The concept of decision-making by characters in literary works, from across the entire gamut of literatures from around the world, has always been fraught with a double bind or a sort of dilemma that goes on and
on within the character’s mind!
Take for instance, the character of Huck in
Twain’s novel, Huckleberry Finn, where
Jim is finally caught by the slave-masters, and Huck has to take a call! Yes!
he’s now caught in the horns of a dilemma! Or the hooks of a precarious double
bind! The dilemma within him is: Should he really go ahead and inform Jim’s
owner about his whereabouts, or rather, obey his own conscience and liberate
Jim from his slavish existence! By doing the former, he would be obliging the
social dictates that the society has conditioned him into, whereas by doing the
latter, (freeing Jim,) he would be loyal to his own conscience!
Finally, he comes out of his dilemma, takes
a bold resolve all by himself, and follows his conscience per se!
Interestingly, this happens to be the first ever decision that he has taken in
his life, entirely of his own volition! This decision-making thus serves to inform his transition from his
childhood to adulthood!
Othello’s is yet another
case in point! Othello’s decision-making abilities have always already been
heavily manipulated and coloured by the wily fella Iago, to such an extent that he is not in a position to think
clearly or make any sane or wise decisions all by himself! In short, Othello
becomes an unwise victim of Iago’s craftiness!
 |
| from a staging of Hamlet |
Hamlet - the infamous tragic hero of Shakespeare’s longest
play - is also an apt sample to this bad decision-making, and hence his
downfall! The play then goes on to highlight this aspect to his tragic flaw –
the tragic flaw of his “indecision.”
Yet another example for us would be from Great
Expectations by Boz! Pip is a character who is constantly on ‘regret-mode,’
regretting for the most part for some of his ‘unwise’ decision-makings!
He hates himself for his decision to abandon Joe and Biddy! But his wrong
decision-makings have given him ammo and courage, to make better decisions in
future, and so he emerges a stronger person in the end!
Achebe’s famed creation Okonkwo too becomes a victim to his rash decision-makings! Incidentally, his downfall begins the moment he
starts getting impulsive in his decision-making! Especially in the 'place-incident' where he impulsively takes upon himself the task of killing Ikemefuna,
a boy whom he dearly loved! A pile-up of such rash decisions, finally culminate
in his most rashest decision-making: to take his own life!
Well, have we, as students of literature, ever
gone into the psychological factors, the pulls and the drives, the impulses and
the pressures that make people behave the way they behave, or in other words, do
the decisions they do? Or take the decisions they take?
These above illustrations are tuned samples
to help give out possible clues for answers, by taking y’all to Daniel Kahneman’s
wonderful read on the intriguing process of decision-making! The book syncs so very well with most of our
perspectives on decision-makings and risk-takings connected to our lived
realities!
So here we go!
Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking, Fast and Slow has
been and remains one of the most influential books ever on the process of
decision-making, next only to Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink!
Coming from one of the most popular and most impactful psychologist of our times, Daniel Kahneman who also doubles up as the
Nobel laureate of Economics, the book touches upon a slew of aspects that
connect with our own decision-making
processes!
Daniel begins by highlighting the two basic
‘Systems’ that govern our ‘decision-makings’!
System
1, which is fast, intuitive, effortless and
confident, and System 2, which is
its opposite, slow, deliberative, effortful, and indolent!
So, System 1 is quite instinctive,
impulsive and emotional, whereas System 2 is slower, more deliberative, and
more logical.
Like the difference there’s between Emotional thought and Logical thought!
Daniel also highlights the contrasting
‘selves’ within every individual, namely the remembering self and the experiencing
self.
The remembering
self then, to Daniel K, evaluates events in our lives by the lasting memories
that they leave on us!
On the other hand, the experiencing self is the self that feels every moment, and evaluates
pleasure and pain right when it happens!
So the ‘remembering self’ conditions its
future actions based on the memory that the event gives us!
That’s one reason why Daniel K is against
the notion that people make decisions rationally at all!
Moreover, he also believes that the concept
of risk is an entirely human invention.
They’ve designed it for their own
convenience, to help them in their fears, dangers and uncertainties, he says!
[I’m reminded of Jonathan Lear’s famous
read, Radical Hope where he says, To
be human is necessarily to be a vulnerable risk-taker; to be a courageous human
is to be good at it! ]
Then, Daniel proceeds to give his profound
take on our attempts to make sense of our pasts, as ‘narrative fallacies’!
To Kahneman, we are albeit under an
illusion when we say that we necessarily understand the past. Hence his
interesting proposition, where he says that, the key to understanding the
future lies in our ability to adjust the language that we use in relation to
any of our past beliefs. As language plays a quite significant role in shaping
our reality, he stresses on the importance of using the right language when we
‘try’ to make sense of our pasts!
So much for the importance of language in our studies of lived experiences!
To Kahneman, a majority of people are
averse to taking risks!
Therefore, when faced with two options, one
being a tricky gamble with a huge risk
value attached to it, and the other being a sure thing of expected value, most
people will opt, by default, for the sure
thing.
And that’s because, humans love the
security of knowing the outcome and therefore safely try avoiding any kind of
risks!
Hence he says that, most of our decisions
and choices, options and preferences are significantly impacted by memories!
Memories that are associated with a similar event of the past!
But then again, one’s memories are not
always quite right, he says. Even a memory from the just recent past, of just a
15 minutes ago, could be very well remembered quite differently!
How much true he is, when he says, our
lived realities are conditioned by our memories, and how our memories could
possibly affect us, impact us and colour our decision-making in an adverse
manner, when we would like to take decisions about our futures!
A wonderful read, that helps shapes our
perspective towards our memories, our pasts, our decision-making processes, and
our attitude towards risk taking!
And yesss! A sure, unputdownable read for
anyone who would love to take a journey to the interior – the journey into the
mind - and try to look at its myriad, awesome ways of impacting our lives each
passing day, and thereby reminding us all to a tee, of Steven Covey’s
impactful dictum –
“I am not a product of my circumstances. I
am a product of my decisions.”
How trueeyyy!
PS: A past take on Steven Covey, from almost a decade back, links HERE on our Academic blog!
image courtesy: wikipediadotcom
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