Accidental Blogger

Grief: Is it a mental disorder?

Some doctors now believe that extreme grief due to the loss of a loved one should be medically classified and treated like any other form of depression. Others argue that grief is a natural (and sometimes, necessary) human emotion and it should not be categorized as an ailment that needs to be corrected by "Happy Pills." I don't know whether grief is a "disorder." I am inclined to say "no." I don't think that our brains, and therefore our lives, are meant to be relentlessly cheerful. I suspect that in the absence of "negative" emotions such as sadness, fear or anger, we would also be lacking in beneficial qualities like empathy and survival skills.  We all cope with life's ups and downs in our own ways. Throughout the world social rites and religious rituals are designed to help survivors deal with suffering due to bereavement. Despite that the loss of a loved one affects different people with vastly different levels of trauma; some come to terms with it requiring no third party intervention while others may need prolonged periods of solace, and even professional counseling. Surely, a grieving person is depressed. The question however is whether such depression requires medication and if so, what carefully considered criteria ought to be in place regarding the duration of the condition and the severity of the debilitation.

Grieving the loss of a friend, family or loved one may soon be considered a form of depression. While many doctors acknowledge that grief is a very normal part of losing someone close to us, they also acknowledge that it’s important to deal with that grief.

Speaking to the New York Times one doctor explains why turning grief into a depression diagnosis could end up hurting those people suffering from some for of grief.

“This would pathologize them for behavior previously thought to be normal.” says one doctor.

Opponents to the diagnosis also say to could lead many people with short term grief receiving drug treatments that would normally be unnecessary outside of depression symptoms.

I asked my co-bloggers to weigh in with their opinions on the matter. Unsurprisingly, their responses fall on both sides of the argument.

Hauntings - a three-way review

On Halloween Day last year some of us got into a conversation about ghosts, first on the blog and later via e-mail. One thing led to another and three  A.B authors (Sujatha, Dean and I) ended up reading an anthology of Bengali ghost stories (Hauntings) translated into English. Each of us  approached the book from different perspectives given our varied exposure to Bengali literature. I had read most of the stories in the collection in original Bengali; Sujatha, although not fluent, can read Bengali and has a pretty good understanding of the language and culture of the region; Dean is not very familiar with Indian literature in general and even less so with the superstitions and cultural aspects associated with ghost stories from that part of the world. Here is what each one of us thought of author Suchitra Samanta's attempt at translating some eerie supernatural tales from Bengali into English.

[image by Pakistani artist Durriya Kazi)

Ruchira:

Bengali literature, rich in many ways, boasts an unusual quality that is not found in the literary tradition of many other languages. Celebrated Bengali authors of serious literature (among them, Tagore) did not consider it unworthy of their star reputations to make forays into the realm of children's literature or have occasional fun with mystery thrillers and tales of the paranormal. Consequently, Bengali kiddie lit as well as popular light reading are a treasure trove of "good" writing and Bengali children as a rule are known to become book addicts from an early age. The thirteen ghost stories in Suchitra Samanta's collection feature some of the best known literary figures in Bengali writings of early and mid 20th century.

The myths and superstitions surrounding other worldly beings used to be an art form in rural Bengal, reflecting a spirits-inhabited society rooted in earthly hierarchies. The character and the "physical" manifestations of the ghosts therefore are defined by their gender, religion, caste, age and marital status before death, as also the circumstances under which they died. Due to the commonly held belief that most ghosts are products of unexpectedly interrupted lives (accidents, murder), they are deemed unable to sever the connection to the ordinary world, their trapped existence fueled by unfulfilled desires. The frustrations are often the result of societal oppression or persecution. Not surprisingly therefore, most of the thirteen stories included in the anthology deal with the restless spirits of women of a past era who enjoyed limited autonomy over their own lives. Their actions in their afterlife are dictated by the rage, vengeance, grief, greed and sexual frustrations of their erstwhile corporeal selves.

