Dark Souls is the greatest work of art

I want to start off with a disclaimer that I don't claim an objective superiority of Dark Souls 1 over say a 'Godfather' or 'Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band' or 'The Sopranos'. It's my personal opinion and I will try to highlight why i think that is the case. If, like Roger Ebert, you feel that games do not qualify as works of art, you should consider that there was once a time when movies or TV shows weren't considered artistic either - instead we had music, sculptures/architecture and paintings. Rewind a few thousand years back and it was probably only cave art. The types of work considered to be art tends to change as time passes and video games are a relatively new type of media that I'm sure will be considered more universally as a work of art with time- well at least some games. Movies and tv shows are considered as works of art that are more elaborate than paintings or scultures because they involve aspects such as scripts, screenplay, camera, music, acting and so on - having said that being elaborate is not necessarily a good or a bad thing but it is definitely something i prefer. Games add an extra element of interaction of the player with the game world through gameplay mechanics and adds an extra layer of presentation and communciation with the game designer that movies or novels (except visual novels, which some consider as games) cannot achieve.

And when it comes to the definition of 'art' actually is, we don't really have a consensus on what the exact definition should be but how I see art, is as an exploration of what it is to be human.

Dark Souls excels not just as a piece of art but also as a technology - such as innovative gameplay elements, level design and resource optimisations. But overall, Dark Souls impresses the most as a work of art and I'll talk mostly about this aspect, but mention some technical bits towards the end.

Examples from the game

While all games in the 'SoulsBourne' series are great, I feel Dark Souls (part 1) is the best and I will take it as an example. Demon Souls came out before Dark Souls 1 but i haven't been able to play it since it's a Playstation exclusive. At this point in time however, it is generally considered that Dark Souls is a more fleshed out version of Demon Souls (which had limited budget and scope due to the publisher Sony being difficult to convince, as the game seemed too risky and expertimental) and so Dark Souls 1 should be a better representation of what the series is about.

A unique thing about Dark Souls is how the story is not really handed out to the player to easily understand and you've to put in some effort to really figure out what's going on, and even then you mostly only get hints and not a clear narrative. It's a fresh approach to storytelling in an age where mainstream games and even movies are filled with exposition to the brim, with characters explaining the story to the viewer all the time. The game encourages you to have your own interpretations of the story including moral implications, while possibly maintaining an actual version of the story in the lead designer Miyazaki's head (though this isn't spelt out anywhere). Apparently, this method of storytelling is inspired by Miyazaki's childhood experience of reading western fiction while not fully understanding English and thus him having to make up some stories himself to fill in the gaps of what he did not understand.

It's a little difficult to talk about Dark Souls without spoilers so the section ahead will have spoilers which are hidden by default, reveal them if you've already played the game or 100% sure you will not. Any text that you dont have to press a button to reveal will not spoil the story or key gameplay elements.

The following are aspects that I feel make Dark Souls a great work of art and a great game in general- doing things in a different or better way compared to most other games and/or other forms or art.

1. You are not the Hero at any point : In Dark Souls (DS hereafter), you are what is called a 'undead' which is pretty much a zombie, due to a curse and hence can never die. You start off locked up in an asylum since undead tend to go crazy because of staying alive for too long. The world around is called Lordran, filled with harsh enemies since the world is a bit fucked up at this point in time. There is no real backstory to your character and the only backstory that the game gives in its intro which gives some vague history about the world and how light is fading from it - I'll talk more about that later. There is nothing unique about you that makes you the hero of the story- even the fact that you're undead isn't a unique thing as you see plenty of undead around you, both inside and outside the asylum.

This means that the characters you meet dont care about you and consider you useless - they might even give you false advice is some cases. In terms of power, you dont have any extra power or skills compared to the enemies or other characters you come across, and as a result you will have to become fairly good at combat in the game to even stand a chance. The game is difficult and if you give up at any point (a lot of people do) it's pretty realistic as the undead character in the fictional world of DS would likely do the same as well. I first played DS around 6 years back and gave up within a week. I picked it up again a couple of years back after finishing Dark Souls 3 (DS3) and still found it too difficult and gave up. Third time was the charm as I started and finished the game at the time of lockdown due to Covid 19. In spite of the difficulty, the game never feels cheap and almost all of your deaths are due to clear mistakes that you made. There are plenty of people who can go through the entire game without taking a single hit from enemies.

Most people live their life not being the center of attention of the whole world (unlike the protagonist in say Skyrim or Mass Effect or Witcher- to a lesser extent) and so it's nice that a game, which is by design expected to make you feel good since you're paying for it - has the courage to reflect this aspect of realisem this in its setting for a change. There are plenty of NPCs (Non Playable Characters) who are heroes of their own stories in this world and if they told the story from their point of view, you could even be the villain in several of those stories.

Siegmeyer (NPC) for example has a storyline that is pretty separate from the protagonists' and you may not even notice what happens to Siegmeyer if you dont visit the areas he does such as Ash Lake which is an optional and hidden area. Your actions can affect Siegmeyer to the extent of killing him. Similarly, the character Queelag has a huge backstory and is generally a good character, but appears to be hostile to the player as she guards an area to protect her disabled sister (again, in a nearby optional and hidden area) from enemies.

In DS, you can become a pretty powerful character towards the end of the game but at no point are you a true hero - no matter what choices you make during the game (knowingly or unknowingly) none of the endings suggest that you're this hero who saved the world. You can interpret the endings in such a way that you are the hero but there is no objective truth to this. Unlike how some movies/novels/games present a clear cut protagonist who is the clear cut hero.
A lot of characters around you tell you about a prophecy that someone from the undead asylum will travel the world and link the first flame - it can thus make a player who is less observant think that he is the hero all along. However, this is likely a prophecy made up by the Gwyn/ other gods so that someone would help keep them in power. Killing Gwyn at the end of the game is not the right or wrong thing to do, it's just something that seems to have to be done, and something that Gwyn himself wants so that a worthy successor can light the flame and prolong the age of fire - I'll talk about that later along with the morality in this game.

Fighting weakened characters like Gwyn (old and weak), Kalameet (cannot fly due to an arrow) and Artorias (who is corrupted, has lost a hand and a shield and still manages to absolutely smack you into pieces) manages to still be very challenging and thus you never really feel like you're all powerful even after beating the toughest enemies, thanks to the backstory and the lore which hint that these characters have been more powerful before and probably unbeatable at their peak power.

2.There is no handholding: Almost all mainstream games start off with elaborate tutorials and give you clear directions as to what you have to do next. These games typically have detailed maps visible at all times that give you an idea of the broader world while games these days go to the extent of adding a large arrow on the sceen to point to exactly where you have to go. From GTA games to Skyrim this has become the new normal. Some of the older games did this better - Morrowind would require you to talk to a lot of people or read secret books to find out how to reach specific areas. DS takes this to another level - it has no in game map, plus it gives you very vague directions on what you have to do/where you have to go if at all any and exploring such a world is more of an adventure without quest markers, detailed journals (you're an undead zombie - why would you maintain a journal) and maps. Coupled with the fact that you are not recognised as a hero, no one really bothers to give you any directions, except a couple of merchants who will give you minor tips only if you buy stuff from them (although this is something you have to figure out yourself). In spite of a seemingly difficult to navigate world, clever world design makes exploration not only feasible but also rewarding.

