Plans for the Future

Dear Readers,

I apologize for not posting something here earlier, but things have been pretty busy lately. I don’t know how many of you have noticed, but I am now a regular contributor over at the Desert Lamp’s brand new “Bureau Abroad.” I fully intend to keep this blog active, though I am not exactly sure in what capacity. I’m reluctant to post identical entries on both blogs, so I will probably just confine this one to topics that fall out of my jurisdiction at the Lamp. This is subject to change if I find that the personal blog is being neglected, however. Thanks for reading, expect more soon.

-Vishal

Nose Rings in Mormon Land

Take  a leisurely stroll around the University of Arizona campus and you will notice that every girl and her mother has a nose ring. In fact what was once a cultural mark for Indian women and hippies has now become a mainstream fashion trend in this part of the country. In Utah, however, this does not seem to be the case. Twelve year old middle school student Suzannah Pabla, the daughter of a Mormon mother and  a Sikh father, decided to get her nose pierced on Diwali only to have her school suspend her for violating a rule banning all non-ear piercings. According to Jesse Washington of the AP:

Suzannah was briefly suspended last month from her public school in Bountiful, Utah, for violating a body-piercing ban. School officials — who noted that nose piercing is an Indian cultural choice, not a religious requirement — compromised and said she could wear a clear, unobtrusive stud in her nose, and Suzannah returned to her seventh-grade class.

A cultural choice, sure. But that does not mean that it is trivial. According to Suzannah, she chose to get her nose pierced (with her parents’ approval) because she ” wanted to feel more closer to my family in India because I really love my family.” Does her school have the right to hinder her ability to reconnect with her Indian family, regardless of how she might manifest this connection? Amardeep Singh, a professor of English at Lehigh University and a regular contributor on Sepia Mutiny, argues that 

Even if it is just culture, culture matters. And her right to express or explore it seems to me at least as important as her right to express her religious identity.

True. But to be fair the school’s position is not completely ridiculous. It is important for Suzannah to explore her cultural identity, but the fact remains that wearing a nose ring is by no means a religious  or a cultural obligation. It is not, for example, as momentous as the US army deciding to allow Sikh men to keep their turbans and beards, two very important symbols of the Sikh faith. I am not really sure where the answer lies in this question. I suppose coming to some conclusion would require an examination of the school board’s rationale for banning non-ear piercings in the first place, if such a rationale even exists. Assuming it does, how do we draw a line between legitimate cultural expression and purely stylistic, presumably anti-social behavior? Any thoughts?

Exciting Times Ahead

The new and shiny Desert Lamp website has just emerged from the ashes, revealing a slew of new thingamajigs and more exciting content. I encourage you all to check out the latest post about the new website here. More updates as they come.

Classics and the Modern Politician

I started this blog with a post about Roman sexuality and I thought it would be good to end a long hiatus with another classics-oriented blurb. Hillary Clinton recently made a speech to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee about, among other things, the importance of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. She also outlined The Obama administration’s committment to “smart power,” a concept supposedly coined by John Nye, the former Undersecretary of Defense who made his name by advocating that lovey-dovey sissyfied approach to foreign affairs called “soft power.” 

But all of this is trivial and uninteresting. What is more important is the fact that Hillary Clinton made a reference to the Roman playwright Terence in her speech. 

With smart power, diplomacy will be the vanguard of foreign policy. This is not a radical idea. The ancient Roman poet Terence, who was born a slave and rose to become one of the great voices of his time, declared that “in every endeavor, the seemly course for wise men is to try persuasion first.” The same truth binds wise women as well.

Finally! An opportunity to put my classics education to use in a context other than my Latin class! Thank you, Secretary Clinton!
First things first. Anyone who has studied classics knows how absurd it is to make any definitive claims about biographical information. While scholars think that Terence may have been a slave, the evidence is by no means definitive. And to claim that he was one of the “great voices of his time,” is plainly wrong on the grounds that if we are duly skeptical of Suetonius’ biography of Terence written in the 2nd century AD, we are left with no evidence that Terence even existed.  He was a good playwright who made people laugh at festivals; great voices were for the forum. Also, the Roman concept of slavery was completely different from the idea conjured up in our minds when we hear the term today. In fact it was quite often the case that manumitted slaves in Rome would buy their freedom and use their wealth to purchase slaves of their own. Not exactly the all-American rags to riches story Clinton was hoping to evoke with her statement, I suppose. 

