The Myths we need to survive

Sex and the Indian man

By no means is this intended to be an authoritative treatise on Indian sexuality. Just a piece stoked by the personal interest of a man in his 40s surrounded by friends who often talk about sex in our all-boys club. By all accounts, everybody seems to be boning all of the time, or at least that’s how it sounds to me.

Is all of this male chest-thumping? Or is something the matter with me, I have often wondered in private moments.

The question exacerbated itself last week when my wife and I finally got around to watching The Man Who Knew Infinity. Starring Dev Patel and Jeremy Irons, this movie is about Srinivasa Ramanujan, the much acclaimed Indian mathematician who died at 32 in April 1920. A fleeting scene in the film struck a note in my head. Ramanujan’s wife is waiting for him on their conjugal bed. But he continues to lie on the floor, oblivious to her presence, thinking up answers to complex mathematical problems in his head.

I couldn’t help but extrapolate that moment into our contemporary lives. By all accounts, most of us live in and manage complex circumstances. The wife is the “house manager" and the husband is an “ATM" that goes to work so that he may be replenished at the end of each month.

Over the years, both roles have merged and things are even more complex. So, a lot of the “management" like “child rearing" and “housekeeping" gets outsourced—either to the domestic help or one set of grandparents, whichever is easier. But something has to give in someplace. And my hypothesis is that it is sex.

Now, all kinds of reports exist on what is the ideal number of times a married couple ought to have sex. By all accounts, consensus exists that twice or thrice a week is just about okay from a man’s perspective in the longer run. Most people, it seems, can do with more. But all of these are American numbers. I looked hard, but couldn’t find anything India-specific. So, I thought I might as well mount a study.

I zeroed in on 12 friends, all of whom I have known for a long time, and know will be brutally honest with me. Pardon me ladies, but no women were part of this survey because I am part of an “All-Boys Club”. We like it that way because:

1. We are in our early 40s.

2. We got married 10-15 years ago.

3. We keep long hours.

4. We discovered sex at pretty much the same time—and that was a pretty damn long time ago.

5. When we “boys" meet up, we continue talking about our “awesome sex lives" and those “booty calls" we made in the “good old days".

My questions to each of them were simple:

1. Cut the jazz and tell me, how many times exactly do you have sex in a month?

2. Do you make time for booty calls?

The answers varied.

1. One said he hasn’t had sex in years because of a medical condition.

2. Two of them said they made out with their wives a few times in a year. Not for anything else, but because their definition of sex has changed from “making out" to “spending quality time" with each other.

3. Seven of them told me it averaged two to four times a month.

4. One said he could do with more, but time permitted only six times a month.

5. The only outlier was a bloke who finds time for 20 sessions.

6. Everybody climaxed after anywhere between eight to 30 minutes of the act.

7. There was consensus on one thing: “There is no bandwidth to deal with booty calls any more."

Armed with this limited data, I turned to a few people whom I thought can offer me some perspective. The first calls were made to Anugra Misra, a New Delhi-based psychiatrist, and Kuldeep Datay, a Mumbai-based psychologist whom I turn to often for the routine dump.

“What is wrong with your friends? They ought to be having way more sex. They need help," Misra guffawed over the phone. The outlier doesn’t because 20 times is good. “As for the jokers talking about sex morphing into quality time, it is all bullshit," he thundered. “There is no substitute to good sex."

Datay’s response was more nuanced. There seems to be a direct linkage between high IQ and libido, he said, adding that “men with high IQ may have a lower libido".

When I looked it up, there are many studies which prove that this is indeed the case. For instance, consider this paper published in The Cambridge Student Psychology Journal on “Sex and Intelligence". It posits a number of theories, all of which I thought were rather interesting.

Datay’s take is that it is entirely possible these men get a high out of whatever it is they are doing and that they “don’t need sex to complete themselves or who they are. Their chosen vocation does that for them." Or the two friends of mine who have sex only once in a blue moon.

“It’s actually the first sign that something is the matter with a relationship," Misra countered. “They are just trying to avoid each other. This is a polite way to go about it."

That said, I couldn’t help but wonder if Datay is indeed right—what about the sex maniac that was Albert Einstein? For that matter, that great philosopher Bertrand Russell, comedian Charlie Chaplin or, more recently, Bill Clinton? These are men with high IQ who couldn’t keep their zippers in place.