In addition to this, DS has my favourite implementation of death in any game and death is has been 'gamified' into a game mechanic (Bioshock also has a great system where death is a game mechanic). Due to being cursed and hence being 'undead', you do not die permanently in the game but respawn at the nearest bonfire that you rested at. This avoids having to load games or using quicksave which are completely immersion breaking in games. While respawning you lose all the 'souls' that you gained by killing enemies although the game gives you one last chance to retrieve them if you reach the place you died. This is a great risk-reward mechanic and forces you to carefully consider going to more difficult areas when you're holding onto a lot of souls (souls are used for everything from leveling up your character to buying items and upgrading equipment) . While there is no permanent death, the game suggests to you that going 'hollow inside' or giving up on life is basically the equivalent of dying if you're undead (probably after repeated failures of getting anything done). The real life equivalent would be of you stopping playing the game after giving up.

The optional side quests in this game have great backstories but most of it isn't evident unless you pay close attention. They're mostly difficult to do (unlike for eg. a quest in Witcher 3 where if I remember correctly, a lady needs a pan from her house while standing just outside) and without quest markers, difficult to figure out even how to do. For example, some NPC might ask you to save their loved one who got lost in some area (sometimes the area will be unknown) but just finding out how to go about this can be a huge challenge and it makes sense because if it was as easy as going somewhere are beating a few weak enemies most characters might just do this themselves or the rewards wouldn't be high. Rewarding the player to follow the quest marker and pressing a button seems a bit insulting to me, and so the DS method where you can go through the whole game without even knowding there were sidequests in the game, is refreshing.

The game starts off with you meeting the crestfallen warrior within the first hour or so who tells you about two bells that you can ring. One church bell which is high above and another one in the depths of 'Blighttown'. There are no further directions as to where these bells are and how to get them. You are not told what the bells do. In fact talking to the crestfallen warrior is optional as well - a few players wouldnt have noticed him or wouldnt have talked to him enough to get this dialogue, although his placement is designed in a way that encourages us to see him and talk to him. Heck, even after finishing the game some players wouldnt know exactly what the bells do - they are called bells of awakening because they wake up an ancient sleeping serpent called Frampt whose purpose it is to help you (or others like you who ring the bell) fulfill a prophecy related to Lord Gwyn.

There are multiple paths that you can take at this point in the game and more than half of them are wrong, in the sense that those are areas that have enemies so difficult that even if you do somehow progress a long way in a particular 'wrong' direction, it could become near impossible to return, especially for those new to the game. Similar to how I talked about the deaths that you have being mostly fair and due to your mistakes, the game does a fair job of guiding you to paths that have easier enemies. On my first playthrough, I made it to the church bell without any major issues as this was clearly the easiest path for me and as far as I can tell, the intended path for someone who plays the game for the first time. Thus there's some common sense required here - if you die a 1000 times while trying to make even small progress in a particular direction, dont keep trying and choose the one where you only have to die 10 times to make a bit of progress.

You can kill all NPCs in the game pretty much, even those who are absolutely crucial to you. Andre the blacksmith who is the only blacksmith available in the game for most types of weapons, is easy to find due to his hammer being loud enough to be heard from the area above which you'll almost definitely come across naturally. Killing him early would make the game more difficult since weapon/armor/shield upgrades (which are more important than leveling up your character) wouldn't be possible for a significant part of the game. But the game doesn't hold you back and lets to kill him if you were stupid enough to kill this old man who sold you a bunch of stuff and upgraded your weapons and armor, no questions asked. For money ('souls') of course, but this is still the best kind of character you find in the world of DS. He drops his hammer upon death and its item description in game hints that you've made a mistake "Metal hammer of Andre of Astora, blacksmith at the Old Church. Can be used as a strike weapon, but better left in the hands of its talented owner". Killing him or some of the other key characters doesn't make the game impossible for you, bit it does make the progress significantly more difficult

Which leads me into my next point

3. You learn the best through your own experience : As in real life, most of the things you learn are from trying and failing, including combat skills and navigation of the world around. The best dark souls players are those who have tried the maximum number of things in the game and possibly failed the most as well when initially trying out things. Some learn slow while others learn faster but ultimately with enough experience (moderate and ability to learn), you will improve for sure.

Learning what attacks enemies use and their strengths and weaknesses is important to beat them. When it comes to learning and adapting to enemy attacks - this is something that goes into your subconscious without you even realising it. After fighting a number of similar enemies you can easily beat them with the knowledge of how they fight. After a while you will be good enough to face new enemies you've never faced before and beat them on the first try itself by carefully observing how they move and attack.

You can feel a slow progression of how the combat and the world become more familiar to you and so you become stronger as you progress. While this is true for some other games I feel that most games have to induce an artificial feeling of growth in skill in the player by making you very powerful through items and attributes which you get through progression of your character in the game rather than the player himself/herself. In Skyrim, you get level your character and weapons so much that combat becomes trivial towards the end. Witcher games do this better and stats matter a bit less compared to Skyrim and you actually have to be decent at combat. Dark Souls does it the best. You can beat the game with starting stats for your character and the starting weapon if you're good enough at the game and even if you level up stuff - they dont become so strong as to make the combat trivial - you will still probably die. Reading guides and walkthroughs will make the game easier but never trivial - ultimately you need to learn through your own experience to progress.

Apart from having to learn and counter enemy attack patterns and weaknesses, there are lots of examples of having to learn the environment as well- The first time you see the Hellkite drake guarding a tower at the end of a bridge, you try to run across the bridge, only to get burned from the fire and die. After a few attempts of looking around you see a shortcut at the middle of the bridge which takes you to one level below and through a safer path to the end of the bridge and behind the drake.

4. What you know is what your character knows and gameplay is (pretty much) the story: This is something a lot of works of fiction get wrong. In games like Witcher and Mass Effect, you feel like you're observing the world as an outsider at certain points in the story because there are so many things that the protagonist is supposed to know in his world, that you as someone playing a video game does not know. Witcher 1 takes care of this partly by making Geralt lose all his memory at the beginning of the game, but it's far from a perfect way to do things and as time goes on you can be pretty detached from the story while your in game protagonist Geralt seems to know exactly what is going on - even throwing in some exposition himself at times to help you get on a level field in terms of understanding the story.

But compared to Witcher and Mass Effect, there are games which handle this issue really well - the Elder Scrolls series, including the latest entry Skyrim does a great job of making sure that you, the protagonist does not have any real backstory at all - you start off in a dungeon and escape for the first time as the game begins. This means that you learn stuff about the world mostly together with the in-game protagonist. But again, as the game progresses there is a divergence between you and the protagonist and there would be so many things going on in the game world (you travel cities, meet hundreds of people etc.) that it isn't possible to know exactly as much as your protagonist in the game. There was one time when I stopped playing Skyrim for a few months and came back and did not really know anything much about the game world but still managed to do stuff and finish the game thanks to quest markers which tell you where to go and what to do next. No exactly helping immersion here.

