All of us have heard statements like “love marriage is better than arranged marriage”, or “living in Europe is better than living in India”, or “X religion is better than Y religion”, or “science is better than religion” and vice versa. We also know a lot of people who strongly believe these statements. These are blanket statements. These are generalizations that people believe in. I have some thoughts on these.
Generalizations are very useful. Picture this, a shady looking person is running towards you with a knife in hand, what will you do? Obviously, you will run to save your life. Was it necessary that the shady person was about to do some harm to you? No. Then why did you run? Because you have generalized that shady looking people with a knife in hand is not a very good sign (obviously you did not consciously generalize that exact statement, but you get the point). Generalizations are incredibly useful because they help with quick decision making. Your feeling brain (check out this blog if you don’t know what is the feeling brain) uses these generalizations to make all kinds of immediate decisions. The problem starts when these generalizations become rules and the rationale behind them is forgotten.
I was chatting with a friend one day and he asked me, “Do you prefer a love marriage or an arranged marriage?”. I replied, “I don’t have a preference as such”. He was very surprised on hearing this. He went on, “How could you be okay with an arranged marriage? There are so many problems with it. Forced dowry, marital rape and what not”. Do you see the problem here?
All the issues we generally think about can be broadly generally categorized into 3 types -
- Individual level
- Societal level
- National level
One issue can be in multiple categories. For eg, the love marriage vs arranged marriage question could be about a single individual’s preference or it could be societal in nature. Societal in this case could mean answers to questions like “what is the proportion of love marriages vs arranged marriages in the society?” or “generally speaking, what kind of marriage lasts longer?” or “what kind of marriage produces a larger proportion of happier couples in general?”
The reasons my friend gave for disliking arranged marriages include forced dowry and marital rape. Both of these are societal in nature. Both me and my friend are fairly certain that we are not going to engage in any such activities, so for our individual preferences, should parameters like these be considered for the choice between love marriage and arranged marriage? We are not debating whether love marriage is better or arranged marriage in this blog, there could be n number of reasons to prefer one over the other. But, the point being, if a societal parameter is not applicable to an individual case, generalizations tend to make our choices irrational. This is on similar lines to what we discussed in Internalization of social morals.
Another example, morality can also be categorized broadly in these categories. There is individual morality, societal morality and national morality. Let’s also define a fourth category here, geopolitical morality. Many of us will agree on this, morality is very useful on an individual or a societal level, but on a geopolitical level, morals are almost non-existent. It is an open secret that many countries in the world support terrorism and engage in proxy warfare. There is constant backstabbing, rivalries, and a pursuit of self-interest that often disregards ethical considerations. Imagine what would happen to a country that applies individual morality to geopolitics. That country would be a disaster.
More categories or sub-categories can be added to this framework, there is no rigid rule of these 3 specific categories mentioned. For example, there could be 2 sub-categories of the individual level, self and others. Self could have 2 more sub-categories, internal (eg - thoughts, feelings and emotions) and external (eg - physical actions).
Another problem that I often notice during discussions is that we compare the ideal form of one thing to the practical, real world form of another. For eg, I have often come across a statement from many people, “Indians lack civic sense, they need a few years of strict dictatorship, sab ke sab line pe aa jaayenge uske baad”. The real world, practical democracy of India is compared with an ideal dictatorship where the dictator is a well wisher of the country. There are many examples of “dictatorship gone wrong” in human history which are completely disregarded here. A very common argument of religious people against science is “Science is constantly changing its mind, one day something is true, the next it’s false, but the word of God in holy texts is eternal and unchanging.” Atheists also have similar arguments, for eg, “Science has improved the world so much, and what has religion given us? Prejudiced, stubborn people and unnecessary conflicts.” Here, ideal science is being compared to the flaws of religion, or ideal religion is compared to the flaws of science (although the ever changing nature of science is a strength rather than a flaw in my opinion, but you get the point).
I hope it is clearly established that when detailed thinking is required, making decisions purely on generalization, without considering the nuances and the context, the result could range from anything between irrational but not very harmful, to catastrophic. So hopefully, this discussion provides you a broad framework on how to think in a more nuanced way when facing a decision or having a heated debate. Think of your argument and ask yourself whether it is a generalization and you are forgetting the rationale behind it or is it a nuanced argument. Talk to you in the next one. Thanks for reading!