In trying to answer the question, Desmond Morris, one of my favourite zoologists, writes in The Telegraph: “Novel sexual experiences, for instance, suddenly seem irresistible. It is not the mating act itself that is so important—that varies very little. It is the thrill of the chase and the excitement of a new conquest that drives them on. Once the conquest has been made, the novelty of the affair soon wears off and another chase is begun. Each illicit episode involves stealth and secrecy, tactics and strategy, and the terrifying risk of discovery, making it the perfect metaphor for the primeval hunt."

“It’s a hypothesis," says Datay, but that need not necessarily be true across the board. “Then there are all kinds of biochemistry at work," he adds. By way of example, he points to something that is popularly called the “fidelity gene" that was discovered a few years ago in a mammal called the vole.

There are two kinds of voles. The monogamous kind and the playboy kind. Scientists have discovered that by simply altering a single gene, the Casanovas become tame versions of their monogamous cousins, who are now a minority, comprising only 5% of the family.

When all is said and done, both Misra and Datay concur that both of these types—the ones who have too little sex and those who seek too much—are exceptions. They need to seek professional intervention. But as I articulated at the outset, this isn’t intended to be an exhaustive treatise on Indian sexuality—it’s just a set of personal observations.

So, I called yet another interesting man—Biju Dominic, the CEO of Final Mile Consulting—and presented my so-called findings. His is a company that studies human behaviour and suggests techniques to meet marketing, organizational and social needs. He is deeply embedded in the Catholic church as well and spends a lot of time counselling couples.

“I find it incredible," he said, “that in the land of the Kamasutra, we place a premium on being a brahmacharya. Celibacy is placed on a pedestal in our country and it cuts across all religions."

I couldn’t agree more. What else explains the ridiculousness with which successive governments have swept Mahatma Gandhi’s sexual peccadillos under the carpet. On the one hand, the man preached celibacy; on the other hand, in his sexual life, he was a wreck, by all accounts.

“It is the duty of every thoughtful Indian not to marry. In case he is helpless in regard to marriage, he should abstain from sexual intercourse with his wife," he wrote in Indian Opinion, a newspaper he published then.

“In India, as a thumb rule, we don’t understand the difference between sex for intimacy and sex for procreation," says Dominic. By way of example, he asks a rhetorical question. 

“How many couples in their 40s do you see hold hands or walk together in public? You can’t hope to just rush into the bedroom and get into the act. There is no room for public display of affection in our country, which is very important for a woman. I actually advise couples that sex begins much before the bedroom. In the Indian context, even holding your wife in front of the children is looked down upon. Why? What for?"

The way Dominic looks at it is that in much the same way a priest looks at the altar as sacred, a couple ought to treat their bedroom. It is theirs and theirs alone. And it is the duty of spiritual leaders to tell that to their followers that in as many words. But as Indians, all of us shy away from it. “So, how can the frequency of having sex increase?" he asks.

When confronted with these questions at a conference called by Pope Francis, the current head of the Catholic church, the Indian delegation raised an objection. They argued that our divorce rates are the lowest anywhere in the world. To which the pope retorted: “Sure, you don’t have divorces in your marriages. But do you have passion in your marriages?"

Dominic says he couldn’t agree more. “Intimacy is practically missing," he says. “When a girl gets married in India, she is always told she isn’t getting married to a man, but to a family and that she’s got to get used to their way of life and living. Imagine the pulls and pressures it puts on her."

And here, Dominic says, the problem begins with the man. “They are cocooned for all of their lives by their families. That is why Indian men don’t learn how to speak and deal with emotional complexity. So, nothing passionate can emerge out of them in a long-term relationship either. That is something Indian families, particularly the mothers to whom the sons belong, have to understand as well."

So, where does that leave me? All I can offer you is this.

1. I was not part of the sample. So, you can infer nothing about me from this “study".

2. Do take time out to read The Man’s Guide to Women by John Gottman. A female friend first suggested I read it. Bless her.

The Many Sounds of Silence

This note is being written on a silent January morning—the first day of 2018. It appears, save a few oddballs still slobbering drunk outside, most people have turned in to sleep. It is now dark, and silent outside. But as usual, this is the kind of darkness and silence that precedes every morning, before the sun rises.

