Rajesh Khanna’s (un)lucky home

What is the secret of Rajesh Khanna’s miraculous rise to unparalleled superstardom in the 1970s? No one knows. According to a July 24 Mumbai Mirror report, “Aashirwad was haunted,” however, the actor knew. It was because of the bungalow he had bought from fellow actor Rajendra Kumar.

The sea-facing bungalow on Carter Road had had a terrible reputation. Everyone in the neighbourhood knew it was haunted. Naturally, there were no buyers although the owner was willing to sell it below cost. That is when Rajendra Kumar bought it in the 1960s for just Rs 60,000 because he couldn’t afford anything better. Once he moved into the house, however, there was an inexplicable change in his fortunes. Every film in which he starred succeeded at the box office; he became ‘Jubilee Kumar.’ Rajesh Khanna was closely watching this success story from the sidelines. He believed that if he moved into the house he would be equally successful.

Rajendra Kumar did not seem to have attributed his spectacular success to the bhoot bungalow which he named Dimple, after his daughter. That is why, once he made enough money, he got a bungalow built at Pali Hill and moved there.

Rajesh Khanna bought the Carter Road bungalow and moved in. He knew success would follow him. And he was right. Every film he touched turned to gold. He got everything an actor could dream of – millions of adoring fans, astronomical fees, superstardom... 15 super hits in a row. All because of the lucky house.

Rajesh Khanna was sure of the role his house played in his miraculous rise. We don’t know if he changed his mind when, staying in the same house, he lost everything including his family. Perhaps he didn’t change his mind; he explained his reverses away as a temporary setback. Perhaps he believed that he would soar back to astrosphere where ownership and occupation of the Carter Road bungalow had taken him.

What has one’s house to do with one’s professional success or failure? Plenty if you believe that there is a causal link.

Was Rajesh Khanna superstitious? Do we have such superstitions influencing decision-making in the corporate world?

We are all superstitious. But we make a distinction. Our beliefs are well founded beliefs; others’ beliefs are silly superstitions. Our beliefs vary, but our faith in the validity of our beliefs stays strong.

Our personal and professional actions are anchored around our beliefs although, unlike Rajesh Khanna, we are reluctant to admit the link. That doesn’t take away our resistance when ideas that are at variance with our belief system are proposed. We are likely to give a perfectly logical reason why the idea should not be adopted, but the real reason is that it goes against our hidden beliefs. 


Photo credit: http://www.istockphoto.com/

The urban mind

I’d heard a lot about Little Rann of Kutch in Gujarat, but never been to that place although it is just about 100 km from Ahmedabad. My wife and I drove there recently along with a friend of ours from Mumbai, who was spending a weekend with us.  We were interested in seeing the wild asses, which are apparently found only in Little Rann. We also wanted to see salt production.

We reached Kharaghoda, our destination, without any difficulty.

We stopped the car at the first place where we saw huge mounds of salt. Workers were transferring the salt into polythene bags. We approached them and asked them many questions about salt-making. When we learned that the salt fields were about 15 km away, we asked them for directions. One of them, Parimal, who appeared to be their supervisor, said it wasn’t a good idea to venture into the Rann without a guide. Beyond Kharaghoda there are plenty of tracks but no roads nor signposts. We had also read about the need for a guide to navigate the Rann.

We decided to hire a guide and asked Parimal where we could find one. He said he didn’t know of anyone. Seeing the look of disappointment on our faces, he offered to go with us. We welcomed it readily. But I didn’t want to engage his services without settling the price in advance. Suppose he demanded an atrocious amount on our way back? So I asked him how much he would charge. He smiled and said he didn’t expect any payment.

As we were walking to the car, my wife pulled me aside and said quietly that it wasn’t a good idea to take that guy as a guide. We don’t know anything about him. Suppose he attacked us with or without the help of his men in the desert? Weren’t we walking into a trap? Why don’t we just go as far as the road takes us, and walk about a bit on our own, and return? I reassured her somewhat lamely that we would be safe because there were three of us. I didn’t suspect any foul play. After all, he didn’t offer his services until we asked. And this was not a place like a bus stand or a railway station where cheats target strangers.

