DOGmatism

The Principal of a CBSE school in Kerala attended a motivation course. Consequently, he decided to give more autonomy to the staff. That was one of the lessons he had learnt during the course.

‘Now you decide what to do in your classroom and other places of your influence,’ Principal now tells a teacher.

‘Will I be paid more?’ The teacher wants to know.

‘Money is not what matters,’ Principal says. ‘What matters is your contentment.’ He tells the teacher about Maslow’s pyramid and the importance of self-actualisation.

‘Will I be paid more?’ The teacher repeats his query.

Principal takes out a book on motivation theory and asks the teacher to read it.

‘Will I be paid more if I read this?’

Dogmatism is the tendency to assert one’s prejudices or beliefs as undeniably true without consideration of evidence or the opinions of others. Dogmatism is very faithful to one’s beliefs or prejudices. Canine loyalty.

The dogmatist will go on insisting that his religion, culture, language, ideas, prejudices, whatever, is the best. He will deliver eloquent speeches with or without the help of teleprompters to force-feed people with his prejudices. He may never realise that the people are not interested in those things at all because dogmas mean nothing in the struggle for survival – unless they mean survival itself.

When survival becomes a problem, it is easy to inject any dogma into people’s veins. People will be ready to kill for the sake of dogmas provided you make their survival dependent on that. A lot of dogmas have begun to reign supreme in India now because of this.

Where dogmas rule, wisdom vanishes. Those who know, do not speak. Those who speak, do not know.

The principal in the above anecdote had converted what he had learnt in the course into certain dogmas. Instead of looking at what can really motivate his underpaid staff, he tries to force his dogmas on them.

Dogmas make us blind to the real problems. They make us filter out evidence that goes against our beliefs. They make us incapable of tolerating conflicting perspectives. We avoid certain important truths merely to uphold our dogmas. CBSE has dropped certain lessons from the syllabus because of its dogmatism. Topics on ‘democracy and diversity,’ Mughal courts, and poems by Faiz are some of the lessons that got the axe.

Shutting out certain unpleasant truths is how dogmatism deals with them. But that is not the right way. We should look at the realities from many sides, evaluate them and make informed choices and decisions. Otherwise, we will have a nation of citizens who follow certain prejudices doggedly. 

PS. This post is part of #BlogchatterA2Z 2023

Yesterday’s: Capitalism is fated to be sad

Tomorrow: Euthanasia