Religion - Part 2, is God needed?

God probably is a concept that has run its time. There are tremendous amounts of complex interactions that take place in nature and we are even after spectacular successes, far away from complete understanding it all. But we definitely are well on our way to nullify many of the superstitions that have evolved over centuries. But is now the time to get over the ultimate superstition? The concept of God ( one who sits under the tree types)?

Practically speaking, God has served a useful purpose in the advancement of civilization ( but as i usually say, we can never vouch that we are better off being civilized ), a concept of a God who will punish you in your after life provides a sort of stability mechanism which stops the society from going into chaos (again dunno, whether that would be good or bad). But purely on a practical basis, the reward/punishment of religion's god has probably run its course. Why, because we simply have too much information that cannot be ignored and hence force us to live in a social environment, with clear understanding (hopefully based on choice) of our roles.


But what about a spiritual basis? That life could have a higher purpose and a belief in God would deliver you to the purpose? What about all the saints in the Hindu fold ? Probably they realized that human life is just a link the chain and there is supposed to be no higher purpose than that. Once when you have realized it, you probably attain peace and nirvana and that happiness is the consciousness that everyone ought to reach. But this process can be put in the frame of the individual rather than tying it up in a group environment considering a religious basis.

Religion still probably is the greatest tool in the process of mass hypnotization, but if you collectively deny the use of a under the tree god you possibly reduce the need for religion.

Yeah yeah, i hear you laughing.

The age of uniformity

What is common to the teenager in L.A, the teenager in Japan and that teenager (yeah the guy with the bag over his shoulder ) in mumbai? A lot actually, they probably wear tommy, listen to music on an ipod, debate the right/wrong of the war in Iraq ( yeah at least i want to dream that they might be discussing that because i don't) and are thinking about building exactly similar lives. So, this is the new globalized era - whats new? And of course I am an idiot to compress complex cultural explosions in a few lines.

But then, how far can i be? This is the new India, you have young people who are looking to conquer the world having been brought up on dreams. All of them have put in significant effort to get on the path to utopia, and you will find the utopia could be remarkably similar. Its a gross over simplification, like I always tend to find that south indian engineers remarkably have similar topics of interests ( the actual pool of interests would be mind boggling, but the broad way of thinking) and you find more and more people moving to small multiplex movies. The movies itself are good, but look around you, you will find a similar kind of audience. Of course this trend goes on a give you almost a choke, the kind of similarity you find among the crowd of south Bombay.

What we are seeing is homogenization of culture, remarkable purely because of the rapidity with which it is taking over the country. India could end up being the land of the liberals, because there is nothing else to look to. Even though the craze for Advaita might mike it cool someday, till then the phrases of philosophical texts might go into oblivion, making way for talk about the next episode of lost or the next news event or the next environmental problem.

If everybody is the same, what would be the cost of competition? Not much, it would eventually be like running on a treadmill, you can run all you want but you aint getting nowhere. The average intelligence would go down ( well the individuals could be well rounded because of the more information available, but if were to purely look at it in terms how we would stack up against the early 20th century populace), the systems and the processes would take care of the intelligence part. Eventually the population might even start looking the same ( thats not difficult either with genetic modifications), sex would be free ( yeah thats an important part of why societies are structured in the way they are, the primary motive of any society is self preservation & propagation )

Welcome to the brave new world.

Harry Potter-Blairite Britain?

The Fin Times has done piece of analysis on the Harry Potter series. I have never been a fan of the boy wizard, having just hardly scraped through the first book. But the fact that literary commentators have taken it upon themselves to dismiss a phenomenally successful series is quite simply weird.

But critics say that, compared with the great children's books of the past, the Harry Potter stories fare badly, appearing derivative, modestly written and superficial.

Hello? Compared to what great children's books? Most of the books I know (Gulliver's Travels, Alice in Wonderland) were more social commentaries first and children's books later.

Some cultural pessimists have gone further still, lamenting the strange tendency of adults to become as obsessed with the Harry Potter books as their children. Here, they argue, was a perfect metaphor for dumbed-down, Blairite Britain: a nation choosing to escape into facile fantasy and revel in the hype, rather than knuckling down to issues of substance and gravitas.

This is probably more interesting, Britain has had a problem in identifying its role on the world stage and also coming to terms with the colonial times. The industries are dying and except as being packaged as the financial center or hanging on to the UN security council veto the British pride appears from outside to be on the brink. Further, immigration, nationalization-privatization and now the war has put further strains on the system. But, Harry Potter = Tony Blair? Potter became famous as Blair rose and Potter series is coming to an end as Blair is done. So?