As we approached the car and opened the door for Parimal, one of his associates also got in. My wife was even more worried now. I was also somewhat shaken.  But I didn’t stop him. Somehow I said to myself that there were three of us against the two ‘guides.’ Moreover, it was morning.

Once we reached the end of the road and entered the desert, we realised how difficult it would be for someone unfamiliar with the tracks there to get anywhere and more importantly to get back to Kharaghoda.

The two men turned out to be excellent guides and hosts. On our way back they invited us to their Seth’s factory where we observed how salt was being washed, crushed, iodised, and packed. They also offered us several packets of salt with their compliments. We wanted to thank them and return to Ahmedabad but they wouldn’t let us leave without taking tea with them. They sent a boy on a motorbike to a tea shop two kilometres away to bring us tea.

***          ***          ***

As I look back at the morning’s experience, I feel ashamed of myself. What is wrong with my urban mind? Why do I look at every stranger with suspicion? At the same time, I ask myself if we weren’t foolish in accepting a total stranger’s offer. If he had any evil intentions, we would be sitting ducks in the middle of the desert although there were three of us. Were we just lucky? I am confused. 

The persuasive power of the unknown

I eagerly opened the envelope the postman brought home the other day. Out came a leaflet. It was the photocopy of what appeared to be an advertisement in a newspaper. The sender didn't identify himself or herself. The text, which was in Malayalam, fascinated me. Let me give you a rough translation.

There was a miracle at Vailankanni. [This, as you may know, is a coastal town in Tamil Nadu. St Mary's shrine there attracts hundreds of thousands of pilgrims from different religions and regions every year.] One Sunday Mother Mary appeared in the form of a child to a devotee and said, “I will come back to earth shortly to do penance for [others’] sins. Inform everyone. Anyone who distributes 1000 copies of this announcement will have his wish fulfilled in fifteen days. Those who don't act on it immediately will suffer a great deal within twenty-two days.” Then she disappeared.

One Mumbai resident who heard about this got 1000 copies of this announcement printed and distributed. As a result, he got Rs 6.8 million. A rikshaw driver distributed 850 copies, and he got a small pot of gold. An unemployed youth distributed 500 copies of this leaflet and found a job in a few days. Another man tore up the leaflet he received saying it was humbug. Within three days his son died. […]

Therefore, please publicise this information by distributing leaflets so that everyone can get Mother Mary's blessings.

From a believer

I tossed it into the waste bin. Then I picked it up. I felt it deserved to be examined carefully for lessons in persuasion.

 Whoever sent it to me was persuaded to do so either because of fear of harm or of hope of good fortune or perhaps a combination of both. Or is someone playing it safe? Whatever it is, what is the basis of such a strong blend of emotions? Why would anyone believe stories like these? There are no names, no dates, no addresses if you want to check what happened (if anything happened at all). How can anyone accept a causal link between someone’s decision not to circulate an anonymous leaflet and a death in the family? Why, then, do people lose their common sense and circulate such ridiculous stuff? The persuasive power of the unknown is so strong that even a mention is enough for many of us to comply with its apparent wishes. If you are scared of snakes, even a paper snake can make you run.

Unlike forwarding an email to everyone in one's address book, making photocopies of an announcement, putting it in hundreds of envelopes, writing genuine addresses on these envelopes, sticking stamps and posting them cost a believer time and money. Why would he/she do it? How about the first person who started this chain? Was he/she a believer? A prankster? What did he/she get out of it?

For me, this is another instance of emotions firmly establishing their supremacy over reason. 

Photo credit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velankanni_Town

If I were Urmila...

This post is based on last week’s Sweet vine, bitter berries.

What would I do if I were Urmila? I asked myself this question several times. Every time I came up with the same answer. I would do exactly as she did until the doctor said, “Now you’re in my hands.”