Did the book work for me as good ghost stories should in terms of surprise, chilling effect and empathy for the supposedly imprisoned souls? Having read the stories in original Bengali where most of these qualities were captured by the writers, the English translation came across as fairly bland and even a bit silly despite the translator's extended foreword and footnotes to familiarize readers with the Bengali "ghostly" tradition. Part of the problem may be that the supernatural is intimately connected to superstitions. Superstition is essentially parochial, based on local history, geography, daily habits, prevailing power structures and religious practices that are often difficult to "explain" or interpret in a foreign milieu. As I pointed out earlier, barring a couple of them, the stories are all based in the late 19th or early 20th century harking back to times  already quaint in the current day context and many unfold in obscure rural settings. That makes it harder for the translator to transmit the atmospherics in a facile manner. The underlying traditions, easily understood by those familiar with them, come across as illogical and absurd to those who have never encountered them. Samanta has taken some liberties with the language as well as some content in order to make sense of them in English. Several footnotes explain the historical and cultural contexts of events and rituals. The results are stilted, sometimes comical and not very scary. The stories that do succeed are the ones not limited by narrow cultural boundaries but instead address common human conditions - a well-off woman vaguely dissatisfied with her life at an advanced age, finding solace in the shadowy presence of an ethereal being whose sorrow she can not fathom, a paralyzed older woman envious of the sexual lives of younger women fulfilling her needs in a grisly manner, a devoted and sickly wife who sees her beloved husband's affections dwindle and dies under questionable circumstances  - they all "haunt."

Dean:

My almost six-year-old son has lately asked to visit a haunted house, because he wants to explore a secret passageway. I told him that even houses that aren’t haunted have secret passageways. He was intrigued, but clearly he is attracted to the prospect of fear, to the risk and mystery that give the experience of the secret aspect of a passageway its visceral effect. Haunted houses, after all, are famous for their power to tingle spines and raise hair. You visit them to experience a split of mind from body, a visceral zap produced when the imagination goes a little wild under physical circumstances in which you begin to feel you have no control.

Such is my taste for ghost stories. I tend not to read them, because I’ve learned that literature doesn’t produce such extreme physical effects. But I came to Hauntings expecting what I hoped would be a strange variety of ghost story, incorporating stock elements of the Anglo-American genre exotically arrayed in what for me would be unfamiliar trappings of Indian supernatural lore. To an extent, I got what I expected. These are stories of desperate or distraught people and troubled spirits that haunt a house, forest, or sacred site in situations involving myths, history, and social parameters that are mostly new to me. I was hoping the strangeness—admittedly, a symptom of my own Orientalist prejudices—would compound the eeriness of the stories. It didn’t. Instead, it was merely strange, and in some cases even blandly so, such as when a random explanation (of, for example, the Bengali calendar) appears in a footnote for readers like me. The effect is much like reading the ingredients of a dish on a menu from an Indian restaurant. The culinary musicality of a term like saag paneer wanes upon discovery that it’s cheese and spinach. At this point, the value of the stories must depend upon the quality of the writing and any eeriness it generates independent of the Bengali context that I’d expected to do the work.

The quality, however, is not high, and the fright factor suffers. Characteristic of much of the writing in the collection, the story "Giribala" by Banaphul commences much like Bulwer-Lytton’s infamously purple "dark and stormy night": "It was the night of the new moon. Darkness, unbroken, lay thick across the land. Nature itself seemed to tremble with an unnamed dread… A wind like the last breath bursting from millions of dying breasts, rushing like a storm." As translated, some of the authors tend to overwrite in this way, injecting bad melodrama and more than a few violations of the pathetic fallacy. Others resort only to a frank declaration of a vague scariness, such as in Tagore’s "The Hungering Stones," where we read, "And then, as the night grew increasingly dark, such remarkable events would transpire that I can hardly find words to describe them." Indeed. Other authors irritatingly telegraph the effect of the uncanny intended for the reader, naturally spoiling it. One sure way to dilute the effect of suddenness is to preface its telling with "Suddenly…." Similarly unsatisfying is frequent resort to cliché, likely here a function of translation: "gripped with fear," "mist shrouded darkness," "My hair stood on end and the blood froze in my chest when I heard this."

Many of these stories were constructed as second-order narrations. The narrator recounts a story told him on a train in Tagore’s "The Hungering Stones"; in his "At Dead of Night," the narrator is a doctor relating a story told him by a patient. A series of transcribed letters comprise Panchkari De’s "The Poet’s Lover." I imagine this technique can fuel the mystery by introducing a degree of remoteness to a tale passed on from teller to teller, alternatively by generating sympathy (or disgust) for the interlocutors and dramatizing their relationship in a way that coaxes the reader to identify with the victim of terror. But I found the device mostly a distraction, a demand to read two levels of uncompelling narrative at once.

Sujatha:

Rabindranath Tagore has pride of place, no less than three of his stories are re-translated. Of these, the one that succeeds in sending a tiny chill up my spine is the first, "Dead of the Night" (original Nishithe). I think even that spookiness would have benefitted from a little more direct transliteration of the signature line in the story "O ke, O ke, O ke go" is more ghostly than 'Who is it, who is it, who is it, dear?'

Hungry Stones( Kshudito Pashan) and Manihara are well known to devotees of the silver screen. Manihara was part of Satyajit Ray's Teen Kanya trilogy, though added in only later releases with English subtitles. I have yet to see either.