There's really no game which makes you the protagonist quite like DS. Before the game starts you are locked up in a dungeon similar to the Elder Scrolls series. You can choose from a few options what you want your character background to be (thief/knight etc) but this has almost no consequence on the gameplay except a few starting items and almost seems to be poking fun at other games (Fallout 3 is a great example) where you can decide your character's abilities to make them super strong in certain areas even before the game starts, as a baby in the case of Fallout 3. As a person playing the game, you have all the knowledge that the protagonist has and there's nothing extra that the protagonist knows (he/she doesnt really know anything by himself/herself) that you don't. There is no exposition in which your character (or other non-playable-characters) explain what is going on. Even when NPCs do, its false information half of the time. You character mostly communicates with other characters through his/her actions and not words. The most that you get to say in any situation is a yes or a no OR what item you want to buy from a merchant. This seems realistic as well since most of the characters are hostile towards the player anyway and even those who seem friendly can be reasonably expected to be trying to cheat the player. Why would the protagonist even want to talk more with these characters then?

The character 'Patches' being an excellent example.

Any knowledge of the game world, its characters and location, shortcuts, history of the world and what to do for a better future are gained by you, the player as you play the game. You're not simply playing a section of the game to get to the next cutscene where others come and explain what is going on. And because of this, different people playing the game will have different experiences : they wouldn't have been to the same locations (note that some locations are hidden and you could miss then completely, as I also have), spoken to the same characters, or simply paid enough attention to things in general. This is not to say that there isn't a real story. All characters in the game, all locations and even objects have a deep history and a clear reason for why they are the way they are - eventhough you may not be able to see all of it while playing the game once or twice - like if real life where the story of your life is your own and these isn't any exposition to tell you what's going on. The story and lore of DS are arguably more vast than those of any of the other games I mention here. There are extremely large youtube channels (example of VaatiVidya) dedicated to simply explaining the story of DS - but you dont need all that to enjoy the story when you play. The same way you dont need to understand quantum mechanics or molecular biology or human psychology to enjoy real life - but having that extra bit of depth makes things more interesting for sure.

Let me really try to drive this point home with one last example. Lets say you started playing the following modern open world games (or their sequels) at the same point in time - Bioshock, Mass Effect, Elder Scrolls 4 or 5, Witcher, Assasins Creed, Fallout 3 or later, Red Dead Redemption, Grand Theft Auto and lastly DS 1. After playing these games for a few months and spending lets say 10-15 hours in each game you decide to stop playing and gift the game along with their progress to your brother so that he can complete them. You brother has played a few games before but is by no means a veteran gamer or anything. All the other games apart from DS would be a breeze to take over from someone else's save file (thanks to journals, quest markers and what not), but DS would be near (although not exactly) impossible. Your brother would mostly have to spend time travelling through all the places you've already travelled and get an understanding of how the world is structured. If you really do want to try doing this experiment, I would recommend that you leave your brother in either

(a) Ash Lake without killing the Hydra there and without ringing either bell of awakening OR
(b) End of Tomb of giants without ringing either bell of awakening
I cannot imagine him survive the ordeal and will likely never touch DS, and possibly any other game again. A lack of understanding of the game mechanics and story background makes this impossible for him - the same way that in real life if you put the mind of a random kid in say an athlete's or a politicians body, things wouldn't exact be business as usual for the kid.

Now this isn't to say that the design of the game makes progress difficult

The game does a great job of designing the world and its characters guide you in a way that isn't forced - having the crestfallen warrior explain the two bells at the beginning of the game and once this is done, you can see Frampt who along with Gwynevere's illusion in Anor Londo guide you on what has to be done next, if you wanted to help them. (Although this isn't something you need to do and you can do the exact opposite of what they want by siding with Darkstalker Kaathe and I didn't even know this was an option until I completed the game and linked the flame and decided to google about other possible endings.)

Now, being fully in sync with the protagonist of the story isn't really something thats required in other forms of art (I'm a big fan of this style if you couldn't tell by now) but it definitely helps in detective stories. One detective movie that does a great job of giving you and the protagonist a level playing field in guessing the criminal is 'Knives Out'. (Spoilers for the movie : ) You as the viewer are given almost all the information required to guess who the criminal might be and this is done in a brilliantly progressive way. The culprit seems to obviously be someone until you get additional information and its someone else altogether. I did manage to successfully guess who the murderer was well before the movie ended and it felt really satisfying to do this. Compare this to 'Sherlock' the TV series in which is is impossible to guess anything about any mystery because the protagonist always has more information than you have. And the lazy explanation for this is that Sherlock is a genius who notices things that you dont. Watson is there to give you some sort of exposition but it's rarely enough to be helpful for you to proactively solve a mystery, rather to understand how it was solved by a genius.

5. There are tradeoffs to everything; There are neither heroes/villains nor good/evil: I hate stories where a villain exists for the sake of being a villain, devoid of any backstory. In Skyrim for example, an ancient evil dragon is prophecised to destroy the world and your job is to kill it and save the world.

Batman comics do a brilliant job at giving a background story to every 'villain' in its stories - while you can't entirely empathise with the villains, you can for a large part understand how they ended up as villlains. As an example, Poison Ivy has good the good intentions of restoring nature but goes overboard with the idea to the extent that she devalues the life of humans in favour of those of plants and animals - it seems evil but in a world as harsh as Gotham City you probably need to go a little overboard if you want to get anything done at all.

The morality of DS is probably the most realistic I've seen across games. Unlike games like Mass Effect and Fallout (clear moral choices with expected results), Skyrim (slightly less clear moral choices but with expected results), Witcher (fairly unclear moral choices with unexpected results), DS approaches morality the best by not even considering morality in choices.

In DS, it's difficult for you to even judge after the results of a decision are clear whether it was absolutely the right decision. Although most people would have their interpretation of right and wrong choices, there is no absolute truth in this. It's kind of like asking the question - is capitalism (which favours the individual) or communism (which favours the group) the right choice? There is no right choice here and what we see is that a system that is in between both is probably the best. Similarly, liberal and conservative values are not absolutely good or bad - we need a mix of both.

There are plenty of metaphors in the game to aid you in making decisions, amidst all this moral grayness. Linking the flame could be a metaphor for a mixture of sustaining life/capitalism/conservatism/doing one's duty, whereas the opposite could be a mixture of communism/exercising free will/liberalism.

While it's great to have gray morality systems in games to reflect real life and the different tradeoffs, it's important that we value certain fundamental good and condemn fundamental evil. There are people and gods in DS who kill children and experiment on women to deform and dehumanise them to make themselves more powerful. Characters such as this help us maintain a sense of good and evil and guide our decisions in a world which is mostly gray in morality otherwise.

The biggest example of amorality of choices is in the two endings of the game. It's not really clear whether kindling the first flame is a good or a bad thing in an absolute sense and it is up to you to interpret this decision. Neither decision seems to be completely right or completely wrong but is somewhere in between.
Kingseeker Frampt along with Gwyndolin and the illusion of Gwynevere have a selfish agenda in keeping the age of fire going on as it keeps them in power. In fact the prophecy that an undead from the asylum (eg. someone like you) will travel the world of Lordran to kill the gods, become more powerful and then kindle the first flame is most likely made up by Gwyn and others in Anor Londo in order to extend the age of fire and keep the gods in Anor Londo in power for longer by encouraging undead from the asylum, who have nothing in life to look forward to otherwise to embark on this adventure and help them in this cause.

Similarly, Darkstalker Kaathe wants an age of dark where he will be in power. As we see in New Londo and Oolacile, Kaathe generally brings corruption, darkness and death to wherever he goes. That's not to say that that he will bring bad things to the world in the future as well - especially in an age of dark across all of Lordran and things could be different.