We know nothing about the background of either the doctor or of Urmila other than the bare facts in the story. What is obvious is that she wasn’t looking out for any sexual adventure. If she was, the doctor wouldn’t be drugging her and making her do things she wouldn’t when conscious.

As one of the readers says, this is a story of deception. But deception is the finest form of persuasion. The problem is with the objectives. The techniques are the same. It’s worth identifying them so that we can adopt them for ethically acceptable objectives.

I see two faces of the doctor. He is a great persuader until Urmila takes the juice at his accomplice’s place. From that moment on he is a beastly criminal. He uses coercion including blackmailing, not persuasion or seduction, to make Urmila do his bidding. It is despicable to shoot a deer in a cage. And I hope the law catches up with him in spite of his obvious influence in high places including the judiciary.

What we will examine is why Urmila so readily accepted his offers and suggestions. Why was he so persuasive? The simple answer is that he earned her complete trust. As Aristotle says, of all the persuasion factors, the persuader’s credibility is the most important one. This is because once we trust someone, they can persuade us to do virtually anything. Our conscious mind, which is rational and critical, happily steps back and relaxes once it is reassured by trust.

Life would be terrible if we suspected that everyone around us was out to cheat us or take advantage of us. We want to trust people around us because that is when we feel at home. 

What are the factors that helped the doctor get Urmila’s complete trust? He was a prominent doctor working for the Chief Justice.  He belonged to her cast and village. But more than anything else, he was not in a hurry in a way that would alert her antennae. He met her occasionally, and offered her a ride home occasionally. It is almost as if he was not going out of his way but just being nice to a person from his circle. I assume that he avoided any kind of sexual innuendos when he talked to her.

On its own, none of these factors would create total trust. But when they came together they were deadly. If I were Urmila I wouldn’t sense any danger whatsoever because he built up his credibility bit by bit over a few weeks.

What do we learn from this? We are often not persuasive because we don’t build up our credibility. We don’t do enough to earn the trust of people around us, especially subordinates, through our actions over time. We delude ourselves into thinking that we are credible and rely too heavily on the power of the position we hold.

Photo credit: http://www.istockphoto.com/

Amanda Knox

The recent release of Amanda Knox, a young American exchange student convicted and imprisoned in Perugia, Italy, in connection with the murder of her flatmate Meredith Kercher in 2007, has been widely reported in newspapers all over the world.  We don’t know if she was guilty as the trial court determined in 2009 or innocent as the appeals court determined last week. You can read a detailed account of the murder and the trials here. But let us look at some angles of persuasion illustrated in this case. 

Amanda Knox

Photograph from inquisitr.com

There was never any clear forensic evidence that linked Amanda to the dead flatmate’s murder. The prosecution could not point to any convincing motive either.  But as Ian Leslie writes in The Guardian (Amanda Knox: What’s in a Face?), the Italian investigators had already concluded from her body language that she was guilty. Edgardo Giobbi, the chief investigator, had declared that his team could establish her guilt by closely observing her “psychological and behavioural reaction during the interrogation.”  The young woman’s behaviour was “too cool and calm;” she also appeared to be hyper-sexed. Giobbi was so sure of her guilt that he went to the extent of saying that there was no need for other kinds of investigation to establish it.

Of course the police did bring in a lot of ‘evidence,’ confessions, and theories that showed Amanda’s role in the murder convincingly enough for the court to give her a 25-year prison sentence. It appears now that what persuaded the investigators to conclude that Amanda was guilty of murder was essentially her body language. Their instincts told them that she was guilty. Once they arrived at that conclusion, they were looking for evidence to justify it. 

Ian Leslie cites the results of experimental research conducted in 2008 by a group of Norwegian scientists to understand how police investigators judged the credibility of rape claims. The researchers found that the investigators, who were proud of their objectivity and ability to see through false claims, were heavily influenced by the demeanor of the victim. In their experiment, an actress played the role of a rape victim and used the same statement, but varied her emotions. She was perceived as telling the truth when her statement was accompanied by tears or a show of despair.  