I didn't care much for either of those stories, they seemed too rambling and descriptive for my taste.  A screenwriter's delight, they may have been, but they carry with them the whiff of an earlier age, when long passages describing the visual attributes of the scene were mandatory to establish atmosphere. Plus, multiple printer's devils infested the pages of these stories, with Manihara being interrupted with scenes from the next story "Sacrifice by Fire".

The next three stories in the collection seemed rather lackluster to me, despite the pedigree of the authors. 'In Bomaiburu Jungle'  was an especial disappointment- I had expected better from Bibutibhushan Bandopadhyay, the author of the novel Pather Panchali.

Tarashankar Bandopadhyay's "The Witch' was reminiscent of other similar stories in different languages- the description of the lonely cast-out woman, dispossessed and demonized, eventually fulfilling her destiny of morphing into a real 'child-killer'.

Of the 13 stories in the collection, the ones that I liked the best were 'Giribala' by Banaphul ( a startling change from his usual humorous tone, as I am finding out when reading a collection of his other short stories). 'Wedding Night' succeeds because it concentrates less on the spook factor and more on the humor of a semi-failed marriage. 'Chimaera', by Lila Majumdar (who is Satyajit Ray's aunt, tip from Ruchira) was both atmospheric and eerily tender, without being too prolix. What a relief!

'The Lady of the House' (Ginni-ma) was the opposite of the Chimaera and lived up to the promise of being 'Haunting.' The remaining stories were also-rans. I noted that several of the stories were picked out by Suchitra Samanta from the same collection (Nirbachita Bhuter Galpo), which might account for a degree of sameness and tedium. The stories I liked came from other collections. Perhaps a more careful selection of stories would have made for better reading.

Psychological Science: The Theory of Test Reliability – Correcting 100 Year Old Mistakes – Part 2 (Norman Costa)

Psychological Science: The Theory of Test Reliability – Correcting 100 Year Old Mistakes – Part 2 (Norman Costa)

By

Norman Costa, PhD

What is Real, and What is Not? – Zeno's Paradoxes

The Greek philosopher Aristotle (384 BCE, Stageira, Chalcidice – 322 BCE, Euboea,) in his Physics, describes a number of paradoxes attributed to the Greek philosopher Zeno of Elea (ca. 490 BCE – 430 BCE.) Zeno was trying to illustrate the idea that everything we see and experience, different though they may appear or seem, is unitary and unchanging. Experiences and perceptions of change, motion, and time are really illusions. His paradoxes have fascinated philosophers, scientists, mathematicians, and theologians through the centuries to this very day. Here are three of his more popular paradoxes:

Achilles pursuing the tortoise paradox

“In a race, the quickest runner can never overtake the slowest, since the pursuer must first reach the point whence the pursued started, so that the slower must always hold a lead.” --Aristotle, Physics VI:9, 239b10

A fast runner gives a challenger, who is a slow runner, a head start of 100 meters. The fast runner expects to catch up to and then overtake the slow runner on the way to a winning finish line. According to Zeno this is an impossibility. The swift of foot must first run to the point at which the slow of foot started the race – 100 meters down the course. Then the swift athlete must run to the next spot where the slow athlete was, at the time that swift runner arrived at the position where the slow runner began the race. Next, the swift runner advances to next spot occupied by the slow runner, at the time the swift runner arrived at the prior starting point. The swift runner keeps repeating this sequence of advancing to the next spot that was previously occupied by the slow runner, as both are heading for the finish line. According to Zeno, there is an infinite progression of the swift runner approaching the slow runner, catching up to his prior spot, and then going on to the next spot that was occupied by the slow runner down the course. Since the fast runner must advance to an infinite number of spots previously occupied by the slow runner, it stands to reason that the fast runner will never overtake the slow runner.

Keith Hill responds to Prasad's post

Instrument maker Keith Hill responded to Elatia's query related to Prasad's recent post on violin sounds. It failed to appear in the comments section (TypePad!). I am publishing Hill's opinion as an independent post.

Elatia, 

This is the third time I have read about this interesting experiment, from three different sources.

The first thing I would say is that I have yet to encounter a great antique violin that has not been tampered with by repairmen over the last two centuries. Each instance of tampering degrades the quality of the sound. What we hear in the great old instruments is probably 75 - 80% of what they should sound like had their sound not been too degraded. So it is not so amazing that violinists may select a new violin. 

