Irrelevance of Relevance 001

[This is the fourth in the series of serial dialogue that begun in 2003 with Choice of Destiny and Destiny of Choice, followed by Cause-Effect Paradigm in 2006. The present dialogue began in December 2006. Minds exposed to the three R’s are attracted by Scientific methods irrespective of their level of education. Children learn to argue from a very early stage. Argumentative and debating societies have been regarded as congenial to effective democracy and progress of scientific inquiry. The reasons why societies differ in terms of effectiveness in democracy and scientific achievements are however not very clear. But when ordinary citizens and learned persons show equal proclivity to argue, does that lead to individual behaviour based purely on scientific truth and knowledge? Does individual and social behaviour reflect any influence of faith beyond science? Even as rational scientific minds interact, various perspectives emerge and the relevance of one perspective to some appears irrelevant to others while another perspective appearing irrelevant to some is the most relevant to others. Balancing of differing and sometimes conflicting perspectives may take place in debates, actual decision-making and social behaviour but represent funny, adhoc reconciliation based on nothing else but sheer muscle or number or money power rather than the power of reason or science. ]

1. Diversity of Relevance

G: You are now supposed to give more international illustrations of Cause-Effect Obsession Syndrome and Cause-Effect Inverse.
S: Yes. But I am also supposed to do that by introducing one more dual proposition. That is: not all that we consider relevant while discussing an issue are really relevant and some may be irrelevant. This I call Irrelevance of Relevance. The dual of this proposition is: not all that we consider irrelevant are irrelevant and some irrelevant may be relevant. This dual proposition is what I call the Relevance of the Irrelevance.
G: Do these proposition have anything to do with Cause-Effect Paradigm, Obsession Syndrome and Inverse?
S: Yes. I hope my examples will show this. I heard about an interesting incident from one of my colleagues in Coal India Ltd. in the late 1970s. In a passenger bus, a group of college going students refused to pay ant fare for their trip on a particular day. The bus conductor persuaded them that they should pay for the trip and that is what is fair and legally binding obligations for any passenger traveling in a bus. The students argued that on the previous day they had to suffer because the buses were on a wildcat strike and they could not go to school. So, they needed to be compensated for the loss on the previous day by getting a free ride the next day.
G: But that is not being really argumentative. Their argument for not paying the fare is not justified. That the buses were off the road on the previous day is not relevant and the argument is not logical.
S: So, what the students considered relevant is irrelevant according to you.
G: Absolutely.
S: That is an example of Irrelevance of Relevance. Now observe the dual here itself. What you consider as irrelevant is also relevant. After all the students were asking for fairness and justice. How can the buses go off the roads and put the students to inconvenience.
G: Students were inventing this argument because they want to benefit in the form of extra pocket money. They want to spend the money saved by not giving the bus fare for other purposes. Their parents may have already given them the money to pay the bus fare.
S: If that is true, there is something wrong with the students’ upbringing or education or value system. If you have such a situation, from the students’ perspective they are making a relevant point. They are asking for compensation from the bus owners. But for the sake of argument, let us assume that the students have the right kind of education, value system and upbringing. They can still be making a relevant point by asking for compensation for the extra walking they had to do for the buses going off the roads on the previous day. They were protesting by declining to pay for today’s trip.
G: But such behaviour is based on childish logic. The students had no contract with the bus operators that they cannot go on off the road to protect their own interest. For example the bus operators might have gone off the road to protest against poor maintenance of the roads by the Govt. resulting in higher running expenses for them.
S: The well-educated adults leading the ordinary people including the students so often engage in such child-like behaviour arising from cause-effect obsession syndrome.
G: What is the obsession syndrome here?
S: The students believe that buses’ going off the road was the cause of their suffering and the improper maintenance of the roads by the Govt. department. The distinction between proximate cause and the real cause is not made. If they had no obsession, they would have supported the bus operators and protested against the Govt.’s inefficiency and negligence. Real cause-effect paradigm would have suggested to the students to seek compensation from the Govt. Such unscientific behaviour is so common in daily life of adults as well.