Underlying such perception or judgement is a vague and unsubstantiated model we have in our mind about how others should behave in a given context. 

If seasoned police investigators who want to be objective can be influenced by people’s looks and behavior, can we be free from them? Can we be sure that when we are persuaded to buy a product, service, or idea in the world of business, our decision is driven primarily by evidence and rationality? When we reject others' proposals, can we be sure that we are driven by evidence and rationality? Could it be that something about the persuader triggers our instincts one way or the other and once we are persuaded, we look for evidence to justify the decision to ourselves and to others?

She strikes while the iron is hot (2)

Ruth’s story illustrates several smart persuasive moves.

Let's start with Ruth’s approach to life. She was bold and risk-taking.  As we have seen in an earlier post, Blessed are the thick-skinned, we need to be a little bold and thick-skinned to be persuasive. If we are not willing to take risks, we may not attempt persuasion in contexts where we are not sure of success.

The story shows that Ruth certainly had initiative. She went to Boaz’s field looking for barley instead of relying on her mother-in-law to provide for her.  She stood out from the workers and other poor women who were gleaning the field. It was obvious to everyone including her that Boaz was treating her differently. One reason may have been the fact that she, being Naomi's daughter-in-law, was a relative.  Another could be that she was attractive. But Boaz didn't take his special interest in her beyond socially approved limits. He didn’t try to exploit her poverty or helplessness as a young widow to satisfy any sexual desires he might have had. Neither did he make any attempt to contact Naomi to explore the possibility of marrying Ruth.

Naomi was monitoring what was going on. Once she noticed Boaz’s behaviour, Naomi waited for the best time for Ruth to strike. This illustrates priming that is required for persuasion to be successful. Priming is nothing but preparing the target in multiple ways for being persuaded.

The priming we notice here had two components. The first was to grow Boaz’s interest in Ruth to the level of desire. Seeing her every day but not getting her would have stoked the fire of desire in him. The second was to choose the most conducive environment for the persuasive move to work. In other words, Naomi wanted to choose a time when any resistance that the target had would be the weakest.

If Naomi wanted Boaz to marry Ruth following the custom of Levirate marriage, we would have expected her to visit him in his house and present her proposal. Naomi realised that taking this standard approach would almost certainly fail. Technically, Boaz was not in the picture at all because he was not the nearest male relative. If he married her, he would have to bring up children in the name of her dead husband, and the property would go to those children. If Boaz looked at the proposal rationally, he would look for another woman without any such conditions rather than a widow. Being rich, he shouldn’t have found it very difficult to find a pretty woman to be his wife. There was no need to marry a widow when he was not required to.

Naomi waited until the end of harvesting. This is the time that farmers feel the happiest. Additionally, she asked Ruth to approach Boaz when he was half asleep after he had a good supper and wine. Ruth had washed and perfumed herself to be even more desirable. Boaz was too stunned to think clearly when he found the sweet-smelling Ruth lying next to him. He couldn’t believe his luck – instead of going to young men she had chosen him. He would be willing to part with anything to have her. And she made her demand clear, upfront. She had not come for a little fun or money; she had come with a proposal under the Levirate marriage custom. Boaz agreed instantly. It’s after committing himself that he realised that he was not the closest male relative. But having committed himself, removing the hurdle was his burden.

The following morning Boaz framed the proposal to his ‘rival’ focusing on the responsibilities of a Levirate marriage. That man was interested in property, but not willing to marry a widow and raise children in her dead husband’s name. For him Ruth was just a poor Moabite widow to be looked after, not a sexy, capable woman that she had grown to be for Boaz. Reason prevailed, and he cleared the way for Boaz.

Ruth ran a big risk by crawling under Boaz’s blanket when he was half asleep on the threshing floor after dining and wining. It could have ended in little more than sex. And obviously any blame for it would have gone to Ruth because she asked for it. This is where Naomi’s strategy comes through as brilliant. It was a calculated risk. If Ruth had offered herself to him soon after she started gleaning his field, it would probably have ended in nothing more than sex. Naomi observed that throughout the harvesting season Boaz had behaved well while taking a keen interest in Ruth.