Unlike most other days though, today, people will wake up later than usual. A late brunch will follow. I too, will join in. The stated intent is to celebrate the beginning of a new year. Until everyone decides to go back to life as usual.

But right now, right here, waiting for the sun to rise, a passage by Paul Goodman, a writer, psychotherapist and philosopher, comes to mind, on the many kinds of silence. Because while calling it an early night on New Year’s Eve, the “He-must-be-weird" look on everybody’s faces was all too evident.

Because, isn’t this that time of the year when you party?

Indeed!

But then, as Goodman writes, “Not speaking and speaking are both human ways of being in the world, and there are kinds and grades of each. There is the dumb silence of slumber or apathy; the sober silence that goes with a solemn animal face; the fertile silence of awareness, pasturing the soul, whence emerge new thoughts; the alive silence of alert perception, ready to say, “This… this…"; the musical silence that accompanies absorbed activity; the silence of listening to another speak, catching the drift and helping him be clear; the noisy silence of resentment and self-recrimination, loud and subvocal speech but sullen to say it; baffled silence; the silence of peaceful accord with other persons or communion with the cosmos."

To get the full import of the power embedded in that passage, may I urge you to listen to it as Sir Christopher Ricks  reads it out. Only somebody who understands literature and has devoted a lifetime to understanding the nuances of it can read it aloud with as much eloquence that breathe life into words.

While I haven’t read the Goodman’s book Speaking and Language in which this passage appears, it caught my attention when Maria Popova offered a pointer to it on that fine blog of hers that is Brainpickings.org. The book was first published in 1973 and I can’t seem to find it anyplace.

But in the silence of the morning on a New Year’s Day, the import of why silence is significant sunk into the mind deeper. Much of it had to do reminiscing over multiple conversations that transpired over the last year with people who are compelled to practice it. These included people who work at hospices and give a patient ear to the dying, policemen on duty who and are often at the receiving end of public ire, and restaurant managers who absorb much negative feedback from patrons.

The most significant memory though is that of a conversation with a police constable at a hospital a few months ago. He was called in by the authorities there after a young woman was wheeled in. She was declared dead on arrival by the resident doctors. Her body looked hopelessly broken.

But the constable had a duty to perform as prescribed by his manual. That included asking those who had gotten her there to describe the circumstances under which the accident occurred. Questions like was the victim under the influence of alcohol, or under treatment for any mental disorder… and other such questions that sounded intrusive and offensive to her traumatized parents and siblings in their moment of grief.

“How can he be so heartless?" they wailed. “She’s dead and he insists all these protocols be followed."

The verbal assault that followed was inevitable. Friends and some relatives pounced on the policeman. He did not say much, but absorbed all of it. When done, he prepared his papers and handed them to the coroners. This allowed the body to be formally released to the grieving family.

“Why did you have to take so long to complete all this?" they spat at him as he walked out.

I felt compelled to follow. And ask him what went through his mind. Is this routine? Is this just another day’s job? How do you deal with it? Would he be amenable to have a cup of tea and share what may be playing on his mind?

He agreed.

Turns out, it was a long night for him. And a long day before that, as well. He had been on duty for at least 36 hours. An interesting conversation followed. The sum and substance of which was that people like him are trained to keep silent and maintain distance when under assault. It is drilled into their psyche. They must look at all things around dispassionately.

So, when anger overcomes him, or he may feel sadness, he is trained to ask himself in the third person, what caused the anger; when sadness floods, he asks himself, what episode triggered the sadness.

Why does he do this? By asking himself these questions in the third person he detaches himself from the sources of these emotions. He reinforces the idea that these emotions are around him but not because of him. Thus he removes himself from the emotional circumstance.

But to get anything done of consequence then, he must first surround himself with silence. And in that silence, he can distance himself from the noises that surround him, and listen in to the many kinds of silence all around.

Apparently, silence, he told me, has much to say.

When seen through the prism of the constables world of silence, Goodman’s types of silence make even more sense, and becomes easier to grasp and appreciate. Consider each of the types of silence Goodman describes and see it from the perspective of the constable investigating a death.

The dumb silence

When looked at through the grieving family’s eyes, a constable performing his task and not taking any questions is a cruel creature. His silence is borne of dumbness—or numbness, one that is lost in slumber and nothing but a function of apathy. The constable doesn’t think much of what they think of his silence. It is par for his course.