I have noticed since the publication of my discovery (back in the 1980s) of Area Tuning in the old violins that a few of the best makers today are using that discovery. And when they have used it, they have figured out how to make it work...some perhaps even more successfully than I have. Still there was a great deal known by the 17th and 18th century violin makers about the art -- and it is an art (to contradict Mr. Hunt) -- of enhancing sound that we have yet to discover. 

What makes the violin so challenging to puzzle out is its incredible complexity. To date, I have uncovered 22 distinct tuning systems in a violin and more than 113 acoustical adjustments to get a violin to exhibit the 34 criteria I have learned of from the great old violins. And that doesn't even include anything relating to the preparation and varnishing.

But my work has nothing to do with the modern science of acoustics, as practiced by many modern makers, because it is ear-oriented not eye-oriented. When I hear the sounds of the great antique violins what I hear is sounds that stir my soul because they sound like human voices. In art, the aspect of paradox is essential -- otherwise our senses are quickly sated. When I hear the work of modern makers, what I usually hear is loud violins that sound like loud violins (no paradox), having little sculptability (flexibility) and sounding tepid from the point of view of carrying power (intensity) 

“Loud” doesn't necessarily have carrying power. I have made intense sounding clavichords that can fill a large concert hall--and a sound that is difficult to mold and sculpt isn't worth very much except to a mere technician. Intensity of sound and flexibility of sound are cardinal traits of an acoustically enhanced sound and must be tested for at a significant distance. At a distance of 100-300 feet the sound of most modern violins falls off and gets lost when accompanied by an orchestra. Whereas in this same test, the sound of the great antique violins blossoms, almost doubling in volume the further you are from the violin, and their exquisite timbre cuts through the sound of an entire orchestra to be heard distinctly over all the other competing sounds. These qualities are what the greatest musicians value most, according to my understanding. And these are what the violins made in Italy from 1600 to 1790 (give or take a few years) excel in. 

Ease of playing was another trait the violinists in this experiment mentioned. However, it is my view that violins that are not acoustically enhanced for intensity and flexibility are easy to play because they are not subject to the distortion resistance effect that makes the sound difficult to start without whistling, an effect that Stradivari's violins are known for. The real trick is making a violin that is both flexible and intense to be, as well, easy to play -- so that the music flows out of the instrument, instantly following the will of the player. This assumes that the player is a true artist and has a will backed by real musical understanding.

 
Keith Hill - Instrument Maker

Psychological Science: The Theory of Test Reliability – Correcting 100 Year Old Mistakes - Part 1 (Norman Costa)

Psychological Science: The Theory of Test Reliability – Correcting 100 Year Old Mistakes (Norman Costa)

By

Norman Costa, Ph.D.

The Submarine Torpedoes That Would Not Explode

Non-exploding torpedoes may seem a strange way to open a discussion about the reliability of educational and psychological tests. This true story from the U.S. Navy in World War 2, however, is a perfect example of how to understand the concept of reliability. If submarine torpedoes seem an odd comparison to psychological tests, keep in mind that both are tools or instruments that are expected to perform in their own ways. We expect our tools or instruments to be reliable. So let's see what we mean by reliability.

Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in the Hawaiian Islands on December 7, 1941, the United States entered the Second World War. After declaring war upon Japan, Germany declared war upon the United States. Upon the declaration of war on Japan, the U.S. Navy's fleet of submarines was authorized to hunt and sink enemy war ships and enemy ships of commerce. The submarine service immediately went on the offensive and prowled the waters for prey. They did a superb job of tracking down their targets, and firing their torpedoes at the hulls of enemy ships with great accuracy. For all of their stealth, bravery, and accuracy, none of the torpedoes exploded.

The failure of virtually all torpedoes in the submarine fleet at the outset of the war was kept a tightly guarded secret during and after the war. Today, few people know about the non-exploding torpedoes. Almost no one is aware of the cause of the problem. It was sabotage. German spies and agents had infiltrated the factories that produced the torpedoes for the U.S. Navy, even before the U.S. entered the war. In 1967, I met Richie Harris, one of the former workers at one of the torpedo factories. He told me that he was a maintenance worker and was sweeping the floor of the office of one of the managers. A man who looked like any other factory worker came into the office, flashed a badge and identified himself as an FBI agent, told him to stay in the office and not come out until told that he could do so. The FBI agent closed the door and locked Richie Harris in the office. That was the opening of a massive arrest of saboteurs in the factory.

About six months later a huge  picture of an Italian battleship was hung on the wall of the factory floor. That battleship was sunk by one of their torpedoes.