Some people may be quick to condemn Naomi and Ruth for adopting this route. But we need to remember that in the Jewish society at that time, being a widow without a male heir was the worst curse a woman could have. Also, sex with a man was the only way a woman could become a mother. That the Jews understood and accepted it is clear from the way Ruth has been celebrated in the Bible. 

The Hidden Hand in the Boardroom

This week let me share with you my short article that appeared in last Friday's (August 19) Corporate Dossier (The Economic Times) under the title, 'When the last leaf falls' http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/features/corporate-dossier/when-the-last-leaf-falls/articleshow/9651359.cms

I also copy it here.

“The Last Leaf” is one of the most delightful O Henry stories with a twist in the tail.

Young, struggling artist Johnsy is down with a severe attack of pneumonia one autumn. Her best friend and roommate Sue nurses her with deep love and care. The doctor gives her the best that modern medicine offers. But Johnsy’s condition deteriorates by the hour.

She doesn’t respond to any medicine because she is convinced that she is going to die soon. She knows exactly when she will die: the moment the last yellowing leaf on an ivy falls. Lying in her bed she can see that ivy climbing on the wall across her window. Unfortunately it is shedding its leaves fast because it is lashed by heavy rains and strong winds.

Sue tries to convince her that it is silly to link her life with a few yellowing ivy leaves. She begs her to cheer up. To encourage her, Sue even lies to her that the doctor considers her chances of survival excellent. Nothing works – neither logic nor love. By the time night falls, there are just two or three leaves on the vine.

Sue doesn’t know what to do to save her best friend. She mentions her predicament to Behrman, an old painter who lives on the ground floor beneath them. He pooh-poohs Johnsy’s idiotic belief.

Johnsy expects all the remaining leaves to have fallen off during another night of rains and fierce winds. When day breaks and the curtain is drawn back, however, she is amazed to find one recalcitrant leaf clinging to the vine on the wall. It bravely withstands battering by strong winds the following day and night, too. That does the trick for Johnsy. It convinces her that she is not going to die. She asks Sue for soup and milk and for a hand mirror. Now she wants to live; she wants to paint.

The following day the doctor gives Sue the good news that Johnsy is out of danger. He also gives her the bad news of old Behrman’s death. He caught pneumonia because he was out in the cold, windy, and rainy night standing on a ladder and painting a leaf on the ivy on the wall across Johnsy’s window.

***      ***      ***

The last leaf is not a leaf at all. But it pulls Johnsy out of her deep conviction that she is going to die. We may find her belief silly.  How can there be any link between a yellowing leaf falling off from an ivy vine during autumn and a person breathing her last? We may also wonder why she doesn’t see through the trick of the painted leaf. It doesn’t flutter in the wind; a real leaf should. Why doesn’t she wonder? Why doesn’t she investigate?

But the fact is that we are no different from Johnsy – we all have some such beliefs that we hold tightly and without questioning. Our beliefs are, of course, well-founded while others’ beliefs are laughable superstitions. We can readily punch holes in others’ beliefs but we can’t see anything wrong with ours. However unreasonable it appears to the rest of the world, we cling to our behaviour shaped by such beliefs.

Our politicians are in the forefront of those who organise their public lives around some such beliefs. They may swear in at the unearthly hour of 2.39 am because they believe that that is the most auspicious time to open a new momentous chapter in the history of the world.

The strange behaviour of many famous sportsmen and women is common knowledge. During matches Michael Jordan used to wear his university’s blue shorts under his Bulls uniform. Whenever Goran Ivanisevic won a match, he would repeat everything he did the previous day: eat the same food, talk to the same people, and watch the same shows on television.  During the recent cricket World Cup, Virender Sehwag stopped wearing shirts with numbers at the back while M.S. Dhoni sported 7, the date of his birth, both apparently on sound astrological advice. During each match Zaheer Khan is said to have kept a yellow handkerchief on his body.

