Respect my Autonomy....

There is something different about the T.Y. forms......
It was one form which did not require my parents' signature......Cool...so the University thinks that we are old enough to make our own decisions ( no matter that my parents have always given me that right!)....

And yet, this very University, which lets us make decisions about whether or not we want to educate ourselves, believes that we are too juvenile to make decisions about what clothes we want to wear.....and imposes a dress code and a ban on various items of clothing that it finds obscene!

A new rule in universities in North Korea was in the news recently.....Students will have to give up smoking to get into a university there.....The intention seems noble, but as we know, the ends do not justify the means...especially when the means are as autocratic as this!! Wouldn't it be a better option to create awareness in students once they have joined the university, rather than putting obstacles in the way of their gaining any knowledge at all??? The students who can afford to will possibly move to other countries and continue their education there...but what about those who can't?

By imposing stringent rules (about dress code or whatever), the university is simply encouraging the students to do the very things it does not want them to do.....Its human nature...we always want to do just what we are told not to do! I'm not saying that rules are unnecessary....but before making rules it is important to take into consideration the rationality of the individuals who will be governed by that rule.... In most cases, most humans, make the best decisions, provided that they are given complete freedom to make their own decisions. I was reading a book recently, titled Maverick!, written by Ricardo Semler. Semler describes how he runs his company, Semco, without any rules whatsoever......no rules about timings....no rules about who the workers should report to.....basically no rules about anything. One would expect anarchy in such a situation, right??? But that isn't what happened. Given the freedom to make their own decisions about products and procedure, the workers made the company Number 1! (I'll write a review of the book real soon....)

And what about the ban on smoking in films and TV serials??? ( This one is for you DisorientedTracer...thanks for the idea!)........can't we as an audience decide what we want to watch...and aren't we intelligent enough to realize that smoking isn't the healthiest habit..no matter how glamourously it is depicted on the silver screen???....But wait.....what about social learning...won't little kids who see their favourite heroes smoking also want to smoke??? The answer to that is yes.....but....the ban on smoking, according to me, will have very little effect to prevent smoking. Why?....Simply because there are more role models for smoking in real life than there are in reel life.....So even if you ban smoking on screen, the kids will still learn it from a father, brother, uncle or friend(or in some cases a mother, sister or aunt).....That's probably where most people get the habit from anyway and not from watching actors smoking on screen!

Almost everywhere, in almost every situation we come across people and organizations who thwart our freedom to make a choice. To all these people and organizations, I would like to say just one thing- "Respect my autonomy. I'm a 21 year old adult, who is completely aware of the consequences of my actions and therefore I'm competent enough to decide what I want to do."

In psychology, when deciding upon a course of action...be it in counselling, research or anything else...the very first question a good psychologist asks himself/herself is whether the course of action respects the autonomy of all the parties involved. Respect for autonomy, is the very first of the ethical principles that the members of the profession abide by.Only children and individuals with serious mental illnesses, who cannot anticipate the results of their actions are regarded incompetent to make their own decisions. Since most of the Indian population belongs to neither of these groups, it means that most Indians can make their own decisions. And yet, we have the entire force of the self-appointed" keepers of the Indian culture"( who I equate with the Ku Klux Klan!) who try their level best to make sure that we never make a decision!