Double blinding violins (prasad)

If you enjoy a good debunking, this one's a doozy. A scientist and contemporary violin maker conducted blind comparisons, getting professional violinists to try and choose among three old Cremonese violins, including two by Stradivari, (total value 10M) and three high-end modern violins (total value 100k). They used a clever blinding protocol:

With modified welders’ masks on their faces, to restrict vision, and a dab of scent under the violins’ chin rests, to mask tell-tale odors, the participants got to play compare six violins, including two by Stradivari and one by Guarneri. In an initial test, they quickly compared 10 pairs of violins — nine distinct new-vs.-old pairings and one repeat pair. They got to play each instrument for one minute, without visiting the first instrument played, in a room with neutral acoustics. In a second test, they were allowed to compare and contrast the six instruments in a more natural way, playing them all however they wished, for 20 minutes.

The results are unsurprising to any decent cynic:

In the head-to-head tests, the players preferred new and old instruments at equal rates, except in one case: One violin by Stradivari, crafted in roughly 1700, was clearly preferred less often than the others. “It seems that under these test conditions, only a conspicuously least-preferred violin differentiates itself,” the authors write. (What’s more, when the violinists compared the same two instruments twice, they made the same choice only 52% of the time.)

In the more leisurely comparison, the same Stradivari model was again voted as worse than the other violins (new or old); four instruments received statistically indistinguishable ratings. This time, however, a distinctly preferred model arose — and it happened to be a new violin.

The story has been received enthusiastically on science and technology sites, and the analogy to high-end wine has been drawn more than once. I don't think that's quite right though. This isn't really like the claim that wine snobs can't really tell plonk from Chateau whatsisface - the new violins themselves cost tens of thousands of dollars each. Indeed, even in this group of six superb violins, there appears to be some degree of agreement at least on the best or worst instruments. Nor is the psychology really related to the rubbish about finding notes of badger and ear-wax in a single-malt; This is about love, not bull-shit. Great musicians fall in love with great instruments they've played with.

But we do need to expand our sense of what a great instrument (and instrument-maker) is. It's remarkable that craftsmen hundreds of years ago could make instruments that can (almost) hold their own against our labs and years of accumulated practice. But clearly there are superb violin-makers today, and the very best might even be better than the Great ones. It seems like a shame for them to not be well-known, and positively wrong to impose upon them the burden of predetermined, unwinnable comparisons with the long-dead. And it's long past time for the audiophile-type magic-fiddle stuff to die.

Zoos and zoo-people (prasad)

Travel to tribal portions of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands is fairly restricted, and access to particular local tribes is (in theory) hard to accomplish. Rationales for isolating these peoples are probably varied - lack of disease resistance, the desire to protect unusual cultures blending into Rousseau-style noble savage stuff, the interesting genetic structure of the people, pretext for possible naval strategic concerns, etc. Of the lot, only the first seems ethically clean to me, but in any case much of this is fig-leaf stuff anyway, since Indian and foreign tourists visit quite routinely to gawk at the tribesmen.

Now there's video footage (taken by a British newspaper) in the news, showing tourists making naked indigenous women dance for food:    

Rights campaigners and politicians on Wednesday condemned a video showing women from a protected and primitive tribe dancing for tourists in exchange for food on India's far-flung Andaman Islands.

British newspaper The Observer released the video showing Jarawa tribal women -- some of them naked -- being lured to dance and sing after a bribe was allegedly paid to a policeman to produce them.

Under Indian laws designed to protect ancient tribal groups susceptible to outside influence and disease, photographing or coming into contact with the Jarawa is illegal.

The tribe, thought to have been among the first people to migrate successfully from Africa to Asia, lives a nomadic existence in the lush, tropical forests of the Andamans in the Bay of Bengal.

India's tribal affairs minister V Kishore Chandra Deo promised to take action over the incident, terming it "disgusting" on Wednesday, and the home ministry has sought a report.

Survival International, which lobbies on behalf of tribal groups worldwide, said the video showed tourists apparently enjoying "human zoos."

"Quite clearly, some people's attitudes towards tribal peoples haven't moved on a jot. The Jarawa are not circus ponies bound to dance at anyone's bidding," said Stephen Corry, the group's director, in a press release.

In June last year, Survival International accused eight Indian travel companies of running "human safari tours" so tourists could see and photograph the Jarawa. [emph added]

I think this 'Survival International' group is grandstanding to some extent in drawing the zoo analogy, but clearly this is pretty unsanitary stuff. Still, my own view is that this wouldn't ethically be that different from people visiting Amish country, if these people were treated like human beings to begin with and not fetishized, by people across the political spectrum, including foremost the government. People - all people - like gratifying their curiosity about strange people, and channeling that interest in ordinary ways (modulo health impact) would be on the whole harmless, doing little more than diluting cultural heritage, and might even create economic and other benefits. But with things as they are, such visits have an illicit character, and people tend to behave rather worse than is strictly necessary.