The sober silence  

This is silence that of the kind that can be witnessed from the perspective of a neutral observer watching the constable at work. But from the constable’s perspective, this silence is much needed to get the task done.

The fertile silence  

Sober silence has a unique ability to morph into fertile silence because it can ignore the loud voices that call it dumb silence. Because it is only with sobriety that 36 hours of sleep deprivation can be set aside. There is work to do. A dead body must be studied clinically to rule out signs of foul play.

In conversing with the constable, he said the reason he signed the document that allowed the coroner to release the corpse to the mourners was because his mind was hard at work. It had to stay awake to ask if the dead woman had been pushed over the parapet of her balcony or if she had jumped off it to commit suicide.

So, the questions he asked on whether she had an alcohol problem or a medical history that required prescription drugs was to rule out foul play. When the answers were in the negative, he jotted she was of sound mind, but ruled out foul play.

The alive silence  

In asking him how did he rule out there was no foul play, turns out, that in his silent observations, he had measured the height of the parapet she had fallen from. If pushed, her body would have been splayed at a certain angle. But if she had jumped out, the angle her body would be found in would have been very different. Experience had taught him that. But his silence also suggested she was reluctant to jump. Because after jumping, she changed her mind. He could tell this, he said, from the way her head hit the ground first as opposed to her legs.

The musical silence  

How did he keep his head when he was being abused by all and sundry for being “heartless?" Again, turns out, it was important that he did. Because if he uttered as much as a peep, it would be impossible for him to carefully absorb the noise around him. Much like silence is of different kinds, the noises speak as well. He was trying to catch the nuances of what the noises were trying to say. All of it sounded angry. But he was trying to listen carefully, to what was said, what was unsaid, and how.

The silence of listening  

And what did he hear through all those noises? He heard what nobody could. The silence of the mother-in-law and sister-in-law. He spoke of how they were teary eyed, stood as they were expected to, and accepted condolences from the neighbours and immediate family. But they were quiet. To his mind, their silence was noisy. Because to his mind, it suggested there was some tension in the family. Convention, given the part of the country they are from, suggests they must wail loudly. But they weren’t. Him keeping quiet and listening to the others speak helped him hear things nobody else could.

The noisy silence  

He figured he was on the right track when he asked somebody very quietly if there is a patriarch in the joint family. The father-in-law was there too. He too, was there, sobbing quietly. Through the man’s eyes though, the constable thought he could see anger. This was a tragedy he could have averted if he had intervened earlier and done something, absolutely anything, to defuse the tension between the women. In his silence, he was whipping himself.

The Baffled silence 

The clincher for the constable, the final sign that there was no foul play was the silence on the husband’s face. He wasn’t crying. He wasn’t speaking a word. Answering only in monosyllables. But it was a look of a man asking himself questions.

“Where did I go wrong?"

“Why did you have to do this to me?"

“Did I not love you enough?"

“What about our children now?"

“Why did you do this to yourself?"

The silence of peace

And where does he find peaceful silence, I asked him. The veteran constable didn’t look like the kind prone to baring his soul. This once though, he did. Maybe, he was tired. Apparently, he likes it when he goes home to the woman he loves and doesn’t have to say anything. But in his silence, she knows he has come after having done his best. And without him saying anything, she knows he loves her. And she doesn’t insist he spells out in as many words.

He is content when she is content with the sound of his silence. He didn’t have much else to say. Silence followed. There is much beauty and tenderness in silence.

But how are those in slumber after having ushered in the New Year to much loud music to know that?

Originally published in Mint on Sunday

A festival of idiots

Over the last two months, I’ve participated at various literature festivals. It has much to do with that The Aadhaar Effect, a book I co-authored with NS Ramnath is now on the shelves. Having done the rounds, I feel compelled to conclude the few honest people that exist in the ecosystem are organizers (many of whom are volunteers) and the audiences who take much pain to get there. 

 Practically, every other creature at events such as these are either idiots or parasites. It was a thought that occurred last year when I moderated a panel discussion at the Bangalore Lit Fest. Following that, I exchanged notes with my former colleague and friend Manu Joseph. “Oftentimes, all a writer has to do is simply describe what he sees and the story tells itself," he told me. “It can be both amusing and insightful."