Language as a medium has changed. An amalgamation of cultures and the need to communicate shortly and quickly (courtesy the communication revolution) has meant that audiences cannot connect with complex language. Also if someone is looking for Floyd lyrics in a Britney spears concert they are simply out of their mind. Harry boy is not an English phenomenon, it has spawned a sub-culture across geographies.

The problem is that culture pundits are probably at the worst possible time in history. While on one the development of language as a medium of communication over centuries is threatened, at the same time the ability of people to choose all kinds of media they will consume, down to the last detail has meant that there is no clear consensus on what kind of culture will dominate. Pop? Classic? Short-term fix or perennial nirvana?

Poor culturists-till then Potter would be ahem "symbol of Blairite Britain"

Nationalism, national pride et all

Ideas:swl.

Does being born in a particular nation automatically mean that an individual should be proud of that nation? or should national pride be restricted to cases where there is a case to feel proud?

Judging from the reaction to the Taj vote we are led to believe that the Taj is a true wonder in the world and symbol of national pride. Is the Taj on the list because of the numbers or does it truly deserve it?

Nationalism is a time tested concept, predating the era of the nation state. And any argument of a seemingly dominant culture would automatically lead to conflict with groups having different views outside of the geographic boundaries of nations, but even within it could impinge upon liberal/minority interests. The problem is in a way circular, unless there is universal agreement that birth/upbringing happens purely by chance there is a high likelihood that people would align themselves in different groups. Now lets say if there are no nationalists in one country, its likely that the country would be run over from nationalist groups in another country. So the liberals in different countries whose attentions are primarily drawn towards events on merit will probably need to work harder on making people understand the futility of nationalism vs universalism. But then they are liberals.

The problem is compounded by the thoughts of the major religious/political views. Christianity and Islam are more universalist but would be at logger heads on individual superiority. Jews and Hindus are probably the true exponents of the 'promised land', they would be loggerheads with the others. An understatement.

The fundamental problem is more towards difficulty of the human race to judge for itself. Peer review, acceptance and the need to belong to a social group far outweighs the individuals capacity to think/act rationally. And once the alignment happens, in case of nationalism, its by default then there is very little opportunity for someone to create a liberal view. Or is it?

In a curious way, unless nations feel threatened a large scale war is unlikely to happen in the near future. Now is a good time to re-assess the need for nationalism and visions of superiority of the nation state. As people realize that even their day to day actions are influenced by global events (the internet/global warming) the idea of common usage of scarce resources has its best chance to prevail over existing forms of nationalistic thinking. But this development would have to walk a tightrope with the stabilizing nationalist forces and there lies the problem.

Since we start from such an inequitable distribution of wealth, there would be an relative importance of groups till there is better distribution. Before this happens any sort of dialogue would not be possible. So, liberals be doomed, who cares about them anyway, My country right or wrong.

Increase in Indian Risk taking ability?

India is the place to be- there are no two ways about it. A very confident corporate India looking to dominate the global market place, an economy that could tend towards 10% growth, rising income levels, positive demographics etc have made the India story a little bit believable. Commentators are now talking about the capacity of the average Indian to think big with the acquisition spree of corporate India being held as a sure sign of increased risk taking ability.

Now the key questions are
1) Are Indians traditionally risk-averse? If so why?
2) Has the risk taking ability increased now? If so why?

The answer to both questions is, Team-work. Indians are traditionally not good at working in teams. Seems counter-intuitive right? After all it is the joint family culture. But, on a closer look the family culture is mainly patriarcal with the female sphere of influence being limited. Further, the Hindu religion is based on "To each his own" philosophy which has lead to a multitude of paths for people to follow (atleast on the rituals side). Education is by-rote (yes again religious reasons-the scriptures were to be learned by hearing alone) with little focus on 'activities'. Sports, again a potent team building exercise does not get importance here, ( whether this is a cause or effect is left to another post). Risk is chance of a loss. It deals with understanding the concept of input-> reward. Do we lack this? No we don't, just that the scale of the reward did not seem to matter. Any evidence for risk-taking ability? Yes, a majority of the populace is self-employed. Self-employment maybe due to lack of opportunities, but it is trend nevertheless.

Where is the current change then? Indians are slowly realizing that their key problem is implementation, not ideas. And to implement anything on a decent scale, you need people working in teams, not silos. Even as we look at successful partnerships of Indians with companies abroad the key theme is 'people working together' and the key theme for stuttering Indian sectors? lack of implementation again.

Is the increase in team-culture due to the recent economic gains? Nope, its because of increased exposure. Cities always tend to create more opportunities because they give a higher reward for the inputs (Think Mumbai). The current global integration has exposed Indians to higher rewards and they have responded by learning to work in teams.

further reading (courtesy-swl): http://indianeconomy.org/2007/04/19/the-culture-of-risk/