The Daily Mail [NSFW] has a video and additional details making the thing more vivid, including a picture showing a long line of cars that looks quite a bit like a safari. What particularly stood out to me is this:

The 403 tribe members should, in theory, be protected by strict laws on the Indian-run island. A sign at the gate to the 'enclosure' states: 'Don’t give any eatables to the Jarawas.

'Don’t indulge in photography, videography. Otherwise you will be liable for legal action ­including seizure of camera.' [emph added]

I can think of reasons to bar outsiders from entering this enclosure. [Although I hope - without having much expectation of being right - that such finickiness doesn't extend to medical care or education. Jarawa cancer patients should not be expected to die wholesomely just because they have done so for thousands of years...] Given whatever limited entry right there is though, with at least some people being allowed to walk, talk, sneeze and drive on tar roads, what possessed the government to put up signs warning those people off giving tribal children snickers bars? Are they monkeys or ducks that visitors must be barred from feeding them? If this is a zoo, who's the real zoo-keeper?

Psychological Science: Mathematical Argument and the Quest for Scientific Respectability – Part 2 (Norman Costa)

Listen to the comments of Richard Feynman, Nobel Laureate in Physics, on social science, from 2':52" through 4':50".

Psychological Science: Mathematical Argument and the Quest for Scientific Respectability – Part 2 (Norman Costa)

By

Norman Costa Ph.D.

The Problem of Measurement

The recognition of psychology as a proper science was a major goal of the pioneers in experimental psychology, and those interested in the study of individual differences.  They understood that the basic function of science was to describe the properties of things through observation and the recording of data.  Key to the process of observation, and essential for mathematical argument, is the concept of measurement.

The early psychologists saw, clearly, the parallel between measurement tools in psychology (tests,  scales, experimental apparatuses,) and measurement instruments in the more successful sciences.  In anecdotes, they told of conversations they had with other scientists on the reliability of test instruments.  They were told, so they reported, that a measurement tool must yield the exact same results each time it is used, assuming identical circumstances, if it is going to be considered reliable.  They translated their understanding of test reliability into what is formulated today in the Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing1 – reliability is consistency of observed results.  In this definition there is no reference to the purpose or function of the test instrument.  To be reliable, it is only necessary for a test to be consistent in yielding observed scores, independent of the purpose of the test.  In another article, I will show that the concept of reliability, without a statement of purpose, is an illusion. It was a fundamental mistake for psychological science, and was completely out of sync with the concept of test reliability in all other sciences.

They believed they addressed the issue of mathematical argument with the development of descriptive statistics (beginning with Galton and Pearson,) the development of the correlation coefficient to express relationship (Galton, Pearson, Spearman and others,) and in the invention and development of factor analysis for research on the structure of human intelligence (Spearman, Thurstone, and others.)  The body of statistical tools, tests, scales, experimental apparatus, and text books (Thorndike, Spearman, Thurstone, Guilford, Guttman, and Gulliksen) were crowning achievements and sources of pride for scientific psychology.  Of great importance and satisfaction to psychology was the development of the correlation coefficient, and its application to assessing the reliability of measurement instruments.  Eventually, we will see that using the correlation coefficient to measure reliability was a fundamental mistake. The mistake was brought about by an overvaluing of the correlation coefficient, and an over-eagerness to develop mathematical argument for psychological science.

Recognition from the more successful sciences was not forthcoming, however.  The scientific community never looked closely at the psychologists' definition of reliability that was without a statement of purpose, nor at the use of the correlation coefficient to measure reliability.  What they did focus on was psychology's understanding, or lack of understanding, of the concept of measurement in science.

 

Concrete Jungle vs Concrete Common Sense

As usual, being familiar with the living conditions in much of the Third World, I say that this makes a lot of sense. 

Beyraja: from 1947 to 1971 and beyond..(Omar Ali)

“agli wari beyraja peya tey chHaDna nahin...” (the next time anarchy occurs; don’t miss your chance...)

The dream of a violent and destructive “revolution” that will “sweep away this sorry scheme of things entire and remake it nearer to heart’s desire” may or may not be an old idea. Some think it is derived from the apocalyptic visions of various Judeo-Christian cults and prophets, others that it is a relatively new idea that arose in post-enlightenment Europe and got exported to the rest of the world. Whatever the case, it is an idea that permeates modern millenarian ideologies like communism, and from that fecund source it has found its way into Islamism and dozens of other ideologies that yearn for total transfromation rather than incremental change. We in the subcontinent have not yet seen an organized premeditated revolution akin to the Russian or Chinese experience, but in the 20^th century, we did see at least two episodes of very violent and sudden re-ordering of affairs, once in 1947 and then in 1971.