 With the benefit of hindsight, I now know Manu was right. I don’t have much to do here except describe the various kinds of creatures I saw off stage, on stage, behind the stage, and describe them. This story will tell itself. Indeed. Manu was right. They are regulars at all lit fests, some traits bind them all, and most are idiots to boot.

•  They carry an impression of themselves—that they are created of a different mud as opposed to the “masses" who frequent cinema halls to watch Shah Rukh Khan serenade his love interests in the Bollywood version of Switzerland. 

• They also imagine themselves as more intelligent than everybody else because they are professional critics often employed at a media house. So, they think it incumbent to criticize everything. 

• These creatures get invited to events like these and are put up at plush places. They talk well, look good, and carry a certain demeanor. And, for all practical purposes, they “travel in a pack". But the serious critics are often ignored and work in mofussil places.

• Funnier still is that, unlike the Shah Rukh Khan fan who will pay hard-earned money to watch a movie first day first show, this vocal minority pays nothing for anything. But their criticism is taken seriously. “The rooms at Cannes last week were so much more better than the crap ones here," for instance. 

Take the media critic for instance. This creature is of two kinds—the uninformed and the idiot. The uninformed exists because it hasn’t done its homework and lucked out to get to where it is. 

 Idiots exist because they can scream from the rooftops. But they lack substance. That is the tragedy with both Indian liberals and those on the extreme right wing. Push them hard and they cannot defend their position beyond 500 words in print. But their decibel levels are high on television and are parasites to boot.

 Idiots then pick and choose what can cause the most impact, craft it to suit their interests, and bomb the place with it. All else is ignored conveniently.

When questioned, they have a standard question to throw: who funds you?

But popular narratives are shaped by either the uninformed or the idiot.

 To put that into perspective, from all forums that matter, I have stated that for all its flaws, to provide a unique identity to over a billion people is a staggering accomplishment. And to completely diss Aadhaar is stupid. But the so-called liberals don’t like this narrative.

 At the Bangalore Lit Fest, when I said that in as many words, some media outlets and social media handles reported the next morning that I was heckled by a packed audience. This was in contrast to what I could see from stage. I thought I could see an audience keen to listen to different perspectives. Because, until then, the only narrative most people have been told is that Aadhaar is a dystopian idea and intended to hijack their lives.

 But because local media reports had it that I was heckled, I thought I’d check with a few friends who were in the audience. They told me the only dissonant notes were by some angry voices in the front. Darned right I was. The larger audience wanted to listen in to the multiple perspectives. But if it got reported, it would hijack the contemporary narrative now controlled by a vocal minority. 

 Manu thought the audience was a receptive one as well. That is why my initial irritation gave way to much amusement when my colleague Ramnath reminded me of a quote by Oscar Wilde. “There is much to be said in favour of modern journalism. By giving us opinions of the uneducated, it keeps us in touch with the ignorance of the community."

This is not to suggest I have no biases. “Why," I argued in my head, “does Twinkle Khanna have to be at a lit fest? What is her claim to fame? Is it because she is pretty? What were the organizers thinking? Or smoking? And why is she always surrounded by people who want selfies with her?" I always maintained her book sold as many copies as it did because she is pretty and was a popular actor.

 Another part of me confronted myself, though, and said that it is a terribly unfair thing to suggest. I haven’t read her book and arrived at a conclusion based on some assumptions—not the truth. I haven’t met her or made any attempt to meet her either. But later in the evening, over dinner, Manu told me that he has met her while on an assignment and thinks of her as an intelligent and beautiful woman. 

 But the media can shape popular narrative and informed opinions are hard to come by. To that extent, I suspect I am the kind of liberal who give liberals a bad name.

 It was driven home harder still when I walked over to the table where Makarand Paranjape, was seated. He asked me my name. And then went on to tell me the historical significance of its origins and why I ought to be happy to possess it. When I told him I am not a practicing Catholic, he went on to offer me a brief treatise on the history of Catholicism and asked me some tough questions on why I gave up my faith. So much for all narratives of him being called a right winger. If he is on the right wing, give me a right winger like him any day, as opposed to a shallow liberal.