The power of such beliefs is so strong that, when a star sportsman is denied his lucky number or underwear, he may lose the game. That is why people who know about such beliefs make sure that there is no disruption so that the players can play their natural game and do well.

When he heard about Johnsy’s strange belief, old Behrman had nothing but contempt for it. But he understood the power of belief. That is why he risked his own health to go up in the cold rain and paint in a leaf. He framed his response in perfect alignment with Johnsy’s fears and expectations. If her belief was that with the fall of the last leaf she also would leave this world, a leaf clinging to the vine tenaciously and fighting the storm should persuade her to give up the thought of death and start thinking about the business of life.

Behrman could save Johnsy’s life because she had made her belief known. The problem with the corporate world is that everyone pretends it is governed by reason and evidence. Many wonderfully competent and visionary corporate leaders may not reveal to anyone some of the beliefs that drive their actions because they are afraid of being ridiculed. Would a CEO let the world know that after an expensive transcontinental flight he returned home without attending a crucial meeting because he had forgotten to pack his lucky undies?

The next time your boss doesn’t listen to reason and refuses to be persuaded, perhaps you may want to look out of the boardroom window for the last leaf. Or a hidden hand that stops him from doing what you want him to.

Silly Sunday Som-solts

This week let’s look at a young mother’s true story, reproduced with permission from Moppet Tales.

Sunday evening was pleasant and breezy, and since both the kids were up and alert, all four of us went down to the little park in our building. The husband and I sat on a bench with Munch and watched Moppet show off for us.

'Mama, look! Papa, look!' she squealed as she clambered up the slide the wrong way, monkeyed her way up the frame of the swing set, and drove the toy train to 'Andabaad'. (And elaborated so that silly Mama wouldn't get the wrong idea: 'Onny aeroplane go to Andabaad. I driving choo-choo train to air-a-port.')

Her favourite thing in the park is the huge, net-enclosed trampoline that the pre-teen kids do amazing stunts on. With no one else in the park waiting their turn for the trampoline, she was able to jump as much as she wanted.

Which was a lot, and for a long time, and soon Munch began to get cranky. So the husband took him back home, while I waited for Moppet to get all bounced-out.

'Mama, come jump!' she ordered, 'Like that! Come jump!' I hadn't been on a trampoline in a long, long time, and it did look like a lot of fun, so I climbed up and joined her. She squealed with delight as we bounced together holding hands, then took turns sitting in the centre while the other jumped around and over the one in the middle.

'Mama, look! I do som-solt!' she said, tumbling head over heels three times in quick succession. 'Now Mama's turn!'

'No baby, I'm wearing a skirt. I can't do somersaults.'

She studied me for a moment and then asked 'Onny boys do som-solt?'

'What? No, of course not! Everyone can do somersaults.'

'Mama iss not to do som-solt?' Sad face and bambi eyes.

'No, no. I can do somersaults, ok? See!' I demonstrated.

She giggled, did a couple more herself, and sat up looking at me challengingly. What the heck, I thought, the park's empty anyway, and I did a few more. So we tumbled around on the trampoline, doing som-solts and giggling and squealing like the two silly girls we were.

Later, dizzy and exhausted, we lay flat on our backs on the trampoline, looking up at the sky and pointing out funny cloud shapes. A vague suspicion crept into my mind. Was it possible that my two year old had tricked me into doing those somersaults? She wasn't that smart, was she?

Naah!

Maybe.

Ah, who cares? It was the most fun I'd had in ages!

A two-year-old succeeds in persuading her mother to get rid of her inhibitions and to do somersaults in a skirt, on a trampoline at a public place. The mother just couldn’t withstand the little one’s “sad face and bambi eyes.” This is obviously a case of emotional persuasion. Emotion works here because of the relationship between the two players.