The play, Terence’s Eunuchus, is a Roman comedy about cowardly soldiers, greedy prostitutes, and rape- three common themes in Roman comedy  that would have elicited serious laughter from the audience. The quote itself is a very loose translation of a a line spoken by the cowardly soldier as he prepares to storm the brothel, kidnap the greedy prostitute Thais, and beat her severely. Why? Because he gave her a gift in hopes of enjoying a few days alone with his mistress, only to have Thais stand him up. Anyways, his paltry crew of four slaves assemble outside the brothel armed a crowbar and  a sponge (to clean their wounds) only to have their commander Thraso lose his nerve. At this point he tells his main slave, Gnatho, that it is better to exhaust alternate means before resorting to force. The actual Latin  is “Omnia prius experiri quam armis sapientem decet,” or “it is fitting that a wise man to test all things before doing something of arms.” Mind you that is a literal translation.

So what does all of this mean? From a purely rhetorical perspective, it is pretty clear why Secretary Clinton would invoke Terence. Presumably the speech writer assumed that citing a quote from Ancient Rome (though it could have also been Ancient Greece) would make the Secretary look immeasurably wise, and that the adroit reference would instantly draw gasps of admiration from the stunned Committee. Or maybe not. Maybe the speech writer was simply taking advantage of the fact that, despite the Classics’ gradual drift towards the periphery of America’s collective consciousness,  many of us still have a sort of superficial admiration and respect for the ideas of a particular time period. After all, almost all of our revered founding fathers received a classical education in Latin and Greek which would go on to influence the way in which they  would formulate the experiment of American democracy. The difference is, of course, that if any of them were making speech about the importance of diplomacy, Terence would have been the last person to whom they would look for advice. 

When I was talking to Evan from the Desert Lamp about this, he mentioned that Clinton’s failure to understand the context of the quote could be an apt metaphor for American foreign policy. An interesting idea to say the least. Thraso’s comedic speech to his slaves about the importance of diplomacy would have been especially hilarious to the Roman audience because Thraso spends much of the play before that point boasting about his bravery and flaunting his war spoils. That he is too frightened to storm a brothel guarded by prostitutes and eunuchs is, to the say the least, ridiculous. But does the practice of veiling one’s weaknesses with grandiose rhetoric have resonance in the modern context? Perhaps. Then again, I suppose storming a brothel with a crowbar and a sponge is something like launching an offensive in Waziristan with a conventional army. How Thraso would have loved to have unmanned drones!

The Health Care Debate: part 1

According to physician turned social critic Theodore Dalrymple, a sick dog is better off than a sick human in the UK:

As a British dog, you get to choose (through an intermediary, I admit) your veterinarian. If you don’t like him, you can pick up your leash and go elsewhere, that very day if necessary. Any vet will see you straight away, there is no delay in such investigations as you may need, and treatment is immediate. There are no waiting lists for dogs, no operations postponed because something more important has come up, no appalling stories of dogs being made to wait for years because other dogs—or hamsters—come first.

 

And for the dogs who can’t afford the treatment?

Are not British streets littered with canines expiring from preventable and treatable diseases, as American streets are said by Europeans to be littered with the corpses of the uninsured? Strangely, no. This is not because there are no poor dogs; there are many. The fact is, however, that there is a charitable system of veterinary services, free at the point of delivery, for poor dogs, run by the People’s Dispensary for Sick Animals, the PDSA. This is the dog’s safety net.