The other nugget that came my way is that there are “paid critics" who are “professional socialites". There is a reason they get invited to these dos. They have large followings on social medias platforms and columns as well in popular newspapers—usually tabloids or on Page 3. A tweet from them or a line insidiously implying a brand is a good one can get their accounts credited with as much as Rs.5 lakh. In much the same way, they can destroy a carefully crafted reputation as well with a single line. They must be humoured and kept in the good books. 

The other joker who is a regular on the circuit, has answers to everybody’s questions, likes to publicly diss Ruskin Bond as an “old fart”, is a tall, lanky, light-eyed, idiot based out of Mumbai. He claims to be a Bombay-boy, has answers to everything visiting white folks at lit festivals are curious about. As for us “desi-boys”, we don’t cut ice with him. But yes, he lives a nice, “cheap" life of the kind I envy.

(A longer version of this piece was originally published in Mint last year)

Grace

The gap

between

knowing and doing

can be as wide

as a universe

says Debbie

Bridging it is

a struggle

a daily toil

and on some

luminous days

sometimes succeed

in narrowing

the gap

and even slip

from doing

to being

This poem was posted on Twitter by R Sriram in response to a Confucian Proverb I posted: “It’s not the knowing that is difficult. But the doing.”

Sriram is not just a voracious reader, but one of the most thoughtful people I have met. The lines he posted struck a chord with me someplace.

Homeopathy, astrology & economic forecasts

Astrologers, homeopaths and economic forecasts can’t be trusted. Because the so-called science they practice is fuzzy at best and hocus-pocus at worst.

Consider, for instance, this delightful anecdote recounted by a senior journalist at a popular Mumbai-based newspaper. Sometime in 1998 or 1999, he wrote a few days ago on his Facebook wall, the hugely popular astrologer Marjorie Orr took a break. Fearing a backlash from readers, his editor suggested that the young man, along with two of his colleagues, should ghost write the column until Orr got back to work. Some trepidation later, he got down to following orders for six weeks until the astrologer got back from her vacation. Not a single reader from the newspaper’s erudite, English-speaking community wrote in with an angry word that his predictions were off the mark.

The post attracted a barrage of amused comments from other journalists who’ve ghosted for popular astrologers like Peter Vidal in Indian newspapers. Vidal apparently recycles his column by replacing the text for one star sign with something he’s written in the past for another star sign. Most people don’t notice. Then there is Panditji from Jaipur who misses his deadlines every once a while and the poor sub-editor at the desk had to think up “good” days of the week, “lucky” colours to be worn and “numbers to bet on” for each star sign. “The trick,” wrote this veteran desk hand at the magazine in response to the Facebook post, “was to make people believe they were on the verge of a quantum leap in life.”

Then there is homeopathy: generous column inches are devoted to it in newspapers and magazines, and practitioners make a pretty damn good living out of it. The premise around which this tub of crock continues to exist—in spite of a mountain of evidence to prove homeopathy is indeed crock—is that water molecules have memory.

But even Class VIII students exposed to elementary chemistry and concepts like Avogadro’s number know water molecules have no memory. This is because by then, they’re taught the mechanics of dilution. Whatever the botanical compound that goes into making a homeopathic drug, it is diluted to an extent that there would be no trace of the molecule left in the drug—except the sugary coating made of powdered lactose, of course.

In homeopathic parlance, on average, most compounds are diluted by 30C. That is 1060 , or one followed by 60 zeroes. To understand how much of a dilution that is, imagine a drop of water with a diameter of 150 million km—the distance from the earth to the sun. It takes light eight minutes to travel that distance. Now imagine a drop of water with one molecule of a substance in it. That is a 30C dilution.

It is entirely possible that Samuel Hahnemann, who thought up modern homeopathy, had figured he’d gotten it all wrong in the face of this evidence. That is perhaps why he continued to argue water has memory and that even after dilution of the kind he propagated, water retains a “spirit-like” essence of the original compound that is “no longer perceptible to the senses”.

Ben Goldacre writes sardonically in his superb book Bad Science: “If water has a memory, as homeopaths claim…water has been sloshing around the globe for a very long time, after all, and the water in my body as I sit here typing in London has been through plenty of other people’s bodies before mine. Maybe some of the water molecules sitting in my fingertips as I type this sentence are currently in your eyeball. Maybe some of the water molecules fleshing out my neurons as I decide whether to write ‘wee’ or ‘urine’ in this sentence are now in the Queen’s bladder (God bless her): water is the great leveler.”