We generally think that emotional persuasion has little scope in the corporate world. But a great deal of persuasion at the workplace depends not on the wealth of data or rigour of reasoning but on the strength of relationships and the use of emotions. Logic and data are then used to justify those decisions. That is why it is important to build and maintain friendly relationships with bosses, peers, subordinates, and customers. Of course, in the absence of such a relationship emotions stand no chance as we have noted in Catching Fish With a Lasso.

Can you recall instances of persuasion at the workplace where decisions were taken largely because of relationships?

Guilty?

Is Dominique Strauss-Kahn (DSK), the former chief of International Monetary Fund, guilty of sexually assaulting a chambermaid at a New York hotel on 14 May 2011? I don’t know. I am not going to argue one way or the other because I don’t have any evidence. My objective in this post is different. I would like to explore why a large number of people have been persuaded very easily to pronounce him guilty or to conclude that he has been framed – all based on patchy information gleaned from the news media.

Perhaps only two people know exactly what happened in the hotel’s $3000 a night suite on May 14: DSK and the Sofitel chambermaid who made the accusation. She has given a graphic description of what she says happened. DSK has denied it vehemently: “I want to say that I deny with the greatest possible firmness all of the allegations that have been made against me.” By and by the New York police Department will hopefully ferret out enough evidence to reconstruct with some certainty what happened. What is amazing then is the ease with which people came to a firm conclusion as soon as they received news of DSK’s dramatic arrest.

Online versions of news reports about the event have numerous reader comments based on the firm conviction that DSK is guilty as charged. Here are some of the reasons mentioned. He has a reputation for being a womanizer, a seducer, a ‘busy rabbit.’ In 2008 he publicly admitted to an affair he had had with a Hungarian subordinate. It is extremely unlikely that the New York police would touch such a powerful man without enough evidence. Some also say that an immigrant woman, a widow with a fifteen-year-old daughter to support, would not dare make a false allegation of this kind against a guest in the luxury suite of the upscale hotel and risk dismissal.

There are a large number of people, especially in France, who are equally sure that DSK is not at all guilty, but a victim of an elaborate set-up. They are not sure whether the conspiracy was hatched by Nicolas Sarkozy, whom DSK was expected to beat in the forthcoming French election, or by the Americans who were unhappy with the way he was managing the IMF. But they are sure that DSK could not have forced himself on a chambermaid. They readily agree that DSK had a reputation for seducing women.  But sexual assault is different. When he could easily get women, either by seducing them or by paying for their services, why would he force himself on a lowly domestic? At the most he may have been a little indiscreet. Or he may have had consensual sex with the maid. But it is an irresponsible travesty of justice, they argue, to presume guilt and put him in jail.

Until a fair trial is conducted and adequate evidence presented, we cannot really conclude whether DSK was an attacker or a victim.

What is interesting is our tendency to pick up or to be influenced by only those arguments that are in line with our beliefs or biases. We should not be surprised if others do not accept our arguments that are not in line with their beliefs. This is roughly the same point I make in my earlier post, Murder most foul.

Murder most foul

It is not uncommon to accuse doctors of criminal negligence when their patients die. But in January 1668, when Antoine Mauroy, a mad man, was found dead in Paris, Dr Jean Denis was accused of his murder. His crime? He had transfused a calf’s blood into Mauroy’s body a few weeks before.

The medical and religious establishment in Paris was up in arms against Denis. They argued that his procedure was blasphemous because blood was the seat of the soul.

In June 1667 Denis had transfused blood from a lamb to a fifteen-year-old boy. It was successful and helped the boy live. The young physician wanted to experiment with transfusion and help people who needed blood. But the opposition was so strong that soon the French parliament banned blood transfusion. The ban was in place for almost 150 years effectively preventing any experiments involving blood transfusion.

When it was revived in England in 1818, human-to-human blood transfusion was attempted. Success was patchy because no one knew about blood groups then. It took several decades for scientists to discover different blood groups and figure out which ones matched and which ones did not.