 Neither episode was marked by anarchy in every corner of the subcontinent; the anarchy of 1947 was especially concentrated in West Pakistan and East Punjab. 
 Many terrible massacres and crimes occurred in other parts of North India and Bengal, but Punjab was by far the worst hit and the most totally transformed.  In West Pakistan, countless prosperous Hindus and Sikhs lost lands and businesses and moved to India (or died in the attempt). All this property was then reassigned to new owners. Keep in mind that urban property in particular had been heavily concentrated in the hands of Hindus and Sikhs. e.g., all of Anarkali bazar in Lahore was in Hindu hands prior to partition and on the main road (Mall road) there was only one Muslim-owned building (Shah din Building). Almost all cinemas and other valuable commercial property were owned by Hindus and Sikhs. Evacuee property boards were set up to try and bring some order to this process but the administration was as virginal as the state. A very small number of Muslim officials suddenly found themselves in the position of deciding the fate of property and assets worth billions. In the ensuing scramble, the most enterprising, the best connected, and the least scrupulous managed to grab vast wealth and opportunities, while millions didn’t even realize the full significance of what was happening.  Terrible massacres and riots were not just the result of deep religious hatreds or the sudden eruption of primal human savagery; enterprising crooks took advantage of the anarchy of partition to get rid of competitors and anyone whose property looked ripe for plucking. As matters stabilized, terrible crimes and atrocities disappeared into the black hole of memory and the new elite got busy embellishing its own mythology of “deliverance from the Hindu yoke”, with little mention of how this “deliverance” involved the looting of existing property and the takeover of institutions and positions suddenly left vacant by the departure of the Hindu and Sikh elite.

As far as I know, no one has published a detailed look at how many of the current Pakistani elite are composed of descendants of those who vaulted into elite status in 1947, but the proportion cannot be insignificant. And the effects of partition did not just include the upward mobility of some and destruction of others; everyone paid a price when long established traditions vanished overnight and the urgent ambition of the newly rich combined with shallow nationalism and millenarian fantasies to define the new world.  An anecdote from someone who failed to grab the opportunities available may be a better guide to how these events were assimilated into new values; an old man in our village in West Punjab was near death in 1970 and like most people in our village, was dying after a lifetime of poverty and hardship. He had become incoherent but a few minutes before the end, he suddenly became lucid and grabbing the hand of a younger relative, passed on this deathbed advice:  “agli wari beyraja peya tey chaddna nahin...” (the next time anarchy occurs; don’t miss your chance...). Beyraja (absence of Raj) here refers to the time in 1947 when, for a few months, every property owned by Hindus and Sikhs was suddenly there for the taking.  He, like most people, had missed his chance. He did not want his younger relatives to miss the next one.

Property was also suddenly available in East Punjab, where Muslim peasants were being driven out in a very systematic campaign of intimidation and massacre. The exchange was not equal in terms of property because the Sikh cultivators who were driven East had lost more than they could get from Muslims moving West, simply because Sikhs in West Punjab had held more land than Muslims in East Punjab. But even so there was always opportunity for the better connected and more ruthless to edge out those who lacked the necessary entrepreneurial drive.  The Hindu commercial class driven into India was even less likely to find commercial property worth a tenth of what they left behind. In their case, their subsequent entry into the Indian elite may have owed more to hard work and the enhanced drive of those driven to take refuge in another land, but again, the results cannot have been equally distributed. Many a gentle soul may have floundered in poverty while those with greater drive and ambition leapt ahead. And for all of them, “winners” or “losers”, the psychological impact of partition cannot have been entirely benign. One under-examined impact is the way both Indian and Pakistani migrants lost their connection with their old culture as they left the land where that culture had been born and bred. The subsequent success of modern “fundamentalist” and nationalist ideologies in migrants on both sides, and their continued migration to a hundred other countries after the first migration shook them loose, also owes something to the events of partition.

The events of 1971, while very different in their causes and in the mechanics of transfer of power, ultimately involved anarchy and violence at levels similar or greater than those seen in partition. Known prominent Awami League sympathizers were obviously targeted at the start of military action in East Pakistan, but it was the Hindus in East Pakistan who became the primary victims of a policy that can only be described as ethnic cleansing. It is common for both Pakistan and Bangladesh to underplay the “Hindu-centric” aspect of this policy (for different reasons), but its impact was dramatic. Practically the entire Hindu population of East Pakistan was forced to escape to India. Most of them ended up in pathetic refugee camps and the death toll from disease there was much greater than the death toll from bullets and bombs in East Pakistan itself. Come December, they could go back to BD, but even though the Awami League had a relatively secular outlook and may have been genuinely willing to welcome them back, getting back valuable property was not always easy.   Army action had been accompanied by extensive looting and in many cases the looters were locals, working with or without the Pakistani army. Urdu-speaking migrants from Bihar and North India who were ideologically aligned with the Pakistani army took the lead in many cases, but as in any period of anarchy, local Bengali “entrepreneurs” were also able to step forward and this part of the story is not as well-advertised.