G: I do not think adults do such things unless they go mad.
S: Some adults may some time go mad. But many adults together cannot go mad if popular leaders can goad groups of adults into childish behaviour. Are you not aware of the reaction to the news of Saddam Hussein’s indictment in an Iraqi court and death penalty award to him?
G: Yes, I am aware. Many people are not happy with this.
S: Some people are. So there are differences. I quote from an email I had sent to about a dozen of friends: “ Human beings seemed to be a very peculiarly funny lot in the different ways they get agitated over the same event. Some people believe that Saddam, an oppressive tyrant despot, merited a death sentence for his various deeds. Some Shiite Muslims or Kurds, the most oppressed by Saddam may rejoice. Many Saddam haters did not ever take out a protest march on the streets to pray for Saddam's execution. They are still quiet. It does not make sense to most people to demonstrate and demand death sentence or execution of a person of whom very few in different distant countries would know much.
G: But it should be the duty of every human being to demand for justice and for bringing a criminal to book.
S: That is your or many others’ view. As far as I understand, except for people who suffered because of the activities of a criminal and those in the directly affected neighborhood, no one can be expected to be much interested in becoming active in anti-Saddam activity. Just find out the statistics: what is the percentage of the population outside Iraq adversely affected by so-called bad deeds of Saddam? For the large majority of the population outside Iraq and its neighbourhood, Saddam’s past and present are not relevant at the moment just as any particular Nasa mission to the space. How relevant is it a person who has not been affected and also not aware of the actual realities about a person in a distant land to actively support, least of all demand, severe punishment for such a person allegedly having committed heinous crimes. If it is really relevant, it is not based on any scientific cause-effect relationship except that the person emotional vulnerability to anything in the world is high: it is emotion and blind faith on what comes off the newspapers and electronic media. A common man living far away from the scene may not find any reason to be concerned. A rational, educated would be least concerned with a debatable, controversial issue that he has no means of judging directly and independently.
G: But reality is that some persons in a distant country like India are agitated about the death punishment award to Saddam. They are not indifferent to Saddam issue.
S: Some people do that because that is the natural law: to be driven by emotions irrespective of reason is natural and legitimate. But it is equally legitimate and natural to be indifferent on the part of others. It may not be scientific to act on conclusions that one cannot verify. If one does not know the Truth about Saddam and has doubts about evidence and proof of the alleged case for or against him, it is perfectly legitimate for him or her to keep quiet. One does not need to be either for or against Saddam. He or she should therefore not take any stand and act on this issue. The issue is not relevant to him as a member of the human society.
G: You do not seem to be a worthy human being if you cannot take a position.
S: That is your view and I do not see how you can throw me out of the human society just because, I have the capability to remain indifferent to what goes on in different parts of the World and I am unclear about the Truth about what goes on. While I may remain indifferent, many people are disappointed with the Iraqi court's death sentence award to Saddam. Some of them are excited enough to organize and join mass protest against the death sentence award to Saddam. Some among this latter group, of course, believe that Saddam is an innocent person who should not be punished at all.
G: So what they are doing is the right thing to do.
S: Maybe, it is right only because they are naturally inclined to do so. Many of Saddam sympathisers are also American haters, though they may not mind getting American degrees and seek American capital and technology for their use. For some of them Saddam is a darling hero of the oppressed people and therefore has the right to inspire them by being alive. For some others, Saddam is so innocent and fair person, it is pity that he is being punished. Still others have a great sense of fairness and feel that a neutral court outside Iraq should have tried Saddam. The present Iraqi courts are dictated by an Iraqi govt. installed by anti-Saddam US govt. that wants Saddam to die. Therefore the trial of Saddam was. Some think that Saddam is the only lawful Head of Govt. in Iraq and cannot be tried by courts. Some others think that George Bush should be hanged first and Saddam should be reinstalled as Iraq chief. Wonderful diversity of thoughts! The Great Nature is so beautiful with its varying shades and colour: different groups of persons take beliefs and faiths as equal to scientific truth.