Going with Frampt is the conservative choice and keeps the status quo for most part (though you have to die for this) while Kaathe is the liberal choice and gives a chance to the age of dark.

Also, throughout the game you are forced to fight and/kill several characters who haven't really done any wrong. Queelag as mentioned earlier is safeguarding her dying sister while you come around and kill her ; The wolf Sif doesnt really want to fight you but tries to stop you from progressing into the Abyss and possibly getting into danger thus fighting you and dying ; Artorias is corrupted by the Abyss and fights you without really knowing who you are and what he's doing. Also there are several smaller enemies such as the mushroom kids whom you feel sorry for having to kill to progress.

6. Innovations in game design and mechanics: DS improved upon a lot of game mechanics/design elements that existed before it and invented a few new ones as well.

The stamina bar which balances how you much you can walk, run, dodge, block, cast spells and attack within a set amount of time is an incredible resource which was probably used for the first time extensively in an action RPG game (outside of the Demon Souls, the humble previous entry in the series). The result is a very balanced fighting system, so much so that the online PvP scene is going strong to this day.

The estus flask method of healing which gives you a finite number of heals from bonfire to bonfire (these are save points) is a brand new concept and so are bonfires themselves. These are game mechanics that fit perfectly into the lore of the game and do not seem out of place. Estus flasks (which are filled with fire, a metaphor for life in this game) are refilled at bonfires.

There are no loading screens in DS and to achieve this is an amazing technical feat for game of this scope. This is done through clever use of elevators, foliage etc. in a way that never seems artificial.

There is a huge variety of weapons (almost all of which are viable) along with a nice mixture of casting magic and enchantments which help create a combat system that is a thousand times better than other Action RPGs of this decade, including Skyrim and Witcher. The combat is realistic in the sense that fighting multiple enemies using swords or arrows is very difficult as in real life - even when taking on relatively weaker enemies.

The level design is very organic. You find enemies in places you'd expect them to be in terms of a natural setting- for example 'tree-like' enemies in the forest and 'sword and shield wielding' enemies in towns/towers. Enemies and the setting play a huge role in 'environmental storytelling' wherein you get an idea about the history of a place just by exploring and observing.

Although the world is very open and you're not generally told where exactly to go to get to the end of an area, clever use of verticality in levels makes progress intuitive. Also, the way shortcuts are implemented in this game is incredible. Shortcuts help the curious and creative explorers avoid repetition of sections of the game without using bonfires (which are checkpoints) and are an even more organic way to implement save points than bonfires in a large interconnected world. This is something that took the developer so much time and effort to design that they gave up this type of design altogether for future games. Heck, they couldn't even bother to design shortcuts in the second half of DS with the same quality as they did in the first - the level design and interconnected world of the first half of DS is something that may not be superceded at all.

For instance, at the start of the game you're told that there is a bell above in the undead church and one down below. Although you dont know how to go up or down or where to start, once you've decided you've to go up- you do eventually get there due to the way levels are designed. This sets the stage for future areas as well - It's clear that you've to go down in Catacombs, Demon Ruins, 'Oolacile' etc. and that you've to go up in places like 'Sen's Fortress'. Clever level design helps communciate this message from the level designer to the player, in a natural way.

7. All the other stuff I can't here/cant recollect/haven't discovered: There are youtube channels which uncover story and game world details to this day and help revise and refine previous understandings. For example, the last dark souls story/secret related video from 'VaatiVidya' which has around 1.5M subscribers came out recently. The first one came a full seven years back in 2013, 2 years after the game's release.

Before you criticise

As a kid who grew up in a  South Indian family, I was no stranger to criticism. Everyone from uncles, aunts, grandmothers to teachers and students was fluent in the language of criticism. Kerala in particular with its relatively more risk-averse (in terms of wanting to evaluate, discuss and criticise all options before taking decisions) culture has never had a shortage of criticism floating around. As a result I've been fairly fluent in this language - I could criticise peers, teachers, politicians and sport persons alike. As a minor digression my opinion of levels of risk-aversion are as follow: India<South India<Kerala. As I started growing up however, I started realising that criticism can seriously get in the way of taking bold actions and decided to tone down my criticism by an enormous amount (a cynic would argue that I started criticising criticism itself :D ). But I'm currently in a phase of life in which I've started to appreciate criticism again.  My current view is that criticism, like most things in life is good in moderation. But defining moderation can be a bit tricky, unlike in the case of say food, in which you know when you're kind of full. There are a few things you could consider before criticising people, things or even yourself.

1. 'Walk a mile in their shoes' : This is a classic view - that you've to go through what the other person experiences before criticising them. Although this is a proverb, I do question its value as a proverb compared to other more universal proverbs. While empathising with someone might help reduce instances where you may criticise, it's easy to go overboard with not criticising anything or anyone since you can never truly see life through someone else's eyes. In addition to this, if you could truly empathise with others you would probably never criticise anyone - but this doesn't make sense as you would stop criticising maybe a Bin Laden on account of his childhood or something. The message here is more to try and empathise with someone before criticising - but there could be more important things to consider. 

There are however plenty of scenarios where this is a valid line of thinking to avoid criticism. A good example is how the middle class would criticise the rich (movie stars, sportspeople and corporates) for overspending without understanding how different social circles dictate the amount you spend on things. Overall, this is a logic which seems to make sense but cannot be applied in all situations.

2. Personal values and consistency: One of the more important things to consider while criticising is whether the thing that you're criticising aligns with the personal values that you have. There are plenty of instances where consistent consideration of personal values helps out the person or thing being criticised. Ultimately, we are all human beings with personalities and we are prone to have different values and associated bias. Thus it is important to recognise that we won't be perfect in our judgement - but as long as we are consistent in criticising or not criticising certain things, others can make use of your opinions easily. For instance, a Rafael Benitez or a Jose Mourinho would probably criticise any team which doesn't defend properly while a Pep Guardiola would be more critical of a team's poor passing. There is a tradeoff however in sticking to a style of criticism - it gives you less leeway to have a range of different opinions. This can prevent your proper appreciation or criticism of anything in a well-rounded manner - a truly ambitious critic may not want to place such restrictions on himself or herself.


3. Impact: The most important thing for me while criticism something is the impact that my criticism is going to have on the thing/person being criticised, the audience and finally me. Is my criticism going to change the person/thing I'm trying to criticise and does it demotivate him or her too much ? What effect is my criticism going to have on the audience - if I criticise the government in front of an audience, will it change the audience's opinion? How do I feel after criticising - does it help me reinforce my own beliefs, am I turning into a more negative person in general and what image do I build for myself with my critical views? If your criticism does not have the desired effect on one of these three things, it would make sense to reconsider.

4. Criticism can eat you soul: There's really no major side effect to the person who appreciates too many things, but criticising too much can cause major sorrow to the critic. You become a cynic and start looking at the negative side of things and have a reduced capacity to take risks or have ambitious goals. A person who criticises too many things too frequently is someone you want to stay away from.

Frequent criticism also tends to make people take your opinions less seriously, especially if your criticism isn't upto the mark.

