for the better.

In 2014, a study by researchers at the University of Illinois concluded that we were more likely to come to know about immoral acts online than in communication with others in person or through traditional media forms such as newspaper, radio, or TV. The study also underlined that the online content provoked a stronger sense of outrage than immoral acts encountered via traditional media sources or in person. 

Social media and online forms of communications often artificially exaggerate our experiences of outrage. Molly J Crockett, an American neuroscientist, in a 2018 opinion piece published in the Globe and Mail, says that 'if moral outrage is a fire, social media is like gasoline.'  

As we welcome another year, it's worth reflecting on whether we want to give up the control of our moral emotions and hand it over to social media algorithms that are unconcerned about our own welfare.