G: You wrote a long mail on Saddam’s death sentence news! Did you get any response?
S: Yes. But for most of the recipients my mail was probably irrelevant. I did get replies from three Indians, each one a post-graduate in Economics or Management and have long professional work experience. The responses differed. Each response was interesting. One wrote back that he was happy that an evil person is being executed but wanted that before Saddam was executed, he should be hanged only after the courts tried him for all his crimes and gave their verdict and awarded punishment in all such cases. When I suggested to him why not forgive a person who had already been death sentence in one case and might be executed soon and spare him from further mental agony of going through so many case hearings, he was upset that I suggested such forgiveness.
G: You seem to make funny suggestions. But what does this incident tell us?
S: It tells us that this person who lives faraway from Baghdad is so angry that he considers death penalty in a single case as irrelevant to justice and considers early completion of Saddam’s trial for other crimes most relevant at the moment. He thinks that Saddam’s deeds should cause many trials, many convictions and many major punishments. He is under a cause-effect obsession syndrome that makes him believe that many trials can cause the effect of proper justice. The cause-effect inverse here is that verdict of many trials can cause multiple death sentences but only one death can occur to a person already sentenced to death. My friend’s cause-effect obsession syndrome is so intense that this cause-effect inverse can only restore his calm.
G: What about the other responses?
S: The second response was like this: ‘History might perhaps judge the whole Iraqi episode as freedom for the Iraqi people from a tyrant and as another misadventure like Vietnam and Korea for the Americans who have a childlike belief that technology can do anything and everything for them including a regime change in Iraq through the use of a few stealth bombers time and who are vulnerable to pressures of rich oil lobby interested in strengthening its hold in West Asia.’ Here, what is relevant to the person is his belief that childlike American behaviour and pressures of oil lobby are the cause that produced the Iraq war that put entire Iraq into a great crisis and simultaneously devastated the Americans in terms of economic losses, loss of face in not being able to win a war and death of US marines. The perspective relevant to him is not injustice to Saddam for he wrote: ‘Gone are the days of Rambo style talk that one witnessed from the Bush and Rumsfield during the pre-Iraq war and immediately thereafter.’ He has a view of what caused the Iraq war and what the war caused. But it is the US arrogance and the effect of such arrogance on the Americans that is relevant to my friend at this point of time.
G: He did not say anything about the death sentence awarded to Saddam!
S: To him the death sentence to Saddam is not relevant at this point of time. He wrote that a person ‘who lives by the sword dies by it and that Saddam hopefully would realize that now. Though Saddam’s trial was unfair dictated by the occupying force, according to him a fair trial, even if carried out by the Prophet, would have given someone like Saddam nothing other than death sentence. Clearly, he had no difficulty with Saddam’s execution. For him the verdict was fair but the process of arriving at the fair justice was not fair. He was comfortable with death sentence as an effect and Saddam’s tyranny as the cause that produced the verdict. His cause effect inverse of placing the Prophet in judge’s role makes him further convinced that tyranny as a misdeed is the cause and death penalty as the effect. He does suffer from a cause-effect obsession syndrome: he believes that with the fall of Saddam, a fair trial in a country occupied by foreign forces is not possible. That the trial was not fair is the effect of American occupied forces’ dictates to the trial court.
G: What about the third response?
S: For him it is the fairness of the trial that is relevant. He is not concerned that Saddam has been awarded death penalty. He is concerned that the trial was unlawful, illegitimate, not impartial and unfair. It is also unfair in relative terms. Bush had killed so many Iraqis and he has not been tried and awarded death penalty. He also suffers from or enjoys a cause-effect obsession syndrome. He thinks unless all criminal are brought to justice, justice is not fair. Fairness is the effect only when the cause is the trial of all criminals. Saddam committed a crime killing some of his own countrymen. Bush is a criminal because he invaded Iraq and killed Iraqis. Equally important to him, Saddam’s trial is the effect and the cause is the American occupation in Iraq. That Bush has not been tried is relevant to Saddam’s trial.