Both of these disciplines are similar to another perverted discipline—economic forecasts. It draws from the worst of astrology and homeopathy. While the chances of getting a prediction right using astrology are as good as flipping a coin, homeopathic remedies are no better than placebos where there is no relationship between cause and effect. But economic forecasting relies on both of these to get by and there are suckers by the millions buying into them.

To sift through why economic forecasting is fraught with inconsistencies, Nate Silver’s outstanding book, The Signal and the Noise is a good place to start. He argues that this discipline faces three fundamental challenges: “First, it is very hard to determine cause and effect from economic statistics alone. Second, the economy is always changing, so explanations of economic behaviour that hold in one business cycle may not apply to future ones. And third, as bad as their forecasts have been, the data that economists have to work with isn’t much good either.”

To get a sense of how difficult this really is, let’s consider the most reliable data we have on the US economy (because it is the most closely tracked). The US government puts out 45,000 indicators each year and private data providers track as many as four million statistics. Since World War II though, they have witnessed only 11 recessions. How in the world is anybody to choose 11 outputs specifically from the data on hand that caused these recessions?

By way of example, consider the maxim “co-relation does not imply causation”. What it means is that just because two variables have a statistical relationship with each other, it does not mean one is responsible for the other. For instance, Silver points out, ice cream sales and forest fires are related because both occur more often in summers. But there is no causation. You don’t set off a bush fire in some desert when you buy a tub of ice cream.

On the face of it, there seem to be three reasons why economic forecasts go horribly wrong. The first is arrogance on the part of a large majority of economists. The Economic Cycle Research Institute (ECRI), based out of New York and London, is widely respected. In 2011, the firm predicted double-dip recession, which is a recession followed by a short recovery and leading into another recession.

When quizzed on the prediction, the firm threw up a lot of data that seemed incomprehensible to most people and obfuscated it with jargon that made no sense. Like this: “ECRI’s recession call isn’t based on just one or two leading indexes, but on dozens of specialized leading indexes including the US Long Leading Index…to be followed by downturns in the Weekly Leading Index and other shorter-leading indexes. In fact, the most reliable forward-looking indicators are now collectively behaving as they did on the cusp of full blown recessions.”

Silver tracked their approach to a stance articulated to their clients as far back as 2004: “Just as you do not need to know exactly how a car engine works in order to drive safely, you do not need to understand all the intricacies of the economy to accurately read those gauges.”

When looked at from this prism, the only thing that matters is data and more complex data—and not even an attempt to get to the story. “There were certainly reasons for economic pessimism in September 2011—for instance, the unfolding debt crisis in Europe—but ECRI wasn’t looking at those. Instead, it had a random soup of variables that mistook co-relation for causation,” concludes Silver.

The second reason economic forecasts are notoriously difficult to handle is that the society and the systems they try to predict are dynamic. Nobel Prize winner F.A. Hayek, in his acceptance speech in 1974, had explained why these systems are difficult to deal with.

Physical scientists can observe and measure the things that drive systems they are studying. But society, and therefore, the economy, is not a physical system. There are millions of variables that cannot be measured or seen. For instance, how will an individual respond to a set of stimuli in a given set of circumstances? There are no universal answers.

But economists, in their attempt to be rigorous, infuse techniques and models used by physical scientists. This is fundamentally flawed because in doing that, they have to ignore that which cannot be measured, in spite of it being integral to economics. The outcomes are incorrect predictions and actions that can harm society.

The third is that humans and the institutions they build are inherently biased. As an experiment, Silver conducted economic polls across organizations that engage in forecasting. Given the same data, he figured that the lower an entity’s reputation, the wilder its predictions. And if your reputation in the markets is higher, chances are your estimates are conservative.

The dichotomy is explained by the fact that if your reputation is on the lower side, you have little to lose. So perchance you hit bull’s eye, the chances of drawing attention is higher. If reputation is high on the other hand, there is an incentive to protect it and you’d much rather err on the side of caution.

Perhaps these are the reasons why Ezra Solomon, an influential US economist and professor at Stanford University, once caustically said: “The only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable.”

First Published in Mint on Dec 5, 2014. Copyrights rest with HT Media Ltd