Date: Tue, 11 Jan 2000 21:32:19 -0500
From: Mahmud Farooque <mfarooqu@xxx.xxxxSubject: Building Bridges
Part II: A Clash of Paradigms, Not Reason: Exploring the Ideological Divide
While working on his doctorate at Harvard in 1947, Thomas Kuhn became astonished reading Aristotle's Physics: How could someone who wrote so brilliantly on so many topics be so misguided when it came to Physics? Investigating further, Kuhn came to realize that events as such had a number of recurrences in the history of scientific thought. Ptolemy's Almagest, Newton's Principia and Optics, Franklin's Electricity, Lavoisier's Chemistry and Lyell's Geology--all carry the distinction in science of being right at one point only to be proven wrong in subsequent periods of development.
It seemed that Aristotle invested basic concepts with different meaning than modern physicists. His physics was not inferior to Newtonian Physics, only different. The same could be said about Ptolemy's computation of planetary motion or Lavoisier's application of the balance. Understood in their own terms, all of these scientific deductions made perfect sense at the time of their conception but became questionable when a new frame of reference was successful in dethroning the existing one. Kuhn called these frames of references, paradigms.
I will maintain that some of our sociological discourses are paradigmatic in nature representing different worldviews that could only be understood in terms of its own internal logic. These are clashes of paradigms, not reason.
If we go back to the point of "cracking of India," we witness the creation of two nation states that were based on two different paradigms. One embraced its religious, cultural, linguistic and regional diversities and relied on institutions to preserve the state. It adopted a western democratic model. The other downplayed its cultural, linguistic and regional diversities and relied on religious homogeneity to consolidate the state. It adopted an Islamic model. It is obvious that the two emphases led to two different modes of governance, one more sustainable than the other.
The important point to note is that what makes sense in one may not make sense in the other. Given that Bangladesh seesawed between these two world views and ended up somewhere in between is part of the reason why we have strong anti-India and anti-Pakistan worldviews coexisting with one another. In some sense we would have been better off had we adopted one and abandoned the other. In fact at the point of creation of Bangladesh, there was a conscious effort to do just that. However, it was too much, too soon particularly for those who, only 23 years prior, fought for a completely different worldview. The secularism clause disappeared, religion based political parties reappeared and the nation declared itself an Islamic State, all in a span of twelve years.
Little over two years ago, a very interesting debate broke out in the Reader's Opinion section of the Internet News Daily, News From Bangladesh, centering around Mohammad Ali Jinnah, the founding father of Pakistan. It started with a discussion on exactly when Jinnah started wearing a Sherwani but quickly transformed into one of the most intricate historical exercise involving some of the brilliant minds our society had to offer. It delved into the two-nation theory, featured detailed discussion on the Lucknow pact, provided linguistic interpretation of Pakistan's National Anthem and Tagore's poems before degenerating into vile personal attacks of very deplorable nature. NFB Editor, in an unprecedented move, decided to pull the plug on the debate, at which point it moved to the discussion group, society.culture.bangladesh. Here, the personal attacks only intensified and claimed a number of victims before good senses prevailed and a truce was declared.
As a close follower of that debate, what I witnessed at that time was that no amount of reason was sufficient for either side to accept the explanation of the other. After close scrutiny I realized that the problem was not attributable to lack of knowledge or absence of reason. Each argument or piece of information made sense in one frame of reference but sounded ridiculous in the other. Considering the level of frustrations on both sides, it was not a shock that such a brilliant intellectual discourse degenerated into childish name-calling.
Is it possible to build a bridge between two paradigms that are conceived as competing alternatives? History of scientific revolutions doesn't provide many encouraging signs. Copernicanism made few converts for almost a century after Copernicus' death. Newton's work was not generally accepted, particularly on the Continent, for more than half a century after the Principia appeared. Max Plank, surveying his own career in his Scientific Autobiography, sadly remarked that, "a new scientific truth does not triumph by converting its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it."
However, unlike the case in scientific revolutions, the passing of the gatekeepers in our case will only mean getting into an uncharted territory of "no paradigms". This seems as an even darker place than the one we are in right now. By some indications we might already be there as behavior of the anti-India and anti-Pakistan segments of the society have become virtually indistinguishable in political terms.
Is there a way out of this? Is there a way to replace the anti-feelings with some pro-aspirations? Could we as a nation stand for something than be defined by our opposition? Is there a lesson in it somewhere?
Edward Said seems to think so. In a recent Dawn article, he offered some new insights into an old problem: "We know that trying to draw lines between peoples whose cultures, histories and geographical proximity cannot be separated will not solve the basic problems of conflict between them. Political separation is at best a makeshift measure. Partition is a legacy of imperialism, as the unhappy cases of Pakistan and India, Ireland, Cyprus, and the Balkans amply testify, and as the disasters of 20th century Africa attest in the most tragic way. We must now begin to think in terms of coexistence, after separation, in spite of partition. And for this, as I said above, the only solution is a politics of the local people on the ground who tackle injustice and inequity on the ground, far away from the misleading summits with Clinton, and the treacherous secret channels of Oslo. Those leaders are far from the real long-term interest of their people, but they do what they have to do. They can do no more."
"So let us see these new partitions as the desperate and last-ditch efforts of a dying ideology of separation, which has afflicted Zionism and Palestinian nationalism, both of whom have not surmounted the philosophical problem of the other, of learning how to live with, as opposed to despite, the other. When it comes to corruption, to racial or religious discrimination, to poverty and unemployment, to torture and censorship, the other is always one of us, not a remote alien. These abuses recognize only the victims of unjust power and these victims must resist all efforts made to cause their further suffering. That is the platform of the future."
Acknowledgements:
Kuhn, Thomas, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1962.
Horgan, John, The End of Science, Broadway Books, New York, 1996.
Said, Edward, "What separation can mean," DAWN, Karachi, Pakistan, November 22, 1999.
News From Bangladesh, http://www.bangladesh-web.com/news.
USENET Discussion Group on Society and Culture of Bangladesh, soc.culture.bangladesh.
[...Continued in Part III]