G: You did not like any of the three responses you got.
S: Just the opposite. I liked all the three different responses because they represent how funny and non-scientific even educated human minds can be. To my belief, Nature’s beauty lies in its diversity. In this diversity, scientific methods are merely a part: they may not always help me find the Truth but will help me discard some invalid propositions. This diversity is the essence of the wonderful beauty of the creation and the creator. If God is the Creation and the Creator, He is so beautiful and adorable. Saddam, to my mind, is as good or bad a human like me. So are the persons supporting him or are against him or are indifferent. A great diversity based on natural inclinations rather than on scientific methods of decision-making.
G: But given this diversity, what will you support?
S: I do not enjoy supporting or objecting to the diverse views. I enjoy the funny diversity. It is interesting and divine entertainment that we have such diverse views and opinions. It is, in fact, really queer that so long Saddam’s trial continued and death penalty was yet to be announced, Indian leftists did nothing to save Saddam. What were they expecting that Iraqi court to do? Make Saddam free of all charges? Would the Indian protestors like to have a ruler like Saddam in India? Did they expect America after invading Iraq would let Saddam go unscathed? Were they naïve in expecting a fair trial for a leader of a country who invited a war against a stronger military force and failed to beat the invaders?
G: I understand that you are pointing to weakness of mind of those Indians who wish to protest against death penalty and trial.
S: It is beyond that. I am suspecting selfish motives rather than cold logic to accept all the three responses I received and the Indian leftist protesters. If as a Sunni, you developed an attraction to Saddam as a great hero, you cannot accept his death penalty. If you are already or a potential Saddam-quality, political leader, you cannot accept the fall of Saddam. You cannot allow your countrymen to start believing in the possibility that some foreign country annihilates a Saddam-style ruler like you to save your countrymen from your tyranny. You have to argue for Bush’s trial simply because you do not like America’s supremacy and are jealous that America is among the richest countries of the World economy in terms of per capita income and potential of scientific progress.. You will support Saddam’s death penalty and more trials if you are revengeful. If you consider Saddam’s trial as illegitimate or unfair, you are likely to be an America-hater. You really have no scientific reason to extend support for or protest against Saddam’s trial and sentence. Your argument is based on emotions, faith or vested self-interested and not on scientific rationale.
G: Can you elaborate a little as to why it is difficult for a rational person in a distant land to be either for or against Saddam’s trial and death penalty?
S: Let us first take the issue of fair trial. What really is a fair trial? Fair trial may demand an unbiased, competent and really learned judge / jury, adequate opportunity and capability to defend for the defendant and the applicant and no direct or indirect pressure on or threat to or bribing of the judges / jury or the advocates of either party or any party or the witnesses by another party. Who judges and by which method or process whether in any trial these prerequisites of fairness are ensured?
G: These questions are matters of detail.
S: No. We cannot be certain about what the correct answers to these questions are. It is easy to identify any trial that does not meet the standards of fairness. How can we be certain that in the billions of trials under way all over the world, there are not many million trials in which the degree of fairness was not lower than that in the Saddam case? So, it is sheer whimsical and arbitrary to pick on one probable unfair trial and lament or protest. Is Saddam’s trial in any way crucially important to the cause of justice in the world or fairness to a significant population of the world?
G: You mean to say that fairness in trials is very difficult to establish and no one, except Saddam and his supporters, can have any special reason to pick up one Saddam trial to protest. Whoever protests selectively choosing one (or a few out) of the millions of unfair trials is being arbitrary, unreasonable, illogical, inconsistent and unfair, and possibly doing so because of some hidden agenda.
