Thinking About Attitudes

Attitudes affect us all, whether they are of others or ourselves!! Some attitudes affect us directly while others only indirectly. For example, people often develop a careless attitude towards development around them, unless they affect them seriously! An attitude can manifest itself in umpteen number of ways. It manifests itself when we work hard or are careless; when we spend our money recklessly or when we save it or invest for future security; when we are law abiding or have inclinations towards reckless criminal activities; when we are greedy or being content with what we have similar is the case with being kind, pious, faithful vis a vie wicked, deceit etc. etc. We most often care two hoots for the inconvenience we are causing to others. Say for example parking vehicles. I often witness people parking their car in the middle of a street, causing almost a traffic jam. I see people parking, or get their cars parked, right opposite the shop they are visiting, so that they do not have to walk, a hundred meters or so, from their parked vehicles to the shop. I pin pointed the problem to the developing social attitudes among the middle class people belonging to rather posh cities like Delhi. Attitudes reflect prevalent social values and hence the culture. Our attitude is different in different conditions . For example , if someone says that s/he likes to do a particular job, it reflects her attitude regarding work. The appreciation of a social value is an attitude because people living in a society are exposed to certain communication. Thus there are attitudes common to a group. The attitude may be one of desire or one of aversion. The attitude is thus the subjective element in a culture. It is the individual tendency to react, either positively or negatively, to a given social value. Certain of the human behavior tendencies appear to be natural in the sense that they are the expression of general human need or the sublimate of racial experience. They correspond to something stable and uniform in the physical conditions of life. Some fear responses, for example, appear to be of this nature. Certain disgusts appear to be of the nature of organic

attitudes, and a limited number of other behavior tendencies appear to have their origin in the complex of heritable characters. These, as a result of experience, tend to become defined into social attitudes. Attitudes of this type may be general in the group without being social. How does one acquire one's attitudes; can attitudes change? If yes how? That is the subject of my thinking today. For the last couple of days, I was reading this rather beautiful book entitled, TEACHING AS A SUBVERSIVE ACTIVITY, authored by Neil Postman & Charles Weingartner and available on scribd. In this book the authors assert that our attitudes are formed while we are in a school/college etc. Our teachers help in forming and reinforcing our attitude. For example they have written: .... the role an individual is assigned in an environment - what he is permitted to do - is what the individual learns In other words, the medium itself, i.e. the environment, is the message. 'Message' here means the perception you are allowed to build, the attitudes you are enticed to assume the sensitivities you are encouraged to develop - almost all of the things you learn to see and feel and value. You learn than because your environment is organized in such a way that it permits or encourages or insists that you learn them. ....... . a television set or a newspaper or a automobile or a Xerox machine can usefully be defined as such a environment. ......'What's on TV?' or 'What's in the newspaper? ........... The beliefs, feelings, and assumptions of teachers are the air of a learning environment; they determine the quality of life within it. When the air is polluted, the student is poisoned, unless, of course, he holds his breath. .......... What are the students like? What do they know? What are their concerns? What is the world like from their point of view? How do they feel about it? What do they want to do in it - about it? What are the most important affectors of student's attitudes, perceptions, assumptions, beliefs, values, and choices? How conscious are they of the forces that affect them? What do they have in their repertoire of 'survival strategies'? What do they need to get rid of? Need to get better at? What do they need to add? ............................... That's brings me back to the attitudes of students and teachers in Indian universities. A few months ago, while I was coordinating an eforum called Vimarsh, sponsored by the University of Delhi, I wrote: The attitude of the university community, whether teacher or students, is a reflection of the attitudes of the society at large. There was a time when teachers were respected in the Indian society, because they were considered to be the bearer of knowledge. Not any more today only that person is respected who earns more money. Teachers are not very happy because their peers and relatives working with MNCs often earn much more, and we know now one is happy only when one is earning more money then others in a social circle. So, a teacher would not be happy if the next teacher has a bigger apartment, a swanky car, then oneself. S/he would always be hunting for opportunities to earn more. Happiness today does not lie in fulfilling one's duties for the society, and being useful for the younger generation, it lies elsewhere.

Similar is the situation in case of students. They only want to be able to earn a 5 figure salary as soon as they graduate, so that they can boast about it to their peers. Who cares for putting in some hard work to know more? One is contented with putting their profiles at as many websites as possible, so that they can boast about it, or try to show that how intelligent they are because a senior teacher could not answer their 'smart' question. That can be the reason why students stop asking questions on Vimarsh, because they soon realise the futility Now a bit about changing attitudes. An attitude of a person can change during his/her lifetime. The direction of the change often depends on experiences, that the person perceive as rewarding or punishing. But, attitudes are often addictive and like any kind of addiction have a lot of inertia. An attitude of a person does not change easily, it requires some force. This force can be association with a person, institution or an event. We all often come across instances when we are a witness to remarkable changes in the attitudes of a person we have known for long!! Rakesh Mohan Hallen