Now hundreds of thousands of blood transfusions are done every day globally. It is such a common life-saving procedure that it is difficult to imagine that it was once treated as a sin against man and God.

What is the connection between persuasion and the early attempts at blood transfusion? There are three important lessons in the story for us.

First, it is virtually impossible to persuade people to accept or even try anything that is perceived as going against their strongly held beliefs, especially social and religious ones. According to Thomas Kuhn’s Structure of Scientific Revolutions, even great scientists have difficulty accommodating evidence that goes against their paradigms or deeply entrenched scientific beliefs. 

Second, in spite of such rock-solid resistance, the situation is not hopeless. But change requires time, patience, and systems. If you go in for a big bang that challenges strong beliefs, you are likely to fail. It may be wise to take one small virtually imperceptible step at a time.  After several small changes have been accepted or at least tolerated, you may find that gradually a big change has taken place. It’s like a bud that opens up in a few hours although you never see it opening.

Third, any ‘evidence’ that is in line with your beliefs is nearly always accepted uncritically. Here I should share with you a fact I’ve held back so far. Mad Mauroy was indeed murdered, but not by Denis. It was found out later that Denis’s opponents were the murderers. But the medical establishment and the public in Paris had no difficulty accepting their claim that blood transfusion led to the death. That Denis was an upstart with a humble origin also may have made it easy for the public to rubbish him.

Are you familiar with any instances where beliefs at home or at work place frustrate what you consider to be reasonable attempts at persuasion? Do share them with us.

Note: The historical facts about blood transfusion are taken from ‘Bloody victory, the evolution of a science,’ The Economist, March 19, 2011. It is a review of Holly Tucker’s book, Blood Work: A Tale of Medicine and Murder in the Scientific Revolution (W.W. Norton). If you can’t get hold of the book, read at least the review.

Faith - 2, Reason - 0

Today I must report on a match in which I was beaten thoroughly. I felt like an ant trying to break a huge block of granite.

Yesterday I visited a distant cousin, who dropped out of school five decades ago and became a full-time farmer in the western ghats of Kerala. Let’s call him Abraham. He’s pretty prosperous now but his education has been patchy.

While my wife gossiped with the women folk of the house, somehow the topic of the discussion with my cousin turned to the recent Japanese Tsunami. Abraham announced that this was clearly a divine punishment. I should have just smiled and moved on to some other topic. But I felt that I couldn’t let it go unchallenged. I also sensed an opportunity to hammer some sense into a country bumpkin.

I said that there was no reason why any natural phenomenon should be treated as divine punishment. Who was being punished when the Tsunami raged? The ones who got killed? The ones who had been injured? The ones who were not injured, but lost all their possessions? Those who survived? Or was it the country that was punished? But what is a country without its people? Why should a whole country or population be punished? For what crime?

This in any case was not the first disaster. There is some disaster or another in some part or another of the earth every now and then. When something goes wrong in one part of the world, it often gives another part of the world an opportunity to profit from it. I argued that it was unreasonable to treat such disasters as supernatural interventions in human affairs to punish the guilty and reward the virtuous.

He was not in the least shaken by any argument that I put forward. Instead, he moved on to another claim delivered with equal conviction: The world is about to end. It has been prophesied in the Bible, he added as conclusive proof, that when the end of the world approaches, there will be not just big calamities, but wars. Look at Egypt. At Libya. At Lebanon. At Yemen. At Afghanistan. There are wars everywhere. This is a clear sign that the prophesies are being fulfilled.

I tried to remind him of the first and second World Wars. Those wars, I told him, were Tsunamis while these ‘wars’ in the African continent are mere ripples. My feeble attempts to persuade him to look at these uprisings differently did not meet with any success either.

As I reflect on this little conversational episode, I marvel at the power of faith over reason. Perhaps we all have some strong beliefs that effortlessly frustrate any arguments that reason might put forward. Perhaps we never question some of our assumptions and beliefs. We just reject any counter evidence or give it an interpretation that is aligned to our beliefs. Reason stands no chance when pitted against faith.