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Thursday, August 28, 2014

Evaluations and TMK's blindness


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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