From: aa@iti.org (Aayush Asthana)
Subject: Re: Some of Rajeev Gowda's actual views on Ayodhya ...
Organization: Industrial Technology Institute
Date: Fri, 22 Jan 1993 17:04:52 GMT

prabhak@giga.cs.umn.edu (Satya Prabhakar) writes:

>(Ramesh Venkat) writes:
>>(Satya Prabhakar) writes:
>>
>>>Though Muslims have been operating within the secular and legal frmework
>>>of the Indian constitution, they have failed the "perception
>>>test." 
>>
>>	Who sets the "test"/standard?  Seldom do we find that the 
>>	perception of two individuals on any given event (or any
>>	stimuli) is identical because as human beings we bring in
>>	our own biases into the interpretation/perceptual process.
>>	That is why there is so much conflict in the world.  If only we
>>	could all see the world the same way...

>You are absolutely correct. But there is this thing of majority 
>opinion and perception. And worse, it does not lend itself to any
>"test/standard". And most often, it is not directly linked to any
>specific factual circusmtance, and therefore is extremely 
>difficult to contend with on terms of principle. 

Even so, perception/interpretation underlie most human activity;
bring in the majority of opinions and perceptions tend to be
revised; even within polarized groups there are differences of
opinion; hence `a test' will not suffice as another polarized group
demands a different test;  one aspect of percieved reality is that
while one can view the forest it is easy to lose sight of the trees;
perhaps, breaking the overall view into it's constituent parts, such
as what Prannoy Roy touches upon in his opinion polls could serve as
a measure, if not a test, of this majority view -- perhaps
perceptions will change as better information disseminates.

>>	If the muslims have failed the "perception test" (as you put it)
>>	in the eyes of *some* Hindus, then by the same token *some*
>>	Hindus have failed the test in the muslim eye as well.  The 

>Definitely. But the point is this: the Hindu perception of Muslims
>is likely to affect Muslims more than the Muslim perceptino of Hindus
>because of the sheer fact that Hindus far outnumber Muslims. The same
>holds for Indians in US. What Americans think of us affects us much more
>than what we think of them.

Or in other words when the majority acts even marginally it has a
greater impact on the minority; when of course, the sum total of
majority opinion outweighs the sum total of minority opinion.. a
reversal of that (even incorrectly percieved) and recent history
comes to mind..
 
>>	The following quote captures the complexity of the human perceptual
>>	process:
>>
>>	"Every perceiver is, as it were, to some degree a nonrepresentational
>>	artist, painting a picture of the world that expresses his individual
>>	view of reality." [Krech, Crutchfield and Ballachey (1962), p.12]

An excellent book to read by a Nobel physicist and a social scientist
is `Einstein's Space and Van Gogh's Sky'

(having a memory lapse on author's names -- write me and I can dig
it out)

>Correct. And we have to guard ourselves against these perception sof
>others.

In context, true; otherwise, of course one cannot easily separate
the individual from his/her perception..

>Satya Prabhakar
>--
>___________________________________________
>Happiness, dear Phaedrus, is a passed pawn!

[] Regards,                                              _  _______  _ 
Aayush Asthana|Tech. Transfer & |Industrial Technology  [_][_     _][_]
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