Battleground of Relationships

On a hot afternoon in Coleman, Texas, a family is comfortably playing dominoes on a porch, until the father-in-law suggests that they take a 50-mile trip to Abilene for dinner. The wife says, "Sounds like a great idea." The husband, despite having reservations because the drive is long and hot, thinks that his preferences must be out-of-step with the group and says, "Sounds good to me. I just hope your mother wants to go." The mother-in-law then says, "Of course I want to go. I haven't been to Abilene in a long time." The drive is hot, dusty, and long. When they arrive at the cafeteria, the food is as bad as the drive. They arrive back home four hours later, exhausted. One of them dishonestly says, "It was a great trip, wasn't it?" The mother-in-law says that, actually, she would rather have stayed home, but went along since the other three were so enthusiastic. The husband says, "I wasn't delighted to be doing what we were doing. I only went to satisfy the rest of you." The wife says, "I just went along to keep you happy. I would have had to be crazy to want to go out in the heat like that." The father-in-law then says that he only suggested it because he thought the others might be bored. The group sits back, perplexed that they together decided to take a trip which none of them wanted. They each would have preferred to sit comfortably, but did not admit to it when they still had time to enjoy the afternoon.  This story is what management expert Jerry Harvey, termed as the Abilene Paradox, to explain why groups of people end up achieving outcomes which none of them wanted in the first place. The story is also reflective of the quintessential Bhaaratiya family and by extension, society. Though it is a paradox, this very concept of valuing emotions of the rest of the family members/society has held us, as a generic society, in good stead for a very long time. Thus, because we (barring exceptions here or there) are conditioned in a way to take 'one', 'two', 'three' and more for the team, we have refrained from getting into controversial or confrontational emotional scenarios at home or at work.

Jonathan Haidt is in 18-min TED talk The moral roots of liberals and conservatives, expounds on five moral channels that define any individual's moral compass. He further goes on to delve upon a commonly observed trend in these two broad types of people across geographies - a trend that suggests how conservatives value each of the five moral channels relatively evenly explaining why this group of people have stronger decision making abilities. It also shows that conservatives place a much greater emphasis on moral channels of loyalty, authority and purity than liberals do. In effect, conservatives tend to value the concept of 'group', 'family', 'society', 'nation' etc much more than liberals do who are wired to focus on 'individuality' and 'individual rights and behaviour'. The scope of this blog does not allow me to get into debating the study but draw of it to present the core content of this blog today. However, if the reader is interested, he/she may check out one of earlier blogs Fiberakht where I have minced no words in expressing myself while referring to Haidt's study.

Thus, the observations of Jerry Harvey and Jonathan Haidt gently combine to communicate vital characteristics of the average conservative Bhaaratiya society and the apparent change that has taken place in little less that the last ten years. While Haidt's study explains why we place immense importance on the emotions of our family members and the wider society, Harvey's observations explain that while this ingrained trait did make us more accommodative, it also resulted in the plain-in-sight concealment of divergent viewpoints, opinions, thoughts and decisions which have led us towards detrimental outcomes at times. One of these outcomes is the accusation of increasing 'intolerance' and 'divisiveness'. This accusation is what I plan to address in this write-up. As I agree with the accusation, I shall present my thoughts as an explorer, not as a defendant.