S: Correct. Most important, it is only natural that Saddam’s trial by a court appointed by Government dependent on foreign occupation forces will have a lower degree of fairness in the trial. In other words, organizing public rally to protest against only the unfair trial of Saddam is nothing but hypocrisy and does not reflect a genuine concern for injustice in general. It is indeed so funny and therefore beautiful. It gives you so much pleasure to observe such behaviour.
G: But we have to admit that Saddam’s trial was an unfair one.
S: That depends on what you intend to believe in. You have come to know of people being tortured and killed. Is that relevant to any one other than Saddam and his supporters? For any one else with genuine concern over injustice, protesting against all cases of unfair trial is relevant to him. Such a person does not just pick up one case to protest.
G: But there are reasons to believe that Saddam’s case was one of unfair trial.
S: The cause-effect obsession syndrome makes one believe that there is one to one correspondence between unfair trial and unfair verdict / justice or between fair trial and fair justice/ verdict/ judgment. There is this principle that the process of justice must not allow an innocent to be punished even if in the process a few real offenders get the benefit of doubt and escapes. It means that even a fair trial can lead to unfair judgment. On the other hand, even an unfair trial process can lead to justice by convicting a true criminal. Which category does Saddam’s case belong to? Can one be certain? If some one is certain that Saddam’s case is one of both unfair trial and wrong conviction, why is this only one case so relevant to a non-Iraqi person? He should do so in all such cases to be consistent. Of course, human beings are seldom consistent.
G: Even if I know of one such case, should I not protest?
S: That depends on your values, beliefs and motives. If you come to know of one or a few cases of injustice out of millions of such cases, you can feel sad. If you feel sad, you may protest or you may not. There is no science that tells you that you have to protest when you feel sad. You may feel sad about so many things but you protest only in some cases. You may not be even aware of the billions of injustice and oppression that is taking place around you and all over the world. If you are not aware, you cannot protest. You are therefore not consistent. Something is relevant to you for protest while some other things are not. Some people felt sad when the Twin Towers fell killing so many innocent people of various nationalities. But all such sad people did not protest. Some did not feel sorry. Some were happy that terrorists brought down the Twin Towers. What a great diversity of funny people that human race can boast of!
G: Why should we not protest only against cases we are aware of?
S: It all depends on your nature that is what determines what is relevant to you. But you will be inconsistent by protesting on a selective basis as you are not aware of all cases deserving your protest. Ideally, one can protest against all injustice and oppression: one does not have to protest on a case-by-case approach. You wish to fight against injustice and oppression, convince all people you come in contact with or reach that they should not be unjust and should not oppress others. That would be a consistent behaviour. Preaching based on practice of justice and non-violence to others is more credible and consistent than protesting against a few alleged cases of injustice and oppression committed by others. In any case, whatever you do you add to the beauty of this funny behavioural universe.
G: So, you are protesting only when you are sure that the case is certainly one of injustice and you have all such contemporary certainty cases with you to protest against.
S: Yes, I may decide to protest under such circumstances. That I am against any and all injustice is enough. But this does not necessarily obliges me to protest against the occurrence of such cases. That I openly say that I hate injustice and oppression is itself against each and all cases of injustice and operation. I do not need to protest separately against each case. That I do not tolerate injustice does not necessarily require me to protest. Protesting does not apeal to me as a relevant behaviour under many circumstances, though I recognize that many persons are naturally inclined to protest.
G: So, you will not react when you meet with injustice or oppression against you, your near and dear ones or your neighbour?
S: Ideally, I would prefer not to react. But I may fail to control myself or my natural inclinations. I may protest, shout and even retaliate.
G: But why will you do that? You just said one could not pick a few cases to protest because that would be inconsistent behaviour.
S: It may appear inconsistent. But that is not true. For, in those instances, I will not be protesting against injustice or oppression true. When I am hurt by injustice or oppression, I may protest, shout or object or retaliate not because I have such a duty to do. Here, my reaction is spontaneous and merely an attempt to defend myself or my loved ones or neighbour or to express my pain or just retaliating against the oppressor. This is a natural reaction for my immediate survival and expression of my pain or grief. But I will not do this because I want to demonstrate my protest or objection to injustice or oppression.