Obviously, Dalrymple’s comparison must be taken with a grain of salt for a multitude of reasons, foremost of which is the fact that dogs have not taken a liking (yet) to television and fast food.  But the point remains that vets are able to consistently deliver quality healthcare to our canine friends without long waits and at a competitive price. For humans, on the other hand, it is a different story. the NHS, or National Health Service, covers the vast majority of  Brits for everything from primary care checkups to cosmetic surgery. A private market does exist,  but ironically enough its clients tend to be sick NHS employees who need to get back to work and can’t afford to endure the waiting times, which, for non-essential procedures, can be up to 18 months. Further, a recent influx of insecure women requesting cosmetic procedures like breast implantation, nose jobs, and face lifts (on the grounds that less than perfect looks are psychologically damning) have clogged the NHS ration system. According to the daily mail:

Today surgeons claim the soaring demand for cosmetic surgery on the NHS is putting a huge strain on resources. They say many patients are placing doctors in an impossible position by refusing to accept they cannot have free surgery.

So, before any meaningful discussion about healthcare it is worth mentioning that other countries have their problems too and looking at ANY policy as a panacea is not going to end well for anyone. That being said, no reasonable individual would argue that reform is not needed. Despite the plethora of mind-boggling statistics being thrown about by experts from all corners, it is clear that we spend more on healthcare than any other country with only mediocre results- not a winning combination to say the least. The current proposal whose skeletal version was released by the House democrats on June 19th promises to extend coverage to 95% of Americans, cut waste, and put insurance companies in check. Unfortunately, despite the estimated $1 trillion bill, the details of how they are going to go about actually doing these things are a bit fuzzy.  

But assuming the details are worked out and congress does find a way to pay for this plan, does that make it the best option? And, to approach the question from a more philosophical perspective, is ensuring the health of the citizenry the responsibility of the government at all? If the government does take responsibility for our health, how long will it be before they start taking responsibility for our eating habits and our lifestyles? After all, if current trends continue and our waistlines continue to expand, our health issues will simultaneously increase as well. The latter question, which is surely the more interesting one, will be dealt with in a later post! 

Any discussion of the solutions obviously requires a summary of the problems, which are manifold. Skyrocketing costs push individuals on the lower end of the socio-economic ladder from the market;  well-meaning medical students are deterred from entering primary practice because of looming debts and oppressive overhead costs;  the absolutely non-sensical “fee-for-service” (as opposed to fee for results) payment system encourages the few private practice doctors left to rush patients through as quickly as possible, subjecting them to a myriad of tests which are absolutely irrelevant to the issue at hand (it is only a matter of time before a diagnosis of the common cold requires a MRI), which consequently adds fuel to the fire of gross over-specialization in the American healthcare system. 

Despite the fact that we are still waiting for additional information regarding the President’s plan  I am skeptical that it would be able to address all of these issues. Yes, access to healthcare is an issue, but there is a more fundamental issue of quality at hand. Good healthcare has to be a based on a strong, personal relationship between the primary care doctor and the patient. Instead of punishing doctors who want to spend 30 minutes discussing lifestyle habits and medical history with a patient, we need a system where doctors are rewarded for results based on thoroughness and honesty, not their ability to throw pills around like confetti on July 4th. And I will be the first to acknowledge that the idea that every individual would be able to afford such care is just as unrealistic as the President’s dream that the government can ensure that every American could gain access to quality healthcare. However, is the solution to pauperize everyone like the NHS has done in the UK? 

The idea of patient-driven, private healthcare is a path India has chosen to take and it is one that is quickly making the country a leader in healthcare. In a country where 75% of the population are skeptical that such a thing as the central government even exists, a public plan is not exactly a feasible option. Instead, India is home to a two-tier private market of its own. Rival chains of hospitals unfettered by excessive litigation and averse to buying the latest and greatest medical equipment have been forced to innovate new approaches to medicine. The Economist recently shared the story of a particularly ground-breaking individual in a Bangalore hospital:

Vivek Jawali and his team had nearly completed his complex heart bypass. Because such “beating heart” surgery causes little pain and does not require general anaesthesia or blood thinners, patients are back on their feet much faster than usual. This approach, pioneered by Wockhardt, an Indian hospital chain, has proved so safe and successful that medical tourists come to Bangalore from all over the world.

This is just one example of the kind of innovation that is being stifled in the status quo. Additionally, whereas some hospitals might cater to the wealthier class and medical tourists, other hospital chains are choosing to cater to the other market. 

