The Charter on Free Inquiry as antidote to political quackery
The media on December 30, 2009 reported that the Health Ministry has
decided to ‘crackdown on quacks’. Apparently the Ministry has received
over 6,000 complaints about quack doctors operating in all parts of the
country. They are for the most parts, according to the report, ‘retired
pharmacists, dispensers and others who have served under qualified
doctors’.
I suppose one could add to this kattadiyas and faith-healers since
both categories of persons are snug within the definition of quackery:
the deliberate misrepresentation of the ability of a substance or device
for the prevention or treatment of disease; also applicable to persons
who pretend to be able to diagnose or heal people but are unqualified
and incompetent. Where relevant certification is absent diagnosis and
prescription cannot be sanctioned.
I am intrigued by quackery because it is a term that is applicable to
a lot of things. Teaching, for example. It is a profession and one would
think that those without professional qualifications should not be
allowed to teach. One can have a degree in, say, Economics, and have a
decent enough grasp of the subject matter. Still, knowing doesn’t
necessarily imply ability to impart knowledge. That takes specialized
training.
The vast majority of our teachers are not qualified (by training) the
day they start ‘teaching’. That training is typically picked up later.
This is a horrendously flawed state of affairs. It is like allowing a
Second Year medical student to check out patients, engage in diagnosis
and prescribe a course of treatment. Just as one would hesitate to
subject oneself to examination by such an individual, so too should one
hesitate to put one’s child under the tutelage of an unqualified person,
especially if the child is very young.
What would we be sanctioning in this manner? We would be fooling
ourselves that the particular teacher and indeed the entire learning
process is what it is said to be because ‘ability’ has been
‘misrepresented’ to us. If we would not suffer a quack doctor, why
should we suffer a quack teacher? And yet we just ‘grin and bear’ don’t
we? Smaller risk, is that the reason? But is the risk really less? Where
there is no proper and professional nurturing and instruction, children
can pick up all kinds of bad habits. Their entire approach to learning,
to people, the world and life could be blue-printed in an erroneous
manner. Just because it is more difficult to extrapolate repercussion
(compared to a medical situations where the outcome could be more
clearly and quickly apparent), it is no less problematic.
The issue is simple: if the Health Ministry can go after quack
doctors, can’t the Education Ministry streamline affairs so that
children are not risked with quack teachers? In other words, is it not
possible and indeed imperative that proper training and relevant
certification should precede appointment? The Health Ministry will go
after all those who pose as ‘doctors’ but don’t have proper
qualifications. Will the Education Ministry also institute a system
where all teachers, in state schools and private schools as well as
those who are in the tuition business have proper qualification?
I wish sometimes that there was a Ministry of Politics, i.e. some
kind of institution that can approve or reject a person’s application to
contest elections. We can rule out the issue of ‘intelligence’ and
‘ability’ because representative democracy should be exactly that:
representative. If we are nation of morons, then there is nothing wrong
in electing a moron. On the other hand there should be some kind of
benchmark, you know, a minimum set of attributes that a candidate should
have.
I know it is hard to legislate but there have been attempts,
citizens’ initiatives, to make sure that decent people get elected and
not self-seeking thieves. In some countries, a group of eminent persons,
thoroughly screen candidates and give them what would be equivalent to
an approval rating. Something like the following: ‘such and such a
person gets a ‘thumbs-up’ and that one gets ‘two thumbs-up’ while Mr. So
and So is such a sorry case that he gets two thumbs-down’. It’s a
black-balling mechanism which, if it gains popularity and mass
acceptance (like all decent rating systems), can help the voter when it
comes to pick-and-choose time.
We do have some rudimentary screening mechanisms such as asset
declaration and checking criminal record, but there are too many
loopholes. Moreover, it is all hush-hush. The voters, criminally, are
left out of the relevant disclosures. What is the result? Proper and
effective screening is replaced by a political free for all where
candidates use all loopholes available to vilify one another. In the end
we get candidates and eventually elected representatives who are larger
than life (or smaller as the case may be) and the public really has no
clue about what to expect. Forget the negative element of the process,
isn’t it true that if electoral politics is about anything, it involves
the ‘deliberate misrepresentation of the ability of a substance or
device (read ‘party’ and/or ‘politician’) for the prevention or
treatment of disease (read ‘societal ill’)? Isn’t it about naked
quackery, since politics is full of persons who pretend to be able to
diagnose or heal society but are unqualified and incompetent?
It is hard to legislate against these things, just as it is not easy
to legislate against faith-healing nutcases who will read the riot act
pertaining to ‘religious persecution’ to literally get away with murder.
In the end it comes down to our ability as a citizenry to exercise
utmost vigilance, employ reason over emotion.
This is not the first time that I am recommending this and it won’t
be the last, but I am yet to find as compelling an insurance policy
against quacks and quackery as the Buddha’s Charter on Free Inquiry, the
Kalama Sutra.
Do not go upon what has been acquired by repeated hearing; nor upon
tradition; nor upon rumour; nor upon what is in a scripture; nor upon
surmise; nor upon an axiom; nor upon specious reasoning; nor upon a bias
towards a notion that has been pondered over; nor upon another’s seeming
ability; nor upon the consideration, “The monk is our teacher.” Kalamas,
when you yourselves know: “These things are good; these things are not
blameable; these things are praised by the wise; undertaken and
observed, these things lead to benefit and happiness,” enter on and
abide in them.’ (Anguttara Nikaya III.65 - Kalama Sutta).
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