What are the few things that you have read academically and can correlate with observations in real life?
So we all read a lot of stuff during Civils preparation. Is there something that you have read about and are also able to correlate with observations around you. It could be something simple as your city doing well in Swachhhta Sarveskshan to something more complex like a social theory that you have seen unfold around you.
Anything?
Marx: State is the executive committee of the bourgeoisie(ruling class).
-> karnataka cancels special trains for migrants after CM's meeting with builders
Marx-Gramsci: Hegemony of ruling class ideas.
->Someone in the other thread believing that the public sector is inherently inefficient is 'common sense'.
Knowledge is power - from as small a thing as asking for directions to a stranger to subjecting yourself to a doctor , a form of power is being exercised on you because of information/knowledge asymmetry. When a doctor tells you to get checked for certain thing , you don't know if he is asking you to do it in good faith or simply to get his commission from diagnostic centres. Even if you know you won't be able to do anything other than maybe to consult another doctor, but who is to say that guy won't do the same to you. He is the professional afterall , and you have to trust the guy simply because well he is the expert. It is this same exercise of knowledge as power that leads to things like USA gymnastics sex abuse scandal. The sports doctor would exploit teenagers in name of one or other health checkup , massage routines , and kids and parents had no choice but to submit to his authority because they thought may be it's normal SOP for sports. Well Parents are just parents who are they to question the health expert !!
Maybe it's for same purpose that theres one language for elites in which scriptures are written and knowledge transferred and other language the commonly spoken one for plebs. You control knowledge, you control power.
When you meet a guy who doesn't understand your language and you teach him cuss words without his knowledge, again you exercise power over him. This exercise of power is so ubiquitous and so obvious you wonder why it took so long for a philosopher to point it out
Knowledge is power - from as small a thing as asking for directions to a stranger to subjecting yourself to a doctor , a form of power is being exercised on you because of information/knowledge asymmetry. When a doctor tells you to get checked for certain thing , you don't know if he is asking you to do it in good faith or simply to get his commission from diagnostic centres. Even if you know you won't be able to do anything other than maybe to consult another doctor, but who is to say that guy won't do the same to you. He is the professional afterall , and you have to trust the guy simply because well he is the expert. It is this same exercise of knowledge as power that leads to things like USA gymnastics sex abuse scandal. The sports doctor would exploit teenagers in name of one or other health checkup , massage routines , and kids and parents had no choice but to submit to his authority because they thought may be it's normal SOP for sports. Well Parents are just parents who are they to question the health expert !!
Maybe it's for same purpose that theres one language for elites in which scriptures are written and knowledge transferred and other language the commonly spoken one for plebs. You control knowledge, you control power.
When you meet a guy who doesn't understand your language and you teach him cuss words without his knowledge, again you exercise power over him. This exercise of power is so ubiquitous and so obvious you wonder why it took so long for a philosopher to point it out
Nietzsche and especially Foucault are perhaps most interesting characters I've come across in my UPSC journey! Knowledge-power connection is present everywhere and anywhere. For instance UPSC coaching wala people install these topper's banners (Knowledge component) and exercise power on us. :P
A short story (The Lottery by Shirley Jackson) that stayed with me even after reading it many years ago. The link below 👇
Summary: A village conducts “The Lottery” in order to have good produce every year. But later, in the story, it turns out that they were choosing a person to sacrifice. The belief was that the produce gets better because of the sacrifice. No one opposes the tradition except for the one whose name is drawn out through the lottery.
Whenever I would see a wrong tradition/law being followed in the society, this story keeps coming back to me. Then I found the solution in political science/ ethics, the concept of “Veil of Ignorance” by John Rawls. (I still find this to be ineffective, because in the story also, people had devised this rule of lottery system under the veil of ignorance… the ignorance of “just tradition”, not “just society”)
Now let me tell you an event from my own experience. Few years ago, I went to the weekly sabji market. I saw one of my childhood friends, a shit genius and a good cricketer, was selling the vegetables. Seeing me, he started acting as if he was there to buy those. Obviously, he was being ashamed of what he was doing. I preferred to ignore him, keep his self respect intact and came back with a heavy heart. It started nagging me, what if I was at his place? Isn’t it unfair? What is the solution to such injustice and inequality. I think I still can’t find the best solution. But one Positive effect it has on me is, I never oppose Reservation and Affirmative action.
@Naadan_Parinda How can someone selling vegetables act like buying one? How can ignoring someone promote self respect? No wonder you never oppose reservation.
You're probably imagining a guy with a shop and many baskets. Now imagine the opposite. 2 young people and a single basket, on the road sides.
We have friendship for a long time. I never bothered to know his background. He never wanted to tell me. So, ignoring the incident (not him) was the best possible way.
Now I want you to see the bigger picture and think about the deeper problems plaguing the country. Ignore it if you don't believe it.
A short story (The Lottery by Shirley Jackson) that stayed with me even after reading it many years ago. The link below 👇
Summary: A village conducts “The Lottery” in order to have good produce every year. But later, in the story, it turns out that they were choosing a person to sacrifice. The belief was that the produce gets better because of the sacrifice. No one opposes the tradition except for the one whose name is drawn out through the lottery.Whenever I would see a wrong tradition/law being followed in the society, this story keeps coming back to me. Then I found the solution in political science/ ethics, the concept of “Veil of Ignorance” by John Rawls. (I still find this to be ineffective, because in the story also, people had devised this rule of lottery system under the veil of ignorance… the ignorance of “just tradition”, not “just society”)
Now let me tell you an event from my own experience. Few years ago, I went to the weekly sabji market. I saw one of my childhood friends, a shit genius and a good cricketer, was selling the vegetables. Seeing me, he started acting as if he was there to buy those. Obviously, he was being ashamed of what he was doing. I preferred to ignore him, keep his self respect intact and came back with a heavy heart. It started nagging me, what if I was at his place? Isn’t it unfair? What is the solution to such injustice and inequality. I think I still can’t find the best solution. But one Positive effect it has on me is, I never oppose Reservation and Affirmative action.
Thank you for sharing this ...
Anduin,
babu_bisleri,Foxtrot
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