5. Criticism as a show of power: While not the greatest use of criticism, it is something. When you're in a group and are appreciative of everything, people tend to take it as a weakness. It takes courage to disagree and criticise and hence criticism can be a sign of power. Strongly criticising someone on one's face (this isn't something I'm a big fan of) can make one lose self-confidence and this is something that people use to show dominance.

6. Criticism and love: Criticism is a crucial component of long-term love. You would always have a tendency to change the people that you're committed to, out of love for the person. This is an effort to make the other person change a bit so that you can continue to like him or her.

Criticism of others is also a good way to bond among close friends- while this isn't quite as healthy as a shared appreciation of things, it is almost as important to have a shared criticism.

Profiling humanity through Trump

So Trump just did the ridiculous and won the US Presidential elections. This seemed impossible probably to billions of people across the world and also to what seemed like the majority of Americans until just before the election results came out, but- it is what it is. Trump is loud, rude, cut-throat and all the things that we see as improper in people. Why we see these things as improper is open to debate and I will try and give both sides to the debate later on, but the bottom-line is that a large majority of intellectuals- including almost the entirety of academia were wrong in saying that Trump would be a disaster for the economy- he has received a thumbs-up from the financial markets across the world. Almost all major global stock indices are up, following election results including the Dow Jones Index (considered the benchmark index in the US) which opened at a record high after the election day. Although the markets have been famously wrong on a few occasions, it is known to be correct at evaluating the medium to long term impact of events and decisions (given the current data publicly available) and this is well accepted by academicians as well. What this means is that Trump was probably the right choice, if the US voters wanted to increase productivity and job growth- and thus, for once the 'populist' choice was the right one. I'm personally anti-Trump of course and what I mean by that is that I personally behave in a way quite the opposite of how Trump behaves; and help and support other people like me, but the problem with this world right now is that a larger proportion behaves more like me than like Trump.

There can be no question that Trump represents more 'evil' in the traditional sense of the word than any other President the US has ever seen, forget Hillary. He has openly made outright racist, sexist, bigoted remarks and is still very proud of being what he is. However, all evil things that we have words for in English- are things that reside in all of us. It's just that Trump has more of these 'evil' traits than most of us and in more intensity. This guy is a bit of a catastrophe from a social sciences point of view, but as a student of economics - such a guy is an absolute gem. If we had a society where everyone was 'good' and people were always fair and nice to each other, it would be a society which lacked motivation, purpose and life itself. Such a society would probably be better than a society where everyone was evil (it might be a close call though) but wouldn't come close to a society with a healthy mix of good and evil. Japan's last 20 years of zero growth is probably an example of the limits of Japanese culture which places high importance on doing good (Without the Yakuza and co., their economy probably would've done worse) . Good and evil are not desirable or non-desirable things - they are just things, and most adults realise this. What we have had over the past few decades, with the never-before-seen levels of globalisation and technology - is an exaggeration of the benefits of good. And as we have seen, letting the nice-guy academicians who have no concern for human emotions get out of control- resulted in the second biggest financial crises of the past hundred or so years. By the way, Trump is not all-evil; I'll come to that later.

We are going through an economic and social cycle and currently the cycle favours human emotions. Fear, greed, hatred and the other emotions Trump represents are all perhaps non-desirable human emotions but are human emotions nevertheless and we shouldn't underestimate their importance. These emotions have already shown their power in Britain, Russia, several parts of Europe and now the US, apart from developing countries where they've always been strong.

Being an economist at heart, I prefer not to think of good and evil in the traditional sense that social sciences define them. Good behaviour is associated with kindness, honesty, hard-work, empathy etc. These are behaviours which are sustainable in nature and help you avoid inner as well as outer conflicts. However, these are not the only emotions we have. If a society is filled with too much good, it would develop laziness and inaction. It would all be just too boring. Productivity would plummet. To avoid this, we should have a slight dose of relatively evil emotions such as greed, jealousy, selfishness and laziness which are non-sustainable and focus on the short-term. Take the greatest leaders of people that we have seen - and you will see in them very wide spectrums of emotions and behaviour. They would be capable of great levels of kindness and honesty but at the same time they would be capable of great levels of jealousy and selfishness as well. This helps them balance out short and long-term trade-offs and more importantly, connect with large groups of people.

The world is probably too complex for academicians to understand. This is because we don't fully understand human nature yet, and humans are in control of the world right now. Humans learn better by observing patterns around them rather than by reading books and listening to experts, and thus academicians are by-default poorly positioned to understand humans. They would have to admit their shortcomings first in order to move on and study humanity. Trump understands humanity better than most academicians and as I said earlier Trump is not all-evil. He has one good characteristic in plenty, and that is the virtue of hard work. Trump is a successful businessman and so naturally knows by learning through patterns he has seen, the best and easiest way to make a lot of money. You can be very evil and very hardworking at the same time and still make for a fairly good leader. Especially in the current environment where people have been nice to each other for too long and were disappointed with the results (financial crises and rapidly increasing inequality with the richest 1% holding 38% of wealth in the US) . Good behaviour is submissive by nature and you need a little bit of evil- and the current scenario, a lot more evil than normal to bring a little spice, to get rid of the boredom and to kick the economy into action by spreading the seeds of entrepreneurship.

Having said that Trump is probably the best thing for the economy and the job market as a whole, he isn't the answer to everything. As Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy famously jokes, even if you had the answer to the meaning of life - you wouldn't probably know what the question is. Life is all about variety and it's just a matter of time before the good people strike back with vengeance- with more globalisation, trade, peace-treaties and technology! Also, unlike the case with societies, maximising only productivity and wealth will not result in individual welfare since we have different and constantly evolving individual utility functions in which money is just one of the attributes; thus as individuals we should just focus on what we love doing and try and get a reasonable amount of money at the same time. But if there's a small lesson we can take from all of this, it is to be in touch with our human emotions.

Slavery in the 21st Century, through the eyes of Django Unchained

This post is partly inspired by the video 'CON: Django Uncomplained' which talks about the brilliant depiction of slavery in the movie Django Unchained.  Also, this is definitely going to be a serious topic and thus warrants a tone of writing that is less exciting and more concise. I do not have strong opinions on most things I write below- these are merely observations. There is no underlying theme of criticism of slavery that I wish to have, since it would impede an objective understanding of the phenomenon. That probably sounds a bit cruel but hey- people have done worse things than write unbiased blog posts on slavery.

Slavery is an interesting phenomenon. Well, for most part WAS an interesting phenomenon since slavery in the traditional sense is nearly non-existent now. But the spirit of slavery lives on in many things that we do on a day-to-day basis. The fact that many of us do (fairly monotonous) things on a 'day-to-day' basis to earn our living is itself one of the stronger manifestations of slavery in the modern day. We are slaves to routine, to consumer culture, to our friends and family, to our jobs. But how is that possible you ask? The definition of slavery can be broadened to include such things by defining it thus: 'Acting on the will of others to make a living for yourself'. Now, this definition does not talk about whether the slave gets wages/not or whether he enjoys being a slave. However, these are details which I believe depend on the situations. You might be naturally obediant/submissive person who listens to your parents/husband/wife/friends or you may not be. But if you act in such ways as to please other people and place other people's interests consistently above your own, you are a slave.