In any case, the Urdu-speaking migrant population did not enjoy its opportunity for loot, plunder and local domination for too long in East Pakistan; with the Pakistani army’s surrender on December 16^th, they suddenly found themselves on the losing side in a civil war, which is never a happy place to be.Hundreds, probably thousands, were massacred within a few days while others found refuge in overpopulated, disease-ridden camps, where some are living to this day, waiting for Pakistan to take them back.  Now it was their turn to lose property and positions and naturally there were Bengali entrepreneurs around to take advantage of these opportunities. In some cases, these Bengali entrepreneurs were the same people who had loyally served the Pak army in its 8 month long crackdown and now managed to switch sides in time. A researcher interviewing Bengali rape victims many years later asked one of them why she did not try to get justice for her suffering? She replied that the same person who took me to the Pakistani army camp in 1971 is the local MP today. Where would I go for justice? A new elite was born in BD, just as one had been born in West Pakistan at partition. And some of those joining the club were as enterprising and unprincipled as the ones who heard opportunity knocking in 1947 and grabbed it with both hands.

The point is not to rake up bygones or blame one country or one nationality or to besmirch the name of a particular ideology or religion. It is just to point out that in all such events, when the dust settles it is not only (or not even mostly) the ideologues and true-believers that have changed position in society; enterprising crooks take advantage and move up, and many gentle souls find themselves sliding down the socio-economic ladder. The populations targeted for cleansing are very variable; Hindus, Sikhs, Muslims, Bengalis, Punjabis, aristocrats, feudals, whatever…and their crimes, real and imagined, always loom large in propaganda. But all too often, “rivers of blood” are just that; rivers of blood. The price is very high and the reward unevenly and unfairly distributed. As millenarian excitement rises again in Pakistan and the dream of a new “revolution” takes hold in the middle class, it is worth keeping some of this in mind.The revolution, if it comes, may not be what they were looking for...

"A revolution is not a dinner party, or writing an essay, or painting a picture, or doing embroidery..." 

Farewell to the Bodhi Tree (Dean)

Los Angeles just got a little less interesting. The landmark bookstore on Melrose has closed. According to the story, it may or may not reopen as a bricks-and-mortar operation. God forbid it only tries to keep virtually afloat. I've never cared to read books about spirituality, except for a traipse through Paramahansa Yogananda's Autobiography (prompted by the liner notes of a favorite progressive rock LP from the '70s) and Ram Dass's Be Here Now. Now that I think about it, the Hildegard von Bingen thing grabbed me, too, also spurred by a musical connection. But I visited Bodhi Tree a handful of times when I lived in L.A. It was a beautiful, fun, waste-an-afternoon sort of bookstore. The LA Times article doesn't quite do justice to the place. It doesn't mention that the Bodhi Tree actually consisted of two bookstores: the main storefront on Melrose featured the new volumes in a range of disciplines and various paraphernalia of metaphysical/paranormal exploration (incense, crystals, bells), but a separate space around the corner was packed with used books, where all sorts of book lovers were likely to find all sorts of books.

On one of my last visits there, I was on a mission specifically to find recordings by the great sitar player Nikhil Banerjee. The Bodhi Tree had nearly the entire catalog from Raga Records. I brought home about a dozen of his CDs from that visit.

In 1999, Sisterhood Bookstore on Westwood Blvd. closed, largely due to the loss of customers to the then relatively new Borders across the street, perhaps also due to the upstart Amazon. (Ugly irony: the oldest feminist bookstore in the country, Amazon Feminist Bookstore in Minneapolis, has had to change its name to True Colors following the rise of the online Amazon empire. It, too, appears to have an uncertain future.) I had been volunteering for the store, and I attended a benefit on its behalf a few months before they finally had to call it quits. It, too, was an unusual, fun bookstore, serving local and remote feminist and LGBT communities, as well as the students in departments at UCLA whose faculty opted to support the store by using it in lieu of the campus bookstore for course readings. After it closed, I'd often drive by the old site, which had become a cardboard box and moving supply retailer. Westwood Blvd. had become much less a destination. Now, of course, Borders across the street is also shuttered.