For years India’s private-health providers, such as Apollo Hospitals, focused on the affluent upper classes, but they are now racing down the pyramid. Vishal Bali, Wockhardt’s boss, plans to take advantage of tax breaks to build hospitals in small and medium-sized cities (which, in India, means those with up to 3m inhabitants). Prathap Reddy, Apollo’s founder, plans to do the same. He thinks he can cut costs in half for patients: a quarter saved through lower overheads, and another quarter by eliminating travel to bigger cities.

So, though far from perfect, this private, two-tier healthcare system is a helluva start, and it would serve the higher-ups well to take a look. The biggest mistake, after all, would be to engage in blind obedience to ideology and forget just how much is at stake.

Shashiji, how could you?

I do not if this issue has been getting any coverage in the American media, but there has recently been a series of racially motivated attacks against Indian students in Australia- a worrying sign for Indians abroad to say the least. In the  last 15 years or so Australia, like America, Cananda and the UK, has been a prime destination for Indians who want to study or work abroad. At the moment, approximately 93,000 students of Indian origin populate Australian universities, “attending courses in everything from hospitality to engineering. ” 

The attacks began on May 24 when Sravan Kumar Theerthalai, a student at a local University, was severely beaten and stabbed (with a screwdriver, no less) by a group of white Australian youth. Although most initially assumed that this was an isolated incident, numerous others were reported that same weekend, including the the case of Rajesh Kumar, a student who was left with severe burns after being attacked with petrol bombs.

Despite mass, generally peaceful protests held by Indian students fearing for their safety, the Australian authorities have been reluctant to admit the racial nature of the attacks. Instead they attribute the the victimisation of Indian students to the fact that many of them work at night and end up having to walk home a particularly dangerous hour. While this may be true for some of the attacks, the proliferation of facebook groups with titles like “Let’s go Curry Bashing!” certaintly indicate the racial nature of the attacks.

Needless to say, the Indian government has, rightly in my opinion,  been up in arms about the issue. In the aftermath of the protests, the Congress-led government announced its intent to engage in high-level diplomacy in the hopes of pressuring the Australian government to do more to stop the attacks. However, recent comments by diplomat/author/cricket fan extraordinare Shashi Tharoor have reflected a reversal in the government’s attitude towards the attacks.

Tharoor, the Thiruvananthapuram MP who was recently named the Minister of State for External Affairs, emphatically ruled out the Indian government’s continued involvement in the issue, much to the chagrin of the main opposition, the nationalist BJP party. In a recent speech, Tharoor characterized the attacks as solely an Australian issue necessitating action from the Australian government. Murli Manohar Joshi, a leading BJP member with known ties to the nationalist RSS, immediately went on the offensive, asking how the issue can be a purely domestic one, when Gandhiji himself began his independence crusade by fighting for Indian civil rights in a foreign country, South Africa.

Although my heart wants me to agree with Joshi, my mind knows that he has the (much) easier job of the two. Tharoor’s comments highlight the fact that, despite the long and rich history of the Indian diaspora, this is the first time since Independence Indians abroad have been subjected to attacks of this nature. Is there a bright line that determines when the welfare of these individuals, the vast majority of whom are Indian citizens legally working or studying in Australia, falls under the jurisdiction of the Indian government, regardless of their physical location? More importantly, are there any precedents for such an action? Not sure- thoughts?

The Value of Work

So many important discussions but so little time…

For a lively debate about the legacy of the Tiananmen square protest, check out the comments on Trahern’s post  over at critical political. Also, for those of you interested in the on-going intelligence question, check out of the comments of my previous post. 

Both of the aforementioned discussions deserve their own posts, but there is something else I wanted to write about first. In his post “Sgt. Pepper’s Day Mojo- Blogging,” Evan discusses Lane Wallace’s response to Matthew Crawford’s “Shop Class as Soul Craft.”  

