the impossibility of empathy?

In a teacher program, I was in a conversation with a teacher from one of these elite schools about issues with govt schools and the need for an equally if not more rigorous development programs for rural schools and govt school teachers.

I was trying to make a point about the need to empathize with them, need to see things from their point of view and she was completely in agreement...with the caveat that the discussion and decision should be based on logic! "I can talk to anyone so long as they are logical!".

that we should address any such issue of disparity through a supposedly universal and objective frame of reference "we" call logic!how patronizing and indulgent we are to the simplicity, earthy spirituality, naive common sense of our rural counterparts. how we enjoy intellectualizing about this; how we indulgently smile at their naivete and inability to deal with larger complex issues even if they are related to "rural development"; addressing their very existence and livelihood; and maybe making an ever so slight dent in our pay packets by virtue of a slight increase in taxes.

But how rigid we are in our definitions of logic? How clear we are of what is acceptable and what is not? And how we are so clear (almost adamant) in expecting that everyone in the world irrespective of cultural, economic differences or with differences in experiences and world view conform to our definition of logic.

this is the point of contention for me (and this does confuse me no end). how we have our own notion of what is logical, what is rational, what is efficient, what is efficacious and what people in "those villages" need. We determine what basic needs are and what luxuries are. We do this based on our frame of reference, our world vision driven by material acquisition, desire for choice, efficiency in service delivery, consumer rights. We use these criteria to determine what development should ultimately mean and what the poor should really be asking for...

would we ever be able to empathize with the struggle a dalit community has gone through for centuries and how big a deal it is for them to be able to draw water from the same well as an upper caste family does? choice is a far removed and alien concept for them. luxury is a complete unknown, our definition of efficiency is something he will not relate to...he doesn't even know how the heck "good education" is going to give him all these opportunities that we speak of...and he couldn't care less. he wants food, clothing, shelter, dignity and respect a human being deserves!

and some of them have forgotten to ask for even that. You just have to look into the eyes of the people begging in the streets of Bangalore. They are not ashamed or worried...they don't even know they are deprived!the kind of decisions we make on behalf of society even if they are in casual beer conversations or in serious arguments are appalling to say the least!

- a stable job is far better than independent farming which is so risk prone...let the large corporates deal with risks; the rural poor imprisoned in un-ventilated, crowded garment factories do earn a regular stable income don't they? good accomodation, respectable work hours and a decent living standard is higher in Maslow's hierarchy. now they need to work harder for it!
- development means urbanization; what is wrong in a poor man aspiring for a car ? or admission for his children in an elite urban school. Of course not, nothing is wrong. but yeah it will take them centuries if at all they achieve this state and personal dignity can wait until then! no matter if in the process we create a multi-layered society and a clear economic hierarchy!
- equity means doing things to put the poor on the path to a lifestyle equivalent to ours...look at Dhirubhai Ambani, he was a gas station attendant. didn't he make it???? of course there are less than a 100 people who are allowed and capable of achieving this given the circumstances they come from.
- reservation for a generation of the underprivileged is really more than enough, now the next generation is already on the path to progress, the Khairlanji massacre and huge dropout rates caused due to lack of relevance in education notwithstanding.
- of course I want my maid servant's son to get the same education my child does...but why in the same school??? why can't "their" schools be improved to make it like my son's? I pay my taxes don't I?

at risk of this sounding like a digression (but its my blog isn't it :) I am reading Kancha Ilaiah's "Why I am not a Hindu?" It deals with this same point in a completely different context. an underlying point one can not deny. how definitions of rationale, frames of reference, perspectives on social norms can vary, and how respecting diversity really means looking at different things and being accepting within a framework that has to be far more basic than logic and rationale. a fundamental framework that demands human dignity, human rights and freedom as a basis!