Traditionally, slaves were required to perform mundane tasks at a very large scale and generate disproportionate profits to the owners. They were unpaid and were not guaranteed any sort of human rights. I'm not as interested in the economics of slavery (valuing a him as a series of possible future cash-flows discounted for the behavioural and health risks that society believes slaves to have- risks which would impact the capacity and willingness of a slave to work) as much as the social aspects of slavery. They were expected to be quiet, hard-working and efficient at doing the tasks they were expected to do. But these aspects would characterise a large number of slaves and thus it would be difficult to stand out consistently for a slave who had only these characteristics. For, these are all attributes which can be sacrificed by an owner with deep enough pockets. A magic ingredient is the self-belief that a slave possesses that he is inferior to his owner and thus incapable of doing things that his owner can do and as a consequence, undeserving of all the pleasures that the owner enjoys. A homogenous belief in servitude is still not enough though to keep the slaves under them since there would always be questions raised against such an obviously manipulative practice and I'll come to the details shortly. Now, the fact that most of the slaves believed in the fairness of the system is not new information by any means. What I want to talk about is the mechanism through which this belief was spread and maintained by the owners and some of the slaves themselves, for their selfish benefits.

Django Unchained is a work of art. It is a work of art, because of how it sends messages to the viewer without being too explicit about it. The message is a bit vague, yet clear enough to the intelligent audience and it is coherent enough - unlike the case with certain abstract works of 'modern art'. Django (Jamie Foxx) is a slave to be sold to Di Caprio (don't remember his character's name). While travelling to Di Caprio's residence with other slaves, Django is unapologetically brazen and acts with a level of boldness which is not seen in typical slaves, in order to attract Di Caprio's interest. Di Caprio sees huge potential in Django particularly because of this: He potentially acts as an example of a black who is too 'free' for his own good and will re-inforce a sense of servitude among the other slaves. Django is expected in the future to make mistakes (according to the rules the slaves believe in/what Di Caprio has set) and these mistakes will be severely punished by Di Caprio, who will thus have justified his ill-treatment of slaves through the 'misbehaviour' of Django. In an ideal scenario, Django will slowly lose his enthusiasm and energy to be a rebel and eventually become a fully willing slave. The kindness that Di Caprio initially shows towards Django represents a fair chance that he gets before he is given the full-blown slave experience. If Django were an obedient slave who did everything as he was told to, Di Caprio would not have had even a bit of the interest that he was able to generate in himself through such behaviour. Another interesting slave is the guy who heads the slaves, played by Samuel L Jackson. This guy (let's just call him guy for now) is pretty old and clearly receives a treatment which is almost at par with the non-slaves, in terms of material benefits. However certain scenes show us the degree to which he feels 'owned' by Di Caprio. This guy serves several purposes (1) The fact that he is old and has been a slave for several decades shows that in order to earn respect, you need a large number of years of slave experience where you performed your duties without complaining or causing trouble (sounds eerily like the corporate system here) and (2) He fully believes in slavery and the inferiority of blacks himself and thus sets an example for the other slaves (3) By being a slave with the above desirable qualities, he is someone who gets a disproportionate amount of kindness from Di Caprio (even though he is still treated like shit). He thus represents a hope- a kind of role model for all the slaves to aspire for, while working hard for several years and being treated like animals while being given no pay.

Now, there are probably no scenarios exactly like the ones Django and the guy (and the rest of the nameless slaves) face, in the present day. Human rights violations are far lesser these days compared to a couple of hundred years ago. But while some things change more, some others don't change at all. We are humans after all and certain things like corruption and slavery cannot be erased from human beings very easily (it has to happen as a part of several hundred years of evolution, and it is something which I believe is still happening). In my opinion, sacrificing personal freedom to get substantial benefits that you otherwise would not is natural to how human beings react in a free-market economy. It isn't the happiest choice for us, but it is the one which will make us richest. It is lazy, but efficient in terms of a cost-benefit analysis. This isn't to say that slaves were completely willing, but to an extent I do believe that a large majority of people don't mind being slaves if it meant that they had a living. Managers (especially in jobs where the work is mundane, the quality of the output is not very relevant and thus employees are easily expendable) will function in similar ways as slavers. Average or below-average performing employees are tolerated as long as they accept the hierarchy in the firm and do not question the leadership's actions. High performers who think too independently are not thought of very highly and treated worse than the mediocre guy who passionately sucks up to the management, since these high performers represent a threat to the managers and to the status quo in general. In such a system, people who have the ability to do things independently yet make numerous mistakes and have the potential to be a willing slave, will be most valued by the manager. This is the Django of the team and will be punished and rewarded severely, with the severity depending on the supply of Djangos in the team as well as in the general job market. This Django may eithet be at the early stage(this is what Jamie Foxx tries to portray), middle stage (where he learns to go with the flow and take punishments and rewards as they come) or the fully developed stage (where he is more careful in his actions, believes blindly in the system and has probably become the guy!). The ideal team has a diverse mix of Djangos, one or two guy like slave leaders and a large number of below average performers who believe in the hierarchy- a belief which is reinforced by the Djangos and the guys. And in case you wish to point of that managers are different from owners, almost all managers in a firm in turn have managers and thus reflect the thoughts of the owners through lines of hierarchy, on the basis of the tone at the top.

A large number of office jobs qualify the conditions for the slavery comparison to be made. Also, I'm not entirely neutral on this topic. I do believe that a system where individuals are given full freedom will result in better economic benefits. Such a system would encourage original thought and creativity to a much larger extent than is considered acceptable in most places, presently. But there are pros and cons to everything including freedom and the slavers have a fair point when they disagree with me on the topic of allowing freedom. To borrow a bit of theory from modern Corporate Finance, 'shareholder value' is widely considered to be the best indicator of managers' and employees' performance and increasing shareholder value is seen as the purpose of all corporations (there are certain exceptions and nuances to this which I don't want to cover here). This is of course, equivalent to doing whatever it takes to make sure that the people who own your company get more money, in order to be a good employee. Sounds a bit inhuman but that's how it is. And, if you feel that you're not comfortable with this kind of a setup, there are four main options for you (1) Start a company which makes money/adds value without the slavery set-up (2) Work independently as a consultant/teacher/artist/architect or in fields where you can be hired to complete projects or tasks as an individual (3)  Get into a job where the nature of the job demands that individuals have to have skills which make them relatively non-expendable (4) Start a company which mass produces goods/services and become the slaver yourself. If material benefits are the sole purpose to your life, option 4 is the no-brainer. But if you want a world which is happier and in the long-term, richer - you will look towards other options, closer to the first one.

'To The Moon', the rules of modern love, and the purpose of life

So I just played this Japanese-made (but English language) game called 'To The Moon'. Japanese games handle emotional themes much better than American ones and they tend to have the courage to take risks when it comes to exploring sensitive themes. This can result in certain flop ideas within otherwise great games (such as the Metal Gear Solid series) as well as flop games altogether, but sometimes it results in beautiful works of art such as 'To The Moon'. Two scientists are hired (probably in the future) by a dying man to alter his memories so that he can die having fulfilled his ambition of going to the moon, by connecting a device to his brain. I had to play as the scientists who traversed through several memories across his life in order to understand why he wanted to go to the moon and which memories had to be altered in the initial stages so that he ends up in the moon in the later ones. <Spoiler alert> But it turned out that his desire to go to the moon wasn't exactly a desire to literally go to the moon, but a metaphor for wanting to be with his recently deceased wife, and it is possible that during his dying days he himself did not realise this. After their first meeting as kids staring at the night sky while atop a mountain near a carnival, they promise to meet on the same spot next year and possibly as a child fantasy they agree to: 'meet on the moon' if they were unable to meet the following year. This results in the dying man subconsciously wanting to go to the moon <Spoiler ends here> It all sounds very dry when typed out here but the game is a fantastic exploration of love and the purpose of life itself and the writing is intelligent enough to throw in some humour and practicality through the scientists' dialogues into an otherwise all-out romantic story.