In what seems like a more practical rendition of Pirsig’s Motorcycle Maintenance, Craword argues that “We in the West have arranged our institutions to prevent the concentration of political power. … But we have failed utterly to prevent the concentration of economic power, or take account of how such concentration damages the conditions under which full human flourishing becomes possible (it is never guaranteed).” Or, as Michael Agger of Slate puts it:

 Strive not for flimsy new economy “flexibility” but for real, handy expertise in a chosen field. The point is to achieve mastery, which in turn gives you a skill not subject to the whims of office politics. Finally, think about how your work affects others. This is a hedge against both narcissistic creativity and doing actual harm.

Implicit throughout Crawford’s discussion is a deep-seated aversion to the cubicle lifestyle.  Crawford finds the notion of an office “team” especially depressing, beccause for Craword it is nothing but a psychological shield created solely to shield the individual worker from the realization that he or she truly is not contributing anything tangible to the project at hand. I mean, isn’t this the tragic irony that makes The Office such a funny show? The “team” also leaves the individual feeling helpess, with “difficulty imagining how he might earn a living otherwise.” Motorcycle repair is emblematic of the alternative Crawford advocates: an occupation with a clear bright-line discerning success from failure (does the bike start?) that also fosters the mastery of skills within the individual. Think of the scene in office space where the consultants are interviewing the gentleman in human resources whose job it is to carry customer information from his desk to the one in the next cubicle. No, I do not think that Crawford would consider “people skills,” comparable to, let’s say, mechanical prowess. 

 Crawford cites the concentration of economic power (quoted above) as one of the predominant reasons for our economic/existential woes.  Although I am still unclear on what Crawford means exactly by the “concentration of economic power,” my eyes lit up  at the emphasis he places on the importance of human “flourishing.” Aristotle’s idea of eudaimonia, which is often mistranslated as happiness (it really is something more like well-being or, more literally, well-spirited), is inexorably linked with the idea of the fulfillment of function, or “arete,” in Greek. Individuals, according to Aristotle, have different functions and ought to aspire towards fulfilling them to the best of their abilities. Crawford’s implication is that the concentration of economic power dramatically narrows the career paths (and thus the job skills) individuals can take, thereby decreasing the opportunities they have to truly flourish. It is important to note that Pirsig, another formative influence in Crawford’a book, also found this idea of arete important, especially as a way of explaining his concept of “quality.” This is all especially interesting because one feels like things are starting to change, especially in light of the recent economic crisis. Anyways, there is one side of the argument. I have already written enough, so I will deal with Wallace’s reponse tomorrow.

 

PS: I am really sorry about the lack of updates. The whole 8-5 thing is taking some adjusting to and I have yet to find time for the blog. Hopefully that will change.

Interesting notes about Education

I am sure many of you loyal “Under the Sun” readers were ardently following the education debate between Matt and Evan a month or two ago. The topic is an immensely important one and both of them hit on some fundamental issues regarding our education. For instance, should schools, especially those for young children, be more concerned with the transmission of knowledge through drilling and memorization, or should they focus on building critical analysis skills by engaging the students in discussion and building social awareness? This question, of course, raises a host of other questions, like how do schools account for different learning styles, if such things truly exist? Anyways, hopefully we can reinivgorate the debate in our little community and share some ideas. Plus, what better time is there to discuss learning and education than during the summer, when kids all over the country systematically evict knowledge from their minds with  a potent concoction of video games and daytime television? 

The first article I wanted to share was brought to my attention by Zach over at the Tracer Blog. The article, titled “How to Wake Up Slumbering Minds,” is a review of Daniel Willingham’s “Why Don’t Students Like School?” Willingham is a cognitive scientist and in his book he sets out to present concrete teaching methods that are grounded in neuroscience. Among other questions, Willingham asks whether rote memorization really has a place in the classroom. His answer is an emphatic yes as “research shows that practice not only makes a skill perfect but also makes it permanent, automatic and transferable to new situations, enabling more complex work that relies on the basics.” I have to say, as a classics major this answer really made me happy. All of those hours slaving over declension-filled index cards really were worthwhile… 

