TMK and a study on evaluations.
Everyone has a right
to have their opinions, views, perceptions, judgments etc so why should we
bother about whatever TMK says? Or whenever he evaluates Carnatic music
wrongly?
This
nonchalant, nonsensical and newspapers’ [English media’s] latest friend in whom
the media houses find lot of scholarship and sincerity on all subjects. Be it
his anti-Modi write ups before elections in The Hindu or his proclamation that
carantic music is getting confined because of Bhakthi [he needs to define this term-Bhakthi-
its intrinsic meaning is sincere commitment with total intensity and intense
totality] and the modern philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre once said, “Commitment is an act, not a
word”.
What
I find in the people like TMK, most of these people are indoctrinated with a
perverted and parochial mode of perceiving everything through the prism of victimhood
projecting preconceptions and therefore, naturally creating
/inventing/instigating separation and division so that they can debate and
deliver some more dull doctrines. This has been the pattern starting from Karl
Mark to these self centered, well off leftists worthies.
So
they try to look at everything from art, religion, politics, ethics, values etc
with this motive and are aware that, “There is nothing like looking, if you want to find
something. You certainly usually find something, if you look, but it is not
always quite the something you were after” ~ J.R.R. Tolkien and
so end up doing exactly
what Jessamyn West said, “We want the facts to
fit the preconceptions. When they don't it is easier to ignore the facts than
to change the preconceptions”. They have this tendency to presume some mal
intention in everything because of their perversion and they should always be
told what Milton Friedman said, “One of the great mistakes is to judge policies and programs
by their [ presumed-italics mine] intentions rather than their results”.
We
must all understand the underlying scope of politics behind the prejudiced tools and terms of
evaluation of these tribes.
Everything
has to be evaluated on its inherent merits and not whether it appeals or is
applicable or can be put into action by different sections or strata of
population of different countries etc. This is doing injustice to the subject
[here caranatic music] intentionally, diverting attention from healthy debates
on the musical merits or qualities of carnatic music or its aesthetic appeal
etc that’s why I wrote this piece as a reaction to TMK’s remark last December season
http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2013/12/story-of-mango-fruit-sambar-and.html
A
very important element or aspect of any evaluation especially in the realm of
art is quality. Even in social/political and economic development oriented
activities Jane Davidson
explains, “how important it is to combine a mix of qualitative and quantitative
data with "relevant values" (such as needs) to draw explicitly
evaluative conclusions” in his book ‘Evaluation
Methodology Basics: The Nuts and Bolts of Sound Evaluation’.
Any evaluation which deviates from
studying the inherent qualities of the thing/person that is being evaluated is
unworthy. For example if one were to evaluate one’s parents should one do so
based on whether they [the parents ] had qualities which had the potential to
compare them with great film stars/great sports persons/ millionaires/greats artists/
great musicians/great thinkers/great scientist etc. No, not at all the evaluation must be
how they were as parents in relationship to the concerned person in terms love,
care, compassion, emotional attachment etc
It is peculiar when a great classical art
is evaluated as a political activity or in terms of some political ideology it
throws lot of ethical dilemmas, politics and lot of controversies which both
the media and TMK relish.
They are very selective in culling facts to engage in logical
fallacies while constantly creating the divide between the non –existent victim
and the presumed victor in every field of activity, you can see the pattern of
this psychotic malady in all their misconceptions. They do with facts what Mark
Twain has said, “First get your facts;
then you can distort them at your leisure”.[ here they do it fit their preconceptions]
and armed with these selective, filtered and twisted facts they do what Maya
Angelou perceived and stated, “There's a world of difference between truth and
facts. Facts can obscure the truth”.
That’s why even great research works
on evaluation like the bulky ‘Evaluation:
A Systematic Approach ‘ by Peter H. Rossi, Mark W. Lipsey, and Howard
E. Freeman first published
get such reviews like ‘There is never any clear instruction about how one
should begin an evaluation or how one should proceed’.
The most
comprehensive book on evaluations ‘
Making Evaluation Matter-a practical guide for evaluators’ by Cecile Kusters with
Simone van Vugt, Seerp Wigboldus, Bob Williams and Jim Woodhill also emphasizes certain factors repeatedly and
predominantly they are context/situation, situational responsiveness, stake
holders, inherent qualities of the project /program/person being evaluated ,multiple
roles, consequence awareness etc
Even this material also
throws lot of light on evaluation ‘American Journal of Evaluation-2011-Smith-565-99.pdf’.
In the realm of
political decisions and business organizational management methodology etc these
types of game play matter, but not in evaluating art, as Messick,
S. (1994). Writes in The Interplay of Evidence and Consequences in the
Validation of Performance Assessments. Educational Researcher, 23(2), 13–23, “Validity,
reliability, comparability, and fairness are not just measurement issues, but
social values that have meaning and force outside of measurement wherever
evaluative judgments and decisions are made”.
Having said that the
best way to deal with sensationalism seeking chaps like TMK who have sunk in leftist
ideology is to ignore them. If we ignore them they will decay naturally
in their inhumane ideological cage.
For all people
that complain about others that live within their radius, they need to look at themselves
first? Self evaluation is quite important.
TMK needs to be given
lessons on what is evaluation and how to evaluate everything and everyone? He
definitely needs a serious psychological counseling session.
Why TMK can never sing
with Bhavam like Neyveli santhanam, with expertise in raga alaphana like Sanjay
Subramaniam, with thala nadai excellence like TNS. krishna, with sweet voice
like Unnikrishnan because they all are strong in their field and therefore
focusing on it with passion and professionalism without comparing it idiotically
. Here I am tempted to quote, “Friend to Groucho
Marx: “Life
is hard…” Grouch Marx to
Friend: “Compared
to what?”
So TMK stop making irrelevant comparisons and
illogical evaluations and instead start doing something other than writing
columns in newspapers.
This was also written about evaluation when TMK
wrote another nonsense in last year
two more on evaluation
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