G: It is difficult to understand the distinction you make between protesting against particular case of oppression and injustice caused to a person X of distant country by another person Y of a distant country and protesting against oppression or injustice meted out to you or your son.
S: It is difficult for you, but simple for me. I am against people living beyond their means. In fact, that is a kind of social norm that is known to every one. But some people do not follow this principle. I have no obligation or duty to protest against each or one or two person trying to leave beyond means. But I might object if my son tries to leave beyond his means because I get more pain when I see my son getting into am imprudent behaviour. I do not have to teach anyone in this age that no one should oppress others or cause injustice to others. I expect everyone to be fair, just and non-oppressive. I do not logically need to object when a person deviate from my expectation. But I will object if my son tries to oppress my daughter or my daughter in-law.
G: Can you give some more analogies?
S: Most human beings on this earth have been taught to behave like human beings. I also do not like human beings to act like animals. But each human being has the right to act like a monkey or a dog. If some human beings do exercise that right, I do not have a logical reason to register my protest whenever a person exercise that right. But I might object when my son or a close friend acts like a monkey or a dog not because of any scientific, logical reason but simply because I am pained to see my friend or son just behaving like an animal.
G: You seem to believe in the saying that ‘Charity begins at home’.
S: In my words here it means ‘just and fair behaviour begins at home and in my own country’. Even if I think that America is oppressive or unjust or Saddam is oppressive or unjust, I feel sad but am not inclined to start a campaign against or for America or Saddam. I would still be inclined to stop my son becomes an oppressor or an unjust person.
G: Any other example?
S: Yes. I am against killing people. But as a soldier in the war front my task is to protect my life and my country not by running away but killing enemy. If my country’s soldier keels the enemy soldier or the enemy soldier kills my country’s soldier, I have no reasons to protest, though I am against any one killing any other and against wars taking place. Similarly, when a criminal kills a kidnapped child for not getting the ransom in time or to flee because the cops being after him, I do not need to protest against murder. I am only sad. If the child is from my family, I may react violently to express my grief or even kill the criminal if I happen to catch him. That’s an emotional outburst and not a rationale scientific behaviour. I do not organize protest against killing of a person by another person as they occur because that has no rational basis. If I do that I am acting emotionally or exploiting the emotions of others for my personal benefit.
G: The weird examples you give are in the nature of cause-effect inverse to help distinguish between cause-effect paradigm based behaviour and cause-effect obseesion syndrome behaviour.
S: You are right. We know that some human beings will have natural tendency to oppress others, be unfair and cause injustice to others. We know that some human beings will protest against such oppression, unfair treatment and injustice. But protesting against some cases of alleged instances does not necessarily follow from any cause-effect paradigm. Equally important the concept of fairness and injustice or oppression varies from society to society and from circumstance to circumstance. In terrorist organizations, if a terrorist wants to leave his organization after some time, he will be provided such treatment as such organizations consider fair and just which is different from and irrelevant to when a member leaves a sports or cultural club.
G: So, you cannot agree to be part of any particular organized protests against alleged case of oppression or injustice as conceptualized by an organizer of protest, especially if you suspect that the organizer has some other ulterior motive to do so.
S: Exactly. All that happen are all natural phenomena. Those who organize protest or protest are as much a natural force as those like me who may not feel the need to protest or be part of an organized protest. There is nothing to choose between these two different kinds of forces. There is nothing so specially great or scientific or rational or human about organizing or raising protest. What is relevant to one type of human beings is irrelevant to others and vice versa.
G: So, I have enough of your weird examples and your weird funny logic.
S: It may be enough for you. But I am not fussy about that. I know that each one of us do only that what God wants each to do at any moment of time.
G: Can we move on to another example of Irrelevance of Relevance?
S: Oh, sure. But let us wait for the next session.