The second article of note was one I just came across on the BBC website. Apparently Chris Woodhead, the former Chief of Schools in England, has controversially shared his belief that background heavily determines how a child performs in school. In an interview with Mike Baker of the BBC, he stated that “I think it would be unlikely that large numbers of grammar school kids would come from disadvantaged areas – the genes are likely to be better if your parents are teachers, academics, lawyers.” Hmm…He went on to say that it would make more sense for “less bright children” to be given” practical and vocational training,” instead. The article goes on to cite the 1970 “Birth Cohort Study,” in which 17,000 babies born in a particular week were followed throughout their academic careers. I was unable to find the study itself, but the article explains that the results demonstrated that “ability levels at the earliest age are a strong indicator of later educational success.” The implication is, therefore, that individuals who are born with advantageous genes, as indicated by their parents’ socio-economic status, have a higher chance to succeed than their less well-off peers. Of course, we know that this isn’t always the case. In America more than any other country we celebrate the Carnegies, the Baracks, and the JK Rowlings- individuals who achived the proverbial “rags to riches” dream. Nonetheless both articles do raise some interesting questions worth addressing, and I would love to hear some thoughts.

Update-finally!

Sorry about the lack of action in the past few days. I started work today had to get a bunch of random stuff together before I made the long, tedious commute to downtown Phoenix. Anyways, I am going to try and update later tonight, but here is a Walcott excerpt for the time being. This was taken from my brand new Walcott anthology (1948-1984):

“Prelude”

“I, with legs crossed along the daylight, watch

The varigated fists of clouds that gather over

The uncouth features of this, my prone island.

Meanwhile the steamers which divide horizons prove

Us lost;

Found only

In tourist booklets, behind ardent binoculars;

Found in the blue reflection of eyes

That have known cities and think us here happy.

Time creeps over the patient who are too long patient,

So I, who have made one choice,

Discover that my boyhood has gone over.

And my life, too early of course for the profound cigarette,

The turned doorhandle, the knife turning

In the bowels of the hours, must not be made public 

Until I have learnt to suffer

In accurate iambics…”

The Effect of Prayer on the Mind

NPR’s “All Things Considered” has an on-going segment called “the science of spirituality” about, you guessed it, the study of faith from a scientific perspective. The specific branch of study  dealt with in the report is called “neurotheology,” or the study of religion’s effect on the brain.

Scientists have known for some time now that the brains of Buddhist monks exhibit unique patterns of behavior when in a meditative state. In a report run by the BBC in 2002, Andrew Newberg, incidentally the same University of Pennsylvania neuroscientist consulted for yesterday’s NPR report, noted that, during meditation, the front part of the brain is more active while the parietal lobe, or the part of the brain responsible for spatial orientation, becomes quiet. Seven years down the road interest in the topic has increased and scientists have taken the study several steps further. For example, is the neural effect of meditation/prayer only present during these spiritual experiences, or do they leave a more persistent mark on the fundamental workings of the brain? 

According to Dr. Newberg “the more you focus on something — whether that’s math or auto racing or football or God — the more that becomes your reality, the more it becomes written into the neural connections of your brain.” Interesting, I guess Pascal was right!

“Endeavor, then, to convince yourself, not by increase of proofs of God, but by abatement of your passions… Learn of those who have been bound like you, and who now stake all their possessions. These are people who know the way which you would follow, and who are cured of an ill which you would be cured. Follow the way by which they began: by acting as if they believed, taking the holy water, having masses said, etc…” [emphasis added: vishal ganesan]

Though Pascal obviously had no knowledge of the actual effects prayer and religious ritual would have on the brain, he was aware of the fact that if an individual acted AS IF god existed, his reality would begin to be shaped by that behavior. Or, as neuroscientist Richard Davidson says, “you can sculpt your brain just as you’d sculpt your muscles if you went to the gym.” 

The whole study was particularly striking to me because a friend of mine and I were having a discussion the other day about Hinduism in modern society, and in particular about the place of many of the seemingly superfluous rituals that have survived throughout the ages. The plethora of rituals in the Hindu faith pose an obstacle for a devotees of all ages because it is difficult to find a proper explanation of the symbolism behind the rituals themselves. However, this new study provides a new perspective on the purpose of ritual generally, whether in religion or elsewhere. This is not to say that finding the meaning behind the rituals is not important, just that ritual has value in and of itself to the extent that it “sculpts” the brain of the individual carrying it out.