Every morning the newspaper tells us what a depressing world we live in. People are dying of disease and malnourishment, or they suffer the consequences of an extremely unjust and unequal system. Most of the time, we shake our heads in dismay and shock and then turn away to live our own lives, feeling like there is little we can do about it. The problems of the day seem just too big for our small efforts to make a difference.
And then there are the everyday injustices that we sometimes glimpse out of the corner of the eye. Again, we feel helpless and we tell ourselves it’s the system; there’s not much an individual can do to change things. Once in a while we are galvanised into action by the force of an event or an idea, as was the case following the horrific rape in Delhi or the anti-corruption movement two years ago. Sometimes, speaking up for change, or protesting the status quo can prove risky — last week, protesting the harassment of his classmate had fatal consequences for a young student in a Hyderabad college. When something like this happens, it can intensify our reluctance to get involved. After all, no one wants to be punished for doing the right thing. Over time, the impulse to step in to set things right gets weaker and weaker (if it existed), and before we know it, we begin to accept things the way they are. We get used to the imperfections and inequities that are part of the system. A little longer, and we actually become the system, playing supporting roles in the daily drama of minor injustices that we feel helpless to stop.
Doing the right thing
You’re probably wondering what all this has to do with education, or preparing for the professional world. But it is in the first two decades of life that our ethical template is built, through school and college and in the situations we encounter there and at home. The way we make decisions about how we solve problems, how we relate to people, how we manage difficult situations, what we’re willing to compromise on and what (and who) we stick up for (and whether we stick up for anything at all)…these are indicative of how we deal with life in general. It could range from simple things like whether you’re willing to pick up trash that’s lying around the classroom, negotiate with your parents honestly over a disagreement, or report a leaky tap in the hostel bathroom, to stepping in when someone in the group is being bullied or treated unfairly. It could include activities such as showing up on time and contributing sufficiently to group projects and being careful about not plagiarising on an assignment. It's also about not hesitating to speak up when you see something not going right (corrupt practices in the hostel mess, mismanagement of student elections), sometimes risking unpopularity and the anger of your peers.
Dr. Philip Zimbardo, a professor emeritus at Stanford University and one of the world’s leading psychologists, talks about cultivating the “heroic imagination” (see >www.heroicimagination.org ). He suggests that heroism isn’t just about rescuing people from burning buildings or defending someone against physical attack or risking one’s life for a big principle. Zimbardo points to three major factors that inhibit positive action: conformity, obedience and the bystander effect. We want to fit in, and so there’s a pressure to fall in line with the majority or the vocal minority. We are conditioned to obey authority, even when we see that the rules we are following are unfair. And we are most often told by our parents and other adults that it's best to mind our business and stay away from situations that could implicate us in some way or get messy for us — such as intervening during a traffic accident, or stepping in when you see a someone being harassed on the street. Everyday heroism, according to the Heroic Imagination Project , is “embodied by any individual with firmly held ethics and the courage to act on them.”
Be the change It is often assumed that only people in some professions (medicine and law, for instance) need to worry about ethics, or that it is something that the people “in charge” need to be concerned with. The rest of us need to get on with the practical problems of life, in which ethics is a luxury, if not a burden. So we end up focusing very narrowly on “what has to be done” and lose sight of the consequences of the act or its meaning in a larger sense. It was just such a disconnect between the abstract work of programming and its real-world meaning that contributed to the faulty algorithms leading to the global financial crisis in 2008.
Developing the heroic imagination implies that we break free of blind obedience and conformity to examine the meaning and the consequence of our actions, guided by a keen sense of ethics. Only then can we stop being bystanders to everyday corruption and begin to change the way things are.
After all, education is supposed to be about change.
The writer teaches in the Department of Communication, University of Hyderabad, and is editor of Teacher Plus, >www.teacherplus.org . Email: usha.raman@gmail.com
