RELUCTANCE/ BIAS

 

24   RELUCTANCE –THE BREEDER OF MEDIOCRITY

             Updating is a step in ascension. Without it, slowly we stay where we were, as things progress upward. The tendency of ‘staying contended’ on items of information is a reflection of reluctance. One of the factors behind ‘reluctance to update’ is from a lack of focus, essential for professional outlook. Often, excuses of ‘adequacy’ in the present form are advanced suggesting ‘efficacy’. Inadvertently, workers are left behind, as technology advances rather incessantly. The scenario is frightening in the arena of education. While industries can resort to automation to replace unskilled workers, education stagnates with outdated teachers unwilling to update. This is a silent crime on learners. Groomed by such ‘outdated’ protocols, the students fail to gather more recent information and stay mediocre in terms of ‘advancements’ in their domains of study. When such students take to teaching, the cycle is repeated but for an ‘odd’ conscious teacher who tries to live up to some higher level. But, the mediocrity surrounding such ‘odd teachers’ is so overwhelming that they are specks of microscopic dots, few and far between to make a large scale impact. Unless, the culture of updating is encouraged, there is little relevance to our courses of study.  Mine is no attempt of denigrating the teachers. It is a painful lamentation that personnel who should stay abreast of academic widening, choose to be oblivious and blissful. When the system of education collapses and inevitably so, the society would only be a silent, clueless spectator. Our society would then be a huge body of incompetent men and women who can do precious little to themselves. Mediocrity has to be perceived an epidemic that can potentially inflict catastrophic damage silently.

 

25         STAYING OFF BIAS

As we progress into life, slowly responsibilities get associated with our activities at home, office and in social gatherings. Necessarily, we have to function with persons known or unknown. Such occasions provide us the opportunity to view, assess and evaluate the persons around. Those moments are ripe for attitudes of bias in our interactions. Any obvious showing of bias is unwelcome, as it can destroy harmony. Cordial disposition is important as a part of our interaction with others. It is an intricate exercise to stay off bias, as it demands a very high level of tolerance even on the face of unpalatable happenings.

Bias arises from inaccurate judgment. Judgment relates to how we assess a person for his or her disposition to issues or individuals. The criterion is politeness or otherwise in a person’s approach towards the item. Those who are polite appeal to us as being ‘obedient’ and others as either less obedient or ‘disobedient’. What have obedience and disobedience to do with honesty and objectivity? Seeming to be obedient is more tolerated than an apparently open or crude expression.  In the process, we tend to ignore credibility in preference to disposition. This is one of the reasons for our getting biased. If we learn to dispel bias, our judgment can be more objective. Ultimately, it is essential that we should trust only those who are trustworthy and not the ones who display obedience only to play havoc in the long run. Some persons are plain and are misunderstood for insubordination. Honesty of purpose alone needs being recognized, as other ‘decorated’ dispositions in words or in action are often designs of scheme in concealing the intent. Bias is a weapon, capable of incalculable damage. God should guide us off bias.