 Now, I know that it's not exactly a manly thing to be talking about love and it is even less manly a thing to be writing about love but as someone who doesn't give a shit about such stereotypes, I will go ahead and do so. The hero 'John' likes the heroine 'River' not because she is popular in school, but because she is different. She doesn't hang out with the usual crowd or do the usual things that usual girls do. In general, this is seen as a bad thing in the society (to be more specific, a risky thing) and such people are seen to be more likely to be a liability than anything else. For John, this is a positive. River is not mundane or commonplace, but special and unique.

There are hundreds of people, magazines and blogs which advise on love. And almost all of the advice points to a certain set of consistent ideas. You and your lover should ideally be independent of each other emotionally and if possible, financially as well. You should keep a reasonable distance between you and your lover and not share literally everything amongst each other, in order to preserve a sense of mystery and attractiveness about the other person. The guy should have a strong set of guy friends and the girl should have a set of girl friends who would cater to certain emotional needs that the partner cant. Also, it is common for you to feel good about your lover only after a good number of mutual friends feel good about him/her. These ideas are commonly advised by everyone, and I have myself set similar targets in the past and will do so in the future as well to an extent. However, I wish to point out that this is not the only way of doing things. Love doesn't have to be between two independent people who don't need each other at all apart from for having fun. This is a commoditised and practical version of love which has a higher 'success' rate in terms of partners not splitting up as much as in other relationships. The success rate, if measured in terms of a less measurable but more relevant metric: pleasure for the lovers, would possibly point towards a relationship where the lovers are comfortable just being themselves instead of practical targets set by the society; One where both of them are completely open with each other and end up being so close that they cannot survive without each other. This is a riskier way to go about things (and the relationship will be more volatile; quick example of the passion of Maria Elena vs. Vicky, from Vicky Cristina Barcelona) but at least for some people the risk is worth taking. To put it simply, there are certain rules in life which we follow on the basis that the rules make us economically more productive as human beings and as lovers, more likely to stay together. We shouldn't mistake these rules as being able to give us happier and more fulfilling individual or love lives. Take a fucking chance and BE your unique beautiful self and fall in love with someone else who is equally unique and beautiful. You may end up being in a few impractical relationships and suffer a few heartbreaks but it's worth it if you finally find the person you're meant to be with (and it's worth it even otherwise because at least you tried). It all sounds a bit too romantic, but all I'm asking for is for people to be a bit more romantic than they are now, for - what is life about but loving and being loved?

Well, life's actually a lot more than about loving and being loved! .. but to go slightly off-topic before coming back, WE the people on earth are now richer than we have ever been before. There is also better technology than there has ever been in the past (some of the technological improvements don't translate into GDP and hence the separate mention). We are however, not significantly happier than we have been in the past (according to polls, and also.. common sense). Happiness of a certain kind can be attained through money or food or even having a functional relationship. But to be really happy in life you need a purpose, and you need love. There's sufficient psychological literature which suggests the importance of purpose for long-term happiness and Maslow's hierarchy of needs (which isn't without critique) outlines this through the term 'self-actualisation'. The mention of love along with purpose and thus its addition to the self-actualisation part instead of the 'basic needs' part is just a personal touch that I put in , which I believe is true for me (and possibly for some others, likely not a majority though). People are different in some ways (and similar in many other ways), but within a reasonable time of you life on earth you should figure out your personal values and the things that you are willing to stand up for. Your work should at least indirectly assist you in standing up for these values and help you in serving as a role model for others. We are social creatures however and we will need to talk to a large number of other people, belong to some groups and have different experiences before we have an idea of who we are and what values we believe in. These values would no doubt be influenced by a wide array of factors from your DNA to your personal experiences, but make you unique nevertheless. Copying others and doing things that the society does will help you get basic needs such as food, money and a sense of belonging - all without taking much risk, but doing more of it will not get you higher levels of happiness which purpose can give you. Now, being efficient and productive in life and feeling purposeful are indeed things that give you long-term happiness but for me that's still not enough.

I have to be myself, forget all the wisdom imparted by the society and practicality out of the window and fall in love, and not just have an efficient and functional partner. Love for me, is a crucial part of long-term happiness and as important as my purpose to life and my personal values. You may have a different idea about these things and all I'm saying is that you should strongly believe in them and have good reasons for doing so.

Kabali, the polarisation of opinion, and learning through patterns

I haven't seen Kabali yet and will not see it, yet I will write this piece without an inch of shame. I've seen a few Rajni movies before this including 'Enthiran The Robot' and none of them came even close to capturing my attention. The movies are based mostly on the crowd-pulling star power of Rajni and the story (if you can call it that) is just an excuse to make a movie out of a bunch of scenes where Rajni looks all cool and shit. In a land where Jayalalitha is worshipped as 'Amma' and her actions are placed beyond the questions of morality and reason (Karunanidhi enjoys a similar following among his fans), it isn't much of a surprise that a movie star can be adored to the extent that Rajni is. But he is a down-to-earth guy in spite of all the attention- the fans say. 'So what?.. his movies are shit' : I say.

I should put in a few sentences here about the purpose of movies in general. In my opinion, movies, books, TV series(es?), games etc. contribute the most to society by being forms of art. These are media where the author (or director or whatever) conveys a set of ideas to the viewer - a set of ideas which may be open to interpretation, depending on how artistic the author wants it to be. Others might differ in their opinion of what these media should represent- for a large majority of them, these media are ways to escape the real world and go into a world of singing and dancing and happiness and girls and all that is 'good'. I don't mind a bit of escapism myself, but the escapism that The Lord of the Rings or even the Game of Thrones (I'm trying to appeal to a wide audience through these references) provide is extremely different from the escapism that a Salman movie such as 'Dabangg' may provide- If you know what I mean. If you don't, I see no point in you reading the rest of the post. In any case, I can understand a bit of Salman or Transformers once a while - but cannot condone it as the way movies or other forms of art should be in general. A few parallels from other forms of 'art' are : Call of Duty, Nickelback and Chetan Bhagat.

It's no secret that movie and sport-stars (read 'cricketers') enjoy a level of popularity in India which is unheard of in other countries. Individuals such as Sachin and Amitabh are worshipped as literal Gods by millions of people (maybe Hindu polytheistic traditions have something to do with it?). The fat dude from AIB risked getting himself killed by just making jokes about Lata Mangeshkar and Sachin. It's not just cricketers and actors however who enjoy such a level of adoration. Ratan Rata is generally considered as being so good as to the point of being beyond criticism- so is Azim Premji to an extent. In fact the keep observer can notice this sort of a trend in day to day life. Students and colleagues are quick to be labelled as 'good' and 'bad' and some of them are labelled as so good as to be beyond questioning. This isn't entirely an Indian thing- it's just a bit more exaggerated here compared to other countries. Listening to a single speech each of Obama and Modi is sufficient to understand the difference in humility of both individuals, which is developed as a result of criticism they received from others in their respective public and private lives.

