Comment by raghava
15 years ago
Culture does matter. In India, boasting about ranks/marks of one's kids is pretty much a cultural thing, everyone does that, with an enormous pride. This breeds a batch of kids who want marks and not the knowledge or understanding of things. Almost everything is a darned 1/2/5/10 marks question. Even the interested ones are forced to conform and be one in the herd. Indian social framework by large kills creativity and promotes rote learning, and the effects thus seen are quite well known and obvious.
Fair enough. I agree with this.
This maybe true, but I'm also not completely convinced. I don't think we lack creativity - there are any number of stories of 'jugaad' I could bring up here to make my point. We do attempt to conform a lot though - but even the Japanese do that and they don't seem to lack any creativity.
Perhaps, I'm misunderstanding you, but the claim that the Indian social framework kills creativity is not at all obvious to me.
My thinking is that the middle class promotes rote learning because it values education and doesn't know the difference between real understanding and rote learning.
I once heard a really well-known American professor say "most people don't like thinking" and sometimes I think is true pretty much everywhere in the world. If you look at the Americans and kind of dumb ideas a significant minority of them have about any number of issues (evolution, Islam, Obama's birth, Saddam, the Iraq War) it's quite clear they lack some basic reasoning skills.
Therefore, I suggest the following (intentionally controversial) hypothesis. Only the smartest 25% of people are actually capable of thinking. Perhaps, in the US, it turns out that this set is a superset of those employed in technology companies. In India, through an accident of economic circumstances, this is not the case. This is probably why we see so many instances of "dumb Indian software developers".
> I don't think we lack creativity
Yes, I am not saying that Indian's lack creativity. I am just saying that Indian societal/familial framework by large kills and curbs creativity, right from the tender age; and forces one to conform with practices of the herd and accept rote learning. We have lost many young minds in this mindless pursuit of that promised IT/iBank job.
> stories of 'jugaad'
I was about to speak of it. :) We have the 'jugaad#' culture. And at times, it causes us to overlook the importance of solutions and settle down with workarounds. We see that in everything and everywhere, administration/education/infrastructure/social practices/anything else. We will have a workaround but never invest in finding and putting in place a proper solution. And slowly, we have become so fiercely proud of this jugaad culture that we resist any attempt in implementing a proper solution but would gladly accept a workaround. (The greatest trouble for India, bribery and corruption, is a form of our 'jugaad'. Push in some money and get things done; but never implement accountability/transparent practices/strict punishments, cause they are quite difficult to adopt. We spent 60 years post independence using those workarounds, and we would continue to do so for eternity)
#a quick hack; not the solution, but a workaround.
I really, really doubt there is some genetic limit that prevents people from thinking. It's just a case of mindset. People who are coerced into rote memorization and 'surface learning' have just lost their curiosity and do not realize that thought is something you can do. I mean, we live in a post-industrial age. All throughout history most people 'did what they were told'.
People don't question because they don't think authority will like it.