Harvey's observations clearly point out a basic fact which the ones accusing have missed - the fact that the contradictions and the divergence always existed. The human existence is blessed with sadsad Viveka Buddhi, i.e. the ability to distinguish. Inherently so, distinguish implies separation and thus the divergence. If there was an illusion of convergence with the mainstream thought processes or rather, the publicly expressed, marketed and canvassed thoughts, that illusion was because of the Abilene Paradox. The wider conservative Bhaaratiya society was quiet because of the importance it gave to protecting structures, organizations and societal foundations. For instance, was the Hindu society overjoyed with the constant abuse, mocking and hatred against their symbols, practices, traditions, beliefs etc? Of course not! The society simply let it slide under the assumption that one, it was insignificant in context to object to as against the liberty of those expressing these views and two, the environment was not conducive for the objection under the fear of being ridiculed and slandered, i.e. the silent majority phenomena in psephological terms. However, once this conservative society started to realize, slowly but steadily, that their silence is counterproductive to their stated objective of protecting societal foundations/relationships, some segments within the conservative mass started becoming louder and more presentable - as predicted by Haidt's study when it comes to group loyalty and authority. This is what the modern mainstream influential individuals like to call 'intolerance'. The mainstream is a smart cookie too, not only did it term the phenomena as 'increasing intolerance', it also tugged at the heartstrings of the conservative Bhaaratiya society with an often repeated dialogue sub-consciously planted in our minds, 'are we going to endanger family/relationships for expressions of political viewpoints? We must remember that only our loved ones will help us in times of need, not political leaders'. How delightfully brilliant is this strategy as it flips objectives upside down in an attempt to confuse the voice of disagreement. Most disagreements today on public platforms, social media etc are not political in nature, but essentially civilisational or cultural; the fact that the two tend to overlap is an unfortunate cultural bankruptcy of the wider opposition benches. Nevertheless, if the voice of disagreement is not clear on this count and lets the mainstream sell him/her the idea that 'he/she is making a political argument', then that voice is already on the backfoot. It is then natural for that said voice to get confused split right down the middle - family/relationships on one side and civilisational/cultural/moral disagreements or calling on the other side. A few thousand years ago, a great warrior was in the exact same dilemma albeit in a completely different context and on a much higher scale. This exact dilemma went on to become one of the greatest chapters in history, The despondency of Arjuna - the first chapter of the Bhagavad Geeta. It was this dilemma that also probably led to the birth of a term - the battleground of relationships - a term I heard for the first time from Vimala Thakar via her book, the Insights into the Bhagavad Geeta. To look at this term as an expression of enmity between individuals would be far from what it is meant to be. The battleground of relationships denotes the constant process of relationships getting created, being sustained and then ultimately destroyed so that new ones, either with the same person or others, take shape. The battle in question is not against individuals with differing views or actions but with the dissonance that is set on the substrata of relationships. The battle is about seeking that equipoise within that will ultimately aid the individual in navigating through the multitude of relationships outside. What is today's age of 'increasing intolerance' not but the Battleground of Relationships?

I shall not present today what I feel is right or wrong when it comes to choosing at every juncture, between the two aforementioned choices - i.e. preserving existing relationships or forging new ones as disagreements are voiced. At one moment, silence might be the better option but then, expression might be so at a different moment in time. Today, I simply wish to highlight that we all are participants on this battleground of relationships whether we choose to act or not act, in any given way. Like the cosmic dance of Shiva, the interplay of these relationships will continue to be in the state of static dynamism, full of energy while seemingly at rest! Like all chemical processes in the universe are an effect of certain parameters such as pressure, volume and temperature, so are these relationships a function of a set of parameters. The choice of one entity to preserve a relationship is immaterial; the choice of other also matters and so does the environmental conditions - conducive or otherwise. While the relationships of a father, mother, brother, sister, uncle, aunt, neighbour, friend, colleague, manager and reportee are in the foreground, the relationships forged with one's leader (at block, district, state or nation) or one's philosophical/cultural mentor/guide or with some random individual holding dear all the same thoughts that one does (having never even met or interacted with them) or even known/unknown one-sided/mutual enemies - are also relationships, even if in the background, but definitely pulling their weight affecting events around them. All these relationships are participants of the great eternal Kurukshetra. The weapons, the vehicles, the motives or the avatars might have changed, the battleground has not. It was a battleground of relationships then, it is so now and it will continue to be so till existence ceases; and on a battleground, each participant will value events/individuals differently and so is the case with these gamut of relationships. This valuation is what will eventually dictate choices too - the choice of which relations to keep, which ones to let go. Thereby, 'increasing intolerance' does not result into the discarding of relationships but simply choosing one of them over the other. It is about being intolerant of one relationship as against being intolerant of the other. Disagreements are the core building blocks of a functioning democracy and disagreements in relationships, play the very same role. They help identify compatibility while making the journey ahead more optimal and hopefully, happier! As the emotions associated with these relationships experience flux, all that we can hope for is contributing constructively towards the greater good as we pick & choose from the myriad of available relationship options.

I shall leave the reader with one of my personal favourite shlokas from the Bhagavad Geeta. In a challenging evolving global scenario and on the battleground of relationships, I share it with the hope that the shloka offers the same strength to the reader as it does to me:

दु:खेष्वनुद्विग्नमना: सुखेषु विगतस्पृह: | वीतरागभयक्रोध: स्थितधीर्मुनिरुच्यते

Jai Hind!