India is probably somewhere between Japan and the US when it comes to labeling things as extremes. Japan, a country of traditions; a country where saving rate is the highest; conviction rate of accused is 99%; where perfectionism is a way of life. US, a country for the young dreamers; where the economy is driven by consumption; the judiciary is probably is best in the world; where mistakes are not just tolerated but encouraged. India lies closer to Japan but not too close. Polarising good and evil is definitely more of a Japanese thing and it would be difficult to pin-point why exactly this occurs. In my opinion, it is mainly a result of focusing too much on productivity and too little on the finer things in life- however the factors governing culture are too complex to be listed and range from geographic location to physical attractiveness of the population. It is partly also because people are too lazy to form individual, accurate opinions on other things and people- most communities in India tend to have hundreds of close friends and relatives per individual. One additional factor which I believe encourages polarisation especially in India is how it simplifies the process of becoming richer. There are certain Indian values such as 'being social with everyone' and 'doing whatever it takes to get things done (jugaad)' which, if done to extraordinary extents will almost certainly result in higher incomes- provided that the person starts off very poor, but ambitious. The part about ambition is important, since in Kerala, even though the income is not very high- the degree of polarisation is much lesser than in other Southern or even Northern states; and this is due a lower ambition in my opinion, possibly as a result of a finer appreciation of life and art (whether this is better is another discussion altogether). But in most other states, a large number of people start off their lives as poor and ambitious. Life can be very complicated for people who shift jobs and geographies quickly and earn volatile incomes while being poor. Black and white morality simplifies things greatly, and having God-like figures helps them set targets in terms of where they want to be. The target may be far from perfect, but in a world which is further from perfect - these Demigods do their job.

So how do these God-like figures attain their God-like statuses? After being particularly good at something for an extended amount of time, word of mouth with help from the media spread word of how amazing these individuals are. These individuals become urban legends in an age where the term has become outdated. The nature of public opinion is polarised not just at the macro level (in large groups of people), but also at the micro level (in each individual). At the micro level, it is possibly due to opinions which tend to go unnoticed unless it is extreme - this can be due to some of the factors earlier discussed and is linked very closely to culture in the society. No one is going to listen to a guy at a party who talks about how Sachin is one of the best batsmen of our generation. They will listen to how Sachin is a God with billions of followers and feared by all bowlers. These polarised micro level opinions tend to get aggregated at the macro level as a result of confirmation by others who share the same polarised opinion. So, instead of having 100 opinions of Sachin being 8/10 as a batsman, we have 20 opinions of Sachin being 0/10 and 80 opinions of him being 10/10. All 100 feel unique but more importantly, part of a bigger crowd. People pick up patterns of how it is becoming cool to like/dislike a person and follow suit, to not be left out of discussion.

Learning and adapting through patterns is fundamental to how humans have evolved and still behave. We are naturally good at learning by asking others, and concluding that popular opinion is the right opinion. This leads to significant biases of course, a large array of which can be seen across cultures and have resulted in formation of castes, discrimination against races and against women etc. This is closely linked to stereotyping and 'judging' people which may work in the short run in a society due to how judgements tend to be based on average figures and can be self-reinforcing, but stereotyping is acidic to the society in the long run (and I've touched on similar ideas in the previous post).

The final idea I'd like to conclude with is the idea of  a good career, as formed though social patterns. In India, there is an unnatural number of people who decide during 12th grade that their life ambition is to be a doctor/engineer/lawyer. It is even more unnaturally skewed towards doctors and engineers in Kerala. Within the world of MBAs, it is desirable to either be a brand manager or a frontend investment banker.  Irrespective of what you do for a living, it is desirable that (as a guy) you ride a bike and play the guitar. These ideas of good and bad careers/hobbies are formed due to the average result of social discussions and personal experiences. The opinions about careers is deeply influenced by parents and colleagues who succeeded (read: made money) with a high probability in these fields irrespective of whether they liked or were good at what they did. A brand manager or a front end i-banker would in turn have a good amount of social interaction in elite circles and have good opportunities to socialise and refine his knowledge by forming opinions based on patterns of behavior he sees in others. You, as an individual may not however have similar skills or even similar likes as the average person has, and if that is the case you should be proud about it. Social patterns should serve as a guide to forming your opinion, but shouldn't overshadow your personal opinion completely. It's cool to be in a crowd, but much cooler to be able to stand by yourself as well.

The pros and cons of judging people

It's a bit of a social taboo to be 'judging' others. Yet, all of us do it all the time. In fact, I've noticed that leaders and people in positions of higher responsibility tend to judge people a lot more than the average bloke. What is it about judging people that's so taboo then? And how do 'successful' people use smart judgement to climb up in their careers?

'Judging' someone refers to making often pre-mature stereotyping and application of generalisations in the assessment of a person's character. For instance, branding a person as quiet just because he didnt talk to you much the first time you met him would be 'judging' him since you don't have enough evidence to suggest that you're right. Similarly, thinking that an attractive woman is dumb just because she's attractive would again be judging her. Now, these judgements can be right or wrong obviously but let us assume that more often than not they are right (it would help explain why everyone judges). Among the cases where the judgements are wrong, if they are made by a society at large they can be often self-fulfilling and lead to them eventually becoming correct because of how the judged people react. If black men are considered gangsters in Southern US (used to happen as recently as the 1990s) a number of them end up so, since they are may not be given equal opportunity in other fields to succeed.

So, why do we judge at all? Let me borrow a concept from behavioural finance and talk about heuristics. We use heuristics to make decisions, when we do not have complete information about something. The lesser the information we have the more prone we are to using a heuristic. A heuristic is something like this : You take the most colourful apple thinking it's tasty although you've never tasted it, based on your prior experience of eating bright apples. Heuristics help us because we do not have to 'search' for complete information on things and can make decisions without wasting often unnecessary time in gathering information which may or may not be worth the time spent in acquiring them. Thus, we end up using these heuristics or 'rules-of-thumb' as we call them in layman language. They can be very useful most of the time but can lead to incorrect decisions at times and can also lead to systemic biases which are difficult to eliminate.

Judging a person is the equivalent if using a large number of heuristics to decide on his/her character. It may be right or wrong, but it's often important for us to understand a person's character before dealing with him. Using heuristics will let us break the ice much easier or to take more important decisions such as whether to do business with him. Coming back to the self-fulfilling aspect of judging people- some of these heuristics have become so common that we accept them as fact. For example, someone who is polite is more often than not considered as nice (and enough people abuse this heuristic). Also, a well-dressed person is considered organised by the people he meets even if he is completely disorganised in real life. Judging people helps us take quick decisions which would not otherwise have been possible considering the time and effort required to collect information about all the people we meet.

What's so wrong about judging people then? It can obviously go wrong a few times, but most of the time if you're right then what's the big deal? This has to do with the application of humanity rather than decision making theories. We are offended by the idea that people try and use their personal experiences to define our character, that too in the matter of a few minutes. It is against your idea of yourself being completely unique. There is however, no getting around heuristics. First impression is always the best, and accepting heuristics such as this is part of living as a functional social being,